I finally got my family to get their characters made for Ironfang Invasion (all praise the Star Chicken!!), got some time set aside to get through the first part and our youngest gets viral pneumonia. Luckily, it wasn't bacterial and he's definitely on the mend but all chances of finally getting to play this week was completely shot.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Second edition really didn't bring in a whole lot that was new, rules-wise - I mean, while most people associate THAC0 for example, with 2nd edition, it was actually introduced in 1st edition as an "official" game mechanic in 1986 with the "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" (1983, if you count the Module "UK2 - The Sentinel").Even Specialist Wizards were introduced with 1st edition. They appeared in the 1988 Forgotten Realms supplement "FR6 - Dreams of the Red Wizards".
So yeah, 2nd edition was, for the most part, just a streamlined version of 1st edition (with a few exceptions, of course).
Well, that was kind of the point - to collect the best of the rules systems that has spawned throughout the 1e era and clean them up in a more unified whole. That's why it was so compatible with 1e. Overall, it performed its role well. If I had a grievance about it, it's that it never got enough credit for what it was and did.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Please don't derail the thread,Max.Kileanna
FIFY!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Please don't derail the thread,FIFY!Max.Kileanna
My grievance:
My boyfriend thinks I am prone to derailing threads. I don't know why.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Please don't derail the thread,FIFY!Max.KileannaMy grievance:
My boyfriend thinks I am prone to derailingthreadstraffic . I don't know why.
*Looks at Kile up and down...*
*Wink wink*
If you don't like a devs opinion, just react to them. Don't take measures that you cannot take against other posters. That's not fair.
I usually only object to posters making unreasonable demands like "Don't suggest any classes that resemble existing Archetypes". 1: Many of them are trash and need replacing. 2: If it is not specified by the OP or official rules, Gary Gygax is dead, stop pretending to be him. 3:Even the best Archetypes cannot fill every need.
My grievance of the day: there's no 5th edition Dark Sun or Planescape sourcebooks.I dont care for 5th ed. To me, it's Basic set.
A) I trust those world book will come... eventually. too many fans for those environments to leave the market untapped, or WotC/hasbro have lost their touch.
B) I still miss AD&D1, but have gotten too used to 3.xx/PF to really want to go back... of course, I also miss D&D4... that's not D&D, but as a rules set, it was lovely to use, and I've had some grand adventures in it, including my introduction to the Dark Sun universe.
I think perhaps the biggest difference between the editions of D&D is the idea of having a rule for everything vs expecting to houserule things. 1st and 2nd were hacks, but they were so knowingly, and it was seen as obvious that the DM was going to have to improvise how various situations were handled rules-wise. 3rd, and to an even greater degree 4th, actually tried to make rules for "everything". Both editions had little written about rules improvisation. The GM was more expected to be impartial, follow the rules, merely an arbitrator of the rules than before. And people under this paradigm consider it reasonable to have a single sheet or so of house rules. It is a symptom of little trust in the DM, I suppose. I grew up in 2nd edition DMing, which was significantly different. I love 3.X even so, but it makes me happy that 5th edition went back to previous models of DMing.
|
I love 3.X even so, but it makes me happy that 5th edition went back to previous models of DMing.
You refer to both 1st and 2nd edition as "ugly hacks", and yet praise 5th edition for going back to their model of DMing??
I'm confused... Isn't their style of DMing, what pretty much made those editions what they were (i.e. Rulings, not rules)?
Mabey it is your use of the phrase "ugly hack", which I take to mean you highly disliked them.
Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things. I'm just curious. :-)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
They are ugly hacks. The rules cover a little, exceptions are everywhere, you use different rolls for similar things, rules apply differently, there are tables for the weirdest s*%%. And this imperfection of the rules WAS THE CAUSE OF "rulings, not rules". It was obviously useless to pretend it was seamless or streamlined or all-encompassing. There was no other option than trusting your DM.
Third changed all that. It was genuinely a better system. And with that came two innocuous guidelines: WBL and CR. The roper encounter in Forge of Fury was not repeated. Suddenly, a DM who did not follow those guidelines was suspect.
Yes, I liked third. It is usually not played a way I enjoy much (A series of level-appropriate encounters as the focus of the game) but that's not a necessity. And I like fifth because it lets DMs get some trust again.
The big difference was that in 1e and 2e, although the DM was fully expected to make things up as they went along, the rules were still relatively heavy. Compared to 3e, not so much, but there were rolls and tables and encounters and methods and and and...
I could still point to even crunchier systems back then, like Rolemaster, where you could barely stand up without consulting three tables, and the fetishism for charts upon charts back in the 80s was something to behold. The more details, the more complicated, the better.
But then the 90s started showcasing rules-light systems, and TSR seriously ran out of steam, and then there was the whole Storyteller thing (combat was shunned because the system did everything nicely except combat).
You kind of needed 1e, 2e, 3e, and 4e in order to find 5e (which, incidentally, I've never played or read as of yet).
And I'll just stop rambling now.
I love 3.X even so, but it makes me happy that 5th edition went back to previous models of DMing.
Umm, no, not to me it didnt.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Weekly game canceled due to insufficient players.
Local PFS game a part two and also too high-level for any of my characters*.
I'm rapidly running out of tables to flip...
*Playing pre-gens feels like wearing rented shoes of uncertain provenance.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Worse than playing with pregens is playing with characters generated by the GM when the GM has a clear idea about how you should be playing the character.
Have you ever been handed a character created by your GM, who told you to «roleplay them however you want» and «give them your own interpretation» and then said everytime you did something: «no, you shouldn't do that. That's not what the character would have done.»
It's frustrating.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One of my earlier RPG experiences, I was handed the GM's character from a different campaign. I got him killed in about 20 minutes. After that, everyone agreed it was best to let me make my own fodder characters.
Worse than playing with pregens is playing with characters generated by the GM when the GM has a clear idea about how you should be playing the character.
Have you ever been handed a character created by your GM, who told you to «roleplay them however you want» and «give them your own interpretation» and then said everytime you did something: «no, you shouldn't do that. That's not what the character would have done.»
It's frustrating.
Yup that's a instant give the GM the yellow card moment.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yup that's a instant give the GM the yellow card moment.
You mean something like jiggle the table a little? Maybe so their drink spills?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yup that's a instant give the GM the yellow card moment.You mean something like jiggle the table a little? Maybe so their drink spills?
Yup, just add a do douchery of this magnitude again, then the table is gonna fly ^^.
|
Worse than playing with pregens is playing with characters generated by the GM when the GM has a clear idea about how you should be playing the character.
Have you ever been handed a character created by your GM, who told you to «roleplay them however you want» and «give them your own interpretation» and then said everytime you did something: «no, you shouldn't do that. That's not what the character would have done.»
It's frustrating.
I actually had an interestingly opposite experience of that last year.
I met up at a gaming convention with some friends that I normally only see at Gen Con every year. It's a few different groups of us who live in different areas, so we don't see each other more than once a year these days.
One couple has gotten into D&D 5th edition, so one of them volunteered to run an organized play adventure for the rest of us, outside of the official games of the convention. A couple of people made their own PCs, but I didn't have time to look at the 5e rules and figure it out. So one of the regular 5e players handed me one of her organized play PCs to use.
At one point, when we were talking to some NPCs, I don't remember what exactly I said, but I gave the character a fairly strong personality and had her say something to the NPCs. Surprisingly, the PC's usual player just laughed and told me that's exactly what she would have done when playing that PC, and I had nailed the character's personality exactly. It was one of those things where I was surprised, since I thought I was being weird, and it was funny that she would have done the same thing.
I had one character live to retirement in first and second edition, combined.
*Playing pre-gens feels like wearing rented shoes of uncertain provenance.
Yeah, that's why I avoid pregens (and convention play) as much as I can, I just can't get comfy in a character that was created without at least some input from me... when I HAVE TO play a pregen, like when I play a game I know nothing about, I at least try to talk about the character concept with the GM so I'll know whom I am playing beforehand and get used to the idea so I'm ready. Getting used to unknown mechanics is usually hard enough to do at the table.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So one of the regular 5e players handed me one of her organized play PCs to use.
At one point, when we were talking to some NPCs, I don't remember what exactly I said, but I gave the character a fairly strong personality and had her say something to the NPCs. Surprisingly, the PC's usual player just laughed and told me that's exactly what she would have done when playing that PC, and I had nailed the character's personality exactly. It was one of those things where I was surprised, since I thought I was being weird, and it was funny that she would have done the same thing.
I've had that experience too, and I felt glad to be told that I was doing fine, but I have never liked playing someone else's character anyway. Even if I'm doing fine I am always afraid of not portraying them in an accurate way and I feel constrained.
Even in the settings I have developed with some of my group (mostly Dalindra and I)that have long term NPCs that appear on different stories I usually ask for advice to the player who created the NPC or former PC before getting them into an adventure that I am running. Even though I still have around some former PCs from players who left our gaming group years ago and I have completely taken control of them now xD.
My grievance today is that I am cursed even when i get to play it seems i can't play what I want or what i play will be pointless. It seems that while when I GM everyone ask for any number of things be it classes, races, subsystems(like PoW) and I will do my best to look it over and make it available if it isn't just right out on the power scale. When they are on the other side we start banning things like-half orcs and monks just because and won't even look at the UC-Rogue to see if that would be allowed. ARRRGGGHHH!!!!
TH: The GM is under no obligation to allow anything. Refusing to let people play anything other than human fighters doesn't make them poor GMs. That said, I understand if you feel you don't have enough options. Luckily, there is a simple solution, which you bring up yourself: Be the GM. =)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well, no. If you don't have a group, you don't get to GM at all. Even so, choosing limitations doesn't by itself make you a poor GM.
I like to bring up the Warhammer games in this issue: Is the GM a poor GM because he wants the players to all play space marines in Deathwatch? Because he doesn't want a kender in the space marine group?
No. It's not the options given. It's what you do with them.
I'd say it makes them bad a GM.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I completely support GMs removing options from a game if they still don't know how to handle them or they find they don't fit. Specially when you are beginning and you don't have a lot of mastery in the game some options can be difficult to handle. Trying to include more options than you can handle can destroy a game.
Said that, if everybody is feeling limited or constrained by not having enough options, the GM should probably do an effort to expand them a little more.
|
|
Well, no. If you don't have a group, you don't get to GM at all. Even so, choosing limitations doesn't by itself make you a poor GM.
I like to bring up the Warhammer games in this issue: Is the GM a poor GM because he wants the players to all play space marines in Deathwatch? Because he doesn't want a kender in the space marine group?
No. It's not the options given. It's what you do with them.
There a bit of a difference between limiting to a single faction in Warhammer and limiting it to a single race and class in Pathfinder.
Imposing limitations by itself is not bad, it's just how far you take them. Unless agreed upon by everyone throwing out every single race and every single class but one is likely to alienate some if not all of your potential players.
It matters more I guess in a home game where you don't have that much choice who you can play with vs online gaming where you can just advertise "want to run campaign with only human fighters".
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
'Ere now! Wot's all this then?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The mere act of prohibiting a particular race or class does not make one a bad GM. I'm currently working on a campaign in which the monstrous races were hunted to extinction by humanity ages ago so half-orc characters aren't permitted because there are no orcs left to produce them.
That said the GM does need to work with the players to make sure that he is creating a game that they want to play. Both sides have to realize that the game must be fun for everyone, not just the players or just the GM, for it to work. If my players just aren't interested in playing in a particular setting, game system, etc.. then the GM should not run a campaign using that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Everyone seems to be missing the point of the grievance. It's not that things are banned, it's because things are banned for no reason and the GM won't look into or give reasons for banning. That says more about the GM than simply banning...
My grievance today is that I am cursed even when i get to play it seems i can't play what I want or what i play will be pointless. It seems that while when I GM everyone ask for any number of things be it classes, races, subsystems(like PoW) and I will do my best to look it over and make it available if it isn't just right out on the power scale. When they are on the other side we start banning things like-half orcs and monks just because and won't even look at the UC-Rogue to see if that would be allowed. ARRRGGGHHH!!!!
I know what you mean. I only disallow a few things, but another guy I know just flat out might as well play PFS for everything. He claims to be a really open minded GM but try one of his games and you'll find the banhammer everywhere.
Everyone seems to be missing the point of the grievance. It's not that things are banned, it's because things are banned for no reason and the GM won't look into or give reasons for banning. That says more about the GM than simply banning...
This.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The GM must respect the wishes and desires of the players. There are respectful and disrespectful ways to say no.
Is this considered a respectful or disrespectful way?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H07zYvkNYL8
Everyone seems to be missing the point of the grievance. It's not that things are banned, it's because things are banned for no reason and the GM won't look into or give reasons for banning. That says more about the GM than simply banning...
Exactly I have no issues with limits if they have a reason. This GM is running in core Ebberon but says that monks and half-orcs don't fit the setting. And I can understand not wanting to learn a whole new subsystem but UC rogue is a far cry from me asking for Path of War or Spheres of Power.
I don't ban alignments by default, but I do it depending on the campaign or the player. I had players playing all alignments without a problem. I had also issues with most alignments, every single one of them, because some player misunderstood it, willing or unwillingly.
That's why now I ask my players a lot about the motivations and behaviour of their characters before allowing them to play them. That was I make sure that all the characters fit into the game.
In S&S the group was mostly CN, with a TN character that in the end shifted to CN too, and a NPC that started as CE and she should probably be CN now (her character sheet still says CE). And they were a very coordinated and united party with zero issues regarding to their alignment and strong motivations aside of «I do whatever I want and nobody will stop me!» (OK, freedom was probably one of their main motivations, but in a non disruptive way).
I've had bigger issues with so called Good characters.
|
|
I won't allow Unchained mostly because I see no point in them. I've read them and came away with the point of unchained was players don't understand how to play the game and or classes.
While I haven't read all of the unchained classes, but from what I've heard, you might be right about some of them.
But unchained rogue is the exception. In that case, the rogue class has long been considered a sub-par combat class. The unchained version is a straight upgrade that brings them up to the level of other classes, assuming they stick to dex based melee.
I've allowed unchained rogue as I feel it fixes some issues of the class. About Summoners, I allow only the Unchained version, not the base one.
Well, no. If you don't have a group, you don't get to GM at all. Even so, choosing limitations doesn't by itself make you a poor GM.
I like to bring up the Warhammer games in this issue: Is the GM a poor GM because he wants the players to all play space marines in Deathwatch? Because he doesn't want a kender in the space marine group?
No. It's not the options given. It's what you do with them.
Not allowing Kender is a good thing, but it does not justify butchering Pathfinder's class and race options.
Warhammer has nothing to do with this.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Warhammer has nothing to do with this.
It does in the context of the conversation regarding the question of whether or not a GM/DM is bad if he bans or places limitations upon in-game options, as that question transcends game systems, editions, and genres.
So it does not matter if the examples used are: Space Marines, Kender, or Bazookas; the question remains unchanged.
That's my opinion, take it or leave it.
If you have human fighters and all else is evil tainted threats, that's Warhammer core, in my opinion.
4th edition tossed out lawful evil and chaotic good, because they felt chaos was inherently evil, or they wanted to force that on the masses, in my opinion.
My grievance, that a few of you are putting out there your opinions as facts.
I missed a Pathfinder game tonight and missed picking up my renewed passport for paizocon because a client changed their mind last minute. But I'll be able to get the passport in time next week.
My view is simply that I have played standard kitchen sink settings for decades now. The standard D&D loadout of races in their standard roles comprising the population, and the PCs consisting of a freak show of exotic races picked for the numerical bonuses they get; been there, done that.
So, why not ever do anything different? Pick six or so races. Make them the available ones. Develop their cultures. Let a campaign explore that interplay of cultures. You know, the Pick five races for a setting thread. Do the same with classes: Make a setting where arcane magic is replaced by occult classes. Make a primitive setting and limit the classes and equipment lists appropriately.
The game can support very different campaigns... if we let it.
Or we can refuse to play in any campaign that will not let you play a trox alchemist, human wizard, or a vishkanya monk.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Instead of banning concepts that don't fit the game, I ask my players to develope their concepts, explain to me how they fit into the campaign, create solid backgrounds that make the concept work... Like that, I don't ban the concepts, they ban themselves. When a player is repeatedly unable to make his ideas fit to the campaign they'd forget about them and go for a more fitting concept.
I don't usually say «you cannot play that». I say «find a way to make it a viable character and you can play it».
And if I am wrong and the player is able to create something that fits, the character is still allowed.
The only exceptions are classes or races banned for campaign/setting options. If dwarves don't exist in a setting of course you cannot play a dwarf. And if I am GMing an all evil campaign you cannot play a paladin.