First Look at the Pathfinder Playtest

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4. Now that you know everything important about the character, you can come up with a background that explains him.

That is very backwards. You're suppossed to have your character concept, bg, personality, etc done first, then select the mechanics that best represent those things. Thus race first, then class. The big mechanics like class are chosen earlier than feats and skills because then it is easier for the gm to modify the class to better suit your character (and yes, the gm is supposed to do so if appropriate, at least in 3.x).

Finarfin wrote:

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4. Now that you know everything important about the character, you can come up with a background that explains him.

That is very backwards. You're suppossed to have your character concept, bg, personality, etc done first, then select the mechanics that best represent those things. Thus race first, then class. The big mechanics like class are chosen earlier than feats and skills because then it is easier for the gm to modify the class to better suit your character (and yes, the gm is supposed to do so if appropriate, at least in 3.x).

You're supposed to do it however it works for you.

I often start with personality and hints of background, work from that to class/race and other mechanics, then flesh out the background and characterization partly based on inspiration from mechanical choices.
Other times I've built characters from the mechanics - either from something cool I wanted to play with or "we need a healer", letting the rest of the concept fall in line.

There is no required process or order in which you must do the mechanical steps, much less the characterization ones.

There might not be a "wrong" way in terms of "you're doing it wrong moron!" but a system can be designed with certain methods and playstyles in mind. The system may or may not truly implement those ideas, amd even when they do, they may not actually have encouragement.discouragement aspects to promote those methods among the players. This is actually d20's problem. It was designed fairly well for "playing the story" with a bit of tactical strategy tossed in secondarily (second in importance, but not an afterthought), however, the rules are don't encourage any particular style despite being designed with a style in mind. This is why many complain of issues such as balance, martials vs casters, etc. They complain because they expect those things to be important considerations, even though they weren't.

If you look beyond the obvious and consider the advice and examples given in the original d20 books, dnd 3.x, it becomes obvious that mechanics were intended as mere support for a core of narrative roleplay, and not as rules of play (like the rules of chess).

In fact, the dmg explicitly tells the gm to alter the classes if needed to support a player's character concept. Obviously, character concept trumps mechanics in the designer's minds.

So you can do whatever you want, but that doesn't mean there isn't an intent or expectation on the designer's part.

Complicating things is that a system might not perfectly achieve the designer's goals in ways the designer doesn't notice, and therefore, you can get a particular style that is more easily implemented based on the combination of player perspective and mechanics as understood by the player.

I'm definitely stoked about this edition! After playing through numerous editions of the other fantasy RPG, over 28 years, I have not problem with PFRPG coming out with an "Update".
Go Paizo Go!

I was quite excited to hear of a 2nd ed Pathfinder. But to be honest, after learning more, this is not the direction I had hoped would be taken. It all seems too meta video gamey. I've read stuff about retraining skills that are just complete cheese.

I've been playing some 5th ed D&D lately, and I gotta say I'm not really a big fan on the 'unified proficiency' thing, especially when it comes to things like wizards being just able to hit with melee weapons just as easily as a warrior.

One of the areas of pathfinder that I really wanted to see addressed was the magic item micromanagement/bloat and commonality. I see you are trying to address that but it sounds like every item is basically an artifact and I'm not sure that's the way to go.

I haven't been a big fan of rpgs over the last 10+ years trying to assign encounter levels and what not to monsters. Honestly, I preferred the way things were with AD&D. A good GM learned what monsters to use by understanding the monster and often times there were variants listed or the GM tweaked something. It seemed so much simpler and easier back then. So heading even further down the rabbit hole isn't a step in the right direction for me.

The different 'play modes' seem condescending to me. Don't arbitrarily put generalized caps on activities, spells, etc... because of a change between 'modes'. I'm old enough to tell time and count. Don't dumb things down and create situations that have to occur but don't seem logical like spells ending just because combat ends. A spell should last as long as the spell should last regardless of which game mode you are in.

And what is the deal with Ancestry? Is saying 'race' not PC anymore? Come on, stop changing nomenclature just for the sake of changing it.

I'm developing a d20 variant that favors the non-video gamey side of things, so if this, pf2, seems to be going the wrong direction for what you want to see in the next edition, feel free to message me.

I plan on playtesting pf2 whatever the case.

MidsouthGuy wrote:

Please tell me we can still roll for stats and don't just get them based entirely on ancestry, background, or class. Don't give me another game with that stupid 'Standard Array' mechanic. By the Rough Beast I hate that in 5e!

Rolling your stats is an optional rule in the Playtest book. Because we want to get the playtest results from a more stable dataset, we prefer people use the default ability system for characters they'll be giving playtest feedback on, but we did want to show how it could work.

What you really need is my randomized stats with static average ability score "rolling" method:

Grab a deck of playing cards and make a mini-deck of 12 cards consisting two of each of these values: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Shuffle and deal two cards for each ability score. All scores will be random in the range 8 and 18, but each character's average score will be 13.

By varying the card values in the mini-deck, you can skew the average ability score up or down as you like.

The nice thing about this method is it keeps the "I like random stats" crowd happy and everyone at the table starts off with similarly powered ability scores.

Logan Bonner wrote:

MidsouthGuy wrote:

Please tell me we can still roll for stats and don't just get them based entirely on ancestry, background, or class. Don't give me another game with that stupid 'Standard Array' mechanic. By the Rough Beast I hate that in 5e!

Rolling your stats is an optional rule in the Playtest book. Because we want to get the playtest results from a more stable dataset, we prefer people use the default ability system for characters they'll be giving playtest feedback on, but we did want to show how it could work.

What you really need is my randomized stats with static average ability score "rolling" method:

Grab a deck of playing cards and make a mini-deck of 12 cards consisting two of each of these values: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Shuffle and deal two cards for each ability score. All scores will be random in the range 8 and 18, but each character's average score will be 13.

By varying the card values in the mini-deck, you can skew the average ability score up or down as you like.

The nice thing about this method is it keeps the "I like random stats" crowd happy and everyone at the table starts off with similarly powered ability scores.

Until the moment when somebody ends up with 8,8,9,9,10,10 and the person next to them ends up with 14,14,15,16,17,18.

Random stat generation is fun and wild and perfectly good for an optional rule, but over them time I ceased to consider the moments where somebody rolles super good and somebody else super bad as having any added value.

Sure, point buy might be more cookie cutter, but that's a cost I am willing to pay for having an even playing field for everyone.

Point buy also offers the benefit of being able to customize one's character to match their vision. I took 15 point buy over 4d6 drop lowest in a campaign I'm joining because I'd rather have that level of fine control.

Finarfin wrote:

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4. Now that you know everything important about the character, you can come up with a background that explains him.

That is very backwards. You're suppossed to have your character concept, bg, personality, etc done first, then select the mechanics that best represent those things. Thus race first, then class. The big mechanics like class are chosen earlier than feats and skills because then it is easier for the gm to modify the class to better suit your character (and yes, the gm is supposed to do so if appropriate, at least in 3.x).

And sometimes the game doesn't cooperate with that desire to have a fully "designed" character. Traveller is one of the more extreme examples in that respect. Most games would benefit from a little more randomness in character creation.

The "roll to determine stats" is the pnp RPG equivalent of "roll dice to move" in board games. Seemed cool back then. Big old honkers (D&D and Monopoly) used that. Pretty much nobody uses it nowadays, since it leaves you at total mercy of RNG with little to no ability to influence the outcome when it comes to a very fundamental element of gameplay.

I'm with RNG generating stuff like "how does my Aasimar look like" or "how many siblings does my PC have" if I feel like it, but having to endure being worse off than others at the table only because dice? No, thanks.

Finarfin wrote:

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4. Now that you know everything important about the character, you can come up with a background that explains him.

That is very backwards. You're suppossed to have your character concept, bg, personality, etc done first, then select the mechanics that best represent those things. Thus race first, then class. The big mechanics like class are chosen earlier than feats and skills because then it is easier for the gm to modify the class to better suit your character (and yes, the gm is supposed to do so if appropriate, at least in 3.x).

Roll stats in order. < try to have your concept survive that.

We roll 1D20 for starting level.

Roll 3d6 for your stats. In order.

We roll 1D20 for starting level.

Lol that would be amazing for a 1 shot. at least until all the lowbies died.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Finarfin wrote:

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4. Now that you know everything important about the character, you can come up with a background that explains him.

That is very backwards. You're suppossed to have your character concept, bg, personality, etc done first, then select the mechanics that best represent those things. Thus race first, then class. The big mechanics like class are chosen earlier than feats and skills because then it is easier for the gm to modify the class to better suit your character (and yes, the gm is supposed to do so if appropriate, at least in 3.x).

Roll stats in order. < try to have your concept survive that.

Part of the reason that worked - to the extent it ever did - back in the old days is that people just accepted a lot of character attrition.

Not really much different than rolling up a bunch of stats and just picking the best one - you just had to play them each for an encounter or two first.

Souls At War wrote:

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Finarfin wrote:

...

4. Now that you know everything important about the character, you can come up with a background that explains him.

That is very backwards. You're suppossed to have your character concept, bg, personality, etc done first, then select the mechanics that best represent those things. Thus race first, then class. The big mechanics like class are chosen earlier than feats and skills because then it is easier for the gm to modify the class to better suit your character (and yes, the gm is supposed to do so if appropriate, at least in 3.x).

Roll stats in order. < try to have your concept survive that.

Part of the reason that worked - to the extent it ever did - back in the old days is that people just accepted a lot of character attrition.

Lousy stats that don't match something you want to play? Play this one stupid and get it killed off quick, so you can move on to another set of rolls that might match better.

Not really much different than rolling up a bunch of stats and just picking the best one - you just had to play them each for an encounter or two first.

Can verify totes did that.

avatarless wrote:

Logan Bonner wrote:

MidsouthGuy wrote:

Please tell me we can still roll for stats and don't just get them based entirely on ancestry, background, or class. Don't give me another game with that stupid 'Standard Array' mechanic. By the Rough Beast I hate that in 5e!

Rolling your stats is an optional rule in the Playtest book. Because we want to get the playtest results from a more stable dataset, we prefer people use the default ability system for characters they'll be giving playtest feedback on, but we did want to show how it could work.

What you really need is my randomized stats with static average ability score "rolling" method:

Grab a deck of playing cards and make a mini-deck of 12 cards consisting two of each of these values: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Shuffle and deal two cards for each ability score. All scores will be random in the range 8 and 18, but each character's average score will be 13.

By varying the card values in the mini-deck, you can skew the average ability score up or down as you like.

The nice thing about this method is it keeps the "I like random stats" crowd happy and everyone at the table starts off with similarly powered ability scores.

Until the moment when somebody ends up with 8,8,9,9,10,10 and the person next to them ends up with 14,14,15,16,17,18.

Random stat generation is fun and wild and perfectly good for an optional rule, but over them time I ceased to consider the moments where somebody rolles super good and somebody else super bad as having any added value.

Sure, point buy might be more cookie cutter, but that's a cost I am willing to pay for having an even playing field for everyone.

Uh...what you suggest is impossible in the suggested system. Per avatarless's suggestion, you don't re-shuffle between scores, so every character will have precisely 78 points in stats.

Personally, I still think it'd result in badness. The person who starts with straight 13s (or no score above 15, anyway) is strongly mechanically disadvantaged compared to the one who gets an 18.

Souls At War wrote:

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Finarfin wrote:

...

4. Now that you know everything important about the character, you can come up with a background that explains him.

That is very backwards. You're suppossed to have your character concept, bg, personality, etc done first, then select the mechanics that best represent those things. Thus race first, then class. The big mechanics like class are chosen earlier than feats and skills because then it is easier for the gm to modify the class to better suit your character (and yes, the gm is supposed to do so if appropriate, at least in 3.x).

Roll stats in order. < try to have your concept survive that.

Part of the reason that worked - to the extent it ever did - back in the old days is that people just accepted a lot of character attrition.

Lousy stats that don't match something you want to play? Play this one stupid and get it killed off quick, so you can move on to another set of rolls that might match better.

Not really much different than rolling up a bunch of stats and just picking the best one - you just had to play them each for an encounter or two first.

I think a significant difference “back then” was that stats early on made hardly any difference (typically a PC might have one +1 and one -1 - and often those bonuses had negligible impact functionally). Also, save or die effects were much more prevalent, so even low levels were something of a lottery, regardless of how well you rolled. When the stats don’t matter so much it’s easier to be more relaxed about it. We certainly never felt the need to churn through PCs until we found one we liked.

FWIW, I think rolling in order still works, it’s just one needs to approach the game with a different mindset. Even when playing modern, more stat dependant games, deliberate suicide is not really embracing rolling in order, in my view. It’s missing the good bit. The potential striving on “hard mode” should be treated as a feature (if you want to enjoy yourself).

Any chance of a PF funnel for PF2?

Any chance of a PF funnel for PF2?

You could do it in pretty much any system you wanted.

Make up a bunch of 3d6 in order 1st level commoners and let the survivors retrain to a PC class after the first adventure.

How often does that funnel really work out to 1 of each player's PCs surviving anyway? Without deliberate intervention wouldn't you likely get some with a couple characters left and others all dead?

thejeff wrote:

Souls At War wrote:

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Finarfin wrote:

...

4. Now that you know everything important about the character, you can come up with a background that explains him.

That is very backwards. You're suppossed to have your character concept, bg, personality, etc done first, then select the mechanics that best represent those things. Thus race first, then class. The big mechanics like class are chosen earlier than feats and skills because then it is easier for the gm to modify the class to better suit your character (and yes, the gm is supposed to do so if appropriate, at least in 3.x).

Roll stats in order. < try to have your concept survive that.

Part of the reason that worked - to the extent it ever did - back in the old days is that people just accepted a lot of character attrition.

Lousy stats that don't match something you want to play? Play this one stupid and get it killed off quick, so you can move on to another set of rolls that might match better.

Not really much different than rolling up a bunch of stats and just picking the best one - you just had to play them each for an encounter or two first.

I think a significant difference “back then” was that stats early on made hardly any difference (typically a PC might have one +1 and one -1 - and often those bonuses had negligible impact functionally). Also, save or die effects were much more prevalent, so even low levels were something of a lottery, regardless of how well you rolled. When the stats don’t matter so much it’s easier to be more relaxed about it. We certainly never felt the need to churn through PCs until we found one we liked.

I'd say something rather different. Anything but the most extreme stat (an 18 or maybe 17 depending on the system) wasn't really significant in 1e AD&D or BECM D&D except at low levels. Once you'd got a few levels behind your character the things that gave you outweighed the benefits from your stats significantly. The one exception is Charisma, which really did start to kick in as important at higher levels rather than low ones.

Grognardy Dangerfield wrote:

Any chance of a PF funnel for PF2?

You could do it in pretty much any system you wanted.

I can't imagine they'd make it an official standard approach.

Make up a bunch of 3d6 in order 1st level commoners and let the survivors retrain to a PC class after the first adventure.

How often does that funnel really work out to 1 of each player's PCs surviving anyway? Without deliberate intervention wouldn't you likely get some with a couple characters left and others all dead?

What is a PF funnel? I don't understand the link?

thejeff wrote:

Grognardy Dangerfield wrote:

Any chance of a PF funnel for PF2?

You could do it in pretty much any system you wanted.

I can't imagine they'd make it an official standard approach.

Make up a bunch of 3d6 in order 1st level commoners and let the survivors retrain to a PC class after the first adventure.

How often does that funnel really work out to 1 of each player's PCs surviving anyway? Without deliberate intervention wouldn't you likely get some with a couple characters left and others all dead?

What is a PF funnel? I don't understand the link?

Dungeon Crawl Classics is an Old School Revival game that came up with the idea. Basically each player rolls up ~4 simple 0 level commoner characters and the whole pack goes on the "funnel" adventure, being a pretty deadly game and the 0 level characters being especially fragile, most of them die.

Elfteiroh wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Grognardy Dangerfield wrote:

Any chance of a PF funnel for PF2?

You could do it in pretty much any system you wanted.

I can't imagine they'd make it an official standard approach.

Make up a bunch of 3d6 in order 1st level commoners and let the survivors retrain to a PC class after the first adventure.

How often does that funnel really work out to 1 of each player's PCs surviving anyway? Without deliberate intervention wouldn't you likely get some with a couple characters left and others all dead?

What is a PF funnel? I don't understand the link?

Dungeon Crawl Classics is an Old School Revival game that came up with the idea. Basically each player rolls up ~4 simple 0 level commoner characters and the whole pack goes on the "funnel" adventure, being a pretty deadly game and the 0 level characters being especially fragile, most of them die.

After the funnel adventure, each player takes one of their surviving characters, picks an actual PC class and continues playing them.
In theory, it's supposed to provide a bit of backstory and motivation for these new 1st level adventurers, as well as weeding out the weaklings.

... o_o

Wow. Modern players are just plain weird.

Rolling stats added flavor and rp challenge. The game wasn't about mechanics, and so things like random stats were just find as they added interesting wrinkles to characters.

Modern players don't like it because modern players don't rp. Not like the way rp was when the designers of d20 and earlier dnd played anyway. The difference isn't in what rules are used, but the place the rules have in the overall game.

Modern players place the rules front and center. Modern players view the rules as being the game instead of being a mere tool to make the game more fun.

The focus on rules and how that focus changes they way rules are used is the biggest factor in why random has such a bad rap. If the rules are the entirely of the game, then the rules also become the meterstick by which things are judged.

The old school players were not less advanced, nor less refined. They were quite literally playing an entirely different game, and I'm not talking about system either. A game with my old group using 3.5 would literally be a completely different game from modern players playing 3.5.

Wow. Modern players are just plain weird.

Says the rules wonk.

*rubs temples* It's like every bad stereotype of young/old ever.

Wow. Modern players are just plain weird.

Rolling stats added flavor and rp challenge. The game wasn't about mechanics, and so things like random stats were just find as they added interesting wrinkles to characters.

Modern players don't like it because modern players don't rp. Not like the way rp was when the designers of d20 and earlier dnd played anyway. The difference isn't in what rules are used, but the place the rules have in the overall game.

Modern players place the rules front and center. Modern players view the rules as being the game instead of being a mere tool to make the game more fun.

The focus on rules and how that focus changes they way rules are used is the biggest factor in why random has such a bad rap. If the rules are the entirely of the game, then the rules also become the meterstick by which things are judged.

The old school players were not less advanced, nor less refined. They were quite literally playing an entirely different game, and I'm not talking about system either. A game with my old group using 3.5 would literally be a completely different game from modern players playing 3.5.

I don't think that this is a fair assessment of modern players. I know a lot of players that delve deeply into RP both in play-by-post and face-to-face games. I think the big disconnect between the ideas comes from the angle of approach to character generation. Generating randomized stats can be great for coming up with a concept from scratch it you don't already have one in mind. On the other hand, it has the potential to be terrible if you already have a specific concept you want to play. Both cases have equal allowance for people who only care about the numbers, and so I don't think that's really a factor at all.

(edited some of the wording)

The "roll to determine stats" is the pnp RPG equivalent of "roll dice to move" in board games. Seemed cool back then. Big old honkers (D&D and Monopoly) used that. Pretty much nobody uses it nowadays, since it leaves you at total mercy of RNG with little to no ability to influence the outcome when it comes to a very fundamental element of gameplay.

I'm with RNG generating stuff like "how does my Aasimar look like" or "how many siblings does my PC have" if I feel like it, but having to endure being worse off than others at the table only because dice? No, thanks.

^ An example of the modern player.

Fundemental? What makes you think the designers of d20 saw the ability scores as any more important or fundemental than how many siblings your character has?

What makes you think the designers of d20 saw the ability scores as any more important or fundemental than how many siblings your character has?

He doesn't. Hence the problem.

Wow. Modern players are just plain weird.

Rolling stats added flavor and rp challenge. The game wasn't about mechanics, and so things like random stats were just find as they added interesting wrinkles to characters.

Modern players don't like it because modern players don't rp. Not like the way rp was when the designers of d20 and earlier dnd played anyway. The difference isn't in what rules are used, but the place the rules have in the overall game.

Modern players place the rules front and center. Modern players view the rules as being the game instead of being a mere tool to make the game more fun.

The focus on rules and how that focus changes they way rules are used is the biggest factor in why random has such a bad rap. If the rules are the entirely of the game, then the rules also become the meterstick by which things are judged.

The old school players were not less advanced, nor less refined. They were quite literally playing an entirely different game, and I'm not talking about system either. A game with my old group using 3.5 would literally be a completely different game from modern players playing 3.5.

Yeap, oldschool has come a long way from chainmail days that were all about characters and story....oh wait.

Wow. Modern players are just plain weird.

Rolling stats added flavor and rp challenge. The game wasn't about mechanics, and so things like random stats were just find as they added interesting wrinkles to characters.

Modern players don't like it because modern players don't rp. Not like the way rp was when the designers of d20 and earlier dnd played anyway. The difference isn't in what rules are used, but the place the rules have in the overall game.

Modern players place the rules front and center. Modern players view the rules as being the game instead of being a mere tool to make the game more fun.

The focus on rules and how that focus changes they way rules are used is the biggest factor in why random has such a bad rap. If the rules are the entirely of the game, then the rules also become the meterstick by which things are judged.

The old school players were not less advanced, nor less refined. They were quite literally playing an entirely different game, and I'm not talking about system either. A game with my old group using 3.5 would literally be a completely different game from modern players playing 3.5.

Meh. I've been playing since the late seventies and while I still like a bit of randomness in character generation, I despised the huge swings in stats even back then.

I could probably make a good argument that the early gamers didn't really "roleplay" - every thing was metagamed, players were expected to learn and remember things over multiple characters, characters were just tokens. But really that's b+$#~@@! too.

Gorbacz wrote:

The "roll to determine stats" is the pnp RPG equivalent of "roll dice to move" in board games. Seemed cool back then. Big old honkers (D&D and Monopoly) used that. Pretty much nobody uses it nowadays, since it leaves you at total mercy of RNG with little to no ability to influence the outcome when it comes to a very fundamental element of gameplay.

I'm with RNG generating stuff like "how does my Aasimar look like" or "how many siblings does my PC have" if I feel like it, but having to endure being worse off than others at the table only because dice? No, thanks.

^ An example of the modern player.

Fundemental? What makes you think the designers of d20 saw the ability scores as any more important or fundemental than how many siblings your character has?

When you say "designers of d20" are you talking the designers of 3.0, which was the first system I know of billed as "D20" or Gygax and the other designers of OD&D/AD&D/Basic?

....

I don't think that this is a fair assessment of modern players. I know a lot of players that delve deeply into RP both in play-by-post and face-to-face games. I think the big disconnect between the ideas comes from the angle of approach to character generation. Generating randomized stats can be great for coming up with a concept from scratch it you don't already have one in mind. On the other hand, it's terrible if you already have a specific concept you want to play. Both cases have equal allowance for people who only care about the numbers, and so I don't think that's really a factor at all.

Most every game I get into has a fiar bit of rp, but never any merbing of the rp with the rules. They treat the rp as filler between the rules.

When was the last time you had a player deal with a trap without resorting to the anti-trap skill?

When was the last you had a player that fought in-character, using the character to choose actions first, then second figured out what mechanical action woukd best fit? Heck, when was the last time you had a not new player try something despite having to chat with the gm about the best way to handle it mechanically?

Cause frankly, I never see it. I had my old group and a couple players in the army that did this, and for them and me if was the normal way of playing. But otherwise, no one ever does.

Everyone else makes choices based on mechanics the afterwards they might make some excuse for why their character did it. More often they complain because the mechanics aren't balanced or traps seem pointless because it is just a skill roll. For many of the them, the rp is not in adventuring, but rather the rp is left entirely to the in-between moments, the social moments, and the out-of-game. Enjoyment of rp for most players is in the witty remarks, the funny voices/accents and perverting tropes.

No longer do I see people who problem solve in-character. Nor interact with the world in-character when they can just make a mechanical check instead.

I personally suspect that none of them have ever seen nor experienced roleplay in which mechanics are secondary. I believe that is why they don't do so themselves. They pick up a rulebook and treat it like they would a rulebook for chess or checkers.

Sure, I've met some players who truly roleplay, but they see the rules like modern players and discard them completely, never seeing the rules as a tool either and so they stick entirely to freeform.

I'm sure exceptions are out there. I've just never seen them.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

What makes you think the designers of d20 saw the ability scores as any more important or fundemental than how many siblings your character has?

He doesn't. Hence the problem.

That makes no sense. If two aspects are equal in importance, then why would it be okay to randomize one but not the other?

That makes no sense.

I know! Number of siblings is useful to how you develop and roleplay your character, but it pales in magnitude to how important determining ability scores is to the game engine.

@ Grognardy and thejeff

There is a reason why Gygax complained about how so many players completely failed to play the game. The guy who everyone looks to as having made rpgs a thing himself complained that most players entirely missed the point and never actually played his game despite playing with his rules.

New school vs old school is truly a misnomer, but folks generally understand what they reference.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

The "roll to determine stats" is the pnp RPG equivalent of "roll dice to move" in board games. Seemed cool back then. Big old honkers (D&D and Monopoly) used that. Pretty much nobody uses it nowadays, since it leaves you at total mercy of RNG with little to no ability to influence the outcome when it comes to a very fundamental element of gameplay.

I'm with RNG generating stuff like "how does my Aasimar look like" or "how many siblings does my PC have" if I feel like it, but having to endure being worse off than others at the table only because dice? No, thanks.

^ An example of the modern player.

Fundemental? What makes you think the designers of d20 saw the ability scores as any more important or fundemental than how many siblings your character has?

When you say "designers of d20" are you talking the designers of 3.0, which was the first system I know of billed as "D20" or Gygax and the other designers of OD&D/AD&D/Basic?

There is key overlap there. Most of the ideals in design were present in both groups and they knew each other and that "old school" playstyle.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

That makes no sense.

I know! Number of siblings is useful to how you develop and roleplay your character, but it pales in magnitude to how important determining ability scores is to the game engine.

My point is that only "new school" players would actually agree with ability scores being more imoortant, and that would be because of the difference in how they view and use the rules.

My point is that only "new school" players would actually agree with ability scores being more imoortant, and that would be because of the difference in how they view and use the rules.

Categorically incorrect, given the number of 'old school' players that are very concerned with their ability scores.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

TheAlicornSage wrote:

That makes no sense.

I know! Number of siblings is useful to how you develop and roleplay your character, but it pales in magnitude to how important determining ability scores is to the game engine.

My point is that only "new school" players would actually agree with ability scores being more imoortant, and that would be because of the difference in how they view and use the rules.

That's because of the nature of the rules.

In my own games I actually use 3d6 in order, but I strip 90% or more of the functions away from ability scores.

Most every game I get into has a fiar bit of rp, but never any merbing of the rp with the rules. They treat the rp as filler between the rules.

When was the last time you had a player deal with a trap without resorting to the anti-trap skill?

When I first started to GM with Runelords, one of my very first experiences with traps was a floor-activated trap in Thistletop. After the party accidentally set it off via a floor panel, and seeing that it automatically reset, the party as a group went back for a long table they had seen in a previous room. They carried it back and finagled it so that it straddled the part of the floor where the panel was, then everyone just climbed across the table. There have been other instances of similar ingenuity over the 6 or so years that I've been playing, but that one sticks out to me as the most memorable because it was my first.

When was the last you had a player that fought in-character, using the character to choose actions first, then second figured out what mechanical action woukd best fit? Heck, when was the last time you had a not new player try something despite having to chat with the gm about the best way to handle it mechanically?

The answer to both of these questions is literally every time I run the game.

Cause frankly, I never see it. I had my old group and a couple players in the army that did this, and for them and me if was the normal way of playing. But otherwise, no one ever does.

Everyone else makes choices based on mechanics the afterwards they might make some excuse for why their character did it. More often they complain because the mechanics aren't balanced or traps seem pointless because it is just a skill roll. For many of the them, the rp is not in adventuring, but rather the rp is left entirely to the in-between moments, the social moments, and the out-of-game. Enjoyment of rp for most players is in the witty remarks, the funny voices/accents and perverting tropes.

No longer do I see people who problem solve in-character. Nor interact with the world in-character when they can just make a mechanical check instead.

I personally suspect that none of them have ever seen nor experienced roleplay in which mechanics are secondary. I believe that is why they don't do so themselves. They pick up a rulebook and treat it like they would a rulebook for chess or checkers.

Sure, I've met some players who truly roleplay, but they see the rules like modern players and discard them completely, never seeing the rules as a tool either and so they stick entirely to freeform.

I'm sure exceptions are out there. I've just never seen them.

Your experience is so utterly alien to me that I have difficulty even assessing it.

Steve Geddes wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Souls At War wrote:

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Finarfin wrote:

...

4. Now that you know everything important about the character, you can come up with a background that explains him.

That is very backwards. You're suppossed to have your character concept, bg, personality, etc done first, then select the mechanics that best represent those things. Thus race first, then class. The big mechanics like class are chosen earlier than feats and skills because then it is easier for the gm to modify the class to better suit your character (and yes, the gm is supposed to do so if appropriate, at least in 3.x).

Roll stats in order. < try to have your concept survive that.

Part of the reason that worked - to the extent it ever did - back in the old days is that people just accepted a lot of character attrition.

Lousy stats that don't match something you want to play? Play this one stupid and get it killed off quick, so you can move on to another set of rolls that might match better.

Not really much different than rolling up a bunch of stats and just picking the best one - you just had to play them each for an encounter or two first.

I think a significant difference “back then” was that stats early on made hardly any difference (typically a PC might have one +1 and one -1 - and often those bonuses had negligible impact functionally). Also, save or die effects were much more prevalent, so even low levels were something of a lottery, regardless of how well you rolled. When the stats don’t matter so much it’s easier to be more relaxed about it. We certainly never felt the need to churn through PCs until we found one we liked.

I'd say something rather different. Anything but the most extreme stat (an 18 or maybe 17 depending on the system) wasn't really significant in 1e AD&D or BECM D&D except at low levels. Once you'd got a few levels behind your character the things that gave you outweighed the benefits from your...

I clearly didn’t explain myself very well, since your “rather different” was pretty similar to what I meant. :)

Gorbacz wrote:

The "roll to determine stats" is the pnp RPG equivalent of "roll dice to move" in board games. Seemed cool back then. Big old honkers (D&D and Monopoly) used that. Pretty much nobody uses it nowadays, since it leaves you at total mercy of RNG with little to no ability to influence the outcome when it comes to a very fundamental element of gameplay.

I'm with RNG generating stuff like "how does my Aasimar look like" or "how many siblings does my PC have" if I feel like it, but having to endure being worse off than others at the table only because dice? No, thanks.

^ An example of the modern player.

Fundemental? What makes you think the designers of d20 saw the ability scores as any more important or fundemental than how many siblings your character has?

The wordcount they devoted to ability scores compared with how much they reference number of siblings.

Gygax

Wrote a rules-lighter RPG compared to the d20 v3.x base we've grown accustomed to. There wasn't a d20 roll you could make for a vast majority of things and it required RP and adjudication by the DM in order to resolve various situations.

That isn't d20 v3.x where there is a mechanic for everything and it can all be resolved by a die roll.

Now, you can play it much more RP and the rules do allow for that. However, you're bagging on players who play the game as written and a large chunk of the player base wasn't gaming age until v3.x came out.

It's both a generational difference and a difference in the game system we're dealing with.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Gygax

Wrote a rules-lighter RPG compared to the d20 v3.x base we've grown accustomed to. There wasn't a d20 roll you could make for a vast majority of things and it required RP and adjudication by the DM in order to resolve various situations.

That isn't d20 v3.x where there is a mechanic for everything and it can all be resolved by a die roll.

Now, you can play it much more RP and the rules do allow for that. However, you're bagging on players who play the game as written and a large chunk of the player base wasn't gaming age until v3.x came out.

It's both a generational difference and a difference in the game system we're dealing with.

I've played rules-lite RPGs. AD&D (or even Basic) wasn't one. I can't really say for OD&D, but I don't really think so.

Gygax wrote a rules heavy game, with a lot of holes in it because it was the first of its kind. Perhaps more accurately: Gygax wrote a small unit fantasy wargame, with the beginnings of roleplaying attached.
It was all tables and charts and obscure rules for every which thing. And big gaps where they'd never expected to need anything. Often groups filled those gaps with complicated house rules, since that's what the design of the game encouraged.

But roleplay as we think of it today took awhile to develop. The idea of actually portraying characters with their own personalities and their own knowledge and skill sets wasn't really there at the start. There were hints of it - Fighters should act boldly, etc, but mostly characters were tokens using their stats, but their players knowledge.

The traps AlicornSage is so fond of solving "in character" are a perfect example. You would have described how your token went about finding and disarming the traps, but that's not really "in character". You were expected to learn as a player how to deal with traps and apply that knowledge with any character you played. A character dies to a trap? Now you know about that kind of trap and should look for it with the next character. It was explicitly an out of character, player skill.
Much of the game was like that - partly why the DMG & monster manual were supposed to be off limits to mere players.

thejeff wrote:

When you say "designers of d20" are you talking the designers of 3.0, which was the first system I know of billed as "D20" or Gygax and the other designers of OD&D/AD&D/Basic?

There is key overlap there. Most of the ideals in design were present in both groups and they knew each other and that "old school" playstyle.

Key overlap in that both were gamers, I suppose.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Most every game I get into has a fiar bit of rp, but never any merbing of the rp with the rules. They treat the rp as filler between the rules.

When was the last time you had a player deal with a trap without resorting to the anti-trap skill?

When I first started to GM with Runelords, one of my very first experiences with traps was a floor-activated trap in Thistletop. After the party accidentally set it off via a floor panel, and seeing that it automatically reset, the party as a group went back for a long table they had seen in a previous room. They carried it back and finagled it so that it straddled the part of the floor where the panel was, then everyone just climbed across the table. There have been other instances of similar ingenuity over the 6 or so years that I've been playing, but that one sticks out to me as the most memorable because it was my first.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

When was the last you had a player that fought in-character, using the character to choose actions first, then second figured out what mechanical action woukd best fit? Heck, when was the last time you had a not new player try something despite having to chat with the gm about the best way to handle it mechanically?

The answer to both of these questions is literally every time I run the game.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Cause frankly, I never see it. I had my old group and a couple players in the army that did this, and for them and me if was the normal way of playing. But otherwise, no one ever does.

Everyone else makes choices based on mechanics the afterwards they might make some excuse for why their character did it. More often they complain because the mechanics aren't balanced or traps seem pointless because it is just a skill roll. For many of the them, the rp is not in adventuring, but rather the rp is left entirely to the in-between moments, the social moments, and the out-of-game. Enjoyment of rp for most players is in the witty remarks, the

...

Yep, I'm similar here. In fact, the ones the more likely to do things outside of the rules were usually the noob ones. I remember in RotR, during that attack of the gobs at the start, the Dwarven Barbarian player, at total noob (it was her first ever TTRPG experience), asked me, the DM, if she could take the table a pair of gobs were standing on and flip it during her round. I was overjoyed by that, as the other 3 players where old-school players and their first reflex was to say "nope, just attack...". That ended up throwing the gobs and one did a fumble and died, his head safely impaled on a tent piton nearby. She did many more during the adventures, and she was the only one to do so.

I feel like the big difference I've found between oldbies and newbies for lack of a better term is that new-school players seem to loathe talking to the GM, getting permission, asking for an exception, or a ruling, etc. Rules exist to protect you from the GM whose role should be little more than as a referee. Rules on the page must be followed to a degree of legalistic precision.

Since for me, "working stuff out with or as the GM" is the way I conceive of the game working. GM exists to be a storyteller or a facilitator, someone who can make the things everybody wants to have happen happen. Since in the end, all the rules are optional and things only need to work the way the people in the game want it to work.

I guess it's a matter of how loose you see the system as?

Yep, I'm similar here. In fact, the ones the more likely to do things outside of the rules were usually the noob ones. I remember in RotR, during that attack of the gobs at the start, the Dwarven Barbarian player, at total noob (it was her first ever TTRPG experience), asked me, the DM, if she could take the table a pair of gobs were standing on and flip it during her round. I was overjoyed by that, as the other 3 players where old-school players and their first reflex was to say "nope, just attack...". That ended up throwing the gobs and one did a fumble and died, his head safely impaled on a tent piton nearby. She did many more during the adventures, and she was the only one to do so.

New school GM: "Sure, do you have the Table Flipping feat? No? Okay, roll at -3 and they get an attack of opportunity."

Old School GM: "Yeah, you can do that. That got added to the house rules back in '92 or so when Bruno the Barbarian tried to flip the king's table. Hmm, let's see if I can find those notes."