Arnwyn's page

Thanks for the update.

Weird reference in the adventure to "Steam Island" - "...adventure in this volume..."

What's up with that? (And strange it hasn't been called out anywhere.)

Any word on this?

Does anyone know the scale for the map of Dagon's Jaws?

There's some basic... 'hints'... in the text (quarter-mile here, three-quarter mile there), but it's somewhat unclear.

Anyone know?

Yep, all the stretch goals are indeed missing from the backer kit.

(And almost all my pledged add-ons were from the stretch goals, so I can't much with the survey as it stands right now.)

Matt Finch was right when he said it was complicated!

I'm not a big Kickstarter fan (just buy at retail when/if it releases)...

... but I backed this. Absolutely.

I love FGG.

Now, I suspect that there's nothing Paizo can do about this, but I thought I'd ask just in case there might be some tips that I might actually do on my end (that doesn't require admin rights).

I can't sign in from my work computer - I can access the site just fine - and I can sign in to a bazillion other websites - but I can't actually "sign in" to my account here.

This occurs for both Firefox and Chrome:

Firefox: 31.4.0
Firefox error message: The connection to secure.paizo.com was interrupted while the page was loading.

Chrome: 43.0.2357.132 m
Chrome error message: ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED

(Yes, I've cleared my cache and cookies in both.)

Any tips that I might be able to try, that doesn't require admin rights? (Thanks in advance!)

FF7 and Shenmue 3 were the big E3 announcements that I took the most notice of.

(And, of the main series, FF 6, 7, 4, and 9 is where it's at.)

because SOOO much about RPGs is about being someone or something your not,

Only for some people, and only to some degree.

I, for one, think how much RPGs are about "being someone you're not" to be vastly overstated.

I'm seeing a few "better than 2 and 3" posts.

Better than 2 and 3 is definitely not a glowing recommendation... :)

Is it wrong I'm enjoying this a little bit?

You wouldn't be human if you didn't. :)

Apples and oranges. Picking tactics or spells poorly usually doesn't block progression in an adventure. Being unable to solve a riddle or puzzle tends to be a blocker. That justifies additional treatment to enable PCs to get past the obstacle.

Untrue. That's only if the adventure has been designed that way. That's an adventure design problem, not a riddle problem. (I can do that too, with a big adamantine wall.)

I mean... we don't require every player at the table who plays the mighty barbarian to perform feats of strength each time she wants to smash down a door or swing an axe. Why would we require the player at the table who's playing the Intelligence 20 bard who's got skill focus in all the Knowledges to rely on the player's likely less-impressive knowledge in order to solve a riddle? Makes no sense to me.

Then why do you allow the player at the table to choose a wizard's spells? They aren't wizards, can't cast spells, and aren't (necessarily) super intelligent. Why do you allow the player at the table to choose a fighter's tactics? They're not (necessarily) tactical soldiers.

(There's lots of good reasons for groups to not use riddles - but the above examples aren't actual reasons... as they're entirely inconsistent. I'm having a bit of fun here, but the above is inconsistent - and everyone will draw the line somewhere... differently.)

hey, do you guys feel that posing riddles to the players hurts the rp, cause I kinda do. it just kind of irks me when a wizard with an intelligence of 20 doesn't know the answer to a riddle but the barbarian with an intelligent score of 5 does. I mean, there have been times where i've played a character whose smarter than I am, but because I don't know the answer to a question. he doesn't know, which I kinda think defeats the purpose of role playing.

anyway, what do you guys think?

We're cool with it. Our group also understands it's the real-life flesh and blood players playing a game, not non-existent fictional characters.

If the players can choose their wizards' spells and/or choose their tactics in combat, they can solve riddles, too.

(We're not super-uber into "rp" so much that riddles would mess with it.)

The players deviating from a set adventure to pursue what entertains them, does not make them 'dicks' no matter how much cash one spends on a pre-packaged adventure.

Yes it does, if they all agreed on the set adventure.

(Of course, the degree of "deviation" - and how they communicate that deviation - is really what matters here.)

Just saw it recently... and I liked it way more than the first Avengers.

I particularly liked the sense (and scenes) of camaraderie, which is very much appreciated for an actual team.

It was also funny throughout - and that's what I'm looking for in most of my action movies these days (especially superhero action movies like this one).

Ultron was one of the best villains ever. Interesting and - again - funny... and the fact that it was a robot/AI made it even better. (Though I admit, Loki is no slouch: "If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now.")

Black Widow and Hawkeye still suck and are boring - but I will concede that Hawkeye was made way better in almost every way in this one (not hard to do, admittedly) - humor up a notch, and the family part was really great as well.

I was okay with Captain America being blasted (at the truck scene, right?). It just made him look more badass, and that's what I want to see out of my superheroes.

My curiosity about this thread is the trend of some number of players who seem to be uncommunicative gits... and the suggestion that such a thing is common.

Huh.

8 bit? Probably Final Fantasy I. (Honorable Mention to Dragon Quest II.)

16 bit: Chrono Trigger, for sure. (Honorable Mention to FFVI.)

Arnwyn wrote:

DonKeebals wrote:

I saw someone mention GM's and cheating, so I figured I'd add my $0.02. A GM can not cheat. GM's are the god at your table and they can do what they want. I almost always roll behind the screen and if I think a miss would have been a hit, it will be. Especially if I need to knock a player off of their high horse. To me this is no different that adding the advanced template to creatures.

OLD SKOOL! (Yes, the "K" is correct.)

I've found a healthy flogging of players before the game starts goes a long way towards a good game, as well.

Just make sure the nails are extra-rusty.

(And if you're not at least occasionally kicking them in the crotch, can you really be sure they're enjoying the rest of the game, when they're not being kicked in the crotch?)

So you're saying your players neither flee, nor fight back, nor call the police nor refuse to return to your game in future sessions?

What strange magic did you use on them?

OLD SKOOL, man. OLD SKOOL. They just keep coming back for more. "GM is god" and all that.

I saw someone mention GM's and cheating, so I figured I'd add my $0.02. A GM can not cheat. GM's are the god at your table and they can do what they want. I almost always roll behind the screen and if I think a miss would have been a hit, it will be. Especially if I need to knock a player off of their high horse. To me this is no different that adding the advanced template to creatures.

OLD SKOOL! (Yes, the "K" is correct.)

I've found a healthy flogging of players before the game starts goes a long way towards a good game, as well.

Just make sure the nails are extra-rusty.

(And if you're not at least occasionally kicking them in the crotch, can you really be sure they're enjoying the rest of the game, when they're not being kicked in the crotch?)

Every single time they announce an AP, no matter what it is, people say "I'm cancelling my subscription!" By the time they've announced it, it's already way too late for them to change it because a few forum denizens threaten to cancel. I don't know what people are attempting to accomplish.

LOL. You don't possibly think the messageboards are actually for accomplishing things do you? LOL again.

Even the hint of trying to stifle the expression of opinion on an internet messageboard is bad form - and reflects poorly on you. Stop that.

...and remember that imaginary people doing imaginary evil things doesn't hurt anything in reality.

Turns out, that's not an excuse. (And even Paizo admitted there are actual lines, and they wouldn't cross them.)

Cheliax again? Hell again? Bad guys?

Big load of meh.

I'm wondering here - was I in the wrong for speaking up?

Absolutely not. Everyone in the group is playing in the game, and players need to 'police their own' - the DM isn't solely responsible for that (and may not even need to be responsible for it at all), since everyone is playing the game. Everyone might have different views on the matter. (And, I'll reiterate: IMO, players need to step up to the plate and be just as responsible about things in general.) AFAIC, you were right to do so. (Though it still might not be "cheating" - some people really are that incompetent.)

With that said, the group dynamics could be different, so it might work differently for your group (doesn't sound like it though - just because a single player thinks something "was the job of the DM", doesn't mean it actually is).

So I decided to bring it up to my friends, and when one responded with "if someone has to cheat to have fun, then so be it," I decided to bring the question to the forums to see if my anti-cheating attitude is antiquated.

I doubt your view is antiquated.

Serpent's Skull, no question.

The whole Vol #3 (and #4) could be vastly improved with adventure add-ons for exploring the city (do mostly interior locations so you don't step on any IP...) As a further benefit, adventure add-ons within the city could be used by those not using Serpent's Skull, because who doesn't like Indiana Jones-like lost city locations to adventure in?

Also, more adventure locations in #5 and #6 (with a greater variety of opponent types) would go a long way.

So... yeah. Serpent's Skull.

My personal opinion only, based on only my experiences:

Are we the exception? Are the rest of you gents all functional social butterflies? And if not, if this sort of stupid conflict is unavoidable, is it really worth putting up with?

I have no idea if you're the exception or not, but yes, my group at least are all functional social butterflies.

If your experience is how you describe, then NO, it is absolutely NOT worth putting up with. At all. In any way. Ever.

But, that's just my experience - to paraphrase another poster above: player conflict is definitely not the norm in my experience.

My observed experience is that without any representation of position people spend as long asking where they are and what's within reach as they do fumbling around working out where to move with the battlemat. Speed comes from something more abstract rather than anything which has precise positioning that then doesn't get implemented. YMMV.

Exactly so with us.

Once we put in a battlemat 20 years ago during 2e, combats immeasurably sped up.

'Murica!

Or, if you prefer:

'Doran!

(graywulfe - are you American? That might explain your response. To a number of non-Americans, Andoran is pretty hilarious.)

The "Singularity" in the show doesn't seem to reflect the real world concept.

Very little in the show seems to "reflect the real world concept". (A "real world" physicist would be dead in the street, their heads exploded from essentially-no-actual-physics-working-whatsoever.)

I'm not sure that's an excuse for Dr. Snow's weird lack of knowledge on something even the audience could figure out in a nanosecond.

Remember in Amazing Spider-Man 2 (ugh) when super-science-genius Peter Parker has to look up how batteries work on Youtube? ><'

No... because I have avoided that movie like the plague (the first Amazing SM was terrible). I see that my avoidance was wise.

I'll definitely be getting it eventually (PS4), but not for a little while.

I'd rather get more Marvel Netflix shows that I can watch at my leisure, than a station I will ignore or forget about most of the time, assuming I even have cable.

And assuming that if you do have cable, your cable package has that channel (i.e. you may have to pay even more for the re-run filled channel and a smattering of new shows, that will also quickly be re-run)... or even if your cable provider has that channel available at all.

I don't think he's completely wrong.

I absolutely do. "Very specific"? Nope.

But I'm not going to tell anyone that their play style is "wrong" or "gibberish," because that invalidates their experiences.

Neither would I, until he started spouting off that. (But then, I didn't say anything about anyone's playstyle being gibberish. How did you manage to mess that up?)

The fact that you are insisting on this only shows that you lack the capability to understand that anyone plays things differently from your preferences in this regard which is... poor form.

"Poor form"? "Insisting"? "delusions and ignorance, 'cause, really, at that point, you're just being obtuse." "You're just wrong." "You have a really, really weird sense..." I find your ideas as terrible..." How 'bout you back off? I don't think you understood much of what I posted. And I certainly don't need a "poor form" from you.

I don't think my posts are for you, Tacticslion. I think you might be a bit prone to misinterpreting them, and then getting a might abusive about it. Sorry if I wasn't very clear in the first place.

Basically I'm a big fan of #2's. That probably didn't come out right...

Me too... me too.

Then mayhaps you should avoid comic book adaptations... Science is not their strong suit.

Some are materially/noticeably worse than others.

Wow - glad I don't play games with you.

Likewise.

I don't agree with a single thing you said. It was almost like reading alien gibberish, to me.

The assertions you make are only true for very specific styles of gaming.

And you are completely wrong on that front. Yikes.

Barry got closure.

I admit that was a great scene, but I'm not sure if personal closure is worth a black hole.

But that's just me.

I'd probably need more closure after causing that event, too.

And what might that closure cause? A supernova? ;)

Arnwyn wrote:

Loads of reruns combined with a couple of shows you can't get anywhere else, so you're still stuck with buying the channel if you want to see any of them (before they're out on DVD).

I don't see an issue with this.

*shrug* Weird. Pointless channel is pointless.

Yeah, this isn't so different from Netflix.

It's totally different.

I... didn't like it that much.

First, the cliffhanger. Cliffhangers suck. If it ended one episode before, it would have been far superior.

And, the entire episode's storyline didn't make sense.

The fight near the end in the accelerator was cool, though. And it felt "super-hero-y / comic-book-y", so I really appreciated that. And hey - helmet! Awesome visions! That stuff was really great.

(Oh, and fantastic observations, Damon Griffin.)

A whole channel? Probably unsustainable.

Loads of reruns combined with a couple of shows you can't get anywhere else, so you're still stuck with buying the channel if you want to see any of them (before they're out on DVD).

My solution would always be to buff the martials instead of nerf the casters. But that's just because I like stuff.

Yeah... not me.

AFAIC, nerfing the casters is the way to go, not buffing martials. Casters are already problems - moving more things to the level of 'problems' is a bad solution, IMO.

1) Casters can already 'solo' or 'one-shot' encounters. Moving more classes to be able to do that simply makes it a race now as to who can one-shot an encounter first. (And, one-shotting encounters on even an uncommon basis sucks.) Bad.
2) Because of the above, the CR system would have to be entirely rebuilt.
3) Because of the above, a significant number of monsters would have to be entirely rebuilt. Bad.
4) Niche protection. While some people (inexplicably) don't care about that, it's still a problem. Most people don't like other people stepping on your toes, and that's what casters do. If that happens regularly, why bother with certain classes? Just have one class. Bad.
5) Campaign-type changes at higher levels. As noted earlier, the types of campaigns that can be run change significantly at higher levels (caused by casters) - one might even say the number of possibilities is reduced. That's bad. (I'm not sure where I, personally, stand on this one. On one hand, I think it can be good to have varying types of problems to overcome at different levels; on the other hand, some groups really like sticking with a certain 'style'...)
6) Related to the above, casters can make it difficult (or time-consuming) for DMs to come up with encounters/stories/games at higher levels. ALWAYS ALWAYS BAD.
7) Casters can potentially reduce world verisimilitude, making world-building more difficult, mess with player expectations, and make decision-making for players more difficult as they try to interact with a world. Bad.
8) Casters are more likely to be the ones able to put characters right out of the action (so the player sits there on his/her thumbs and waits). Suck.

For the may-or-may-not-be-inevitable PF 2.0? Nerf casters (or, rather, nerf their tools). HARD. Into the ground. In many ways. Often. Twice on Sunday.(Outright removal of certain problematic spells, and weakening others, wouldn't even be noticed much, and wouldn't even be considered the 'slaughtering of sacred cows', AFAIC.)

Uh... is my post wildly off-topic? Or do nothing but contribute to the 'caster-martial disparity' debate? Sorry... :(

1) Macross (whole saga)
2) Ghost in the Shell (all of it)
3) Cowboy Bebop
4) Record of Lodoss War (OVA & TV)
5) Evangelion
6) El-Hazard
7) Howl's Moving Castle
8) Gundam (UC only)
9) Full Metal Alchemist
10) Bubblegum Crisis (and Crash and AD police files)

Honorable Mention:
- Darker Than Black
- Samurai Champloo
- Magic Knight Rayearth
- Tenchi (TV & movies only)
- Spirited Away

(I have not yet seen some of the 'newer' stuff, like Psycho Pass and a number of others mentioned here.)

Definitely glad she's not a teenager... I'd have no interest in watching that.

It's kind of a weird CW thing, actually (one of the many CW fails that I love harping about).

The CW (for whatever strange reason) seems to be really 'anti-secret'. Of all types. Regardless of the situation.

Have a look at various other CW shows... you'll see it. "Secrets are bad. Always."

Arnwyn wrote:

Ross Byers wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

I would very much like to know why this change is happening. I look forward to seeing that blog post.

Is inflation really that much of a mystery?

The answer to that is: Yes (and I'm an accountant).

There are, actually, many reasons for inflation. "Inflation" itself is not an answer - what specifically is behind the inflation, for Paizo, is an answer.

(Your response was strange... and a little thoughtless.)

Do you really think Paizo is going to give a more elaborate answer than 'our costs are rising'? They're not going to go into detail about which costs, precisely, have risen and by how much, exactly.

*shrug* Beats me if they will.

I was just responding to the nonsensical comment of "Is inflation really that much of a mystery?"

What you just said above is something different. Stay on target.

Is that castle map taken from the Giantslayer AP? Or designed specifically for whatever adventure the group was on at the time?

(It's a great map...)

Ravingdork wrote:

I would very much like to know why this change is happening. I look forward to seeing that blog post.

Is inflation really that much of a mystery?

The answer to that is: Yes (and I'm an accountant).

There are, actually, many reasons for inflation. "Inflation" itself is not an answer - what specifically is behind the inflation, for Paizo, is an answer.

(Your response was strange... and a little thoughtless.)

As others have said: A bunch of crappy Ogre and really crappy Barbara episodes/scenes, and then a one episode quick lame ending with a bunch of out-of-character actions?

Ugh. Not good.

Yeah I honestly don't know how to respond to the few highly-critical posts

It would probably be wise if you didn't.

This thread isn't a dedicated love-in, and the movie isn't immune to criticism (of any sort - whether specific individuals think they're "mindless" or not).

I like the idea, but the book seems a tad... misnamed.