Immortal Greed's page

I have been reflecting on the unusually large number of locked threads lately, most of which are about whether GMs or players suck more, but a few have been political or ideological. Some of the same behaviors are present, if not as pronounced, in other threads that have not been locked.

The common dynamic in all of these threads is passion.

I generally think passion is a good thing. I'm a passionate person in just about everything I do. But, as oxymoronic as it might seem, I do try to be passionate in moderation.

I doubt it is possible to avoid passion when it comes to ideology and politics. Or religion I suppose. That sort of goes with the territory.

But is the level of passion I see on these boards about game rules, character builds, and GM or player preferences a good thing?

I dunno. Maybe it's just that I'm getting older, but I find it hard to get all worked up any more about how someone else plays this or any other game. I do get worked up about how people treat each other, but that's different.

I would like to hear from some of the people who have been so passionate on these subjects exactly why it is so important to them that the game be designed, adjudicated, played and enjoyed certain ways.

So I'll pose a few questions:

1. Why is it so important that you play a specific character concept? I understand that you might WANT to play something special, and that you feel it shouldn't be a problem to do so, but that's not what I'm asking. Why do you get so emotionally invested in it?

2. Why is it so important that classes be balanced? At the worst an unbalanced design would mean some characters can do more than others in a mechanical sense. But this is a role playing game, supposedly. There are plenty of ways to enjoy playing a less powerful character, and if you simply can't deal with playing a less powerful character, then why don't you just play a character that satisfies your desire for a certain level of power and move on?

3. If you have a special game world you've built...

Good post, but locked threads and threads locked in large numbers are not new here.

Yes, on passionate matters, absolutely on political disagreements, a thousand times on something sensitive like race, sex or gender the threads are locked over and over again. I've seen threads locked for a critical attitude towards a paizo product (they don't want the cash cow to get lighter, but many things are deserving of critique), for arguing against the premise of a thread and the attitudes of those within as well as threads locked with no explanation given or explanations that don't actually make sense (locked for breaking a rule, but the rule hasn't been broken, it was just used as an excuse).

Sometimes a mod will follow someone branded as a troublemaker and go nuts with thread locking. It is not pretty when people with some power get petty.

I too find it weird how worked up people get; but one thing is for sure, flagging summons mods right quick.

Johann Bückler, a rogue I made had quite the backstory. It involved a certain river city town and a desire to get out of there before he was fed to the eels. It left him with a bit of an anxious personality but a strong will to survive and proper way beyond the city limits (adventure or eels, basically). The fear did lead to him becoming a bastard sword wielding rogue with a few tricks up his sleeve and a very nice defensive style.

Eels up inside ya, findin an entrance where they can.

I too love halberds. Naginata and nagamaki, also great.

Humans are adaptable creatures with great imaginations. I think my players will be fine.

Or they will rail at the injustice of my dming, and I will make a statement on the inevitability of death and go make a hazelnut coffee.

Never was a kitchen swept so thoroughly.

A video game, where you can load from the last quicksave if your character dies, is not the same thing as a tabletop game.

Yes, and the players have a lot more tools and options at their disposal so as to not get killed, compared to a computer game.

I've never met dead weight yet.

The closest one I can recall, mr average spread around fighter was pretty mediocre for a few sessions. Then he died saving the party. Collapsing a giant bell on himself and the big bad.

That was truly heroic.

I too prefer power attack with throttle control.

Yes, that.

When I retire, I want to start paladin threads.

*Adds paladin falls as a site to my world*

Berik wrote:

But why is it a failing as a player? That's just a 'badwrongfun' argument isn't it? If somebody else can only have fun if he's spend three weeks solid thinking about the character and writing about him before the game starts and I've spent an hour why am I right and he wrong? If he isn't monopolising game time and insisting on reading through his long background during the game then why should I say his way is a 'failing'?

Equally, some people like lethality and danger and others want their hero to be the type who always finds a way to overcome, always seeming about to die but always surviving in the end. Neither is a failing, it's just different tastes.

How about I run this by you?

Nobody really cares how long someone spends on their character but why should the DM give that person special treatment?

What about John over there who isn't good at creating backstories that take three weeks? Should he be shown any less attention?

If you say no then this will involve showing everyone special treatment etc....

In fairness, I stick to the default rules of the game. If you fail your save vs a Finger of Death then you take a dirt nap. Same goes with losing all of your hit points.

I would suggest finding a like minded group of players.

Absolutely.

I remember a vampire dm who wanted the big backstories and downtime stories. I put a lot of effort into one, didn't get much back from it. I was wondering, so why couldn't we just resolve downtime like we do in dnd, with a few spoken sentences?

See, we just didn't hit his critical tooth of appreciation that day. So we wasted our time. The backstories and downtime also didn't come into much relevance to the present squabbles.

On threat and dead characters, if you didn't want your character to be at risk, don't bring them to the table of adventure. You can also retire a char that gets some successes, wealth and station if you don't want them to die (possibly permanently). Then take a new one into the high danger stuff you aren't invested in. Sometimes I wish I'd done this, but I don't mind char death anymore because I came to realise:

Ôuchi Yoshitaka
1507-1551

Both the victor
and the vanquished are
but drops of dew,
but bolts of lightning -
thus should we view the world.

Erick Wilson wrote:

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

Where the player crossed the line in that exchange was when the GM and players agreed to not have constructs in the game, and then the player went back to the GM and tried to do so anyway.

Yes, I was worried you were driving at this, but you must admit it's a bit of a misdirection. You added a parameter (the previous establishment of a certain rule, in this case not playing constructs) that was not being discussed before. When I (and probably most of those who did) responded, I wasn't really sure whether to address this or just stay on point, so I chose the latter hoping to minimize the already tangential nature of the conversation. Can you see how I now feel a bit manipulated, especially since I asked you, at the time, to clarify where you stood on your hypothetical conversation?

Also, I'm curious whether, when you say that the rule was "agreed upon," you really mean simply that it was stated by the GM at some point (which, considering the long-running nature of many campaigns, could have been months or even years in the past) and not specifically argued with at the time.

I maintain my call for greater overall patience and more comprehensive understanding on the part of GMs. I do not direct that specifically at AD or Shallow or anyone else. When I say "greater patience," I mean greater than the average level that I have personally experienced as a player. And, again, please bear in mind that the far greater balance of my total gaming time has been spent as a GM.

At least in my case its been repeated constantly. You dont even get to the point of making characters until the parameters are in place. That happens when you pick which presented campaign you wish to play in or present one yourself. The restrictions and such are listed right there in the blurb.

If you start creating a character before THAT has been decided its at your own risk. Why would you create or select a character before knowing anything about what...

Yes, wouldn't that truly be to put the cart before the horse?

Or should any created char be respected and allowed in? That I do not agree with.

Immortal Greed wrote:

Is it respectful to the player, for their character they love to die in traps they bumbled into? No. Yet it is an old part of the game.

Well, since you brought it up...

I would argue that arbitrarily killing off PCs through things like traps, which have utterly no story importance, is disrespectful, at least for a lot of playstyles. If the point of the game is to tell a story about a certain group of characters, characters dying for basically no reason is antithetical to that goal. I've never witnessed a PC dying due to a trap, or a random encounter, or just bad luck and thought the game was better off for it happening. Every time, I've thought that it would have been better if the PC had never died for such an inconsequential reason.

Bwahahahahahaha!

Trap kills as disrespectful, you sure make me smile. Enjoy that view Vivianne.

Make your life suck very fast, is a level 7 spell.
Improved make your life suck very fast, level 8.
Greater make your life suck very fast, tops in at level 9.

Maybe Gnome blood?

Yeah because screwing over the player in such a obvious way possible is the smartest thing to do. Any DM that allows me to play a special snowflake then kills me off in the most embrassing way possible better do it in the safety of their own homes. Or I'm throwing them, their books, dice and notes out the door. If a DM does not want special snowflakes that's fine. Doing something that will get you possibly blacklisted in the gaming community and ruin a friendship as well as your game not so much.

HA! Oh wow.

If a char of yours died in a humiliating way, you would physically throw out the dm and all of their gear?

What about the other players? What about if they interject and do not agree with dm being thrown out the door? >:D

Ha ha, I would like to see that. It would be a most shameful display on your part.

And a side note: being blacklisted in the gaming community does not exist. People talk but the gossip of a few gamers has only so much reach. Now throwing out a dm through the use of physical violence, that is likely to have some repercussions don't you think mighty thrower man?

Even better if the Chelish racist is not actually from Cheliax. Turns out he is from Nidal.

Would run that adventure.

I mostly play humans too. I have always been able to make them interesting and memorable to others and I. Sometimes a little grating (rogues), but with some depth.

Uniqueness doesn't evaporate because you chose "human".

shallowsoul wrote:

My vision of my campaign differs from yours but I can promise you that my vision is more important seeing as I am the one who is running the game and building the world.

You might consider letting someone else world build. They might come up with something better than "every single member of the dark-skinned race of underground elves, a society of intelligent, sentient humanoids, is irredeemably evil, to the point where the only solution is to kill every single one you come across. None are capable of developing any sort of moral reasoning, even if they were to be raised in a completely different society."

Are you trying to make this into a civil rights issue again?

Represent the monsters, their skin is not the cause of evil?

Because it isn't, whether they are black drow or green orcs, they are the enemies to be slain because they are evil nutters that cause nothing but pain and suffering. This necessitates the heroes being there to deal with them. If you want to take that away, sure, you go and do that. Some people here, aren't interested in such changes, the drow are not suddenly the good guys, they don't care to change it or make everything playable because they are all civilised and never vile in the extreme.

I've seen a dm try to walk this line. The kobolds are not really evil, they have families too. That is nice, we just came from their raid and massacre grounds. You expect us to hold back and question our purpose here when the corpses are outside, and the loot they stole is inside? What is this relativism garbage? What are you playing at dm?

Said's Orientalism had some fine criticisms, but there is no need to bring it into other peoples' games. If you want to, you use it. Or are you saying what they are doing, running drow and orcs and the like as evil as they are described, is badwrongfun?

Jessica Price wrote:

I'm sorry you find our requests that the people who use our messageboards meet the minimum bar of being reasonably civil to one another to be "pathetic" and "whiny."

Sense of humor much Jessica?

I had a sense of humour once...

The mods deleted it.

Never go against a Sicilian, when DEATH is on the LINE!

HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHA HA...

Immortal Greed wrote:

So, I just ran into some heavy restrictions yesterday, and I wonder if I am trying to play a snowflake. Thoughts?

Wild west game coming up, I've played in a few of them. So this time I want to play a Ruth Balter, a woman determined to make a name for herself and get away from the bland life out east that was planned to her. She will be able to shoot, and ride, and sass it up. She won't be a pistoleer of legend, more a long range shooter.

The game is going to be about killing dodgy cowboys and stopping cruel land barons. I've made a reason for the character to get involved in the venture but run into some problems.

No "crossing the fence".

In this wild west game, I can only play a male. Urgh. I've played manly shooters before, wanted to try something different. Ruth being based on a tough old lady back in my hometown (who would go out and shoot things even into her late 50s).

If a gamer joins that is a woman, she can play someone like Ruth, but not little old me. It is annoying to have a char rearing to go, which fits with the setting, but which is chopped because apparently women can't shoot or contribute to combat. His words. Somedays I just have to shake my head.

Too bad, I would have allowed it. But, in my experience, people playing the opposite gender stick to the worst possible stereotype and mostly ruin the game. Maybe the GM was a little cautious.

You're not a special snowflake, not unless you insist on playing Ruth until the GM caves and other players look at you with mean eyes...

I am not sure how Ruth is a special snowflake. She is a woman in the wild west who can shoot straight. They existed.

Icyshadow wrote:

Calybos1 wrote:

If you don't want to play a stereotype, don't play your character AS a stereotype. There's no need for alien races, third-party feats, or prestige classes to make a character distinctive. All it takes is characterization and roleplay.

If you don't want to do an 'axebeard dwarf,' then make a dwarf who's not a stereotypical axebeard. If you don't want another "Hulk smash" orc, then play an orc who's intelligent and cultured. That's a far greater exercise in creativity than just slapping glitter and wings on your PC and calling him Exotic.

And that is where the paradox begins.

If you do not play the usual "axebeard" dwarf, you're playing a special snowflake.

If you're not playing the usual "Hulk smash" orc, you are playing a special snowflake.

Um ... No? Not even remotely close?

If you are playing a dwarven arcane lore keeper and archaeologist, who is more comfortable with books than an axe ...

That is not a special snowflake.

If you play a deeply serious and somber dwarven cleric who "doesn't touch drink because it fogs the mind" it's not a special snowflake.

As two examples.

People seem to keep conflating 'not a stereotype" with "special snowflake" ignoring the emphasis on "special" in "special snowflake". It's not the uniqueness that makes it bad.

Characterisation is not snowflakeisation.

Have they been moved because of rain?

See the violence inherent in the system!

I stopped allowing special snowflakes a while ago. To me it's just annoying.

I blame games giving way too many options, ever expanding, ever growing. Here is another book, here is another class.

I don't consider a character close to a really special snowflake until they have at least progressed through eight levels and done a lot through that character (rp, choices, that sort of thing). Every char before then has potential, but is pretending at being an actual special snowflake.

They know nothing of the crunch, they've never even been to the crunch.

As for some annoying mix of races and classes, it comes with the territory.

ParagonDireRaccoon wrote:

How might agriculture and the growth of nation-states work out differently in a fantasy world?

One model of the growth of nation-states in the real world starts with sedentary agriculture. Sedentary grain agriculture and livestock can support larger populations than other forms of agriculture and animal procurement (swiddening and hunting, for example). This contributes to specialization, and to standing armies. Some of the oldest city/nation states had standing armies as soon as sedentary agriculture became viable- if you have fertile farmland, another group might (and likely will) want that land. So maintaining standing armies was a necessity for maintaining the city/nation state, and contributed to specialization. A smaller percentage of the population can provide food for the entire population, but the state must tax them to provide food for themselves and the army, and to fund the bureaucracy that is required to collect taxes and conscript troops.

From what I understand, standing armies were a very rare thing in ancient times, precisely because how tremendously expensive they were to maintain. One of the reasons Rome had so much success conquering everything it met was because there were no professional armies to face; as Luttwak thoroughly explains in his Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire and then in his Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, most nations outside of the big ones (Rome, Persia, Parthia, etc) fought based on their traditional fighting methods, rather than as trained soldiers. The "soldier profession" was a very rare thing and usually reserved for empires that had tax systems large and efficient enough to support them. That's why standing armies pretty much disappeared during the Early Middle Ages in western Europe; no one had the capacity to support them anymore. That was one of the big reasons for the rise of feudalism.

That doesn't mean early human settlements didn't have to fight for their ground, but it does put into...

The time of warbands yeah. Which fits better with fantasy.

I like the thread, and I'm doing some world building at the moment.

So I wanted to make a setting that was a bit different, so the central country is surrounded on almost all sides by demihuman and monster threats. Good good, now these constant threats kill off a lot of people. Mostly adventurers but they also ruin the common peoples' day. The country though, is not heavily militarised, it is no Rome. Thus there is a place for adventurers, and military forces are typically just in warband size (20 or so, maybe a few of these for a real serious battle, 40 vs 60 monsters, that sort of thing).

It has agriculture of course, some areas have heavy farming and fishing, but other areas rely on herds. I wanted to keep the pop somewhat low, especially the armed and capable of fighting population. So the central region, the agricultural heartland with the most people, is protected by the border states that take the most casualties. This prevents giant stonking armies, which I don't want for this game (been there, done that).

Magic? Well it is actually a sort of low magic setting. Spellcasters are pretty individualistic and don't feed everyone, or massage their poor feet. Now I know another dm that took this in the opposite direction. Heavy magic, heavily involved with agriculture and trade. It ended up being a high population world, close to steampunk, a lot of people in and around and moving, high tech, almost no starvation. Solo adventurers were less important, or even a group of them, there were just so many damn people and factions around and the system worked and relied on magic to do so.

I didn't like it, so I went in the opposite direction. A lot of threats, limited armed population base, low magic. As a consequence, heroes and warbands are crucial for the country's safety.

I have demanded a few things from a DM as a player before. Things like, allowing the use of saving throws vs spells that list that the target gets a saving throw. When that was ignored, and the DM argued that a level 1 spell his NPC had cast worked like a level 7 spell, and had to DM fiat it, I chose the highway.

Good luck with 2 players and no healer!

Two players and no healer can be the best of games. Buddy action flick/comedy.

Vincent Takeda wrote:

He sure could... But when he doesn't... as he's free to do...

Let it go.

Not everybody likes yo sharkfin soup... They don't have to.

This isn't North Korea... Just because you're cookin doesn't mean we all have to eat.

And not everyone likes your awakened pony sorcerer.

And no, they don't have to eat. But once they have committed to come over and agreed to the menu its in poor taste to then complain about it and try to force a change into it.

Urgh, this Korean restaurant only has Korean dishes. I hate Korean, why did we come here?

You agreed to go out for Korean...

639. We individually found four gold keys for one chest out there with four locks. Greed cements alliances.

I've had players treat me as if they're paying for my services and if they don't get exactly what they want, they throw a fit. Sadly there are people out there that do this kind of thing.

Oh no. Not the entitled consumer mentality. My condolences.

The old guard of our gaming groups have a saying, organising a game is like herding cats.

291. Gleefully receiving his childhood wish, a pony for his birthday. Then, still laughing, disintegrates it.

It is the next step in his rise to power.

Only later will the players realise the significance of this.

293. Saying silly little word play jokes to himself, in Tian.

629. We are all brats of the army. That has led to us growing up with skill sets perfectly tailored to adventuring. Some call us murderers, but we don't fight for free. We also don't get on so well with the peasantry; but it was our parents that sacked that strip of villages years ago. The group consensus is that we wish they would just get over it. Sins of the father and all that.

630. We are all town guards of a sunken city.
Luckily we were out on patrol and hard trekking when the waves hit.
Unluckily everyone we know outside of this group is dead. :''(
We are also out of rations. Adventure it is I guess.

"If you do something that other people dislike, you have fundamentally failed at the primary goal of the game. To make a group of people have fun playing the game."

And

"If you come to the table with an idea and everyone hates your idea, use your amazing creativity to come up with an idea everyone does not hate."

The person who dislikes something doesn't have to be the dm, per se.

You may be taking what I'm saying a little too seriously. I'm genuinely curious re: leaving the table. Playstyles differ, and a bad experience in ones formative gaming years can be scarring.

My players don't like falling into traps, but they are in the games and not going to be removed. This may be a fundamental failing but they keep coming back.

It isn't really about making the game fun total fun all the time. There are unenjoyable parts, shopping can be pretty boring, adding up all those small sums of gold can be far from fun, but the game goes on. No need to stress and accuse someone of fundamentally failing because of a few bad parts or less that fun times (talking to npcs and general information gathering isn't always fun, as much as can be done here, it can be routine or a bit bland). Make the games great, memorable, and have their really fun and enjoyable side, but a few moments or scenes without fun is not really failing.

If anyone wants to get themselves worked up over small things, or make accusations of failure, they are being needlessly dramaatic.

Anzyr wrote:

Honestly, these people you play with that can't have fun if Bob is playing an awakened pony wizard seem to me to have a very narrow definition of fantasy and a definition that certainly not in line with the basic expectations of Pathfinder.

You can't imagine a scenario where people didn't want to include every possibility within a single game? That suggests a lack of experience to me.

Yep, restriction and expansion are how you make a setting.

Example.
Fantasy
Non-Tolkien.
Similar to the hundred years war, pesky humans kingdoms fighting.
You are villagers, but coming of age.
Suddenly invasion of the mole people!

Lot of restrictions, now we know where we are.

See, to my mind, this brings up the question of where a trope or gimmick or idea belongs. Does it belong to the plot, or does it belong to the mechanic?

For instance, you could write up a low-level adventure where the monster (a ghoul) might be "destroyed" by a party, only to reappear the next night, and reappear every night until they find the amulet or cursed stone, or whatever, to which its existence is tied, and do away with it somehow.

Now, to me, that sounds like a nice little mystery-adventure. But to some players, it's bad/wrong because that's not how ghouls are described in the Bestiary. They have no cursed stones or amulets to which they are tied. There are some posters on these boards who complain about stuff like this, and want us to condemn their GMs for running adventures like these.

Maybe you are running into the same mindset. What does your "bending of the rules" serve? That's what I ask myself. So I am careful to render unto the mechanic what is the mechanic's, and to render unto the story what is the story's.

Problem is, somebody somewhere is going to always take issue with it.

Yeah, players could go that way. A skilled and dramatic dm could say to the complaining players: "you are in a horror game now with a seemingly unkillable monster. This book, this bestiary, *picks up book* it doesn't matter anymore. *Tosses book away, hopefully he owns it*. You are in the shit with an undying ghoul that loves to swim in filth, and the whole town is going to get eaten if your characters rely on what they know of ghouls. Sink or swim chaps. Welcome to the danger zone."

That was the game where the 1st level characters were getting caught in 5d6 fireballs.

Don't cry, save your tears. It was a game with insta-death, and real risk.

From the risk came the fun, and a real sense of accomplishment.

Was it LOTR themed?

I use the storm in a teacup xp system. It goes wrong and destroys games every time I use it, but we continue to make use of it.

The kobold sorc was totally above board and legit, from what we know.

I have no problem with xp systems though, those that do more and do better should be better. Yes, maybe meritocracy in gaming is evil, but this LE dm is behind the tyranny!

If they don't want to be lowly, set a course to change that. Freebies are for the WEAK. lol

The dice gods are always fair. We gamble, thus we may always lose.

*Bows in prayer*

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I have had that policy for 30 years of gaming, and I won't be changing it anytime soon.
Plus, in the dozens of campaigns I've played in, pretty much the same policy was in effect.
For example, I missed a crucial encounter with a dragon's hoard last year due to food poisoning. Missed out on dragon XP and some nice treasure. Did I expect any experience? Hell, no. If anything, I felt bad about not being able to help my party out.

Hey there seasoned adventurer. Some would consider your stance of you get what you earn horribly retrograde. I support it though.

The only time a player has asked me for xp when they weren't there, they were the worst sort of player: lazy, entitled and prone to emotional outbursts. They could go on about what they deserved for not rocking up, and I was having none of it. This isn't easy street, let others do the work and you get a few free levels.