Incanús Kindler's page

I'm a GM, and I basically allow anything as long as the player isn't just trying to gain a mechanical benefit.

I wouldn't even ask what spell you were using to cool the glass if it was just flavor that you were adding to the scene. I allow the sorceress in our party to describe her perform dance checks as waving lights of magic around herself to the rhythm of the bard's music, but only because I know she isn't trying to gain a bonus to her check. I'm not really a fan of punishing the players for wanting to do something cool. However, I believe there is a difference between being creative and trying to find loopholes in the rules.

Being creative is fun and interesting. Loopholes break the game.

Incanús Kindler wrote:

Part of the difference between killing someone in the game world and real life is that in game, the people know 100% that there is an afterlife, and death does not have to be permanent. Some people have even seen the afterlife with their own eyes.

It doesn't excuse everything, but I think it makes a big difference.

I disagree.

Note that most religions in the real world teach there is an afterlife, but also teach that killing is wrong (at least, most scriptures say so, even if there are factions that ignore it).

Doing harm to a person is still doing harm, even if you know they're going to heaven afterwards. That's IMO, however.

I completely agree. I'm just saying that it should be something to consider.

Another thing to consider is that death for some people in game is a minor inconvenience. Obviously a low level brigand is never going to get resurrected, but when you assassinate the king of a nation you might only have just stained his favorite outfit with blood. Again, not saying that its ok, just that in the game world death isn't quite the same, and it's something to think about.

Part of the difference between killing someone in the game world and real life is that in game, the people know 100% that there is an afterlife, and death does not have to be permanent. Some people have even seen the afterlife with their own eyes.

It doesn't excuse everything, but I think it makes a big difference.

This may not be possible for you, but I would make sure to include an already experienced role player. They'll likely become party leader and be able to role play in those times when the other players might be too nervous to. By watching the experienced player role play, it might make them more comfortable with it, and the story can continue when they get stuck in a situation that they need to role play through.

I've had trouble looking for a group forever because the level of role play I enjoy is far beyond what a new player is comfortable with. Finally, I decided to invite my girlfriend to a game session to help with things. She had never played a tabletop game before but used to do free form role playing on internet forums in high school. She ended up being terrible with numbers and combat, but didn't hesitate to use ghost-sound to spread rumors through a high class tavern. Her role playing ability helped break the ice and now all of my players are into it, although they regret choosing charisma as a dump stat.

The problem with this thread is that there seems to be two different arguments here. The supporters of rule 0 believe that it is necessary for the GM to use to help adjudicate certain situations. To settle disputes.

The people who oppose rule 0 believe it is bad because GM's can use it to do awful terrible things that ruin the game and everyone's fun.

I'm fairly certain that everyone here agrees with both of those points. I don't believe there is a problem with the rule. There is only a problem with GameMasters that would abuse it.

In sports, the referee must make a call in situations that aren't perfectly clear on what to do. Sometimes the ref must make a hasty decision in order for the game to continue without slowing down. But if the referee were to start making rules up, well, it's safe to say he would quickly be fired. Same could be said for roleplaying games. If the GameMaster decided that out of nowhere the fighter's sword turned into jelly without a fair and logical reason, the table is going to get flipped.

I don't use a large number of DnD miniatures. I use Lord of the Rings miniatures for my NPC player races and Warhammer miniatures for monsters. For around a hundred dollars I ended up with around a hundred minis.

These are tiding me over pretty well as I build up a more respectable collection. I didn't want to spend the time delicately painting everything, so every race is spray painted a different color (humans=blue, dwarves=red, elves=green, etc).

For the players' minis, they are encouraged to buy their own that they feel represent their characters. I'm not gonna buy everything for them (I just supply the books, pizza, character sheets, gaming mat, story, place to game...)

I'm really only experienced with 3.5 and Pathfinder, but lately I've been wanting to add different elements and next thing I know I'm changing the whole system... So I figure, maybe there's another system that does what I want to do.

Weapon Speeds (lighter weapons would be faster while heavy weapons would be slower)

A system where armor has hardness (so that it takes heavier weapons to break through stronger armor)

A seperation between stamina and health
Where should I look? They don't all have to be the same system, I figure I could probably find a way to mix them together if I have to. I'm just wondering if there's some system that has this already figured out.

Basic Roleplaying might fit what you need. It has the armor system you describe and an entire optional stamina system. The weapon speeds that you'd like would be very easy to implement, if not already in there. I really enjoy this system because its so easy to tweak everything into something you like.

I really do not understand this hate of minutia some people have. I like thinking of tiny details that may just be because I am wierd. So why do people not like minutia or is this such a thing as too much or too little details. Can anyone explain this to me?

I think you need to elaborate on what you mean by the little details.

There are some little details in games that I love, like "You find a chest buried halfway into the mud. It is battered and worn with age. Several gold sockets litter the sides, where gems might have laid before they were pried off by grubby goblin fingers, as opposed to "you find a chest."

On the other hand, I really dislike roleplaying certain little things that may detract from the game. The PC's grocery shopping for instance. It could possibly be fun every once in awhile, but doing that every time they enter town can kill a game session for me.

That article reminds me of a game I tried to run at my local game shop. I had gathered a bunch of people together that loved playing DnD and wanted me to run a game for them.

I wrote the session as a mystery. People in town had been murdered by their dead loved ones, as a foolish necromancer was raising townsfolk from the dead. Simple mystery. I thought it would be a lot of fun.

But as soon as the game started everyone just sat there. They refused to do any roleplaying, and were just waiting to kill things. Even though they previously told me a mystery sounded fun. One of the players complained, "Since when did Dungeons and Dragons become a detective game? This is weird. I want to kill things."

Keep in mind these people considered themselves experienced roleplayers. That game quickly ended, but it really upset me. My favorite part of tabletop games is the roleplaying. Sometimes the rules can get in my way. I love finding people that want to play "Grushank, son of Kruul," instead of "Bob" the cleric that is too nervous to talk in character and only wants to mace things.

I think a lot of his problem is that he isn't new to GMing, just new to roleplaying. Before this, his most advanced plot was "The dragon kidnapped the princess! Get 'er back!" Since all of my friends have moved to Pathfinder, he decided he wanted to try his hand at a real campaign.

Safe to say, when this is all said and done, he might just go back to dungeon crawls.

Question:

How does your group identifies magic items found if he doens't allow you to use detect magic?

Can you give us a few examples of how detect magic has ruined his game?

A couple examples of ruining his game I posted above. As far as identifying magic items, if we roll pretty good on our appraise checks, our GM says "Whatd'ya know? You just found a +2 Short Sword!"

That specific item I identified on a 13.

Lots of very good information.

Thank you! I believe everything you've written here will be very helpful when I talk to my GM.

What kind of things has it ruined? Why is he making plothooks in a world of magic that depend on people not knowing something is magical?

Detect magic accidentally revealed a villain that should not have been revealed. The party got very suspicious when the supposedly unarmed farmer seemed to be in possession of some sort of magic item. Why the villain didn't attempt to hide it we will never know.

We also used it to determine the difference of a cheap knock-off weapon from the real one. Supposedly we were supposed to use perception, and realize it had a certain symbol engraved on it. But I don't think that the advancement of the plot should be determined by a die roll.

Thanks for the responses so far. I suppose before I start to cast magic aura on myself every day, I will sit down and tell my GM that he's kind of ruining our fun. I'm sure that he knows how the spell actually works, since we used to be able to use it just fine. It wasn't until it seemed to ruin some of his plans that the spell suddenly changed.

If he tells us that we can't compromise, which seems like it could be a possibility, then I'll make sure to take magic aura. If he attempts to tell me that the magic of magic aura is too strong for detect magic, then it may be time to find a new game master.

Last I checked, wasn't Detect Magic fired in a cone? Couldn't you aim it, at not a player or the eidolon?

According to the GM, our auras are so large that they manage to find their way into the cone anyway. Like I said, he really dislikes this spell.

Its become clear to me that my GM hates it when our party uses detect magic on everything suspicious. He has entirely made the spell useless for us.

Every time any of our party members attempts to use the spell, he claims that our party's magic users are too magical and they are overpowering any other magic aura that might be in the area. Magic sword? Who knows? The eidolon is far too magical to detect anything else. If its not the eidolon, its the wizard. If its not the wizard, its our own magic weapons. If I were to make the party move as far away as possible before I cast it, then its my own magical abilities that are throwing me off. I'm too magical to detect magic.

Now I understand that detect magic can sometimes ruin a GM's fun. I've run my fair share of games that have had certain plot points ruined with the spell, but I've always accepted it and moved on. I want to talk to my GM and maybe work around the way he has detect magic work. What are ways that you have dealt with the spell? I'd be a little less annoyed if everything had nondetection on it, as that would (at least somewhat) make sense.

Or perhaps should I just shut up and let my GM run it his own way and learn to prepare a different cantrip every day?

Thanks in advance. I always love to hear what other people have to say.

I believe that Aroden never died, but instead was forced by a deity greater than himself into the body of a great dane, forced for eternity to solve mysteries with a group of groovy teenagers.

If my GM allows it, my cleric can worship Scooby Doo, I don't care what the rulebooks say.

Create Food (Scooby Snax).

Incanús Kindler wrote:

But the general response I received was "Being the GM is dumb and its not fun and its dumb you do it."

You count these jerks as -friends-?

They seemed like such nice people, till this stuff happened. Although to be fair, not all of them acted this way. One of my friends even asked if he could borrow my books and run a game for me, since I never get to play. Nice guy.

Well, I did suggest to them to maybe run a game for themselves. When I first started GMing, I didn't know any of the rules and I did fine. But the general response I received was "Being the GM is dumb and its not fun and its dumb you do it." Coming from that group, it wasn't a surprising response.

But I wanted to hear stories of how great the game can be. Maybe I should start.

My old group was trying to help some recently homeless villagers find a new place to live. They travelled with these villagers until they found a tower occupied by a green dragon. More of a chaotic neutral party, they figured they could just convince the dragon to watch over the villagers for them and leave. The dragon, being a mean not-so-nice dragon, decided that he would love the villagers as a snack, and perhaps trick the adventurers as well. The dragon was interested in a tome of magic and agreed to let the villagers live with him if the party acquired this tome for him.

Our oracle, who had the lame curse, managed to convince the dragon to give the party a ride to their destination, as it would have taken them quite a long time to get there on foot. The instant he climbed onto the dragon's back, he attempted to cast enlarge person on himself.

The ensuing battle was hilarious. The party won on initiative, and the monk went first. He attempted to flying kick the dragon, and rolled a natural one. Three times in a row. He ended up drawing the critical fumble card that knocked him out. Right under the dragon. The ranger cast entangle, getting the dragon, the oracle on his back, and the passed out dwarven monk beneath. The party rogue refused to fight a dragon and ran off into the forest. The party eventually won, barely, with the dead dragon almost collapsing onto the passed out monk.

My party was so happy. They managed to kill a dragon, although a juvenile one, and each took a part of the dragon to carry with them as a trophy.

Recently I've been wanting to give up on roleplaying and move onto something less stressful, like anything else.

I have been the GM for my group of friends for quite a while now, about a year and a half. I have had a lot of fun running games for my players, originally only about four other people. Within that time, Pathfinder has gotten a lot more popular, and a lot of my friends had become interested in playing it. At first that was great news! All of my friends interested in my favorite roleplaying game? I was excited.

But then they decided that I was the one that was going to run games for them. All of them. And they didn't seem to act like I had a choice. About 12 different people were bugging me, almost constantly, to run a Pathfinder game for them. I was certainly not comfortable running a game for a party of twelve, and I tried to tell them this. They all seemed to agree that it was unfair to make me run games for all of them, but not one of them wanted to be the one that was left out. Some of them became angry at me when I sat down with my old party to start a new campaign. Some of them aren't talking to me right now. The point of the game is to sit down with your friends and have a great time, maybe kill a young green dragon or two, but now people are mad at me for not including them.

Maybe its just me, but when you have to lie and play behind other people's backs, I'm not having fun any more. I've gotten to the point where I almost want to quit playing, indefinitely, because its stressing me out that much. But I know its not the game, its the players that are ruining it for me.

I didn't post this to ask for advice on my situation. I'm tough enough to just tell them "no." What I'd like is for people to post their reasons on why they believe Pathfinder is so fun. Stories of great times around the table. Because I want to be reminded why I don't want to give up on playing this great game. I want to hear how fun it can be.

My friends were all very experienced with playing 3.5. They would play it all the time, but didn't seem to want me to play because I didn't know the rules. Too lazy to teach I guess, but I still don't think that it's any excuse.

So one day I decided to go to my local game shop and see if they had the 3.5 Player's Handbook. They didn't have it, but I had no idea that it was out of print. I asked the shop owner if they could order some in, but he claimed that the book only existed on ebay anymore. I was very disappointed. I didn't really have the money to buy a used book on ebay for 200 bucks. He told me that it was going to be OK though, there was a company that was trying to "keep 3.5 alive."

He handed me the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and told me to thumb through it. He said that it was completely compatible with 3.5, but that I probably wouldn't want to go back. The book had everything I wanted, and the artwork and layout was amazing. I bought it, and the Bestiary, and immediately went home and converted all of my friends.

Now the kid that didn't know the rules has been running a Pathfinder game once a week ever since.

I've also been looking for an upgrade to the d20 Modern rules. But I also wonder if d20 Modern was popular enough. I really enjoyed that game but a lot of people I know have either never heard of it or just didn't seem to enjoy it so much.

And I think a good synonym for "Pathfinderize" may simply be "improve." Because I'm finding it hard to argue otherwise.

I've only had one absolutely terrible experience. I had been invited over to my friend's apartment because his friend was going to run a game for us. He had been planning this game for over a year and finally decided that he had wanted some people to play it. He didn't tell us this of course, he just claimed we were going to run a one-shot session. He had us roll up level 15 characters, although I admitted that I had never played higher than about level 8. He told me not to worry. As we were sitting around, he jokingly asked us to roll for initiative. We all laughed and complied.

Then he became very angry. Suddenly we begin, instantly surrounded by mind-flayers that absolutely want to kill us. We fight for awhile, and the mind-flayers take off running, save for one grappling our totemist(or something like that, I don't really remember the class name). The totemist has no way of winning, so he uses dimension door and teleports as far as he can up, with the mind-flayer still on him. We fly up to catch him, as I am able to cast feather fall and can hopefully save him.

Nope. We suddenly find ourselves unable to fly. Apparently magic just stopped working. I fall, and a purple worm bursts through the ground and eats me, right out of the sky. It somehow knew where I was in the air, despite having no eyes. Next, our totemist and demon binder fall and hit the ground, despite having wings that were completely nonmagical. They are surrounded by an army of thousands of warforged that stretch to the horizon, that we conveniently never saw despite being 600 feet in the air. They kill our fellow players with thousands of fireballs.

We then learn that our kind GM had decided this was our fate the instant we stopped being serious and rolled for initiative, despite the fact that we were just playing off of his joke. He then tells us to roll up new characters so we can really start his year-long planned campaign. No thanks.

Figure I might also need to mention he was 23 years old, and normally a mature adult.