Jason Dandy's page

Lou and Rone:

How big do you think the finished main Grimmerspace book will be? how many additional tomes are planned for the Kickstarter?

I’m so excited to see this is getting closer!! Any juicy tidbits you developer folks want to share with us, the hungry masses?

this is what i submitted. if anyone has any feedback on what made them downvote it, i'd greatly appreciate your feedback. (positive feedback is cool, too; i just crave the negative. was out with the fourth cull.)

Rotblade of the Undying
Aura moderate necromancy [evil]; CL 9th
Slot none; Price 73,502 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
This strengthened viridium +3 dagger is unnaturally sharp, cold to the touch, and a glassy deep green so dark it is almost black. They are always found near an inactive zombie or plague zombie that appears to be nothing more than an inanimate corpse. Whoever holds the dagger in their bare hands gains control over that undead as if she had cast animate dead on it, a fact that the wielder senses upon gripping the bare viridium hilt.

The dagger functions as any strengthened viridium weapon, including the chance to cause leprosy or greenblood oil poisoning. Whenever a creature dies from either effect or from a final blow dealt by the dagger, it will rise as a zombie within 2d4 hours of death as if affected by animate dead. Any zombies created by the blade are under the control of the blade’s wielder as if she had cast animate dead. 1 in 10 zombies created will be plague zombies. If the wielder can already cast animate dead, the dagger allows her to control up to 18 HD of undead beyond the HD allowed through ordinary use of animate dead. Otherwise the dagger allows the wielder to control up to 18 HD of undead.

If the wielder dies and the blade remains within 30 feet, the wielder will rise in 48 hours as a mindless zombie and wait, dormant, for the dagger’s next owner to discover the blade and her first zombie.
Construction
Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, animate dead, contagion, desecrate, creator cannot control more than double her HD of undead during creation, creator must be able to animate at least 18 HD of undead; Cost 37,502 gp

is there a "critique my item" thread yet? if so, i'm not seeing it...

The year of the filigree meme, my backup item had been actual magical filigree. It was a net of magical filigree that could be applied/overlaid on a holy symbol and done neat stuff.

Probably best I left that one in the drawer.

To see filigree on items these days means either the designer never checked out the past advice/critique threads, or else was gutsy enough to put out an item that was guaranteed to get a bit of heckling from the peanut gallery.

yeah, it's just disappointing (and again, i didn't go the filigree route myself) that a valid descriptive word results in downvotes independent of the quality of the submission, all because it's become an "inside joke" for the votingest voters in voteworld. yet those same folks believe they are voting for the best items. :/

Coming straight from google definition search:

"ornamental work of fine (typically gold or silver) wire formed into delicate tracery"

Example given: ""delicate silver filigree earrings""

Let's say you make a ring (using this since there were not allowed for this season). Which would give you a better image in terms of description.

(Neither of these are really superstar items or descriptions. Just used to make a point.)

• This golden filigree ring gives the wearer a +5 circumstance bonus to ___________.
  
• This golden ring, finely engraved with delicate tracery and studded with small rubies, gives the wearer a +5 circumstance bonus to ___________.
  

Which would paint a better picture in your mind of what the item looks like?

the second one, but literally only because you added in "studded with small rubies," which you didn't in the first example. the word 'filigree' is interchangeable with "fine wire formed into delicate tracery" in my head because i know the meaning of the word in the first place. you went with something that isn't filigree--"engraved with" and no 'fine wire,' but filigree would work for the image as would your version. adding the rubies is what makes #2 give a better picture.

the problem with breaking the word down into its definition in this competition is that you just added several words that are unnecessary for the exact reason that they are all encompassed in "filigree," and in this competition there're a bunch of people who feel that approaching the word limit is a bad thing (never mind the lack of logic in that thinking or the lack of relevance to game design skill that "omg the writer approached 300 words" has in this context). i get that there are also people who feel that underutilizing the word count is bad, but your position on this matter essentially says "get closer to the word count limit while knowing that doing so will hurt you with many voters, and do it because some readers' vocabulary doesn't include an accurate definition of a relatively-common descriptive word in gaming and so you should break it down for them like they're five years old."

if i am coming off like i'm swinging at you hard and heavy here, please take my word for it when i say i am not at all; just challenging your assertion and trying to explain why i feel as i do. in the end, "don't use a word correctly to describe a thing accurately" doesn't feel like solid writing advice, especially not when the logical follow-up to that advice is "use MORE words to say the same thing." brevity is a writer's best friend (and often most elusive...see my current wall of text right here as an example), and i am loathe to see people encourage the exact opposite, especially when a perfect single word already exists for the word salad that would be its substitute.

From my perspective, something like the word "filigree" as a description is lazy writing. It is like making a character in a story and saying they look like Brad Pitt or Jennifer Lawrence (as Mystique, not Katniss). Rather than paint the image of the item, it tries to cut down on the words used for description. Yes, you should not be too verbose with your descriptions, but that does not mean you can equate it to something else in order to shave off words. It is just lazy writing.

seriously??? filigree is an actual thing, and quite descriptive/evocative of specific imagery. while i may not have used it, i don't see how it is any lazier than describing the exterior of a dwelling as "clapboard" as opposed to getting all Stephen R Donaldson about the details, acting like the reader has no shared frame of reference through which single-word terms can provide instant mental images, and spending 2,500 words describing a guy walking a block to pay a phone bill.

it's not "equating a thing to another thing" to use the word 'filigree' if it actual has filigree; it's simply calling it what it is.

Jason Dandy wrote:

i totally agree. i was just failing my save vs anxiety poison earlier. still having trouble figuring out why my item is MIA--cull was at 1:40 pm PST, my item was seen by a close friend later, at 8:00 pm PST, yet it's not been noted as seen on the informal tracking spreadsheet and i haven't seen it all day despite wearing my mouse-clickin' finger down to a bony nub.

luckily, the anxiety has passed and all that remains is a calming sense of utter surrender to the inevitable, like a rabbit in the final moments before the eagle snatches it up in its razor-sharp talons. mama, is that you? i'm...so cold...i'm ready to be stew now, mama...

{Very reasonable observations redacted for space-saving reasons...}

...Groups such as the Werecabbages, Freelancer Forge, and Four Horsemen create semiformal guilds of freelancers who can exchange thoughts and give opinions on one-anothers material....

when i grow up, i want to be a werecabbage.

Jason Dandy wrote:

my snark about the snark thread:

1) this is not twitter. no need to live-tweet every single item you look at.

2) some of you people must be unemployed given the sheer volume of pots going on throughout each and every day. i am jealous.

that will be all. return to your regular snark.

Says the Marathon Voter ;-)

Actually, snarking helps keep me sane and voting. Since I very much value my santity, no snarking would mean next to no voting ;-)

totally, lol. my solution for my stress and my pathetic attempt to preserve the tiny shred of pseudosanity i still possess is to metasnark (which i discovered this morning) and to vote obsessively in the belief that if i vote honestly and hard, the universe will reward me by making my item win all the things...having not been seen since yesterday makes my items Win All The Things ability seriously questionable, but not yet dead. always remember: if you don't see the body and cut off its head, it's not dead yet.

We did cull yesterday at around 1:40 pm PST.

** spoiler omitted **

i completely agree except that this sort of stress is what helps me produce my best stuff, lol. i'm VERY grateful for your confirmation!! it tells me that if my item was seen last night at 11 pm EST, it is not culled. that gives me hope.

however, i will not be moving away from my computer. i read on a website that doing that will make me die to death. i think the only solution is to either vote HARDER or do this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

;)

(serious--thank you SO MUCH for the update!!!)

I did submit.

...

i would love to see the numbers in terms of how many voters there are overall in a given season and then how many times each voter voted. my theory is that there is a cadre of 10, plus or minus a small handful, who do the VAST majority of the voting and thus determine the top 32. and if the snark thread is any indication, the voting process for that cadre is detached from the stated goal of "select the items that best represent the qualities of an awesome RPG designer," and instead vote based on a number of pet peeves that primarily arise from the cadre's subculture.

filigree doesn't make an item bad in any way, nor does it detract from potential superstar status. same for runes. and while i can say with confidence that i'm not a big fan of putting either in my item descriptions, i can also say that every snarker who's trashed runes or filigree has no doubt contributed to the death of most runed or filigreed items this year regardless of the quality of those items, and that is sad and a bit shameful.

the fact that many entries in a given season are blood-related, or undead-related, or lion-related, or what-have-you says nothing about any individual designer in any of the aforementioned categories/themes. it says something about the synchronicity of individual actions when viewed as part of collective activity. and it says something about the voting cadre--they're fatigued from looking at item after item and begin to take it out on the entrants by voting not for or against a particular item on its merits, but voting for or against it based on the cadre's subculture's pet peeves.

when it becomes about being the latest person to post a clever snark trashing a certain theme or element that is being seen across a variety of submissions, i don't think that's any different from voting a certain way because someone talked publicly about an item in a favorable or unfavorable way--it's artificially skewing the voting via the natural social effect that occurs whenever people in one's self-identified group (e.g., the voting cadre) voice an opinion about a thing.

one doesn't have to say 'the derpblade of derpa is terrible' to kill submissions. all they need to say is "jeez, did EVERYONE make weapons that trigger derp effects?!" then BAM, watch as a huge chunk of anything that derps gets culled. and yet to many in the cadre, such observations are funny and 'part of the process.' same rationale used in fraternity hazings, but that's another issue and i'm not writing about it now. i can't believe the folks in the cadre honestly believe such comments have no effect on item survival--identifying specific items is not permitted for the very same reason as what i'm talking about.

it just feels that some people (and not even 'all the cadre,' just a tiny few) believe they are taking the voting very seriously yet they help destroy entire themes or categories of submissions by being specific enough to identify the category or theme but not specific enough to identify one particular item. and so each item that happens to share that theme or category, or most, get axed because they share that theme or category rather than because the item would not go well in an adventure or even a homebrew game.

as for workshopping--ideally, no one would do it outside of people they know in real, physical life, but that's simply not the case. those who workshop here gain not only the advantage of the group wisdom and feedback; they gain the familiarity of numerous participants with their submission, which, again, leads to upvotes and more positive views of the items than would otherwise happen. the psychology behind it is simple and well-established. through workshopping, all involved gain a small sense of ownership or having contributed to the growth of each item, and that sense naturally leads those folks to see the items they've worked with in a more positive light, even if they think they're being totally impartial.

my take-away message for next year, assuming i'm truly culled (seriously, whoever hits the magic "cull now" button could have immediately posted a single post stating it had occurred, no matter how messed up truly-irrelevant voter tags got, and saved a bunch of people a ton of additional anxiety), is that i WILL workshop my item, for exactly the reason i wrote about in the previous paragraph. it's an advantage, and not super fair, but it's allowed under the rules and many, many people do it. to NOT do it is to deliberately disadvantage oneself, and given the stress i've felt since clicking the "submit" button this year, fighting with one hand tied behind my back is not worth it.

i will give next year's submission much thought, as i did with this year's, but next year i will share it in private groups prior to the contest and hope that doing so gives it the boost needed to at least make the top 100, if not the top 32.

and to be crystal clear--i don't think ANYONE is a jerk or deliberately skewing things, or knowingly trying to hurt any particular item or theme or category of item. i just think it's the natural outgrowth of the voting system. i almost wish they'd just allow non-paizo employees to publicly discuss items throughout round 1 without identifying the creator in any way. at least then EVERYONE's items could be discussed and receive the benefit or penalty of the momentum that comes with public discussion, rather than it being the unlucky few who happened to make an item that, for whatever reason, had a theme or element that was popular among submissions that year.

for anyone who read an angry tone in my previous post--no, it's not anger. like, at ALL. it's pure terror (hyperbole alert) at the prospect of having been culled in The Cull That Was Not a Cull.

So what's the group wisdom think here--if my item was confirmed as seen by a real life friend last night at 11:05 pm EST, but no sighting reported on the spreadsheet for today, am I probably culled, probably not culled, or "no way to know"?

Is there a reason why no one has posted anything official as to whether there has been a fourth cull? I would think with all the confusion someone would just post a simple yes or no to help those of us in full-fledged panic mode.

my snark about the snark thread:

1) this is not twitter. no need to live-tweet every single item you look at.

2) some of you people must be unemployed given the sheer volume of pots going on throughout each and every day. i am jealous.

that will be all. return to your regular snark.

Jason, I would do the map as what the GM would see, i.e. include secret doors.

i would be a fool to not take the advice of a man who's voted in every season 9 we've had..and that's a LOT of season 9s! ;)

(serious: thank, man!)

if this question is somehow not permitted, please do not reply to it and let me know so i can delete/edit it.

so...encounter map...for this format, if one wanted to have a trap door or secret door, how does that work on the map itself? isn't it intended to be something cartographers can turn into a map the players would be looking at? is it just advisable for these to not have secret stuff?

Jason Dandy wrote:

Lucky Pips wrote:

You should never say how or where your item can be found. That is tying the GM's hands, and removing it as an option for random loot unless the GM shoehorns something that might not make sense into their story. Also, it definitely doesn't make sense if the item was bought from a vendor or created by a PC. It has all the downsides of an item backstory, with the addition of forcing that back story to cross paths with the PCs. Avoid this like the plague. We are making tools and goodies for the GM to use to tell their story, not forcing them to tell ours.

If it says where or how an item is FOUND, that's not the same as saying what circumstances would exist if the item were instead CREATED...

While that's true, that means that a line in the items description is meaningless if the item was CREATED or BOUGHT, which is just a bad use of precious words for the item, and if it is FOUND the GM either has to adapt the story to the items story or invalidate that line in the items write up. All of these options are bad. While it could create an interesting hook for a GM, so can any item with compelling uses. Items should be used as tools by the GM to tell their story, not a script of a story created by the designer.

Another issues with saying how a weapon is found: Random loot tables.

i wish round was was over so we could talk candidly, as i think it would be an interesting and fruitful discussion. :)

You should never say how or where your item can be found. That is tying the GM's hands, and removing it as an option for random loot unless the GM shoehorns something that might not make sense into their story. Also, it definitely doesn't make sense if the item was bought from a vendor or created by a PC. It has all the downsides of an item backstory, with the addition of forcing that back story to cross paths with the PCs. Avoid this like the plague. We are making tools and goodies for the GM to use to tell their story, not forcing them to tell ours.

If it says where or how an item is FOUND, that's not the same as saying what circumstances would exist if the item were instead CREATED...

Such a shame. That's not how that particular special material works. I can't upvote for you in the face of your competition.

Would you mind PMing me? I'm curious about something. :)

Jason Dandy wrote:

Sea,weed can't have nice things because of sons of beaches like you!

Leave my parents out of this. They aren't pirates.

Well, not anymore."

i ashore you, i meant no offense. i would hate to make anemone of you.

Sea,weed can't have nice things because of sons of beaches like you!

Great, now I look at that more, I debatably overpriced my item. Now I'm going to cringe when/if I see it again.

Thinking on my snark a little more, it occurs to me that weapons tend to have bonus equivalents, but that sort of thing isn't really covered in those guidelines. Rules as written, it looks like it should be a flat price increase as a different ability. I'd thought it worked as flat bonus, but now I'm not sure.

Looking through UE it looks like that is the way to do it, but judging by the number of expensive armours and weapons it might need some clarification.

yep, it's totally confusing when making a magic weapon or armor that has an ability not already defined as a weapon or armor ability. +5 weapon price? easy to calculate. price of a +5 weapon that creates a spell effect in some roundabout fashion? rules unclear, results vary widely.

So, it has come to the point when I have to look at pricing to determine who to vote for!

As usual, the 3 most overlooked considerations that affect cost:

1) Use-activated or Continuous: If a continuous item has an effect based on a spell with a duration measured in rounds, multiply the cost by 4. If the duration of the spell is 1 minute/level, multiply the cost by 2, and if the duration is 10 minutes/level, multiply the cost by 1.5. If the spell has a 24-hour duration or greater, divide the cost in half.

2) Multiple Similar Abilities: For items with multiple similar abilities that don't take up space on a character's body, use the following formula: Calculate the price of the single most costly ability, then add 75% of the value of the next most costly ability, plus 1/2 the value of any other abilities.

3) Multiple Different Abilities: Abilities such as an attack roll bonus or saving throw bonus and a spell-like function are not similar, and their values are simply added together to determine the cost. For items that take up a space on a character's body, each additional power not only has no discount but instead has a 50% increase in price.

question: what if the item's spell effect duration is "instantaneous"?

Except Paizo can easily factcheck. If you say Steve made Jack's +1 sword of Doom, they'll see you're lying and ignore you.

word.

moral of the story--don't share your item with people who might out you during the voting. :)

Jason Dandy wrote:

dana huber wrote:

Ryan: short version: No.

You can have a small number of people review and workshop your item (there are no actual guidelines as to how many is too many, just a common sense rule), offering suggestions and critique; the restriction is to avoid large-scale, public self-identification of your item.

So: if you and three buddies workshop items together and submit, fine. If you post on the boards saying "Hey, Jack's +1 sword of Doom is doing great!" you have just screwed over Jack and disqualified him.

why would they DQ an entrant for someone ELSE identifying their item publicly? seems like a seriously misplaced punishment.

Because the end result is the same. As a voter, I know that Jack wrote that +1 sword of Doom. So instead of me voting for the sword, I'm voting for Jack. Sorry, Jack, but that means you're out.

I advised every single person I know at our local PFS not to reveal their items to people outside their workshop groups. The odds of seeing a particular item are dismal, so the benefits will never never never outweigh the penalties of some random person posting online and linking my item to my name.

think it through, though (and i say this with zero snark or condescension):

if i see items that scare me re: my chances to make top 32, i can make a fake account or ten, then proceed to use them to post such comments about the items i want gone, even if i attribute them falsely to the wrong people (or even fictional people).

my "regrets" are just good lessons for next time.

1) less expensive, no matter how confusing the item creation cost rules are.

2) either tweak a DC up slightly or remove a spell from the creation cost.

3) that's it. i'm totally pleased with the item beyond the above stuff, even if pet peeves of the champion voters kill it off, or it simply being not as cool as other submitted does me in.

Ryan: short version: No.

You can have a small number of people review and workshop your item (there are no actual guidelines as to how many is too many, just a common sense rule), offering suggestions and critique; the restriction is to avoid large-scale, public self-identification of your item.

So: if you and three buddies workshop items together and submit, fine. If you post on the boards saying "Hey, Jack's +1 sword of Doom is doing great!" you have just screwed over Jack and disqualified him.

why would they DQ an entrant for someone ELSE identifying their item publicly? seems like a seriously misplaced punishment.

I tend to enjoy "Pro undead" items. OR rather items that help out the measly little zombie.

Specifically zombies and skeletons. Mostly I just think necromancers are under loved.

And I love the idea of a "Good necromancer." I.E. A necromancer who studies death, and wields the dead, but asks permission first, and won't go gave-robbing or murdering to make his undead army.

i'm neutral about pro-undead items, but knowing now that so many people auto-downvote them because of some personal pet peeve (vs voting based on what is the best product of a future Paizo designer), i'll be auto-upvoting them from now on just to equalize one of those auto-downvoters. :(

Jason Dandy wrote:

dear magic voting randomizing machine of filigreed runic undead-creating dragon-powered orphan blood that grants randomized rogue abilities:

please stop pairing two good items or two bad items. at least stop doing it every single time. just give me a couple rounds of "bad item vs good." please.

My understanding of the sorting algorithm is that it dynamically ranks items and then wants information about comparisons between items close in overall rank. Telling the computer that a top 32 item is better than a bottom 10% entry isn't useful. Knowing if something is better/worse than something currently nearby is better data.

i know, i know (heavy sigh at the necessity of the algorithm of lawful neutral bureaucracy and mathematical sense). it's just HAAAARD... plus, i'm so burned out on the bad ones that i've seen probably 10+ times each even though i STILL have to wait a friggin minute before i can click the less-bad one.

dear magic voting randomizing machine of filigreed runic undead-creating dragon-powered orphan blood that grants randomized rogue abilities:

please stop pairing two good items or two bad items. at least stop doing it every single time. just give me a couple rounds of "bad item vs good." please.

You can't use that word. Thanks for getting my downvote in the first sentence though, saves me some time.

an "r" word, by chance? if so, i saw the same thing.

i'm reading on a couple other superstar threads that the first cull has just occurred. hopefully the updates to the list will resume with ferocious intensity. (hint: this guy really really wants to see if he made the cull.)

Who you gonna cull?

ghost(touch) busters?

Jason Dandy wrote:

Owen K.C. Stephens has posted that the next round will be a map. Based on that, I am fully expecting that next round will be a map.

That's high quality humor right there.

Jason Dandy wrote:

Based on totally different stuff, I fully expect that next round I will be watching as an observer only, not a participant.

The addition of this makes it amazing quality humor!

lol, good, as that was the intention!

i started off deciding to enter this year's contest with zero expectation or even hope of advancing to round 2. after hours of research and contemplation, i created something i'm not only proud of, but that i believe might have a sliver of a chance. so now i am looking at disappointment in 12 days, if not culled sooner, plus the body- and soul-ravaging anxiety of watching these forums like a hawk and voting incessantly. and i couldn't be happier.

Didn't last year the front page look a little different for this contest?

Didn't last year go something like?

Open Call: Design a Magic Armor, weapon Ring, Rod or Staff
Round 2: Top 32: Create a Map
Round 3: Top 16 Create a monster and a Stat Block
Round 4: Top 8: Design an Encounter with a Map
Round 5: Top 4: Submit an Adventure Proposal

And wasn't that sort of, known at the get go.

This year it's:

Open Call
Round 2: Top 32
Round 3: Top 16
Round 4: Top 8
Round 5: Top 4

This implies that the next round may in fact not be a map round. Is this only my secret worry or everyone else's as well?

I would like to be corrected, if I'm mistaken. Because, One of the things it seems like this contest does is change up expectations in the last minute to test people's "Creative Agility" as I like to call it.

Owen K.C. Stephens has posted that the next round will be a map. Based on that, I am fully expecting that next round will be a map. Based on totally different stuff, I fully expect that next round I will be watching as an observer only, not a participant.

I just read an item that was very fun and interesting, and formatted perfectly.

If I were playing in a stupid powerful game, that item would be awesome. Except... that it broke a vary sacred tradition in Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons.

So... I cannot in good faith vote for it. however, if this were NOT Pathfinder and say... All Flesh Must Be Eaten, I'd be down for that item every day of the week.

pretty please PM me what it is? i'm dying of curiosity...

If you make your magic item out of a specific special material, please understand all the rules of that special material.

would be very grateful if you wouldn't mind shooting me a PM with the material in question.

Favorite items thus far:

-A body slot that twists a spell in a can in a VERY interesting way.
-An armor that make me wish my cavalier was still around.
-A detection item which I did not expect to like
-A weirdo weapon with tons of flavor
-Another armor which riff off another item but in a good way
-A butterfly themed item
-A goblin's dream item

just vague enough hehehe

if you're not opposed to sharing via PM, i'm curious what the weirdo weapon with tons of flavor is. :)

pro-undead weapon vs anti-undead weapon

which went up, which went down?

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion."

is that the mentat mantra in dune??? (if yes, i'm impressed with myself, as i did NOT go googling that shizznit.)

houstonderek wrote:

Dude, chances in 1e of having a 17 or 18 in anything were pretty slim. What game were you playing?

And I'm not discussing the "impossibility" of anything. I'm discussing the probability that even an intelligent party could find the situation difficult, considering the realities of 1e. Seriously, I know you're old school, but you sound like a 3x munchkin when you're discussing this. Even using 4d6 drop, a 17 or 18 is rare. And you have no idea if the wizard in the party under discussion even had a wizard with an 18 int. For all we know, he could have had a 15, which is much more probable. And he may have maxed out his spells for that level before he could take the ones you cite. Different game, different paradigm and a whole lot easier for DMs to make...

In 1E, the chances of getting a good score were dependent on how many times you rolled until you got a set you liked. If the DM was a scrooge, you just killed the character off and re-rolled.

Or he let you get 4d6, drop best, and assign where you like. Odds of a 16+ go way up.

Remember, in 1E, you got NO BONUSES until at LEAST a 15 in most scores...16 for Str, 15 for dex/con/wis. If you didn't have high stats, you basically didn't have ANY bonuses.

Then go back and look at the NPC's of 1E. They almost always had a 16+ in their primary scores, and if they didn't have a 16 Con, you didn't play them because they were too squishy.

Seriously, we metagamed back then just as much as people do now. Just because you didn't see fancy TH vs AC analysis all over the place didn't mean we didn't spot the sweet spots in the game.

And then, of course, Unearthed Arcana came out, and 16+ in your stats was basically a given using the alternate methods. In other words, you finally reliably got to play heros, and not useless scuds only good if they stumbled across a set of Gauntlets of Ogre Power.

Too many people think 1E was like the example above, 3d6 in order, pick your class, and go. That was hardly ever true...

this post says it all. not everyone powergames like you describe. not everyone considers a character with no stat bonuses to be worthless--some of us are men, and prefer such obstacles as a good challenge. not everyone suicides their character because they don't like the stats and want to reroll. that's all munchkin crap. that's the game you play(ed), and more power to you and your permissive DMs, but your experience does not define the game any more than mine does or anyone else's does. but playing 1E with the rules as written, you're not likely to have a magic-user with a high int, you DEFINITELY don't get to roll multiple times for your chance to learn a given spell, spells don't fall out of trees just because you want them, and in no conceivable way was a 12th level wizard able to MELEE a bunch of kobolds.

houstonderek wrote:

You're playing the typical "has every spell he needs all the time" wizard. What was your roll to even know "protection from normal missiles"? Is it in your spellbook?

You make assumptions that the players were idiots, but you don't know how many know spell rolls the wizard may have missed. 1e wasn't 3x, you didn't just get whatever spell you wanted. And chances are, you didn't have a 17 or an 18 in Int, which meant you were even more limited in your spell selection.

I'm still going with permissive DM.

And I'm going with basic denial of reality.

A level 12 MU with a 17 Int has had 8 different chances to learn the Prot/Normal Missiles spells. The chance he has NOT been able to do so is 1/4^8, or .000001525%.

Chances are in most campaigns you DID have a 17 or 18 Int, because it was all important for learning spells. The regularity of spellcasters with a high primary stat was certainly higher then playing ones with crappy scores, unless you were a f/mu where it didn't matter so much.

In other words, you're trying to metagame the 'impossibility' of a high level wizard cleaning the clocks of a bunch of kobolds.

Dude, look at what you're arguing. That's HILARIOUS.

===Aelryinth

your misunderstanding of fundamental 1E rules is evident. even if you had a magic-user with a 17 or 18 int (which, by the way, is a huge stretch of an assumption, as many DMs used the 3d6 rolling method, and even with 4d6 it's unlikely), you onyl get ONE chance to learn the spell, not 8 as you inexplicably claim. read the PHB intelligence table II descriptive text. you get one shot at learning a given spell, and if you fail, you can never know it.

Sure they were. And you're missing the point.

The party should have wiped the kobolds out. Made it a priority and killed them. LOOK AT WHAT THEY COST THEM.

A 12th level wizard? He was like a god back then. Summon up a fire elemental, let it go...the kobolds are going to need a nat 20 to hit it, and magical weapons, it can go into any of the tunnels, and it eats their flaming oil and brush piles.

Fill the air with fog clouds and stinking clouds and cut off their line of sight and flush them out of their corridors.

Stone Shape their little arrow slits shut. Or open up the stone into the room behind.

Ice Storm for the AoE, or COne of Cold, or, heck, chain lightning. Every magic missile (unrestricted to just 5) is a kill as well.

Toss a fireball into those tight little kobold corridors for minimum damage. It would expand in the area of least resistance...down the tunnels. In 1E, that's 1300' of 5x5 corridors that are doing 17 points of damage...autokill even if they make a save. equip the party with fire resistance ahead of time, be completely protected from non-magical flames.

I'm sorry, mundane martial tactics are not equipped to deal with the variety and power of magical assaults, especially from level 0 creatures.

It's an entertaining story, but a stupid party. I enjoyed reading it. It was not realistic to any game I've ever been in.

And just for follow-up, Dragon Mountain basically brought Tucker's Kobolds into the service of an ancient red dragon, and did the same thing. The second Flame module in Dungeon featured suiciding kobolds all armed with necklace of missile fireball beads. The Axe of the Dwarven Lords introduced area effect missile fire so the goblins (1-7 hp) there could actually do damage to a party, and played the mundane defense game.

against a smart caster, none of this stuff worked all that well.

I played a LOT of 1E. You had to have some very single minded melee-centered parties to have this sort of problem. The story said there was a 12th level wizard...

Conjure Elemental took 1 turn to cast. ten minutes. ten rounds of attacks. if just one attack hit the caster, the spell was lost and would not go off. odds are high that your hypothetical wizard would not last long enough to get a fire elemental up and active.

then there's the fact that the kobolds were behind murder holes and arrow slits on behind every wall and whatnot--you could possibly try to convince a DM that the fire elemental can somehow squeeze through an arrow slit to attack the kobolds, but a DM could just as easily rule that this is impossible, or that the elemental could, at best, hit whatever kobold might be directly behind the hole in question.

fill the air with stinking clouds? line of sight to get the spell to go off, first of all, and second of all, good luck getting through the casting of the spell without getting hit (and getting the spell cancelled) while standing with your face essentially in an arrow slit so you can have line of sight.

stone shape--one round casting time (i.e., not going to get it to go off while being struck by multiple low-damage crossbow bolts and the like), plus you have to shape a piece of clay into a rough facsimile of the target shape. good luck getting all that done while being set on fire and hit with missile attacks repeatedly.

cone of cold is about as worthless as you can get when trying to hit creatures on the other side of a stone wall with only arrow slits as openings between the two sides. and with the ice storm, magic missile, and chain lightning options, again you're faced with having to essentially stick your face up to an arrow slit, behind which is a kobold with a crossbow bolt or a vial of flaming oil. wizard catches on fire, wizard can't cast until the fire goes out. and everyone can have fun as their clothing, spell books, and other gear burns to ash when and if it fails item saving throws.

fireball could be cast through an arrow slit, sure, and most of the effect would spread down the corridors, yes. some would return through the arrow slit, though, and the caster would be the one directly in the line of fire.

equip the party with fire resistance ahead of time? what duration (and, consequently, how far ahead of time are you talking about)?

the point of the story (Tucker's Kobolds) is that the things were innumerable, with more coming to replace those who died.

perhaps it's not about the players in the story being stupid, as you suggest. perhaps it's about a failure of creativity on the part of the DMs in your games, or an issue of enforcing some rules but not others to the detriment of the monsters and to the benefit of the PCs in your games.

there's always someone who has to be the dnd hipster, acting all "too cool for school" about someone else's story about an encounter or campaign. you missed the point entirely: creative use of monsters can make them way more effective as enemies than simply having them run at the players full throttle. whatever your preferred play style, great, but with a campaign where the DM gives monsters as much credit as he gives people in terms of intelligence and strategy, recognizing that you don't need to be a genius to set up adequate defenses and engage in combat intelligently, i don't think it's a sign of stupid players that relatively weak monsters hose the party by use of good strategy. it's always harder to stage an assault on entrenched defenders than it is to defend from a fortified position.

something like this already exists. it's called AD&D 2nd Edition.

(Sorry, just had to say it.)

Rather than "things were different back then" (i.e., trying to make a campaign world analogous to some point in Earth's past), perhaps it is more appropriate to say "things are different in that universe" (i.e., it's not Earth, it'll never BE Earth, and when the laws of physics share space and time with the laws of magic, the only things that matter are internal consistency and the logic in the system).

in the end, it's up to the players, who either continue to play in a given GM's world or allow other things to supplant game night. and the most direct influence on the players is the GM--he or she decides what the world is like at every conceivable level of detail. as a GM, one can either fixate and obsess on details the players will never care about; one can do the diametric opposite and ignore blatant inconsistencies in the world/story; or one can find some balanced middle ground and work up enough detail to satisfy his / her group and make a great story.

nearly everything is different in a fantasy world, versus on Earth. one tiny example of this is morality--on Earth, we either have an objective morality (God, who determines one's soul's eternal future) or utterly subjective morality (no God or anyone else deciding whether we're 'good' or 'evil'); in the typical fantasy setting, we have "gods," each with their own moral code and expectations for the people that fill the world.

the lone exception to the "nearly everything is different" rule is this: people are still basically, at their core, like people here. that's the thing that makes the game world something the players can relate to, that makes the story something the players can get invested in. keep that in mind and work with your players to establish a world that works for you and for the rest of the people who set aside their time to play in your world on a regular basis.

i'd like to add one more point here: a lot of the above discussion hinges on how high or low the GM has set the magic content in his or her campaign world. a low-magic setting would have a lot more in common with our Earth than a high-fantasy, high-magic world. if you're looking to create a "realistic" (i.e., internally consistent and logical) fantasy world, magic shops in every village, even INNS in every village is not in line with, say, medieval France. i tend to prefer a lower-magic setting that allows the players to come into contact with (and harness) the higher magics once they've leveled a great deal, which makes their accomplishments feel like actual accomplishments.