John Kerpan's page

A few posts ago, someone talked about how some words mean something negative to some people, but a different group sees it completely differently.

The term in discussion there means "a bundle of wood", and gets used in the UK for cigarette, and is a slur towards homosexuals in the US. The question was is he wrong for using a word he always has used, with a non-offensive meaning, in the US.

The answer should be: he says it a few times, and each time, people look shocked or annoyed. He asks why, and they explain what the word means here. They give him some leeway for being foreign, and he starts to use a different word out of respect.

Well, we now have a few people for whom ROLLplay is perfectly OK, talking to a chatroom of people saying "I do not like it" or "It is offensive" etc.

Maybe would should give people some slack, let them explain what they mean, but let them know why it is offensive, and see if their sense of pride can be won over by everyone else's concern :)

I like the idea.

1) what would a rigid cannibalistic hierarchy look like? Everyone lines up, and the cult elders get the choice bits while the initiated get toenails?

Also, Rhuelords sound suspiciously like Runelords, including the whole old culture destroyed with ruins, and lords who can be reawakened to cause trouble. I am sure there is another way you could go to distinguish what you are coming up with.

Here is a good read on how to incorporate traps a little more logically into your game. There is some general theory on how to let your players (not the characters) interact with traps, rather than reducing them to an arbitrary dice roll, as well as ways to incorporate rogue abilities so they do not feel useless.
Also, a great resource for cool, weird, and interesting types of traps!
Hackslashmaster

1. As for the negativity versus positivity thing: It is not just toddlers. When trying to encourage or correct your mistakes, telling your brain "don't panic" reminds your brain of panicking, while "stay calm" does not. Using positive reminders and encouragement with yourself at any age will be more effective than negative ones.

2. If everyone followed the rule of post constructive criticism, not hate-speech, then the constructive criticism posts would be fine, and the hate-speech threads might actually get down to the real issue.

People post inappropriately angry threads for a variety of reasons:

A. The ability to control other people helps them feel better about any number of personal problems in their life. -- If people reply civilly and try to respect them as a person, while still offering criticism, they might not need to act out in such as way as often.

B. People are passionate about something, and see different view points as attacks against their own character. -- If people reply civilly, and do not end up attacking the person for either their views or for their expression of those views, the situation can de-escalate much more easily.

C. People post too quickly, letting brief flashes of emotion turn an entire discussion off track. -- Replying civilly gives them the chance to calm down, and does not give them further fuel.

Be a bard with great knowledge stats.
Every time you see a building, person, monster, or plant, ask to roll the appropriate knowledge roll.

Torm, the problem is that you assume the adventure you the GM present is in fact what the characters will do. While this is of course a fine way to play, especially if the players generally like your plots, the players always have the option to do whatever they want to.
Many GMs (as it seems from listening to people who like posting complaints on the internet) have a preconceived notion of what the story will be. They know where they want the players to go, what they want the players to do, heck some even eschew experience and decide when in the pre-planned plot the players are going to level up. This sort of game, wherein you force the players to play out your story, and reward them with levels for doing what you want, and punish them with boredom or railroading if they try to do something else, leads to the necessary reminder that the "story" is what happens after characters interact with setting, and cannot be planned beforehand.
Another aspect of the story being a product of what happened, not what the GM wants to happen, thinks will happen, or will make happen no matter what, is the fudging of dice rolls. If the GM has a planned way the story needs to pan out to make the game "fun", then the players are not actually doing anything, because one way or another the GMs story will be told. If they accidentally would have discovered that the town fool is really the BBEG, then either the information is suppressed, or it is some other unassuming friendly NPC who gets changed into the bad guy. If some of the characters would be killed by a lucky goblin, then you fudge the attack roll. If the characters would luckily kill the BBEG before he can use his carefully staged escape plan, then the roll is fudged. It is these sorts of situations where it seems like the GM needs to remember that his job is not to write the story of the game, but is there to provide a setting with cool enough features that the players will like the story created simply by them picking things to do and doing it.

People doing cruel, thoughtless things out of fear, ignorance, or lack of critical thought is not usually what the people who are going to be posting about online here are talking about. Kicking a child out of your home while you are their guardian is illegal, so the moral debate is moot. Beating someone to death is illegal, similarly moot. The controversial posts here that get moderated are usually due to poor etiquette, inconsiderate behavior.

Making the actions "less socially acceptable" by calling people out on it and attacking them for it makes the groups more insular and resistant to change (see the problem with simply labeling someone as a "progressive" or as a "traditionalist" as a way to write off their opinions.

For example, simply by moderating posts here, the "wronged" side can turn it from an issue involving personal behavior (which should be examined) into an us-versus-them issue. Once it becomes polarized in this way, there is no impetus for either side to change or consider the position of the rest.

TheJeff, those are the views that should be able to be discussed. People who think gays should not be allowed around children do not deserve to be hated on message boards. People should be able to have discussions with them. They have that view because it is what they were taught, they had or heard about someone with a particularly traumatic experience, they are conflating gayness with pedophilia, or some other reason.
Also, in individual situations (without power involved), that person's opinions are harmless. As soon as that person has any power (being the head of a school board, a scoutmaster, a priest, a politician, a parent), and uses that power to force everyone to act on their position.
However, these causes of this belief can only be discovered, whatever it might be, if there is respect on both sides of the discussion. It is often out of ignorance that people hold on to lies as fact (that gays are more likely to abuse children), but once rooted, it is hard to force a change of mind. Instead they need need to accept it, something that will not happen when being flamed on a forum.

The personal belief system I try to base my responses (written and mental) is simply that "evil people" do not exist. People get very upset if others do not agree with them, and that turns the issue into a simple disagreement into "right versus wrong". If you think that gay people are sinners, that does not make you evil. If you think that Paizo should censor material they want censored, it does not make you evil. If you go around insulting everyone and stepping on their toes, it does not make you evil.

On the other hand, people can easily be internally inconsistent. If you think that gay people are sinners, and are somehow worse than any other sinner, you are in fact showing a lack of internal consistency. Similarly, you are betraying the tenets of your faith by taking it upon yourself to judge other people. If you think censorship on the forum is good when your detractors get censored, but bad when you get censored, and blame censorship, you are being internally inconsistent.

The problem is that everyone uses English differently, so people try to use their own definitions to prove other people wrong, even if they are using the same words differently (as someone astutely pointed out with the word "theory"). So it is easier to assume that someone else is simply evil, mean, wrong, wicked, and stupid than it is to acknowledge that they disagree with you but that is ok.

It becomes a different issue entirely when you move out of the realm of personal interaction and policy though. If one side typifies its behavior through exclusion of other, problems start. Just because a majority of people believe gay people should not be able to get a (non religious) marriage, it somehow becomes the law. Even though it is an internally inconsistent position, if people do not come to realize that, a prejudiced majority can cause actual harm to other people. Imagine if straight white Christian became an actual minority in power, and suddenly the majority decided to punish them for being different by deciding they could not vote, marry, have kids, or gain citizenship. Only then would the complaint of "majority rulings are not necessarily the correct rulings" make sense to the majority.

The main issue I have discussing these problems on a forum is that everybody is quick to attack and rip apart people different than them, and if the majority on a forum does this, how should the minority feel? If you love Paizo, but disagree with the majority of its customers, does that mean you should be attacked? In turn it creates a very defensive atmosphere, which only heightens the attack. On the other hand, one should always be open to critical thought, and not be so resistant and defensive that no thinking occurs. This is why the particular majority of "Progressive" has such a negative reaction to "Traditional". It is an inherent truth that Traditionalists cling to traditions, and the danger is that by doing so they stop thinking and considering new facts. When somebody argues, disputes, or challenges them, it is easy to write them off as radicals looking for attention, but without respect for the past. Similarly, a group of Progressives will react very strongly to a Traditionalist majority, writing them all off as stuck in their ways and unwilling to think. The middle ground, and the only route to understanding is sincere dialog, something that does not happen on a forum like this It is too easy for the majority to silence the minority, and the hyper-defensive nature of the minority makes it easy to ban their posts, since they are unlikely to be friendly and kind if the writer thinks everyone is out to get them.

Jaelithe, once you know something is an issue that concerns people (not necessarily the people you are playing with, but maybe even a society as a whole), pretending it does not exist is a choice.

"Requiring that inclusion in some highly noticeable fashion simply "because it should be there!" is in my opinion pushy at best and oppressive at worst."
--> more hyperbole for effect?
1) Simply existing is highly noticeable? Having even 1 in 10 taverns/shops/inns/etc manned by two women (heh) or run by two men counts as "addressing [homosexulatily] more in depth" "in a highly noticeable fashion"?
2) Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. The question was if you realize that any sort of exposure that brings a sense of normalcy and acceptance to a marginalized and discriminated against cultural group, and all it would take is changing the name of an in-game NPC to "Paula" instead of "Paul" and switching the M to an F on the notes, why not take that opportunity every now and then. Adding talk about forcing and requiring and pushing reflects some internal thought-process of your own.
3) Hyperbole is a technique use to win over crowds in an public debate. Its appeal is the impact of the exaggeration more than the actual content or opinion it represents. If you are replying to an actual comment, hyperbole shows a marked lack of concern about the actual position someone else holds, preferring to win rhetoric points.

As to your previous position, I did read the thread, but it is hard to link names with statements. Looking back, I find

John Kerpan wrote:

The danger with not including homosexuals in the game world is that it shows that you consider homosexuality something weird, unusual, and that you have to think about to even remember. It makes the assumption that "normal", "default" people are straight, and not being straight is (if not bad) an unusual thing that only happens for cool plot purposes (like hiding the identity of a secret lover).

Again with this. I simply do not think about an NPCs sexual preference untill it becomes important. And then i flip a coin.

To me, homosexuality is simply normal and i do not dwell on it at all. It doesn't concern me and i don't pay it any heed, unless a guy tries to chat me up or someone asks me about my opinion. Or if there is a poll or a protest of some kind.

And Hama, that is perfectly fine. To say it is normal, and include it is the only thing I suggested. That was not against you in any way, though you did seem to think it was.

As to Jaelithe, that sort of comment is not very helpful for a number of reasons.
1) What plot? I simply said ignorance of a problems leads people to not realize there is a problem. I also said the reactions to being told there is a problem can range from unconcern to denial.
2) Do you think there is a problem with raising awareness? Describing an appeal to (if it is not a big deal to you) make sure to remember a group of people when playing a game as an attempt to "portray unconcern as some insidious plot to demean grows tiresome" seems like a little bit of an extreme paraphrase?

In general, people are very unwilling to look past their "comfort zone". That means when people's comfort zone is wildly out of sync with the real world, they prefer to ignore the problems and differences in the real world.

People actually think that racism is dead in America
People actually think that sexism is dead in America.
Some people even think discrimination against sexual preference is not a concern.

The danger with not including homosexuals in the game world is that it shows that you consider homosexuality something weird, unusual, and that you have to think about to even remember. It makes the assumption that "normal", "default" people are straight, and not being straight is (if not bad) an unusual thing that only happens for cool plot purposes (like hiding the identity of a secret lover).

The argument that "I do not include sex" means gayness is not an issue is similarly short sighted. It means that you actually consider having sex as the important part of a (different than your) sexual identity. Since sex is not being shown, might as well assume all people are straight. Since straightness is normal, it does not even register that being straight involves just as much required discussion of sex as being gay does. This is why (for example) banning the discussion of "non-traditional" families in elementary schools is such a scary thing. When a teacher teaches about families (having a mommy, a daddy, and sometimes you even have brothers and sisters!), it is perfectly alright, but there is a huge number of people who refuse to let a teacher say that all families are different (some have two daddies, some have two mommies, some have one daddy and two mommies, many have one mommy and one daddy, but sometimes families even have only one parent) somehow involves teaching children about the sin of homoerotic sexy-times. This point has been very astutely pointed out many times!

Now, I understand that some people who did not realize their unconscious biases (remember, it is possible to be biased and not be a bad person) have a very strong reaction when it becomes presented to them. The easiest reaction is denial, and even more common online is outright attack, claiming that somebody saying that it's prejudiced against "differently-sexual" people to ignore everyone but straight people somehow constitutes an attack against the "goodness" of the person. It is not. If you were not aware how limited your world was, if you unconsciously equated homosexuality with sex rather than sexuality, if you thought not including gay people was ok because all your players were straight, you were being prejudiced. Now it has been pointed out, and there is an opportunity for you to very easily and without any problem work to lessen on an individual basis the prejudice that occurs, and the bias that is present against non heterosexuals. Make a few NPCs gay, in a way just as unobtrusive as every single other NPC is a non-sexually deviant heterosexual NPC: give them a partner, give them a family, have them talk about how hot some other NPC is, or whatever it is your normal NPCs do. Surely, unless are not actively anti-gay or truly think that homosexuality is a sin, you can make that small change to your world. It will not occupy any more important a place than your characters' sexuality did before. What it will do is make the world (the real world) a place that is slightly more aware, slightly more tolerant, and slightly more open and welcoming to people who are being pushed to the fringes of society, stereotyped, discriminated against, and (most sadly) ignored.

EDIT: there was a word-order issue that drastically changed my point in the last paragraph!

I find myself in the same camp as mkenner. In the sandbox world I ran, I made sure to provide the characters with level appropriate hooks, but any self-motivated exploring would have to make sense for the world, not the party.

One thing you could consider is writing some sort of preoccupation into your character, and allotting some of your skills, traits, and equipment into fleshing out that aspect of your character. For example, you could be trying to write an epic story of your own accomplishments: you would need to buy materials to write with, as well the gear required to transport it safely, and then you would spend time actually writing down reports of each battle (or, even better, hire a scribe to follow you simply to record the results of the battle). You could put skill points into profession writer, and even into craft(book), so you can make copies of your books as you enter new towns. You can then take a few feats that enhance your craft/profession skill, or some to help you manage and keep your hireling safe. Heck, you can even spend some of your money on the hireling to keep him well equipped and comfortable.

By adding this as a part of your character, you are in essence having to optimize more than one thing, and by making one of those things purely fun, you will be "weaker" than if you were optimizing for purely mechanical benefit, and hopefully you can find a side-obsession that adds to the overall game experience.

And this is why the GM and the players need to establish some basic ground rules and expectations before they start playing. If you can align everyone's expectations (I will be running this at 3+APL, so be careful; I will be running this as a sand-box, there will be random encounters; this will be a social based campaign all set in one city), you are less likely to run into these issues.
~~~~
For players who have only played super-combat hyperoptimization, they might need it explained to them that since social rolls will be a part of the game, someone who always fails the rolls will lead to the party's downfall just like a fighter who puts all skills into fleshing out their backstory in an APL+3 game. Also, letting people know that it will be at APL, so they have room to invest some points and feats into outside interests is perfectly fine.

As to the question:
6 and 7 Charisma is a -2 to ability rolls.

Bob the half-orc barbarian stereotype without any social skills and a 7 CHA and Robert the Half-Elf Bard without any social skills but a 14 CHA both walk into a bar, and there are a pleasant half-orcc and pleasant half-elf waitress serving tables. The waitresses begin Friednly, because Bob and Robert are common guests who always pay well. When both Bob and Robert decide to use diplomacy check on the respective waitresses to make them helpful (looking for leads on a case), the roll is a DC10 + 1 (high charisma there for the non heroic peon NPCs).

On a roll of 9-20 Robert will succeed (60% chance)
On a roll of 5-8 the attitude will stay the same (20% chance)
On a roll of 1-4 the waitress will be put off (20% chance)

Bob on the other hand will worse...
On a roll of 13-20 Bob will succeed (40%)
On a roll of 9-12 the attitude will stat the same (20% chance)
On a roll of 4-8 the waitress will be put off (25% chance)
On a roll of 1-3 the waitress will become hostile (15% chance)

How much worse, I would not say to the level of utter incompetence. The poor charisma person has a chance of really offending the waitress, but still has the highest chance to improve the attitude over any other particular outcome, and an above 50% chance of not screwing things up.

According to the game rules, that is how the low CHA character gets penalized. How the actual interaction is played out can be left up to the individual GM and player. Maybe the half-orc is too forward in his request, and scares the lady. Maybe he uses inappropriate language. Maybe he insults her in his request. Up to the GM, but the mechanical effects are played out.

They could be asking the party to do it because the witch knows the halflings personally. Alternatively, they could be using the party as a distraction so that they can kill the man while the witch is busy engaging the party.

@Adamantium Dragon

In PF, good is determined by putting the needs of others over the wants of yourself, and evil is determined by putting your wants over the needs of others. Lawful is your ability to follow a code because it exists, and chaotic is your unwillingness to follow a code simply because it exists.

Stealing a loaf of bread to save your family and yourself is a chaotic good act. You are risking your own safety to save your family's life. Stealing gold from the rich to give to the poor is a CG act, risking your own capture and death the make the lives of those you are giving the money to better. Similarly, refusing to give a starving man your loaf of bread is an evil act, as is refusing to give people so poor they will die money.

Killing a child to save the world falls is an outlier on the normal scales used in PF. In most games, the heroes will not be making that decision, but will ride in, top the priest from killing the child, and save the world themself. If you are presenting the heroes with this decision, it is hopefully because you and they agreed to have a game with moral complexity beyond the scope of PF alignment. Saving the world is definitely good. Killing an innocent being is definitely evil. Choosing an evil act for the greater good means a character who might need to seek atonement to cleanse themself of the horrible thing they had done. Any character who does something so terrible and thinks they do not need to atone is probably shifting towards evil.

Using real life examples and angry real-life name calling is not a way to get anywhere with an online debate over a game. I have tried to say similar things before, and gotten ignored, so how about addressing this now:
Evil = putting one's own comfort above other people's lives.
Good = risking one's life for other people's benefit.
Lawful = following a set code because you are supposed to.
Chaotic = refusing to do something just because a code says you must.
Finally, there are situations that force players to choose between answers that are not clear cut, but you should only do so if everyone involved enjoys moral grey-area (or does not care one way or the other).
Any thoughts?

There is a huge difference between sucking and being suboptimal :P

Almost everyone agrees that Wizards are super-powerful, and arguably the most powerful class in the game. This is close to the truth: they have access to the most spells, can know the most spells, and their spell list includes some of the most powerful spells.

Part of the balance, and part of the responsibilities of the class, is protecting the spell-book. When reading most of the wizard guides I have seen, all of the spell-book protecting spells are ranked as orange or lower. Why? Because it is not likely that you will have a GM target the spell-book.

Some players want wizards to be invulnerable, to be all positives and no negatives. Any intelligent foe will understand the power of a spell-book, and so they should order their minions to try to steal it, destroy it etc. And intelligent wizard will understand the vulnerability of a spell-book, and make sure that it stays safe.

The main problem comes from people wanting the game to be something that it is not :)

ciretose wrote:

Because character death is never part of a compelling story, said no fan of Game of Thrones or pretty much any decent fantasy fiction, ever.

Where "decent fantasy fiction" is defined as "fantasy fiction where protagonists die in the middle of the story".

If you leave out cases where the death is specifically a part of the character's story arc - Boromir falls to the temptation of the Ring, then redeems himself by dying trying to save the halflings - it's really uncommon in fantasy fiction. Isn't that part of what makes Game of Thrones appealing? That it's different? That death is common and strikes down imnportant characters seemingly at random and without thematic/dramatic purpose?

It's rare in fiction, not just fantasy, to have a major character, one with sub-plots and character development in progress, just suddenly get killed off without resolving the sub-plots and character arc. Yet that tends to be the kind of death people argue for in RPGs. Death by dumb luck or bad tactics in any old fight.

Obviously, when I say "death" here, I'm only referring to permanent death. If the character comes back, that's not death in a meaningful sense. The character's story continues.

Remember, theJeff, that when playing a role playing game, that there is not story until after it happens to the players. Players cannot be killed mid-arch, because until the arc is finished, it doesn't exist. Fiction has the luxury of the author being able to plan out plot-arcs, character-arcs, foreshadowing, et. al. because the author has 100% narrative control. This is a narrative control that the GM does not have in an RPG. If one of the players began as a petty thief but, after meeting with persuasive cleric, is trying to reform, there is no plot armor that keeps the thief safe from dying randomly from a lucky monster critical hit, or a failed trap roll.

When two sides are disagreeing so fundamentally on an issue, there are a few ways it can work out:
1) One side will sway the other by repeating themselves (this literally never happens)
2) Each side will hold firm to their opinions and get in an escalating fight (this happens a lot)
3) One side will realize that there is a major issue, and will try to calmly work it out, the other side will hold fast to their position and see any concession as a sign of weakness and proof that they have been right all along. (Happens a lot, especially in online fora where there is no real interaction between parties).
4) Both sides will realize that there is a major issue getting in the way, and they will both calmly try to work it out. (Does not happen nearly as often as it should).

The trick to getting from Fantasy option number 1 to ideal option number 4 is simply believing that the person you are talking to is telling the truth. When the moderators say "there were good reasons for it", and you say "these threads are being locked out of spite" the interpretation on each side to achieve result 4 should be "They think there are good reasons to lock these" and "he thinks we are doing it out of spite". If both sides have this realization, you can suggest "maybe I would feel less strongly if there were more consistent warnings, and the termination happened right when the [second/third] warning was ignored". The reply you get might still be "we try very hard to give appropriate warnings, but sometimes we make mistakes". Again, the trick is to believe them. When you see a locked thread you have an issue with, think "maybe there is a reason I do not know, or maybe it was a simple mistake". Either way, you can restart a thread, with an appropriate topic, and if the people posting stay civil and on topic, and the topic is not an invitation to fight (e.g. "Why only losers think playing monk is viable" or "100 ways that playing 4.0 is worse than cleaning up after a sick dog"), the there should be no problem.

3.5 Loyalist, I do not think it is complaining, or speaking one's mind that is the problem. I think the problem is general disregard to other people, particularly an intentional disregard of the staff of Paizo. You can be frustrated with threads being locked, and directly express that frustration. In fact you did, the discussion was resolved by the moderators explaining part of their rationale for locking threads. You started a second thread, this time looking specifically for exceptions to the few examples the moderators gave for locking threads. Either you thought that they were lying about their rationale and were specifically trying to make your life a hassle, you were so annoyed that the reply to initial discussion on thread locking was not resolved by them bowing to your wishes that you wanted to try again, or you were sincerely confused, and did not realize how the action would look to to the people watching. They told you to cut it out, explaining that they do not need to account for every decision, but that they clearly had reasons they thought were urgent enough, and you started a third thread. At this point the effect is antagonizing the staff here. You picked a time where it would not be moderated for a while, and you dared them to lock it before 100 posts. Now you start a fourth thread. This is not just being frustrated with them for unclear replies, that could be resolved through email or PMs. This is an attempt to prove how victimized you were when they ignored you three times, and did not change their practices because you personally felt that a few threads should be locked and they did. You have also explicitly stated that the threads are locked on pure whim, and explicitly stated that you think the staff here actively enjoys locking threads as a power trip. The issue is not the directness of what you say, but that you are openly and directly showing what little opinion you have of the people who work here.
kmal2t, you are a blunt and direct speaker as well, and you also speak your mind. Did you intend to say that you do not care about the opinions the owners of the forum have about how people behave in their forum? Did you mean to betray your lack of real concern about the company by calling out a productive and creative employee for not adding to the creativity of the company? If this is what you meant to say, then I think it is clear that you are disrespectful or ignorant. Either you called out Liz simply because she has an active presence on the board, and know nothing about her except her name (ignorant), or you deliberately attacked the reputation and performance of a very hard-working creator of game material (disrespectful). The lashing out in ignorance or disrespect is what causes the problems, not the frankness.

1) Why should you be forced? social pressure.
People are forced to do things they would not particularly like to do by social pressure all the time. If 5 of your friends want to see a certain movie, and you do not, you either cave to social pressure or you do not see the movie. If you want to argue that your friends should not see the movie because you do not want to see it, you will quickly find yourself without five friends. Similarly, as was pointed out by Arthun, if all but one member of the group are on board for trying rolled stats, you can either join in (being forced), not play that campaign, or you can injure your friendship by telling everyone that your singular desires override their shared desires. Maybe social pressure isn't fair, but it is real, and people either deal with it or do not participate.

2A) What is the benefit of rolled stats? Point-buy is an exercise in system mastery
If you use point buys, there exists the fact that there is an "optimal" choice for each class and each point buy. Either you will pick the optimal choice, and you will do well, or you will not, and somebody else could steal the spotlight. I guess in other words, point-buy suffers from explicitly being about character equality, but leading to rules enforced inequality. A MAD class will never be as good as a SAD class using point-buy. An experienced player playing a ranger will out-damage the new barbarian. The forums have many examples of players' optimizing putting the rest of their party to shame and making the game not as fun, and the point-buy system is the main enabler of that optimization.

2B) WHat is the benefit of rolled stats? Randomness -> creativity
When you come to the table with a concept already in mind, you have limited yourself. Not a bad thing per se, but certainly limiting, and these board show how often people showing up with a pre-conceived notion can lead to discomfort for everyone involved (But I want to play a gunslinger/paladin/asimar/ninja). If you show up with only a set of dice and an open mind, you will not be setting yourself up to clash with the GM.rest of party, but you might even discover a concept that you would not have considered before. Unless you roll supremely well, you will not have an optimized array for any given class. So lets say you roll STR13 DEX14 CON12 INT15 WIS9 CHA8: what class do I want to be, or what race? Nothing fits perfectly. Even on these forums there were a number of answers to this question: ranger, magus, wizard, witch, ranged fighter. None of them are 100% ideal, and that is fine, because (excepting some very lucky people) no one will have an ideal stat distribution for their character.f

For the love of all that provides divine magical power!
I think it is obvious that
1: Moderators are people
2: People can be inconsistent
3: Nobody likes being loudly and unreasonably criticized repeatedly
4: On a forum with hundreds of thousands of discussions, the three cases he uses as proof constitute zero proof of a pattern.
5: He has chosen a very trivial way to attack people in control because he thinks it is fun and proves his righteousness, and the allure of internet martyrdom proving the truth of his personal persecution by the wicked powers that be is more important than civil behavior or calm introspection.

Do some threads get locked by personal reasons? Probably.
Do some threads get marked because one or two people decided to flag every post? Possibly.
Does the administration really need to defend themselves for every thread locking, and explain the rationale behind their decision? Not at all.

Sometimes they might have a very good reason: personal experience with thousands of similar threads, personal opinion on what is acceptable on the company message boards, people ignoring warnings in the thread, trends they have been noticing as they monitor the thousands of threads.

But the crossbow has its own advantages, ones that have been previously stated: a militia of commoners will perform better with crossbows than with bows. For low STR characters whose main focus is not ranged attacking, the crossbow is fine.

Also, the idea with rolling stats, as the original poster suggested, is that it is done before you come up with a character concept. Then if you get your high INT/CHA low WIS/DEX character, you can say: "Sibyl!", but if you get a high STR low everything else, you can say "I wonder how long Fred the fighter will last?"

53. Dump stats not vital for the mechanics of your character to 7, then complain if the GM targets your low Will save, checks encumbrance, or in any way tries to use your gaping weaknesses against you.

One thing that I find inspires creativity is using random generators as seeds, and figuring out how the word will grow from their.

If you look at some sites like the Alexandrian, Welsh Piper, and I am sure there are others, they discuss all sorts of theories and techniques for generating worlds, plots, adventures. One particular thing that is discusses that it sounds like you might like is how to include modules and plots into your own adventure, and how to deal with it if they do not follow the path at all.

Ryujin, maybe you should try thinking of magic a little bit differently than how it appears in the rhetorical box you have decided to place it.

-- Magic exists as an independent thing from its casters, and while you can "know" a ton of spells (See your spell-book), to cast one requires using your mental power to hold it until you want it to be cast.
-- You only have so much mental energy you can use without resting, and that amount increases as you get a stronger brain and more experienced at casting spells.
-- You can either hold all the spells possible in your mind, having studied and followed the rituals recorded in your spell book for an hour, or you can leave some of your mental energy free, so you can spend only 15 minutes binding the energy for a specific spell in the middle of your day.

Mr Sin, I believe Ciretose's opinion is that a primary task for both players and the GM is facilitating party cohesion, and that the GM does that through figuring out what sort of issues can/will arise from the party (A CE rogue and a LG paladin in the same team; a goblin and a kobold), while the players job is to behave in a way that also makes the players work as a team.

Again, since the back-story is simply a creative explanation for how they got their powers, and it is not seeking to get the player more power than he should, why should he face a "punishment"?

You can incorporate the angry celestials into the plot of the story, you can incorporate the scheming devils into the plot of the story. You can have it be the devils were using the weak nobody to achieve a higher end, and that is why they do not bother to hunt down the weak sorcerer until he becomes even sort of a threat.

There is no reason to punish creativity. There is no attempt to get unfair advantages. Why not use the creativity positively. There are infinite ways you could choose to incorporate this event, tons of ways to make it not completely unbelievable for a nobody to do so. Why not just run with it.

On character backgrounds:

1) Just because a player has not given the GM a character background does not mean that they do not have plans and ideas about it, or even more generally a feel for the kind of character they are.

2) Any details that do get provided should be checked by the GM first, and if approved should not me tampered with.

3) Any details not provided should be asked about before the GM decides to run with them. If you say nothing about your family, then the GM should ask you at some point, "what did your father and mother do, do you have any siblings". This type of question is good for getting players involved anyway. If they say, "I never knew my father, but my mother was a field worker, and refused to answer questions about my father", I would ask if they the player have any opinion about the identity of the father. If they want him to be someone specific, there is a great plot hook you can work in. If they do not care, then the GM can create whatever they want.

On to the specific post.
Since the GM okayed the story, magically changing it is a low blow. Since the character does not get any extra power, there should not be a specific down-side to having the power. The fluff retribution (if the GM decides to roll with it) should be CR and plot appropriate. No team of 10 angels showing up to kill a level one character. That kind of back-story can provide a ton of in game elements without any sort of petty, one-sided decision-making.

The fluff says the gods are watching. The fluff says the alignment (and fate) is up to the player. The rules give no guidance on how the god's watching will effect the game.

As for the item. Forcing the player to use it is another low blow. Giving them the option, and a chance to identify it, and then ways of removing it after is fine.

Jiggy, the idea is that you will often hear someone say "by level N, this build will be able to contribute nothing to combat because of X,Y,,Z." Or you will hear "A rogue who focuses on skill-monkeying is dead weight in a fight" etc.

The goal (as far I can tell) is to figure out the baseline threshold for "competence", to determine when having 2 more STR is necessary, or what the safe baseline CON would be etc...

I've never raised a purple egg,
I've never even seen one.
But if thats what you have to raise,
I hope its not a mean one!

master_marshmallow wrote:

I have admitted that I was wrong with the Grease spell, but I did nothing wrong as far as the rulings are concerned with the rest situation. I let them roll a d8 just to see if they rolled an 8 and I wouldn't make them have to rest more... it was a courtesy, not a punishment.

Umm so you STILL holding the line that you didn't mess up the ruling here? Seriously? The rule isn't you roll a d8...the rule is you take 1 extra hour per interruption (am I even willing to give you guard duty as interruption as a DM call). So yes there is 1-2 interruption...they sleep one or two hours more. They don't have to tell you that anymore then they tell you they eat breakfast or go use the restroom unless you as a DM makes that extra hour or two an issue with more random encounters or some other happenstance. Seriously you fraked up with this. So yeah, your ruling was indeed a HUGE punishment.

And you flat out told you players you didn't rest enough, you don't get spells back. And when they didn't ask to rest more you punished them with no spells. That's like telling players as they enter a room, you see nothing. Then have a bunch of people surprise them because the players didn't ask for a perception check. Part of your job as a DM is to advise players of when the heck things are happening. you FAILED at that job in this ONE instance. Try not to do that again in the future is not a bad advice...I have no idea why you just absolutely have to hold on to you made no mistake in this. Seriously, you so much more reasonable in other threads I have seen you in.

It seems like you are going in somewhat the wrong direction here. The d8 role was a boon. If they had rolled an 8, they would not have to waste an extra hour sleeping. When they did not roll an eight, all they had to do was say "we sleep for another hour". Or ask "is there any way to regain our spells without taking another 8-hour rest". Or say "wait, you mean we do not get our spells back, Why??". Or say "This sounds fishy, and I am not sure about all of these sleeping rules, can we take a break to look them up?".

Instead they thought that it was mean and unfair they didn't luck their way into full rest even though they were interupted.

What are players entitled to?
What are GMs entitles to?

Nothing. The game only exists as a social contract between different people on an individual level. A GM is not entitled to players, and players are not entitles to a GM. Neither side is entitled to have fun. Neither side is entitled to get all of, some of, or nothing of what they want.

I think it has been made clear on the boards in this discussion that everyone has different opinions on what a GM should do, what there role is, where their power lies. Who cares whether there exists someone who will call your style "benevolent dictatorship", or call you a "frustrated novelist"? Who cares if some people online think you are a "powergaming munchkin" or a "special unique snowflake"? What it boils down to is each game played is a social contract between you and the other players, and as such, mutual respect, honesty and recognition of other's dignity comes into play.

If you cannot play the game unless you are a gnome, and the GM's world does not allow gnomes, it is up to the individual foibles of you and the GM to work it out. The reasons you have for wanting to be one are endless, as are theirs for banning it. You need to think about your reason for wanting to, and see whether you can have fun doing something else, and the GM should think about why they banned it, and see if they can figure something else out. If it crosses the line, and making concessions makes the game un-fun for either side, then they have the privilege to back out, and certainly do not have the right to impose their desire on another person.

It is this fundamental truth that gives power to the GM over an individual player. If there are 6 people wanting to play PF, and a GM comes up with an idea that four people like, and the 5th does not, the 5th's exercising of his power does not stop the GM from having a game.

Keep in mind, you also do have to wait a day to refresh spells.

"To prepare his daily spells, a [sorcerer] must first sleep for 8 hours. The [sorcerer] does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If his rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time he has to rest in order to clear his mind, and he must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing his spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, he still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells." (From the rulebook).

So each day you cannot refresh your spells unless you have rested 8 hours. So you cannot use all your spells, sleep for 8 hours, use all your spells, sleep 8 hours, use all your spells, sleep 8 hours, and have three uses of your Daily spells :)

The part of this thread I like the most, other than the very insightful guidelines for judging the behavior of a paladin, is the argument between people who say "whatever you as a paladin-player and your GM work out for how Paladins should work is fine, and communication is key to make it work" and the people who say "No, that is wrong! You should do it my way, as any sane person would realize if they were really thinking about it." If you are my GM, and I want to be a paladin, and I say "what about this kind of code that allows lying for the greater good?", and you say "No, that is wrong! You should do it my way, as any sane person would realize if they were really thinking about it", you will lose a potential player. This is why communication between each GM and paladin player is essential. For those who agree with the my-way-or-the-highway crowd, then the communication between player and GM has been successful. The entire argument seems pointless assuming there is any good faith communication between player and GM :)

I am thankful to play approximately half-a world away from most of the GMs who posted above.

I believe that all we read above basically deter a player from getting involved in his character.

Why should we be surprised then that games turn into hack&slash fests with players having no involvement in the ROLE-playing part ?

If the common reaction of the player when his PC dies is supposed to be just a shrug and reaching for another PC sheet to fill with numbers, people have absolutely zero right to complain about players turning into power-munckins of the first order. Nor about players having zero interest in their GM's story.

After all why should they show respect for his efforts if the GM himself has zero respect for the effort of creation they put into their character's backstory ?

And frankly, this is the message I got from reading this thread, even if it was not the one intended (which was maybe just another rant thread against "entitled players").

I believe that respect and trust are the keys to having real fun with friends, especially in RPGs. And that they should not be one-way streets.

I do not think anyone is saying you should be uninvested in your character. The problem mentioned was

Not mentioned in the original post, but brought up soon after:
B) players who come into a game world with a huge background that does not fit into the world. This is most easily solved by both player and GM acting like rational, brain-having people. You say you were kicked out of Suchandsuch Acadamy for Healers for destroying property in a youthful prank. I say there is no such school nearby, but there is a Druid college, would you like to switch it to this college (and heres some basic info about it). You say you could, but it really only makes sense with healers, and I might say, well you give it a try and I will think about what town could use a healer's college, and you can be from there. Some slight details might have to change though, is that ok. We would end saying, I will think about what you said, and we can discuss this after I have looked into adding the Academy and you have looked into the college. Now lets play the game, and not let this backstory be an issue.

C) Not bringing a printed out back-story means you are a powergaming munchkin? Not an issue, and an insulting assumption to make. I love my bastard halfling bard who grew up at the side of a military training school, helping his mother clean up after the troops. He honed his archery skill using the butts after training, with arrows he had repaired from his cleaning. He always hoped his mother was telling the truth when she said his father was a powerful dragon, but when reality kicks in, he realizes such stories are probably not true. I play my character as if he has a low wisdom (says what is on his mind, even if it is silly or embarrassing, as long as it does not disrupt the party plans), high charisma (tries to be adorable in his silliness), and keeping his background in mind with his interaction with the world. Never wrote a word of it down, and never tried to force to DM to incorporate my backstory into his world. No need to.

The problem is that RAW is very rarely written in a way that is completely unambiguous in terms of meaning. Most designers don't have the time or the resources to vet every possible scenario and interaction of the rules furthermore excessive legalese in terms of rules writing leads to a hard to read document in many ways. They are certainly harder to write for most people.

Really tight rules with little variation in RAW and RAI are possible for relatively less complex games (chess and board games) but the sheer amount of flexibility that a RPG game system generally seeks to provide guidance simply can't be covered in a reasonable page count without relying on the GM and the players to read between the lines and come up with workable compromises.

Even in a very straightforward game like chess, rules that seem clear have some unintended consequences. In a game in 1979 (i think), a player moved their king pawn across the board and turned it into a rook. The king had not moved, the new rook had not moved, there were no pieces in between, and the king was not in check on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd rank. So the player castled. Moved his king from e1 to e3, put the rook on the opposite side. Clearly against RAI, given they had to rewrite the castling rule, but totally RAW. And that is chess. If it took 2500 years to get the wording perfect for a simple three step process to eliminate all loopholes and unforeseen rules interactions, imagine how hard it is in PF :)

In the section where you discuss which party members should have what initiative, there is a typo. It says that hammers should be best (supposed to be anvils). it confused me horribly, since I was worried maybe I had not been getting what you were saying as well as I thought. Then I saw the part where you made it clear hammers should go last, and all was right again.

But mplinindusatries, I do not think you understand!

I do not collect money to spend it, I just like looking at the pretty faces, and who the heck wants to start at another picture of Jackson? You do not understand my economics style!

Killing for the sake of killing does not gain xp if the DM says so. However, awarding the PCs with levels when they reach the part of the plot you think is appropriate sounds like a common tool used in very narrative, railroaded games.

It will of course matter depending on the DM running each game, but if I am being awarded in a checkpoint-like system, that is assuming checkpoints exist that are not in my control, and may not be in my own interest to find. If I want to murder a town for XP, I had better become evil if my alignment had not been before, and I am going to soon face the ramifications of my actions(Survivors turning into avenging adventurers, military from the kingdom, forces of good who have noticed the sudden shift in the balance of good and evil or whatever). Why should I not get experience from doing what *my* character wants to do, and why should my character be forced to follow a story made up by someone else in order to level up?

(This is a gross hyperbole of motivations, styles, and methodologies of "railroaders" or something, but the main point is not completely made up)

The truly sad part is that this thread spawned not only from the type of comment made by the fly-guy, but was an actual add-on to his argument when brought up. Never has parody been so painfully true to reality :)

1) Fighters cannot fly based off of their class skills.
This is true!

2) This in no way impedes their ability to kill flying creatures.
Also true!!

It seems like the spectrum of versatility over time has been largely ignored.

A fighter sits on one end without very much versatility, but what he does have never depreciates. Fight after fight he will be performing basically the same. So low versatility that stays the same over time. (To preempt the common argument: HP is something that will go over time, so a fighter will eventually die. This drop in HP happens to all characters over time, and fighters and their buddies on the spectrum usually have more HP than the other side.)

On the other side of the spectrum sit the wizards. They begin an adventuring day with an amazing degree of versatility, but every time they use one of their options, they drop in versatility. After they have used all their spells, as some one once put it "they are just commoners in funny clothes". So they begin very versatile, but if they use up their powers they end up much much worse than the other spectrum end. (The common argument: it is not just spells, they also can have prepared scrolls and whatnot. That does not change my point. Each scroll they use lowers their versatility too, and also is a loss of money.)

Even though it might not happen that there are enough fights in a day to drain the wizard's spell (thanks to nice GMs), or maybe your GM always lets the wizard get a full, uninterrupted 8 hours every day (again, a nice GM). Whatever the specifics of the circumstances, over time the wizard-type will lose versatility while the fighter will not. How this balances out is largely a matter of player skill and GM foibles.

1) The organization enjoys chaos

2) The organization is looking for power, and can remove the possession, saving the city and taking control with full support of the ignorant people

3) The leader of the organization is a demon

4) The organization is following prophecies from an ancient book.

5) Something terrible was going to happen to the city anyway (huge natural disaster like) and the organization decided to concentrate as much evil as possible in the city in order to wipe it all out at once

6) The high priest was close to discovering their secret, and they
needed to get rid of him. They never realized how vicious the demon would get

7) The organization was trying something completely different, messed up, and is now doing there best to solve the problem

8) The head of the organization worships a god of destruction and chaos, and is just following orders

9) The organization is one of scientists, and they are using the whole world as there lab. In this case they are studying [insert something like human suffering and its effect on the planes/whether there is a theoretical equality for bad/good, and measuring how a spike in the bad side could cause an equal spike in the good]

10) The organization is seeking the favor of the demon, and just allowing him to do what he wants to achieve some reward

Imagine for just a moment a 10th grade Latin class. Some students in the class spend all their time each night studying for Latin and Latin alone. Some students study a little bit for Latin, but a little bit for other classes as well. Some students spend most of their time in sports practice, and dedicate only a little to Latin each night, if at all. Some do not do any schoolwork period.

As a teacher, what do i do? Do I target the class to the small number who only study Latin, with the rationale that anything easier would be too boring for the students who really care, and since the other students would do poorly anyway, who cares how poorly they do?

Do I aim at the "good students" who study for all of their classes each day? This will bore the very good students, and still be above the level of the "bad students" who do things besides studying.

Do I aim at the "bad students" who spend most of their time outside of school not studying? This allows everyone in the class to do well, but will leave all those who truely love the class bored, and even the good students will feel left out.

I guess the easiest thing to say is that focusing on any one group is a bad policy, because it will never engage anyone. As a teacher, I can give extra work or responsibilities to those who are willing and eager to learn even more Latin. I can give exercised that range from easy to challenging in difficulty, to minimize the time any group feels ignored (or I can assign things with no target difficulty, that allow people to work at their own level with no outside pressure). I can spend time and effort to help the poorly performing students get a grasp on what they are missing.

Also, I have to remember... a students value has nothing to do with how well they do in a Latin class. Maybe they spend all night studying math, practicing guitar, playing basketball. As soon as you put that student into a different context, they will have a chance to show what they are good at.

Also one has to remember that some people are just better than others. it is a little bit Hallmark-y to assume that everyone has one thing that they are just better at than other people. Some people are objectively worse than other people at everything they do. Maybe they have not found their niche, maybe they never will, but even so, it does not affect their value as a person.

When people discuss RPGs, and start using words like powergamer, munchkin, liar, troll... they lose sight of the humanity behind RPGs. They are primarily games about group dynamics. The party in-game and the party out-of-game are equally important. In my experience, there are very few evil people, or even bad people. To assume that the people you are playing with are evil, bad, stupid, etc. is just a way to avoid the problem.

A powergamer is the person who studies Latin all night. They rock in a Latin classroom. The fellow students might be annoyed by this ability. It could be because they are shallow, jealous people, or it could be that they feel that being good at something does not mean you get all the spotlight, can talk down to your fellow classmates, etc. They might even be annoyed because they know they could beat the person in chess, be a better biologist, or simply have more fun than that committed student. Maybe they are upset because they feel like this person is actually better than them, and the disappointment makes them angry.

The teacher might be annoyed as well. Certainly it would be no fun to have a student feel like they are better than the teacher. Even if the student knows more trivia about Latin, Classical History, Mythology etc., that does not mean they have the same life experience, teaching ability, perspective or anything. Dealing with people who feel superior to you is never pleasant.

Does this mean that studying Latin exclusively makes you a bad, prideful person oblivious to the suffering and anguish of others? No, of course not.

The problem is not with the approach. The problem lies in a number of other places. The way the fellow students perceive the student. The way the teacher perceives the student. They way the student perceives everyone else. The way the class is taught. The way the class is managed. The perceived social importance of Latin.

The problem is not with powergaming. The problem is with people. People problems are not solved using RAW or RAI. They are not solved by picking favorites. They are not solved by personal accusations. They are solved by recognizing the cause of the problem, and then by working with people to come to an solution amenable, or at least acceptable to everyone. There is no perfect solution. The solution is different for every group, for every person. If one sinks to anything lower than mutual respect, and honest discussion, the solution will fail for at least one of the people.

@Dennis Baker: That may be how you like to run your gaming table, but not all players are trying to cheat the system, and certainly not all GMs have the same opinion as you when it comes to house rules. Using an statement "as a GM" as your lead in seems to be saying that this is a GM-based opinion, not your own personal opinion.

Why no just leave it at "If your GM allows it in your home game, that is awesome. If not, find a new character idea to try. In PFS, expect the most strict rulings and no 'creative leeway' from the GM".