Pan's page

I love you Paizo!

All this OGL nonsense has me feeling like its 2008 again.

Guess who's back in the MFing house?

Heya folks. This is a kerfuffle isnt it? Not sure how OGL 1.1 is going to shake out. My suspicion is that WotC wants everybody using their new 3DVTT like folks use Apple app store. Not sure how it will work. Im hoping the third party market comes together and makes their own OGL and thus history repeats itself for WotC. Though, it could go a lot of ways.

As for D&D One, not been super interested in 5E so far. Its fine, but its not nearly dedicated to character options as I would like (hey im a 3E/PF1 guy after all!) So, a GM really needs to sell me on a 5E game. Otherwise, ill be pretty bored. Dont know too many people who love or hate 5E, seems to be everyone's second favorite RPG system.

D&D One isnt doing much so far (via playtest) to change the above. Why mess with success right? I was interested in a set of anniversary core rule books because that seems like a cool milestone and collectors item. Also, I never bought any core 5E anyways. With OGL explosion buying any D&D One stuff is all on hold now. I mean, how cant it be?

Cheers.

I won't mention their name because I don't ask permission to do so, but we lost another forum member this week.

sad.

Im hoping for the modules they talked about in NEXT to happen in 5.5E.

I think I preferred the delusional Peacemaker. The fact he is so efficient makes him scary. This ignorant anti-hero who needs redemption bit is tired. Like many of the jokes so far in PM.

Thoughts on episode 4…..

** spoiler omitted **

Vigilante is shaping up to be the best part of PM. Though, I gotta say it makes me feel all kinds of bad to want to see Robert Patrick running around as the White Dragon. Also, Danielle Brooks is at least not as wooden as the other actors on the show. I do like her character as Wallers daughter.

Who owns the old Lucas Arts stuff? Id love to see a reboot of The Dig and Maniac Mansion.

meh, will wait for stream.

:(

It's 90's TV King, so its going to have that made for TV feel. If that seems to tickle the right sentiment for you, give it a shot. Otherwise, I'm guessing it will seem very dated and dull by todays standards.

I think so far the big mistake is not developing the main characters. Suian sanche has more characterization at this point than all three male leads.

It was really odd that the middle wheel spinning episodes focused so little on the main characters, not even the villains, but the support characters got all the focus. Not saying these characters are not good, but so little is spent on the dragon reborn potentials.

I kind of hinted at this earlier, my opinion of course, but there seems to be an Amazon formula for their series. They all tend to feel the same. 3 excellent episode dump that sets up the season perfectly to start, then followed by tons of wheel spinning filler, and finally an overstuffed season finale that moves at break neck speed.

I know Amazon is content on doing a weekly release, but the content so far doesnt work well for it. Amazon is getting better all the time, but they are not WB/HBO level yet. I wish they would rethink their series formula and try something different.

I really enjoyed the final episode. The middle of this season was really boring. I like the set up for more stories to come, though hope some of the villainous folks get more screen time.

I thought this thread died?

Non-reader, watched the first 4 episodes over the last 2 days. So, are we supposed to care about the characters? Because I found no reason to care about the 4 suspected dragons throughout 4 episodes. The magic lady and her warder? There's a little to work with there, but mostly because of him. Too many sweeping wide shots of landscapes. Each one takes me out of what little engagement I have with each episode. I don't get it.

Yeah, I dont have too much interest in the characters either. So far, the only thing keeping me interested is learning about the world, the mystery, and this journey to the tower. Im hopping not, but expecting, my interest to plummet once they reach the tower and info dump us on all this dragon reborn stuff. Kind of like LotR once fellowship ends.

World's most interesting Pan wrote:

Had some Eagle Rare tonight. Delicious!

You were actually able to score a bottle? Nice!

** spoiler omitted **

EDIT: That reminds me, don't recall if I mentioned my Blanton's experience -- I really wasn't impressed. It was like they were trying to do too many things at once and it muddled the taste profile of the bottle I had.

I wish. It was at the bar my sister in law manages.

I actually liked the subversion of the super villain trope with BoE. There is all kinds of stories in the past, but now they are just tired old folks. More importantly, some of them want to change and seek redemption which is the theme of the season.

Thats the thing that keeps me coming back to Doom Patrol its never your typical journey. Oh, and its weird as hell.

Thomas Seitz wrote:

Yeah in the books Perrin doesn't get married until about book 9. I don't blame Joel for being bored since after rereading the first 5-9 chapters, they made some SERIOUS changes that I don't think served them well. (That and the fact they really have mishandled Men channelling)

Mostly I'm fine with keeping going because I know the story beats better than I know my own hand, but I admit there are some very odd choices.

I do think they should have done the opening chapter as a kind of prologue to give people better scale of what happened with the Breaking, The Dragon and everything else.

I am a little surprised though that Joel didn't mention Thom since he's kind of important too.

As someone who hasn't read the books, I don't care if his wife was new or not. Just that it was weird they never spoke to each other since they were married. Whether or not the marriage was happy or not, they could have said something.

And I actually wish they had less prologue. All the prologue stuff at the beginning of the first 2 episodes were so out of place and meaningless they could have just been skipped. Use the characters from Two Rivers as sheltered and not as worldly, so they can have this stuff explained to them as it comes up. Essentially, use them like companions to Doctor Who so that the Doctor has someone to explain things to, when it's relevant.

Yeah the info dump was general and not specific. I would have preferred if they told us some of the factions so we have some idea whats going on. All we know is that there are women wizards and apparently folks who kill them on sight. Been nice to know some of that before hand. Also, yes its fine having two rivers folks be rural and not know the world and use them to expand it for us audience.

That's odd. They cast Alexandre Willaume (previously seen in THE LAST KINGDOM) partially because he's a good actor, but also because he's a professional singer and guitarist as well. I thought his singing was fine for the grizzled audience he was playing to. The song about Manetheren, sung off-the-cuff by a bunch of country folk, also seemed fine for what it was.

I'm an amateur singer and musician, and I thought Willaume was fantastic. /shrug

So does anyone think that we'll get more dialogue for Dave Baustisa in the next movie?

Most definitely. I cant wait to watch him fail at running Arrakis.

Another thing I noticed.

With the show being "diverse" and having EVERY scene with alot of people from different real world cultures, all the cultures in the world of the show look the same so you can't tell that they are talking to different cultures and meeting different types of people.

Perrin and Equine met The Tuatha'an. there is white, black, asian, ect people among them. Mat and Rand end up in another backwater town with white, black, asian, ect people in the town.

If EVERYONE and EVERYPLACE the characters
go to looks the same, there is zero diversity because every culture they are trying to honor looses their individuality.

I am actually fine with this. There are no Asian, Black, etc... people in WoT that I am aware of. No need to call any of that out or honor anybody. It is really nice to just see a variety of people, just being people. I do think they could have made folks clothing and accents a bit different (they even call such out in the dialogue).

I am actually ok with no second season. I think we could do with more limited series. You get too many seasons going and it really shows in the quality.

The places they shot this are gorgeous. Feels like an amped up LotR and enjoyable so far. I dont get the GoT comparisons though.

Knivsies in Korvosa.

So any word on when reviews will start coming out since it starts Friday?

Here is one.

Hey there Pan, perhaps if you could be bothered to look it up, you would discover the book is in fact about the creation of Dungeons & Dragons by Gary Gygax and Dave Arnesan, and the creation, rise, and eventual fall, of TSR.

But you are absolutely allowed your opinion.

It was a joke. Its an alright book.

I humbly offer (non-campaign or game book) best of should go to Of Dice and Men by David M. Ewalt.

The pun title disqualifies it.

IIRC (and I may not RC) some earlier versions of D&D, you could only get XP by killing monsters and collecting treasure (yes, treasure itself gave you XP). Earning XP for resolving quests, creative problem solving. So this quickly created a paradigm of the kill-n-loot story genre.

Early on you got XP for getting gold and treasure not from killing things. There was a lot of creative dungeons that tested players to try and get the loot without having to actually fight the monsters. It was considered a bit of a fail state if you did. This style is often referred to as skill play.

I do agree with you that videogames did up the carnage and bloodlust expectations. 3E went with an xp awarded for "defeating" encounters along with a major magic item expectation that could only be paid for in piles of bodies. Diablo influence was pretty obvious.

I'm not going to say much on the morality issue but I am a pacifist based on religious beliefs, and I enjoy fantasy violence in gaming as a safe, healthy way to let off steam. But for it to remain a healthy outlet, maintaining, respectful, supportive environments with one another at the table as well as a clear reminder that pretendy funtime games are not real life and the two should remain separated is critical.

Sound advice.

There is certainly a tendency for players to shoot first and ask questions later, but equally, there is a tendency for bad-faith GMs who ensure that no good deed ever goes unpunished - any time the players show clemency it is rewarded with treachery.

Definite two way street.

I had an old school GM for a bit that always punished the PCs for making hard choices. Though, in Kingmaker we let a couple of Bandits go. My character talked the group into it. Since in the ambush we killed a number of bandits before the others surrender. Sort of a message that the new lords are here and capable of kicking ass and mercy kind of thing. One bandit, of course, went back to the bandits, the other went back to town and became a blacksmith. The blacksmith thanked the PCs for sparing him and giving him a new opportunity he never had (which was why he was a bandit.) Was very rewarding specifically to this AP, but just in general to see good things come from the PCs being good people.

W E Ray wrote:

4) 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide 2

While Monte Cook's masterpiece 3.0 DMG is the beginning of contemporary game theory, actually showing us for the first time ever how to look at our game style and methodology, well, Robin Laws' DMG2 finishes it. We get so much insight in how to be Better DMs, creating a better experience for ourselves and our players. I mean, the chapter that identifies and describes various player-types, and points out that, 'Hey, be cognizant of both the player who just wants his PC to look cool, as well as the player who just wants her character to do crazy stuff,' should be required reading for every player in the game. (And yes, I know that technically the DMG 2 was coauthored with a few other people -- but I'm confident in saying the good stuff is almost ALL Robin Laws.)

I wrote a sizable chunk of that book, so it's always fun to see folks cite it as a favorite! :) (Was fun; I mostly worked on the Adventure Writing section, the NPC section, some of the magic items, and the Saltmarsh stuff, but WotC also had me go in and develop a fair amount of the other text to help it all sync up once the initial writing for the book was all done.)

Its a classic!

Consensus opinion is now that, along with Dune - part 2, this will be the definitive adaptation of Herbert's book to the big screen.

Cant wait for 15 years from now when they make it into a series again.

Had some Eagle Rare tonight. Delicious!

Planpanther wrote:

Lot of folks have been developing convoluted systems to allow non-lethal combat and morale systems for fleeing and even fleeing systems themselves. I have come to the idea that the most expedient way to handle this is to just have folks reach a point they simple took too much damage to continue instead of death. Once a character hits that point, no magic can revive them until the encounter is over. This way you can just lay waste as best as your abilities allow and just enjoy...

Even that really just complicates and brings the moral issues to the forefront. Now rather than killing people in the heat of combat while they're trying to kill you, you're explicitly murdering helpless people after the fact. Or letting them go, often in circumstances where they'll just go right back to being a threat to you or to others.

Sometimes they'll just be obstacles that won't ever be a threat again regardless and in some circumstances you'll be able to deliver them to some kind of formal justice, but very often that's not realistic - in a premodern world, often on urgent quests far from any legitimate authority.

I hear you, but often these convoluted systems bring you to the same place and you might as well make it easier on yourself.

Planpanther wrote:

Combat in my games so far is usually who gets the upper-hand and forces the other to surrender.

I am playing in a "Shattered Star" game using the PF1e rules. We generally do the same thing when we're fighting intelligent opponents: We fight until one side has the upper hand and then the losing side either flees or surrenders. Even in PF, you don't have to make every fight to the death (even if the rules seem to encourage it.)

Right a few things seem to really drive the murderhobo elements of D&D/PF. First is awarding XP for killing stuff. I know, I know, its supposed to be for engaging and succeeding at the encounter, but its been ingrained in many in the gaming community that success is murder. Video games and their piles and piles of dead bodies help reinforce this. Also, magic stuff is often held by enemies and they are not likely to fork it over, "from my dead cold hands..." As mentioned, the rules cover combat in hundreds of pages and morale, fleeing, and surrender topics are not given much, if any, attention.

Lastly, the rules usually leave moral judgements completely up to the players. There is little discussion about repercussions for rampant murder in game settings and campaigns. Alignment has largely had its teeth removed from the game and is more of a passing notion these days. Maybe for the best since arguing about murder being good or not can get tedious. Especially, with gamers who try and logic puzzle everything into the good box.

Lot of folks have been developing convoluted systems to allow non-lethal combat and morale systems for fleeing and even fleeing systems themselves. I have come to the idea that the most expedient way to handle this is to just have folks reach a point they simple took too much damage to continue instead of death. Once a character hits that point, no magic can revive them until the encounter is over. This way you can just lay waste as best as your abilities allow and just enjoy combats as they were intended. You can deal with the unconscious defeated foes however afterwards.

I don't have a real problem with killing in RPGs - it's a staple of the fantasy genre, which I enjoy in and out of gaming. I do prefer when slaughter isn't the only approach available. I'm always happy when we can talk our way around obstacles or negotiate reasonable solutions.

I've also played various super-hero genre games which were easily as combat focused as D&D/PF, but were almost entirely free of killing, so it is possible to keep the basic gameplay, but not have the death.

It looks like most of the suggestions here for non-combat/killing games are narrative ones, which aren't really my cup of tea. I wonder if there's anything out there that takes a less narrative approach to non-action role-playing. It seems like you should be able to build a mechanical game around other things than combat. Character builds and mechanical manuevers aimed at diplomacy, for example, that don't just boil down to bonuses to a single die roll.

I'm a Traveller fan. It is a skill based game that leads to more exploration based adventures. There is a basic combat system and death and killing are real possibilities. Unlike D&D type games though, most enemies are intelligent and don't "fight to the the death". Combat in my games so far is usually who gets the upper-hand and forces the other to surrender.

@keftiu this is off topic per se, but Fiasco (by Bully Pulpit Games) is also a great non-violent game

I dont think this is universal. Our Fiasco games have been like Blood Simple by Cohen Bros. Violent AF!

For other RPGs, I'll plug Monster of the Week for good combat alternatives.

I'll second monster of the week!

Internet has all the answers.

Nice.

On a lark, I started tracking enemy npc deaths in the games I play in. I try to have fun with it, keeping track of the party's K/D ratio and et al, but mostly I was interested in seeing what creatures the party killed and how long my character could go without killing another living humanoid. This was complicated by it being mummy's mask and the cultists have a tendency to self destruct, but that's not here nor there.

It was interesting to see that list grow and be able to incorporate it into the character's story.

That self destruct bit was so great in MM.

I think this is cross posted from EN World, but my reply is largely the same. D&D is the John Wick of RPGs. Hundreds of pages to combat its totally expected. I'd branch out to other RPGs and players to see whats out there and set aside the murderhobo tendency of D&D/PF for awhile.

Check out the Systems are a journey, not the destination thread for inspiration!

Heather F wrote:

I have been meaning to read the book for decades, I finally bought a copy last year, and it's currently on my to read list.

As someone who's read the book several times over the past few decades, I say....HUZZAH!!

In all seriousness though, I do hope you enjoy the book (and perhaps its many sequels, eventually). And if you do happen to like it, I can always suggest other works by Herbert. I've read most, if not all, of them.

I'll third this notion. The novel Dune is excellent.

The spice must flow.

Cool. I enjoy a theater for the fact when I see a dragon fly by, it feels more real than just seeing it on my TV screen.

I got a complete Sonos set up at home. I cant wait to turn it up and see how it compares!

So you saw it in theaters too then Orville?

Yes. I loved the blow my ears out sound and would recommend it. Though, watching this at home if you have qualms about covid19 I think is just fine too.

You should duck. Please stop turning every movie thread into a marvel thread!

From some reviews I read, they felt it had too much visual and not enough focus on the story. Though, Villanueva tends to have a high context communication style and it can often lead to that conclusion for folks who want a more traditional American film experience.

Also does anyone know how Bond is doing right now (domestically I mean.)

Bond is at 101.2 mill (55 opening weekend) domestic.

I love the stylized look and tone. The acting was a little off to me. Hoping a less frantic pace mixed with some quieter moodier scenes that balance well in the anime to change that up at launch. Fun teaser for sure tho.

Anyway, I booked time off next week to see DUNE when it launches in the UK on Thursday.

Im thinking taking a half day on Friday 10/21 and going in the afternoon.