Vornmusion's page

When it comes to roleplaying I have long felt there's no greater way than Play by Post, provided the people playing are capable of expressing their roleplaying in a manner which surpasses the physical limitations. That is to say no one will be especially verbose with their actions or thoughts when talking around a table on the fly, nor are they likely to go into great detail about their inner thoughts or feelings -- in opposite of that is the benefit of having time to think and compose your turn with Play by Post. As the DM it also allows me to present the scenario and anything else with a greater sense of atmosphere and detail than otherwise easily available (images, music, sound effects, all things that I can link/insert into a singular post with merely seconds of work on my part).

Though there is an appeal to the physical game that I understand. And I do appreciate the act of people physically acting out their roleplaying. I, however, prefer more novel-esk style roleplaying with great lengths gone toward expressing feelings, thoughts and actions, with walls of text being my bread and butter -- Play by Post is the natural outlet I've found for it.

I will say though that we use a VTT for combat and scenarios which demand placing. Trying to replace that aspect of physical playing is something I attempted for years in Play by Post, and eventually couldn't stomach anymore. Once we made the jump there was no going back (though we do especially miss the detailed combat scenarios and actions which had a much more cinematic flair to them -- as the DM I do not miss having to write all of that).

We once tried keeping strictly to VTT too, but found that people will being to lose interest in the current session if it's hours long and it's being used primarily for pointless fluff. Our happy ground has been to keep the roleplaying to our forum, and the combat/key placement scenarios to the VTT.

Play by Post certainly isn't for everyone though. I gather that people with less interest in roleplaying would much prefer playing strictly on a VTT or in person because of the faster flow and more time spent doing something productive. The entire appeal of PnP for me has always been the roleplaying aspect of it, though. I wouldn't turn down someones invitation for a game around the table, and I would enjoy it for what it is, but I'll always prefer the other.

I was lucky enough that the people I wanted to play with the most (friends of youth) also shared my interest in not only PnP but also heavy roleplaying so everything turned out good in the end. Of course none of us living within driving distance of each other also had a hand in our decision I'm sure.

I seem to have this hangup with INT. I can't dump it with any character for one reason, skills and skill checks are 80% (give or take) of roleplaying. Almost everything outside of combat eventually requires skill checks. If you only care about combat, or you just rely on the party rogue to do everything for you, than it's probably not that big of a deal to you, but in my limited experience, rogues are not that honest and probably shouldn't be. Sometimes you just need to be able to jump, or converse, or know (anything), or just tie your own shoes. I'm not satisfied with anything below a 14 INT with any character and I rarely if ever play a character with INT as a main stat.

It's basically for this reason that I've decided to give a Sorcerer with Sage bloodline a go as my next character just to make it as simple as I can. I'll probably head toward Dragon Disciple with it.

Am I alone on this island? I'm interested in lots of opinions. If you can break me of this long-held belief, I'd be appreciative. On the other hand, if I'm right I'd like to know I'm not crazy.

I could never play with low INT characters because of the roleplaying impacts (neither I, nor anyone I have ever played with, believe in the "do whatever you want, roll to see how it goes" mentality -- you roleplay your character as they would act in reality). I don't like playing dumb brutes and neither does anyone I have played with. As a result of that I have played with the most intelligent and charismatic Barbarians one has ever seen.

I have always based my expectations (both personal and as the DM of games) of stats and skills around The Alexandrians analysis of them -- basically I need at least a 10 in everything else I feel lackluster in that particular aspect and will feel compelled to roleplay that accordingly. While being lackluster can have its moments of interest, on the whole I much prefer to not constantly question my own characters thought process as to their actions. Just one more thing I have to worry about that interrupts the flow.

Ive been gaming a long time but am new to the system. (Well not really, I played 2nd Ed way back but it was centuries ago)

Occasionally the confines of the rules compromise the storyline. When this occurs do you guys adhere to the "game" or deviate to let the plot flow?

For example - a 2nd level thief manages to sneak up on the sentry guarding the gate into the citadel. He backstabs but the players and GM realize that even with maximum damage rolls he cant kill the guy right off, he is going to live to fight at least another round. Sort of anti climatic after a great stealthy approach and all.

Do you implement some hand-wavy rule option to give him a chance to slit the guard's throat silently (3x damage or something, or maybe make the guard make a save to avoid buying it instantly)

Thoughts?

In my games I find myself bending the story for rules of the game. We base our PF in a much more realistic manner than most would probably bother with, so we run into conflicts constantly (sometimes I cringe at the amount of house rules I have made). Just a few months ago I ended up making entirely new systems for Stealth so as to allow it to function on a mechanical level (mostly dealing with modifiers for your clothing color contrasting to the environment, feet wear noise creation versus ground type, among too many others). Whereas people would change or forfeit rules for the sake of the story, I've found myself creating rules for it; and for the sake of having the "game" portion of what we've come to refer as our Roleplay. "There's not enough rules" is never something I thought I would associate with 3rd edition style mechanics.

In anycase; in your example I would (and have in the past) rule that successfully sneaking up on someone that is wholly unaware or prepared for danger, and then slicing their throat, will result in death for most humanoid creatures, no damage rolls required. Rolling to successfully maneuver yourself in relation to the attack might be enforced, circumstances providing. A roll might be necessary at lower levels (versus the level of the person attacked if equal or higher or their predisposition for these attacks) to ensure the attack is made quietly so as not to alert other people nearby. The ruling for instant death becomes more complex if the person attacked is of a non-standard variety of humanoid, or if they're not humanoid period. That'll be a case-by-case basis.

At the end of the day I and my players play PnP because we like telling/following/creating stories and memories. It's fun, so that will always be paramount to the decisions I, as my groups assumed life-long GM (gods save me), make. Sneaking up on a guard and rolling for sneak attack damage, only to not even down the guy might be "correct" in strict terms of the rules -- but whether the Rogue is going to find it fun isn't so black and white.

As the title states, my question to the rest of the gamer community out there is: To power-game or not to power-game?

Lately all I see on the forums (especially in advice) are things along the lines of:

1) How do I build the best _____ ?
2) What is the best ____ ?
3) Casters are so much better than ____
4) Where is the ____ love?
5) Why do _____ archetypes suck?
6) Why can't I do ____ with ____ ability to make me more powerful?
7) Build me an invincible _____
8) My GM hates us, s/he TPK'd us!
9) And my favorite: Oh noes! ______ is broken!

So it really got me thinking:
* Why do so many people play to "win" nowadays?
* Where did the flavor and imagination go to?
* When did people stop building for concept(s)?
* Is ____ really that broken if played RAW?

My thoughts are that the generation of gamers has truly changed and want to make these uber heroes that will completely destroy and derail any attempt made by Paizo through AP's or a GM to run an interesting game. It's really turned to more of a video gamey type of thing rather than the danger lurking everywhere and things can truly kill PC's if they aren't careful.

Don't get me wrong, I like to play a powerful hero who is good at what they do too, but I also like to have a chance to fail and roll up a new one every once in a while. I like the different archetypes out there, I like the options to actually create a nice little background and play an completely unique character rather than God-Wizard 23045502...

What are your thoughts?

Firstly I think some people have different perspectives on Powergaming in general. Personally I don't see people wanting to be "the best" at their particular trade as a Powergamer, even if they take extreme steps to reach it. I consider those Maximizers. Powergamers, to me, are people that will forgo entire systems in order to be "the best" period. For example, a Maximizer that wants to be a heal-bot would do everything they could to be "the best" healer, even if it was against their characters concept (i.e they want to be a Cleric but are convinced the Wizard is a superior healer). A Powergamer would make a Druid because they're inherently superior to everything else (not saying they are; just an example), and then try to make the Druid a supreme generalist that can do everything and do it better than anyone.

So when I see things like "How do I build the best _____ ?", I'm not necessarily throwing them into my Powergamer category. More so since asking how to build the best of a certain thing usually implies they want to be the best at their characters focus and not "I want to not need my party members" -- usually.

As for why Powergamers seem to be abundant now (disregarding that way back in ye olden days you didn't have the Internet to so easily allow millions/billions of people with different play styles to be exposed so to speak, that's an argument for another day), I think it comes down to the mentality of the system shifting from role playing to gaming. Not that I'm trying to imply that "back in the day..." it was some kind of purity role playing simulation, but I think as you add more numbers to the system you're going to entice that inner mathematician that wants to see bigger numbers. I also think the times have changed the way people approach PnP -- especially ones like Pathfinder and D&D which heavily favor combat. That coupled with most people in general not wanting to fail due to societal pressures that have ramped up lately. You can't say that no one Powergamed back in the early editions of D&D, but I think it would be fair to say that more people on average do it today than they would have back then (if both periods had the same amount of people playing and "exposed".

I haven't had much of an issue with the Powergaming trend myself, as I only play with a certain group of fellows and they're the hardcore role playing type. Now they are Maximizers (Note: Not min/maxers, just Maximizers), but that's primarily because we carry characters over to as many adventures as possible (we have a supremely slow advancement rate, by choice). The idea is to roleplay the characters as they exist in a virtual world and not so much a "game". Because of that my players grow extremely attached to their characters, spending countless hours refining them (one player has essentially written a small novel for his characters bio) and try to treat them as their "one-and-only" PC for all time. Obviously this does not always work out and people have died, but they make new characters with the same "one-and-only" mentality. Anyways, those are the main reasons my players try to maximize their characters. They don't sacrifice role playability for more power though, everything must work within their characters concept -- they just try to squeeze everything they can from those concepts via any logical means possible. I think most people (that aren't hardcore Powergamers) are probably like that though, with the exception of the people that like gimping themselves for whatever reasons they have (not that I have a problem with it, just making an observation).

That said, I have dealt with a few players in the past that were true Powergamers and I found myself not liking that play style very much. To each his own, but I don't enjoy playing with nor playing as someone that negates the purpose of the other players. I prefer that team work dynamic!

My players like big expansive persistent worlds in a multitude of flavors, so we've been using a mix of homebrew content with nearly all the existing D&D/PF verses existing along-side each other. Essentially Planescape taken to another level more or less -- I've dubbed our version of the world The Planarverse. Figuring out ways to make all the verses live along-side each other (taking liberties where necessary for consistency) in a persistent world has proven to be both a complete pain in my ass and a fulfilling experience.

As a result of my players philosophy in playing PnP (and the fact that none of us live near each other anymore) they do much more roleplaying than "game" playing (we do Play-By-Post on a private forum normally -- switching to VTT for dungeon crawling/combat -- so they have the luxury of creating walls of text if they desire, which they often do), preferring to treat the game (which we have referred to as the Roleplay since its creation, telling of the mindset I think) as a virtual world their characters exist in over a gaming staging ground. In light of that, fleshing out the worlds has been one of the things I was unable to fudge -- you've never seen so many economic simulation spread sheets for Pathfinder.

Anyways, not locking down to a singular verse or even a set of similar-verses has proven to sometimes be a hindrance of course -- figuring out what direction the group wants to go next can be a challenge with the sheer options available (in the context of creating new characters, or Sandbox sessions). Sometimes I wish we could just go back to the simple days of "We're using this world, you're gonna kill Mr. Evil in this tower here, sell his loot in town, and then drink at the nearest tavern -- and then we'll do it again tomorrow", but alas those days are behind us.

Sure, there's old age, but I mean accidental deaths...

Ah, the tramp has syphillis? Remove disease.

The king was beheaded? Raise dead/ressurect.

Crime? Buy magical trinkets that let them know whenever someone is lying.

Starvation? Child's play for a druid or cleric.

Wars? Instead of +1 weapons, give them clw or infernal healing.

Why aren't kingdoms severely overpopulated?

As has been stated already they're too expensive for the common folk. Going by this thread here, if you're willing to agree with his numbers (I base my campaigns gp worth on it since I've yet to see anyone else put hard numbers down for this kind of economic simulation in PF/D&D), the average person would never be capable of affording magical medical care on a consistent basis as presented in the following (as a basis if nothing else, since prices on certain aspects might be different and/or changed in recent PF):

From the age of adulthood (15 per 3.x PHB Table 6-4) to the maximum age range (110) a human unskilled laborer who never adventurers and just subsists earns 3467.5 GP. The average life span of a peasant in the Middle Ages would be between 30-45, with lowest lifetime earnings between 540 gp - 1080 gp.

Overall if you survive to ages below you have a Net Worth of (includes costs of meager living 24 gp/yr.):
• 30: 180gp
• 35: 240gp
• 40: 300gp
• 45: 360gp
• 50: 420gp
• 55: 480gp

• Emergency Care (CLW to Stabilize injury): 10 GP ($1170)
• Mummy Rot (first time success minimum cost): 300 GP ($35,100)
• Loss of Limb (Regeneration): 910 GP ($106,470)
• Unexpected Death (Body Intact) [Raise Dead]: 5400 GP ($631,800)
• UD (BD) [Resurrection]: 10910 ($1,276,470)
• UD (BU) [True Resurrection]: 26530 ($3,104,010)

Going by the thread, the cost of magical medical care is similar to real hospital costs (in nations that don't have free care); Regenerating a limb, i.e losing one and/or have serious repairs made to one in reality, would ruin an average person (without insurance, in the US anyway, and I'm under the assumption that no such insurance system exists in the lore of the PF/D&D world) financially; many not even be capable of affording it at all.

If you agree with this post on the profits of a Noble, however, I would question why Kings die if based on cost. I would imagine a King (having a kingdom) makes quite a bit more than the single Noble does, and thus could likely afford to be raised (especially given he's the King and should have priority as far as kingdom assets are concerned). As was mentioned in this thread; Kings dying (and staying dead) probably has more to do with their heirs not wanting to bring them back than any actual cost.