William Dymock-Johnson's page

Pfft, killing Tarrasques has been done. Breeding Tarrasques, that's the new sport :-)

You know your GM is out to get you when he says "I'll just roll on the Wandering Damage table..."

Dragon 95? Good times.

'Roll every dice you own for damage....'

Ticket to Ry'leh
Eaters of Catan

I'd be happy to play Paranoia as Organised Play.

But you're reliant on the other players having the right mindset. Too many would either get hurt feelings about PvP, or would go the other extreme, and just play a violent lunatic.
Paranoia is best when everyone understands some brand of subtlety, and how to make things look like 'accidents'.

I imagine the revelation that in Paranoia PFS you can PVP to your little dark hearts content will be greeted with unbridled enthusiasm and mayhem. And they're already violent lunatics.

But yes, there are extra dimensions to Paranoia. APs exploring that angle would be very bizzare experiences and may need a warning.

Warning! The senior GMs at Paizo feel that this adventure will do truly freaky things to your PC. Use the pregens inside. We really mean it.

Depends on how long they've been in there. Traditionally they decide to grant wishes to whoever frees them only every other century. Otherwise they're just mad as hell and want to kill you.

Players are entitled to their characters getting:

1. Pain
2. More Pain.
3. Lashings of Agony.

And they seem to enjoy it. Don't know about that other stuff, they just want you to bring the pain.

But if I don't play then the dragon eats everyone,the mad wizard turns off the sun and the Asmoday ends up in charge.

ANd we can't be having with that sort of thing.

Players want to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNTs) in your serious Tolkien fantasy for a variety of reasons. Or catfolk gunslingers, android beuticians, deep one fremen or whatever other bizare concept the've come up with.

1. They've come up with a really cool concept / backstory that happens to be a TMNT. Let em. They've put in the time and are reasonably hyped about it so go ahead. Even in Middle Earth. Just warn them that they'll be this total fish out of water and if they're ok then you've got a rocking campaign where Donatello raps with Elrond.

2. TMNTs have uber stats and the player wants one to be the uber stat monster who can do infinity+1 damage in a single round. Let em. They're playing out their power fantasies and that's okay. If they're a good player then there will be total voids in the TMNT's abilities that coincide with the rest of the party's strengths. And if they're poor? They'll eventually MDK Elrond and then you can sic Legolas on their ass. He does infinity+1 damage in the round before you, even if you're also Legolas, he's that good.

3. The player has just watched / read all of TMNT and really wants to be one. Let em. This player typically has the attention span of a kitten with ADHD. Three sessions in he'll be begging to change his character to a dwarf, or an elf or some other disgusting alien lifeform native to your setting. After that don't let them change again. Be a meanie.

4. The player has just bought the Turtles splatbook and wants to give a TMNT a spin. Let em. Ask to read the 'including TMNTs into your campaign' section. Then be prepared for a rather baroque Middle Earth campaign in which the party must deal with the machinations of both Sauron and the Foot Clan.

5. The player falls into the looney classification and has picked a TMNT because, there is no because with these players. Let em. Walk on the Valendamned wild side for a change and have a Middle Earth with velociraptors and gouald death gliders.

6. The player always plays Donotello. He's played Donotello the elf, Donotello the kree, Donotello the gully dwarf and now he's playing Donotello the TMNT. Let em. Have everyone do what they've done in all the other games and ignore it. Just remember to compliment the player when they ask if you've noticed how their character is unique and different this time.

7.The player is an idiot. There is no salvation, no hope, they are simply a bane to gaming. Tell them to go elsewhere.

• Occasionally fudging die rolls, and reserving the right to roll behind a screen while requiring players to roll openly.

There are people who honestly think that when the dice and the GM disagree that the dice win? Consider me boggled.

• Employing prominent NPCs/GMPCs

Nah, I just let the PCs exist in a featureless void inhabited by owlbears. Again, the hell?

• Disallowing (or even placing restrictions of any kind on) full casters.

The idea of 'full caster' is something I had never encountered till a few months ago. Of course magic users had some hefty restrictions back in the day, not the least was being called 'magic user'. Sounds like your some kind of drugger, 'hey pal, would you like some, magic?'.

• Enforcing alignment in clear and definitive fashion

Only if enforced means a double-tap to the head. I stopped using alignments after seeing how it was used in Traveller.

• Imposing an objective morality on paladins, such as disallowing prevarication for selfish gain, torture, baby- (including baby monster) killing and casual sex as inherently evil and/or chaotic.

Well, imposing subjective morality would be silly. Anyways most D&D worlds were ones with objective morality. There are 'good' gods promoting goodness and 'evil' gods promoting evil. 'The problem of evil' is not a philosophical question in D&D. It's typically answered by the counter question 'How do we shank Asmoday and Demogorgon?'

• Not providing the "required"/desired magical paraphernalia on schedule.

Yes, I'm a stingy GM. Mainly because half of all 'train-wrecks' of games fault starts with ODing on magic items.

• Believing the DM's role is benevolent autocrat rather than either gleeful tyrant or impotent fantasy tour guide

That's Mr Benevolent Autocrat to you.

• Refusal to permit evil (or even chaotic neutral) PCs

See alignment above. Go ahead, play a scumbag. Just don't whine when Mr Daniel Dredd (paladin) and pals come calling.

• Disallowing classes that violate the campaign's established and specific tone.

Nope. You bring it. I'll hurt it.

• Laying the smack down, hard, on abusive meta-gaming.

We just laid the smack-down. Constant, horrible peril to your PCs was a reward for good roleplay. I realise now that it was hard to distinguish from the incesscant, merciless torment inflicted on the munchkins, whiners and other x-men of the gaming world.

• Requiring immersive role-play rather than simple recitation of mechanics

That's right. I am a tyrant for insisting on roleplaying in a roleplaying game. Madness personified.

• Taking control of PCs who refuse to role-play honestly when charmed, dominated, etc.

Nope. After all, those x-men refused to roleplay honestly any other time as well. Just brought more pain.

• Retaining control over magical weapons, cohorts, mounts, animal companions, eidolons, etc.

Reminding the players that their followers (sientient weapons, mounts, hideous things from another dimnesion) are people and not mindless automatons. I'm such a meanie.

"Shadowrun Golarion," as would "Shadowrun Shadow Earth," "Pathfinder Shadow Earth," "Shadow Earth 3.0," "TORG Golarion," "TORG Planescape," "2nd Edition D&D Eberron," "World of Darkness PARANOIA," et cetera.

I'ld play those games. But I think PFS Paranoia would be hilarious.

The PFS is happy. The PFS is crazy.
The PFS will help you become happy. This will drive you crazy.
Being a citizen of Absalom is fun. The PFS says so. The PFS is your friend.
Many traitors threaten Absalom. Many happy citizens live in Absalom. Most happy citizens are crazy.
Which are more dangerous, traitors or happy citizens?
Rooting out traitors will make you happy. The PFS tells you so. If you are not happy, The PFS will use you as spell components.
Being a Pathfinder is fun. The PFS tells you so. Do you doubt The PFS, pathfinder?
Pathfinders get shot at, stabbed, mangled, incinerated, poisoned, stapled, blown to bits and occasionally, accidentally executed. This is so much fun that many Pathfinders go crazy.
You will work with many Pathfinders. They all carry greatswords.
Aren't you glad you have a greatsword too? Won't this be fun? Stay alert! Trust no one! Keep your greatsword handy!

Go on! Optimise away. I dare you.

I'ld advise against the succubus. It may be too much for an 85 year old.
Pick some sort of abstract concept outsider instead.

So basically you want Pathfinder to no longer be Pathfinder at all - but a level-less point buy system.

There's nothing inherently wrong with such systems. (though they tend to penalize specialization if they are actually at all balanced) But it would no longer be Pathfinder at all.

What makes classes and character levels a sacred cow? It's not the feature that attracted me to Pathfinder. Truth be told it was the shiny cover but what's kept me interested are the streamlined rules.

And I didn't advocate getting rid of classes / levels but rather adding the option to go without. Or to build your own. Developers probably have a set of guidelines to go by when designing new classes / archetypes beyond 'stick four devs in a room with pens, paper and cricket bats'. Why not have that in the rules? See what the greater community comes up with.

Also give the regular classes the mechanical advantage of quicker advancement or simply more abilities to the xp and I doubt they'll be totally discarded.

Oh Yog Sothoth, Oh Yog Sothoth,
We pray to you, Oh Yog Sothoth,
Who's Erastil, who's Iomedae,
We pray to Yog, cos our minds are frayed.

We'll celebrate with some stray dog,
That we'll carve up and serve to Yog
Oh Yog Sothoth, Oh Yog Sothoth
We pray that you don't eat us.

A class construction section. Build your own classes. Or a way to ditch classes and just buy abilities with xp. While there will be no more levels they should be equivalent to a classed character of equal xp. So a classless with 35,000 xp is comparable to a 7th level character. Or a little behind as they pay a premium for flexibility.

My favourite is that alternate version of the Warhammer Old World where Blood Bowl has pretty much replaced other, more traditional forms of warfare. Be a fan and tour the world following your team, become involved in making sure they win. If truly mad you could even play. But never, never become the coach.

The elves in my homebrew game are the degenerate outcasts of the noble drow race. They were the mostly agrian caste and part of the old Drow Empires Bread Basket. Characters were often suprised to learn that outside their little corner it was a drow world after all.

It's a world of darkness, a world of snakes
It's a world of hatred and enslaved lesser races
It's a much darker tale, your quest for good will fail.
It's a drow world after all

3) A great wyrm red dragon attacks the party

Sounds good. Challenge accepted.

Had a friend almost make a character named "Jonathan Swallow" for a Skull & Shackles campaign. Had to point out to him that being known as "Able Seaman Swallow" was not a good idea.

Depends, is it the same ship with Simon Darling as Captain, George Bates the Master Seaman and Roger the Cabin Boy?

"Where are the kids?"

"In the basement playing dungeons and dragons."*

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"What do you mean? They're at home, in the basement. So are his friends. How much trouble can they get up to?"

*Not strictly true. We were playing Traveller when my mother had that conversation. She was genuinely suprised that anyone would think RPGs were bad apart from us not getting enough exercise or sun.

And that's probably why the 'hysteria' died out. Gamers were kids who sat round a table, threw dice at each other and drank a lot of coke. No booze, no drugs, no crashed cars, no pregnancies, no nothing.

The Iomedae Crack Squad of Righteousness roll into the tavern.

You had me at 'Iomedae Crack Squad', I fear for the sanctity of brooms everywhere.

As for the OP. 'Class' is a handy grab bag of abilities (some more handy than others) and has little to do with character.

For a bunch of random gamers? Sure I'll tell them my class because we've only got four hours to get our game on. For a regular group? That's part of the fun

Though in a fantasy world they might be bit more magical. Friar Tuck as a cleric, though the rest would probably stick to rogues, fighters, rangers and the like

Why only 'a bit more magical'? With a bit of imagination you could have a magical Robin Hood.

Imagine: In the land of Carsonne the Society of Wizardry exists to foster magical learning, preservation of knowledge and cooperation. Like all organisations it has a bureaucracy and recently it has come under the thumb of Prince John, brother to the King and powerful wizard in his own right. The Society actively enforces the collection of it's now arbitrarily high dues. If you can't pay, well, you can work your dues off in service to the Society which really means doing Prince John's dirty work.

Robin can be a wizard, disillusioned with the way things are going and also refusing to pay his dues. He and a band of like minded magic users fight back against the growing oppressive regime. They steal and rob money so other, less combative mages can keep up their payments. Of course Prince John sends in his dreaded enforcers to hunt down the traitors...

Why not check out one of the most famous bandits of myth. Robin Hood. No matter what version you look at Robin had some interesting supporting characters that would translate into clerics, bards, rogues, druids, rangers through to total exotics like paladins and wizards.

Another good example is the Viking warband. This is pretty much a party with a nordic theme 'adventuring'. The fact that their targets are PC races doesn't change their MO much. The band will be led by a Barbarian leader and has several barb lieutenants, and then some rogues, bards, clerics and even a wizard in addition to the unwashed.

The cult is a caster themed bandit group. At it's core is a powerful caster and then a core of divine and arcane types with some rogues and fighters as 'thuggee' types. Of course what tends to tip off that these guys are operating is that the bodies are missing and the loot wasn't prioritised.

Another interesting band are recruiters. If the nation is at war then they need someone to round up the warm bodies. And if the nation isn't lily white then the recruiters probably aren't picky about who they troll up. A warm body is a warm body is a warm body. Recruiters can have powerful martial types in charge with a cleric or two to make sure that they get in that appeal to god as well as country. They'll definitely have a bard and maybe even a wizard with a focus on CC to keep the new recruits in line. And the recruits could well be anybody. If the recruiting party is enroute between villages when they meet the PCs they could well decide to make an 'agressive' sales pitch.

If we get to count the Pact Magic Vestiges, then I believe that that is my answer. I was especially jazzed when I discovered most of them were references to Ars Goetia demonology - it's like D&D stopped to take a good look at itself in the mid-'000s, looked back at the 1980s, and proceeded to wave a big, gleeful middle finger in Jack Chick's face.

Another Ars Goetia fan here. Mad, bad and just plain strange. The Lesser Seal has a demon for you. And that Sier guy. Didn't so much fall as went with the crowd.