Yerv Kinkash's page

On another thread people were discussing that James Jacobs would be in a straitjacket by 2011. What would be the escape and break DCs of a straitjacket.

When I began playing back in the mid-eighties there seemed to be a far greater reduction on the players use of RAW the game. In fact I had never run into a "rules Lawyer" till 3.5. When I began play the GM was god of the game and you never questioned a call made during play and often it never happened after the game. Also, there was far less talk of "broken" classes, builds, spells, ect. When someone in a party rocked it was a good thing (not something to be mad about) and the GM's job; as GM, to balance the party/challenge so that it seemed equal.
My question is: When did the player gain as much power over the game as they seem to have today? Was it the rise of the internet that caused the shift in gaming? Or was it the invention of RPG video games that pushed it in that direction? Or was it a reslut of the introduction of the 3.x games? Or maybe was it is the MMO effect that caused this type of style to arise? This post is mostly for those who started their gaming carrier during the early years of DND. The 1.0/2.0 crowd. My first system was the brown box chainmail that I bought at a yard sale with the knight on the cover. (If you know what I am talking about then you are an old-school gamer.)

I like to use tangible rewards for RP, like land, titles, loot, favors, clues, ect... I also give XP for RP but I just wanted to know how others encourage people to RP. When I give XP for Role Playing I give it even across the board. The reason for this being that if someone had something happen in their real life and don't feel like being that active, but still want to be with their friends, they should not fall behind the rest of the group. Also, sometimes RP is centered around one PC or one PC seems to hog a spotlight so this one person should not get ahead of the other players. This is why I give tangible rewards. When someone who is there just to roll sees the cool stuff their friends are getting they really get into the Role Playing. (works great for munchkins :) Just wondering what others did to push RP. Thoughts?

Why in PF would one even need to keep track of XP. I understand it tells you when you lv, but that is all it is for. In 3.5 it fulled spells and magic item creation but now it is only used as a track for the next lv. In most of the games I have played/GMed in PF it was almost just as easy for GM to tell the players to take a lv than to do extra math to give out Xp. any thoughts?