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Parenting fail:
Did you know that the Director's Cut of "Little Shop of Horrors" ends with Audrey and Seymour both getting eaten by the plant, and the Earth being overrun by gigantic Audrey II's, just like the stage show?
Yeah, I didn't either, until it turns out that's the version we downloaded for family movie night tonight.
I had to search for the original theatrical ending on YouTube to show the kids, because we'd been reassuring them all through the movie, every time they asked, "But Audrey and Seymour both live, right? The plant doesn't eat them?"
Whoops.
They were famed for showing all sorts of movies, good and bad, with a slight penchant towards artistic fare. As they were a big fish in a small pond with no real competition beyond cable tv, they got lazy after a while, and started showing the same movies over and over again. You could set your watch by it, or maybe it would be better to say you could set your calendar by it. Movies came on the same day near abouts every year.
Everyone watched this movie channel when I was growing up. After all, video games were a new(ish) and expensive hobby that clearly weren't going to go anywhere at all, and mom thought they were going to cook my brain and would rather I watch movies instead. So weekends were spent at grandma's house, watching movies on Sunday afternoon provided sportsball wasn't on.
One of those movies was Little Shop Of Horrors.
I was familiar with the movie, having seen it roughly one bajillion times. Mom wasnt crazy about it because she thought Audrey II was a clear case of blackface, but even she liked the music and she was a HUGE Steve Martin fan. Who knew someone so funny could sing?! And that guy from Ghostbusters, who was clearly going on to great things. Man, I couldn't wait for Ghostbusters 2. That movie was gonna be AWESOME! Besides, who wouldn't want to feed their enemies to a giant talking plant? That would certainly show everyone- especially Everett for calling me a nerd who couldn't throw a ball and picking me last in gym that day and cracking me in the face "by accident". Let's see you laugh at me when you're being digested! NOW WHO'S LAUGHING? ME AND MY TALKING/SINGING PLANT, THAT'S WHO!
So one Sunday afternoon, I was actually looking forward to seeing the movie.
Except it wasnt the movie I remembered.
Cleveland got eaten, right in front of my eyes. Some moron drove a train directly into the mouth of one them, and I remember trying to figure out what train line that was(drove mom nuts as I kept going over the routes of all known trains, none of the ones I knew seemed to go over an unprotected bridge like that). And there were Audrey IIs eating Manhattan, or at least feeling up the Statue of Liberty. None of this was happening in Brooklyn, of course, we are far too Brooklyn to succumb to a bunch of singing cabbages, but still, a neighboring settlement was taken out by Audrey IIs. And what was the deal with "The End?" Were they not sure? Was there going to be a sequel, like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes? And why was the army attacking with machine guns when the plants were clearly bulletproof? Why didnt anyone think to use a sword? Or ar least a really, really big gun. Was Optimus Prime off planet or something?
So many questions.
But when I brought it up to others, asking if they had saw the movie and what their thoughts were, I was met with disbelief. Didn't I know that movie had a happy ending? No armies, just an exploding Audrey II and a wedding and an infant Audrey III planning her obvious revenge(didnt the love addled fools think to look DOWN?!) I was laughed off, told to disbelieve my lying eyes, and my questions were seen as the fevered ramblings of a weirdo who watched Star Wars one too many times. I was so confused- I know what I saw. Well, it's not like I would never see the movie again- it would be on again next year! THEN they would see. They'd ALL see. I wasn't crazy. What was my problem with man, you ask? No. I ask you what was man's problem with me.
But next year the movie ended happily. Electrocution, muted/ censored curses, happy wedding, baby planning vengeance. And it did so again the next year. I'm not sure about the year after that because that was the year I moved to Pennsylvania and I was distracted by video games(which I could play in MY OWN ROOM BECAUSE I HAD A NINTENDO LIKE EVERYONE ELSE AND A COLOR TV AND MY OWN VCR THAT I COULD PROGRAM AND GET CABLE TV ON MY TWO AUX CHANNELS HOLY S#@~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and girls, who, while always fascinating, became interesting on a level that made movie conspiracy theories pale in comparison. Maybe I made the whole thing up, or misremembered it. Maybe I really was crazy, like they said.
Until today, when I have proof on the internet, that most holy and sacred source of gospel truth, that SOMEONE ELSE HAS SEEN THE VERSION OF THIS MOVIE THAT HAUNTED MY DREAMS FOR 30 YEARS. THANK YOU LISAMARLENE FOR PROVIDING VINDICATION!
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Okay...I realize nudity kinda plays into the "he was crazy all along" motif, but...thread rules are thread rules.
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Wooow... reading the Unicorn bloodline really makes me hate the Player Companions even more.
Not only is it a sorcerer who gets all the Cure spells plus Heal as bonus spells, but every single time they cast any spell they get to heal any ally within sight for hit points equal to double the level of the spell.
Yeah, free unlimited-range healing as a secondary effect of my normal casting.
Seriously, Paizo?
At low levels, that's ridiculously powerful. "I'm a 1st-level sorcerer. I Magic Missile the bad guy... and that heals my fighter for 2 points..."
It adds up fast.
EDIT: I realize that some people feel that healing shouldn't be part of the game because it detracts from doing what you want to do, but fights are one part tactics and one part resource management, and if you eliminate one of the resource management aspects of the game, you have to seriously worry about balance.
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You'd probably like 2nd edition, they do away with most of that silliness.
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You'd probably like 2nd edition, they do away with most of that silliness.
LOLOL. Call me a cynic, but...
...every D&D-based publisher for as long as the game has been around has been all about adding "rules supplements" that increase PC power. And every D&D-based publisher has a horrific track record of playtesting said changes, so many of them fundamentally alter party makeup or tactics.I give 2nd edition 2-3 years before power creep truly sets in.
(And it's funny; I call out D&D games because there are many other rules systems that don't suffer from such power creep. Runequest being my favorite (non-) example. But power creep makes players happy and generates the most money, so I know I'm fighting a losing battle.)
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Palladium Books wrote the book on power creep, several of them, in fact.
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... but every single time they cast any spell they get to heal any ally within sight for hit points equal to double the level of the spell.
Yeah, free unlimited-range healing as a secondary effect of my normal casting.
Seriously, Paizo?
At low levels, that's ridiculously powerful. "I'm a 1st-level sorcerer. I Magic Missile the bad guy... and that heals my fighter for 2 points..."
It adds up fast.
This sounds like the Oracle (Life)|Harbinger [Crimson Countess] in my gestalt Savage Tide game. His entire thing is using Dark Claim + Crimson Claim + Drain to deal damage (and provide a big stack of debuffs) to enemies, some of which regains his own health, then redistribute that health to the rest of the party via Life Link. The range is about the same (Life Link specifies Medium range, which is 100+10/level, so "within sight" more or less is about the same) and there's no save on Dark Claim or any of its associated abilities.
But it took a Gestalt build to pull it off, and other than tossing out buffs, stacking up debuffs, and/or casting Cure or Resto spells, it's pretty much all the character does. (Which is still plenty, seriously the debuffs associated with Claim are insane, though they require taking feats to access, they don't come free with the class. -2 to all skill checks and CM checks, and -[Number of creatures currently Claimed] to attack rolls against anyone but himself. Add in a Stance that he has that throws -2 Saves into the mix. The only build I've seen better at throwing out debuffs relies on Witch.)
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I now want to play a unicorn bloodline sorcerer just for the ridiculousness.
This is admittedly how I play. Everything is on the table, but it also means the DM has access to all the cheese the players do.
But all my players are also generally on the same level with regards to building and play capability, and build/design talk is common at our table, where it seems more like Nobody's group is more casual, laid back "just here to chill and roll dice", not really interested in putting together really complex powerful concepts... except for That One Guy.
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My team is not. We have wildly varying skill sets at building characters. The ones who can’t tone it down don’t last.
Of course, for all the OP my one player has, the dice usually tell him no. He does best with characters that force the enemies to roll the dice instead of him.
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We're a weird group. We're all concept first...and then the game breaks. Heavy roleplay, but we're all invested in not wanting to die, so in comes the powerbuilding. ...Some of us more intentionally than others. Both of my characters have managed to be juggernauts of plot and encounter derailment through sheer accident.
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I now want to play a unicorn bloodline sorcerer just for the ridiculousness.This is admittedly how I play. Everything is on the table, but it also means the DM has access to all the cheese the players do.
But all my players are also generally on the same level with regards to building and play capability, and build/design talk is common at our table, where it seems more like Nobody's group is more casual, laid back "just here to chill and roll dice", not really interested in putting together really complex powerful concepts... except for That One Guy.
I think I put it well to GothBard: My time is finite. I can either take an AP and enhance it with interesting NPCs, fun locations, and do a lot of world-building to enrich the experience, or I can spend my time re-tooling encounters to challenge "anything goes" players who want to build the most powerful PCs they can based on all sources. I cannot and will not do both.
And my massive preference as a GM is the former.
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I now want to play a unicorn bloodline sorcerer just for the ridiculousness.This is admittedly how I play. Everything is on the table, but it also means the DM has access to all the cheese the players do.
But all my players are also generally on the same level with regards to building and play capability, and build/design talk is common at our table, where it seems more like Nobody's group is more casual, laid back "just here to chill and roll dice", not really interested in putting together really complex powerful concepts... except for That One Guy.
I think I put it well to GothBard: My time is finite. I can either take an AP and enhance it with interesting NPCs, fun locations, and do a lot of world-building to enrich the experience, or I can spend my time re-tooling encounters to challenge "anything goes" players who want to build the most powerful PCs they can based on all sources. I cannot and will not do both.
And my massive preference as a GM is the former.
Which is completely fair. I'm fortunate in that I have the time and inclination to do both, and enjoy doing so. I certainly wouldn't be running a gestalt game if I didn't.
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My team is not. We have wildly varying skill sets at building characters. The ones who can’t tone it down don’t last.
Of course, for all the OP my one player has, the dice usually tell him no. He does best with characters that force the enemies to roll the dice instead of him.
Yeah we used to have one guy like that.
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Palladium Books wrote the book on power creep, several of them, in fact.
the memories...
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Yeah we used to have one guy like that.My team is not. We have wildly varying skill sets at building characters. The ones who can’t tone it down don’t last.
Of course, for all the OP my one player has, the dice usually tell him no. He does best with characters that force the enemies to roll the dice instead of him.
because of behavior like this I had to institute a lot of house rules.
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** spoiler omitted **...Parenting fail:
Did you know that the Director's Cut of "Little Shop of Horrors" ends with Audrey and Seymour both getting eaten by the plant, and the Earth being overrun by gigantic Audrey II's, just like the stage show?
Yeah, I didn't either, until it turns out that's the version we downloaded for family movie night tonight.
I had to search for the original theatrical ending on YouTube to show the kids, because we'd been reassuring them all through the movie, every time they asked, "But Audrey and Seymour both live, right? The plant doesn't eat them?"
Whoops.
LMAO. Happy to help with your sanity check!
I've actually had that same experience in the past with a certain Kelly LeBrock television commercial. The original version I remember was, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful; I used to look just like you."
Then it got changed to "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful; my hair used to have a mind of its own."
Everyone I've mentioned it to swears my inner critic fabricated this.
But I do have one question: how can Audrey II be blackface when the character was voiced by one of Motown's greatest?
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Yeah, I really get frustrated with players.
We're starting a new Shattered Star campaign. As I've mentioned, I don't like to have to upgrade monsters because even with the Advanced Simple Template you end up with monsters that the "well balanced" PCs can't hit, but that the "cheesemonger" steamrolls. So I allow the Core Rulebook, Advanced Players' Guide, and Ultimate Magic, Equipment, and Combat. Anything else is by GM permission.
Well-known min/max cheese player: "I'm going to play either an occultist or a Unicorn bloodline sorcerer!"
FTR, Occultist is in Occult Adventures and has some abilities that can break a campaign (Object Reading in particular), and the Unicorn bloodline is from a player companion and gives you a sorcerer with all the Cure spells, including Heal, eliminating your need for a divine caster to create a brutal 3-fighter, one caster mix.
And the BIG issue I have with this: He uses Hero Labs and he KNOWS how to set what books he's using, so he just doesn't care.
(And GothBard will never GM again because of him -- he built a dual-wielding crit-focused ranger with a bunch of player companion abilities so he could run around 150-250 hit points per round, eliminating ALL of her bad guys in the campaign without a single tense moment. So he's got a history of being a "problem player" in terms of builds that don't work with APs.)
I'm just quite honestly gobsmacked that there is a players who annoys you both more than WW. Is it one of I. Major's crowd from high school?
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I'm just quite honestly gobsmacked that there is a players who annoys you both more than WW. Is it one of I. Major's crowd from high school?Yeah, I really get frustrated with players.
We're starting a new Shattered Star campaign. As I've mentioned, I don't like to have to upgrade monsters because even with the Advanced Simple Template you end up with monsters that the "well balanced" PCs can't hit, but that the "cheesemonger" steamrolls. So I allow the Core Rulebook, Advanced Players' Guide, and Ultimate Magic, Equipment, and Combat. Anything else is by GM permission.
Well-known min/max cheese player: "I'm going to play either an occultist or a Unicorn bloodline sorcerer!"
FTR, Occultist is in Occult Adventures and has some abilities that can break a campaign (Object Reading in particular), and the Unicorn bloodline is from a player companion and gives you a sorcerer with all the Cure spells, including Heal, eliminating your need for a divine caster to create a brutal 3-fighter, one caster mix.
And the BIG issue I have with this: He uses Hero Labs and he KNOWS how to set what books he's using, so he just doesn't care.
(And GothBard will never GM again because of him -- he built a dual-wielding crit-focused ranger with a bunch of player companion abilities so he could run around 150-250 hit points per round, eliminating ALL of her bad guys in the campaign without a single tense moment. So he's got a history of being a "problem player" in terms of builds that don't work with APs.)
I'm afraid he doesn't hold a candle to WW, who incessantly begged for stuff *not* in the rules, for free, for his "role playing", and then argued interminably and whined a lot if he didn't get his way. And pouted.
This guy is just a run-of-the-mill power gamer. He just ticks me off because he ignores the book restrictions. Repeatedly. (All three GMs have had to force him to remove stuff, but he just does it and doesn't argue or whine.)
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Palladium Books wrote the book on power creep, several of them, in fact.
'MEGA-DAMAGE!'
Sorry,
Sorry,
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** spoiler omitted **...Parenting fail:
Did you know that the Director's Cut of "Little Shop of Horrors" ends with Audrey and Seymour both getting eaten by the plant, and the Earth being overrun by gigantic Audrey II's, just like the stage show?
Yeah, I didn't either, until it turns out that's the version we downloaded for family movie night tonight.
I had to search for the original theatrical ending on YouTube to show the kids, because we'd been reassuring them all through the movie, every time they asked, "But Audrey and Seymour both live, right? The plant doesn't eat them?"
Whoops.
LMAO. Happy to help with your sanity check!
I've actually had that same experience in the past with a certain Kelly LeBrock television commercial. The original version I remember was, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful; I used to look just like you."
Then it got changed to "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful; my hair used to have a mind of its own."Everyone I've mentioned it to swears my inner critic fabricated this.
I *think* that particular phrase went through a LOT of reworking at one point in time, and I believe there were some regional ads that only got played in one part of the country or another. There are several versions of the commercial on YouTube.
But I do have one question: how can Audrey II be blackface when the character was voiced by one of Motown's greatest?
Opinions on blackface vary wildly throughout generations in the various flavors of African community. My mom found it offensive, as did I, but my grandmother just noted it. If it helps, I didnt find Audrey II HALF as offensive as I found the rapping Zoanoid in the live action Guyver movie that I will not discuss with anyone, Mark Hamill how could you do this to me I am glad we found footage of you singing in German to make up for that nonsense.
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Palladium Books wrote the book on power creep, several of them, in fact.'MEGA-DAMAGE!'
Sorry,
Sorry,
ah, the memories...
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Of course now I have to go looking for Robotech or Rifts at a second hand store this weekend.
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You can have my 'Rifts' supplements if you want. I'm not using them, apart from the one with the terrible, terrible Palladium Fantasy magic swords in, which I keep as a kind of mental purgative.
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Quiet.
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If I'm quiet here it's for good reason.
Unrelated, I found Kiki's Delivery Service on DVD (we used to have it on VHS before our VCR died), the General and Crookshanks are pretty excited.
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Kiki's Delivery Service has a special place in my heart as it was my first AMV.
The song was Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, which is another song that is important to me.
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Okay, I know this is stupid, but I'm going to ask anyway.
The "Just the Underwater Bits" Ruins of Azlant campaign I've been running for the kids and WW is, in essence, a Saturday morning cartoon version of a campaign. Sure, there are dangerous monsters to fight, but the rules are a little bent (because kids playing in an aquatic realm), and because WW is playing a male Dwarf-Selkie-elephant seal. (In the Selkie's land form, instead of an attractive human female, it's a male dwarf. In its aquatic form, instead of a regular seal, an elephant seal, which is kind of like a tuskless walrus. And also has a thick Scottish accent, not Irish.)
We're about to get to a part of the campaign where they have to go to a very small island to defeat some spirit nagas in a tomb.
WW's character: Selkie. Just reverts to land form. No problem.
Val's character: Half-elf, has spent most of his life on land. No problem.
Hermione's character: aquatic elf, which SHOULDN'T be a problem, because according to the book they're amphibious, but she decided she wanted to have a mermaid tail instead of legs with webbed toes.
But she has an animal companion, Fluffy, who is a giant Dire Lobster, and she has a special saddle for riding Fluffy sidesaddle and has put a lot of skill ranks into combat riding and animal handling. (Lobsters IRL have an AMAZING expeditious retreat.)
Lobsters IRL can walk on land for brief periods and can breathe on land as long as their gills are kept moist and cool.
Is it too much to say that Hermione's character just rides Fluffy on land at half-movement? Or would it be better to just give her temporary flight? I'm worried about the nagas killing Fluffy.
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Just say it's unusually humid, you're living in Texas, it's not that unbelievable.
Otherwise the answer is always flying mermaid.
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Just say it's unusually humid, you're living in Texas, it's not that unbelievable.
Since one of the domains of Val's Cleric is Weather, I looked into whether he could just get a Control Weather spell to make sure it's drizzling or misting a bit. But we're about to level up to 11, and that's a Cleric-7 spell.
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Have an early drop include a scroll of Overland Flight. Lasts for hours, and someone in the party ought to be able to use it.
Or just ignore WBL and drop a full-blown wand of Fly.
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Okay, I know this is stupid, but I'm going to ask anyway.
No such thing.
The "Just the Underwater Bits" Ruins of Azlant campaign I've been running for the kids and WW is, in essence, a Saturday morning cartoon version of a campaign.
That is cute, wonderful and adorable, as I miss mu Saturday morning cartoons. It was the only time the TV was truly mine growing up- and even then I had to practice writing out of the dictionary before I could turn it on.
(In the Selkie's land form, instead of an attractive human female, it's a male dwarf.)
...I thought you said it was a Saturday morning cartoon...? Did we watch different cartoons growing up?
But she has an animal companion, Fluffy, who is a giant Dire Lobster, and she has a special saddle for riding Fluffy sidesaddle and has put a lot of skill ranks into combat riding and animal handling. (Lobsters IRL have an AMAZING expeditious retreat.)
Lobsters IRL can walk on land for brief periods and can breathe on land as long as their gills are kept moist and cool.
Is it too much to say that Hermione's character just rides Fluffy on land at half-movement? Or would it be better to just give her temporary flight? I'm worried about the nagas killing Fluffy.
Just say that Fluffy has incredibly hard scales and super high AC. Nothing short of a dinosaur can kill Fluffy.
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Also as an aside, speaking of bad players as we were earlier, there is an anime on Hulu that lampoons EXACTLY what one of the worst players I have ever encountered is like. Its called the hero is overpowered and cautious, I think.
It's funny. Check it out.
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Also as an aside, speaking of bad players as we were earlier, there is an anime on Hulu that lampoons EXACTLY what one of the worst players I have ever encountered is like. Its called the hero is overpowered and cautious, I think.
It's funny. Check it out.
I didn't know you'd played with WW...
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As a total aside, for me I think it's the lack of respect shown by "power gamers" for both the GM and the other players:
GM: OK, I don't have enough time to do a homebrew, so I'll be running a pre-packaged AP. Keep in mind that these things are written for fairly inexperienced players who know nothing of optimization, so I'd much rather we focus on well-rounded, interesting characters and a lot of rich roleplay opportunities.
Players 1-3: That sounds great!
Player 4: Awesome! This'll give me a chance to finally build the range-lance-pounce barbarian I've been reading about in all the optimization threads! The bad guys won't stand a chance!!!
Just a complete tone deafness to the desires of the other players and the GM, even when said players and GM say it out loud and repeatedly.
Skull and Shackles was really just nothing but, "The rest of the PCs stand back and keep the super-ranger upright while he kills everything."
He intentionally built *no* social skills so the rest of us got to play outside of combat, but during combat it was pretty much our job to sit back and not bother even trying.
So he *tried* to be polite about it and make sure the other players had a chance to shine outside of combat, but being relegated to uselessness in every combat for an entire campaign gets... tiresome.
The only exciting fights we had were the ones where he ran in among too many enemies and went down, and the rest of us actually had to do something. And even then it was frustrating because one of the other players would say, "Oh, he's down, we're all dead," and I got pretty peeved because I'd built a combat-oriented oracle. Who never actually fought because she was ubiquitous while he was standing, but she did save the party two or three times when he actually went down.
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It's based in the old Player vs DM mentality, imo. The DM is a foe that must be defeated at every turn. Players that don't buy into this mindset are suckers, and will be killed by the DM at the first opportunity, so they must be saved from/sacrificed to the DM.
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My brothers all embraced the killer GM stereotype, unfortunately.
Fortunately, I did not.
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I'm the kind of DM who plays softball at low levels, but the instant the party gets access to resurrection-type magic, the gloves come off.
I want the story to continue and for individual PCs' plots to unfold, more than anything, so I'm extremely hesitant to kill at low levels unless it's avoidable. But when death no longer is an obstacle to plot, I'm willing to go a little harder on the challenge.
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I don’t need to be a killer GM, the players will do that themselves.
"No, I'm not using precise bombs."
"The flames continue to spread."
"I use the rod of wonder."
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The General: Oh, I make the best hot fudge!
Crookshanks (sadly): No, you don't.
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I don’t need to be a killer GM, the players will do that themselves.
"No, I'm not using precise bombs."
"The flames continue to spread."
"I use the rod of wonder."
Oh, come one! What could go wrong with those?!
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Just say it's unusually humid, you're living in Texas, it's not that unbelievable.
Otherwise the answer is always flying mermaid.
I'm in East Texas right now, and it's just hot. Just like it is back home in California. Hot. This year's Fall sucks.
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Fall? That was three weeks ago, nope, now we're on to winter!
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Well, the East Coast to Texas is gonna get a cold front, but I'll be back in California. Where the fire season is gonna last into December this year.
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Fall? That was three weeks ago, nope, now we're on to winter!