Creative Director
|
Sorry, JJ, I find it REALLY funny that a game designer hasn't heard of MAD before. It's a classic way to limit the power of a class. Make this stat essential, but this one over here also essential, and you force stat spread and lower the power curve. A nice example is the Warmage from Complete Arcane - Charisma based caster, but extra damage to spells based on Intelligence. As a blaster mage character, you couldn't just dump the Int score if you wanted that damage bonus.
Oh... I'm plenty familiar with the design concept and philosophy of it. I've just never heard it called "MAD" before. Part of that, I suspect, is that I actively resist falling into the internet's propensity to over-acronym things.
ORLY? STFU NOOB! LOLOLOL
...I actively resist falling into the internet's propensity to over-acronym things.
You aren't alone. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I finally bothered to google what IIRC and YMMV meant after reading them over and over again. I was proud when I figured out TL;DR all on my own...
ORLY? STFU NOOB! LOLOLOLOMGWTFBBQFTW!!!1!1!oneone (flies away in his rofflecopter)
Dammit, I almost spit out my coffee reading that, lol!
|
Creative Director
|
Another hobby of mine? Deliberately mis-reading folks who speak in acronym in Warcraft chat windows.
For example... someone might say "Your DPS is too low!" And I might say, "I know, I've been trying to train my Digging Poison Squirrel to stay up in the branches, but he likes the ground too much."
Of course... Warcraft's a lot more forgiving with the profanity, so I might go for something else depending on the company in that chat room...
For example... someone might say "Your DPS is too low!" And I might say, "I know, I've been trying to train my Digging Poison Squirrel to stay up in the branches, but he likes the ground too much."
It's not wise to make light Digging Poison Squirrel! What other animal can paralyze you with its venom and digging into your still living body so its young can finish you off as they feast on your still warm innards!
Keep in mind that a lot of what drove this change is, for lack of a better term "player agency," that came about thanks to 3E. Back in our day, a class was a class. There was some limited tweaks and specializations due to kit books and secondary skills, but it was pretty tame and not by any means mainstream. "Do not tell me about your character" was a prohibition against long, discursive narrations.
3E changed that by putting a lot more flexibility into the hands of the player, and the OGL fueled that fire. There was no more awesome idea, nor one more devious, than the prestige class. The flexibility was great, but it allowed for people to get...well...to get like they are.
People have been figuring out the best way to arrange their stats, the damage-dealing capabilities of different builds, the most effective use of spell slots, etc. since long before the first MMORPG went live. It just so happens that MMOs went mainstream right about the same time that people started congregating and sharing their ideas on these subjects on messageboards.
|
Welcome to the Paizo boards and to Pathfinder, Holt.
I think you’ll find that Pathfinder players run the gamut from hard-core roleplayers to hard-core optimizers and everything in between (including people who probably take a healthy mix of both). Similarly you will find that players range from old school gamers who started with the Red box set (or First edition, or second edition or 3.x or whatever) to newer gamers who may or may not have grown up on a diet of Anime and came to pen and paper gaming via World of Warcraft.
Some of these mix of people even manage to get along fairly well.
Welcome to posting in Paizoland, Holt.
There's all kinds, here, as others have noted.
I started playing RPGs in the early eighties, as a kid. During my high school years, all of my second edition books were confiscated by my headmaster and destroyed. Bookless, I and a few friends played formless freestyle games without rules, and run by consensus. We got into Vampire the Masquerade when it came out, and prided ourselves on our liberation from rules.
Recently, I started playing with a group of players who came to D&D 3.5 from WoW. They had a focus on rules and mechanics which perturbed me at first. They were hard pressed to speak, let alone think, in character. One famously declared at the start of the campaign, "My character is a beautiful blonde with big t*&%. She's a lesbian. Her name is Marlboro"
They swiftly mastered the 3.5 ruleset, and, after careful prompting from NPCs, and xp granted for roleplaying, they started to get more involved in story, and less in build.
Then a funny thing happened. They tore through Age of Worms with optimized characters. Apart from a few of the bosses, nothing could touch them. I started to pay more attention to their builds, looking to see if there were exploits that could be dealt with, or rules errors like stacked unstackable modifiers, and I found a few. They had everything their own way for a while, because I was too lazy and 'old school' to pay much attention to the ruleset.
My players were hungry for more tactical play. They wanted more challenges. They wanted legendary tales of survival against the odds. I was locked in a paradigm that was not helping them at all. They had made more efforts to play in character, but I had not made more effort to play by the rules.
Pathfinder beta came out. We switched. I ran Rise of the Runelords, and this time, I got serious about the rules. We read each spell before it was cast. We checked feats. I read up on monster abilities before hand. I started to put serious effort into getting the mechanics under my belt.
I started to find problems I had had for years evaporating. When I first started playing D&D, the DM had to wing a great deal, because the game did not attempt to simulate a great deal. There was a lot of flexibility, and I loved that, but there was a great deal of swinginess too. The rules were not as robust as they are now, so DM fiat and improvisation were essential skills The OSRIC community shows that that style of play has a huge appeal. It is what I grew up with, and am used to, but I have a newfound appreciation for mechanics and rules. Mastering the rules made my job as DM considerably more fun. I no longer had to spend energy and time, and DM bandwidth making up rulings, and could let the system fly in the background, freeing my to invest more time in characterising NPCs and considering enemy tactics, and describing the setting in lavish detail.
Jeff, the blonde bimbo player, now tracks wealth and encumberance for the party. Nate handles initiative and hit points. Playing strictly by the rules allowed me to farm out some DM tasks, further freeing me. I plan on making my new player, Ed, track spell durations and buffs.
I know this rambles somewhat. I just woke up. What I mean to say is simply this: Don't knock system mastery. It allows the rules to fade into the background, if you do it right. If players enjoy optimization, let them. Just make sure you wring every advantage you can out of the stat blocks on your side of the board, and if in doubt, use the advanced creature template.
Alot of Good Stuff
This echoes my experience almost to the letter, sans the specific details. My players heavily cleavaged ELVEN blonde lesbian was named Cherry, and my friends parents confiscated all my DnD books because they were misguided christian zealots.
Although I fall very heavily on a distaste of optimization; it has it's place, and the above post has elucidated why quite exactly.
-Idle
I don't see how DPR and RP (sorry JJ for the acronyms :P) must be mutually exclusive. I'm displeased by hard-core optimization, rules loop holes and similar stuff, but math is a great tool to understand the world, any world.
In a recent thread I started, the numbers crunched by a fellow member of these boards helped me to understand the effect in play of an exotic weapons, and how much this effect was disconnected from my personal perception.
You know why I asked that? Because of a Role Playing reason. I find that diverse weapons and their different use in the various combat techniques can be a great RP hook. I just feraed losing this diversity.
Should be pointed out that I do no advocate DPR as a way to understand how classes work. The gameworld is very complex and stimulating, and Players ingenuity is even bigger - damage is just a small part and various situations raising in game are able to change a lot that specific aspect of the game too.
Part of that, I suspect, is that I actively resist falling into the internet's propensity to over-acronym things.
Or you aren't an engineer. You have no idea how many acronyms go into a plane...
Casters have the option of targeting a weak save, or targeting no save at all. It's quite possible to be a very effective wizard ("God Style"), and literally never have to mess with Spell Resistance, Save DC's, or the like.
Melee ALWAYS have to hit AC, and in addition, occasionally worry about concealment and DR. 1-2 pts is a swingannamiss to a Melee, which is either 100% or 0 dmg, no saves for half. To be effective, a Melee has to hit nearly every time. He doesn't have the options a spellcaster does.
The first time I really noticed Optimizing was with 1E Oriental Adventures. The choice was between playing the really cool Kensai and the Samurai with his 18/00 Str kai shout. It quickly became obvious that the Samurai + magic sword and multiple attacks was better then the Kensai with non-magic sword, max dmg, and scaling bonuses. I then realized that a Girdle of Storm Giant Strength was Far more powerful then a +5 sword, yet worth only a fraction as much, and that made no sense whatsoever.
Then we had a NPC fighter we picked up in Castle Greyhawk go from 16 Str to 18/00 with gauntlets of ogre power, and his effectiveness just EXPLODED.
Stats mattered suddenly. For mages, you wanted a 19 Intelligence so you could learn any and all spells you wanted to. big fight over Int boosting books and Gems of Insight. For clerics, it was all about the bonus spells...more healing, please!
But yeah, I never actually tried to figure out the math behind 1E, but it was all there behind the scenes. It's just the classes tended to be so much stronger then the monsters at a base level that it didn't matter as much. Once you start making monsters challenging, stats REALLY affect stuff!
==Aelryinth
Part of that, I suspect, is that I actively resist falling into the internet's propensity to over-acronym things.Or you aren't an engineer. You have no idea how many acronyms go into a plane...
Hmmm I guess 13,460.
|
|
Thanks for the warm welcome folks.
First sorry for the elitism Cartigan just where I came from, I've got nothing against roll-playing, it just ain't my style.
When I looked though a 3e book in high school I thought it needed a few more months in development time, it felt rushed to me, and it was a hell of a shock for a 1/2e player like myself to absorb, so while I was in charge of my schools gaming club, we stuck to 2e which was the system I as primary gm knew best. After highschool other games popped in and by the time I got back around to D&D Pathfinder was out and damn did you guys do pretty. I love it all, from the skills (my biggest peeve with 3.0 is they managed to from my point of view make character skills even more obtuse) to the modifications of the spells, to the much more high fantasy feeling art (I wasn't a big fan of the 3e clutter and darker and edgier art style.) And I love feats so I can't say I don't get the optimization thing I just don't get the lengths some people will go too with it.
Thanks for the reading material though folks. You've given me a lot to think about.
Holt
I've been both playing and running rpg's of various stripe of several years (Basic D&D, AD&D 2e, various WoD and Deadlands Classic) and my groups have always been more about the story and the exploration than the combat...
My experience is similar, although my three most-played games are D&D, WoD, and Shadowrun rather than D&D, WoD, and Deadlands. (I have played a bit of Deadlands. I love that it uses playing cards and poker chips as game mechanics for a game set in the old west!)
.
As far as DPR goes, I see it as comparing oranges to grapefruits to apples to coconuts. Each class has a role to fill and shouldn't expect to match perfectly with the other classes in damage potential. . .
Generally, DPR comparisons are used to compare the damage dealing potential of character’s who’s main role is to deal damage. Check out a discussion of “god wizards” and you won’t see DPR mentioned. You’ll see a lot of talk about “battlefield control” instead, and very little talk of damage. In fact, if you start talking about how much damage your witch, wizard, or sorcerer does, you’ll be told to quit trying to do the fighter’s job!
In the versions of D&D I started with, nobody got to attack more than once in a round, and you always get a critical hit on a 20. That made it pretty easy to decide which weapon you wanted to use – the one that rolled the biggest dice dealt the most damage. There was no need to talk about whether you were going to use a longsword or a broadsword, longswords were better and everyone used them. There are different options now, and if you want to decide between charging with a big two-handed weapon, or standing still and slicing your enemy three times with a pair of knives, just looking at the damage dice doesn’t tell you much.
.
Right there with you Holt. I agree totally. Part of what you are seeing as a "problem" (if it can even be called that, since a social game relies on those partakers of the hobby for continued life, therefore the partakers will align and design the game as they see fit) is what is often referred to as the old school - new school difference. While guys like you and I look at RPGs as a storytelling tool, many of the genre's younger members have had more experience with PC RPGs or game console RPGs and therefore their idea of an RPG revolves around their own understanding. They've been playing RPGs where they can direct multiple characters in combat against multiple opponents and the whole combat lasts maybe 3-5 minutes. They've never had to sit at a table and help imagine combat unfold over the course of an entire hour. Therefore ideas like MAD and DPR have become part of the culture.
While you’ve correctly identified two different approaches to RPGs, I think you’ve misattributed the source of the difference. It’s not generational! I played with people twenty years ago who talked about “efficient character builds” and “burst damage” and who picked apart every game mechanic to make it work in their favor. In fact, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were miniatures war gamers before they wrote D&D, and you haven’t seen min-maxing until you’ve seen a war gamer do it! What you are seeing old vs new is a debate which has been raging for 30+ years.
But, you might ask, why do I see so much of one particular style all over the Pathfinder forum? Three reasons I can think of:
First – Which game are we talking about?
Among the hundreds of RPGs in existence, Pathfinder is definitely toward the “gamer” rather than the “storyteller” end of the spectrum. If you were reading a forum for Little Fears or Dread, you would see more talk about stories, character interaction, and dramatic tension. In fact, in the yahoo group for a campaign that I run you’ll see very few rules mentioned at all, and a lot more discussion of
Second – Which players of that game are you encountering?
You’re reading a forum, so you’re reading the place where people who like to talk about numbers come to talk about numbers. Most players that don’t want to hear about DPR aren’t hanging out here where it’s discussed. Some of them are drawing their character’s portraits, others are writing their character’s journals, and some of them are busy roleplaying.
Third – What topics will we discuss once we get here?
So, assuming someone has chosen to play Pathfinder over the hundreds of other available games, and assuming they’re the kind of player to even show up in a web forum, some topics lend themselves to being discussed on the internet and other don’t. If I want help figuring out how poison works, or a rules clarification about spellcasting from horseback, I’m going to look to the forum. If I want advice on whether my character should join the thieves’ guild in order to satisfy his father even though his girlfriend will desert him if she discovers his membership, well, I’m not looking to the forum for that.
============
FOr the newcomer: Stormwind Fallacy is a rule from the WoTC boards. It basically means that role-playing considerations do NOT invalidate optimizing a character. You can have an optimized character that is good at what he does, and ALSO role play well.Having a character that roleplays well and cannot do his job skillwise takes DM favoritism to keep alive. In an impartial contest (like the AP's) such characters tend to have severe problems. Once you're in combat, being able to role-play doesn't help you avoid the ogre barbarian's greatclub.
Thanks for explaining that!
It doesn't model the story-driven system very well. Does that make it wrong? No. Just good at reflecting different things.Huh. I couldn't disagree more strongly. I think it works better at modeling story-driven games than anything else. I've certainly never had a problem with the rules in setting up any Adventure Paths to tell the exact story I wanted to tell, that's for sure.
All depends on your point of view.
It depends on what kind of stories you want to tell.
D&D, it's grandchild Pathfinder, and level-based role playing systems in general, are good at telling stories in the classic fantasy tradition (and the classical epic tradition).
Homer was telling this kind of story in The Odyssey nearly 3000 years ago! They're great stories that resonate strongly with us.
ULYSSES by James Joyce (even though it's based on The Odyssey!)
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence (but T.E. Lawrence would fit in nicely!)
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
I think the scope of a novel is more similar to the scope of an Adventure Path, but IMDB's top ten movies are probably much more familiar than Time's list. Also, some of these stories would lend themselves very well to the epic treatment of a d20-like game, while others would not.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather: Part II (1974)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Schindler's List (1993)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Inception (2010)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
The Dark Knight (2008)
I wouldn't ask Pathfinder to retell The Metamorphosis for the same reason I wouldn't ask a wizard to be my primary DPR :)
While you’ve correctly identified two different approaches to RPGs, I think you’ve misattributed the source of the difference. It’s not generational! I played with people twenty years ago who talked about “efficient character builds” and “burst damage” and who picked apart every game mechanic to make it work in their favor. In fact, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were miniatures war gamers before they wrote D&D, and you haven’t seen min-maxing until you’ve seen a war gamer do it! What you are seeing old vs new is a debate which has been raging for 30+ years.
Blue, you're absolutely right, and in fact I've had similar experiences as well. I was simply trying to point at that with the advent of the PC and game console RPGs, there seem to be a lot more mechanics minded people than there used to be. Certainly, there have always been mechanics minded RPers. I've had the math-brain vs. language-brain discussion with more than a few of my groups. We almost always determine that the math-brain RPers should game together, and the language-brain RPers likewise. So, I'm sorry if that came off as me saying PC and game console RPGs are ruining the industry. I certainly never meant it that way, and don't hold for role-playing elitism myself. I wast trying to make it clear that I think the hobby can, and should, invite and entertain all comers, regardless of their gaming ideals. If that wasn't clear, then again, I apologize.
Case in point:
Two points -
Firstly, I suspect board-talk (here and elsewhere) leans mechanical because mechanics are, ultimately, easier to discuss, and there's more similarity between mechanics at different tables than there is similarity between roleplaying. I've played at tables where an eight-hour session with 2-3 dice rolled is considered an accomplishment and a great game; and I've played at tables where five minutes of "Where is the dungeon, again?", followed by swords swinging and spells spelling is the order of the day.Simply put, on the matter of role-playing, these tables have little to say to each other. On such topics, they don't speak a common language. There's nothing to talk about.
It's all about what forums you chose to hang out in. The more you get into the world content stuff and out of the playtest forums, the more roleplaying and less character optimization stuff you'll find.
RPGs may be a niche hobby, but there's a HUGE spread of ways to PLAY the game. None of them are the only right way (despite what some posters might think), and they're all welcome here. The trick is to find your way to the sections that match your preferred play style, and when you venture OUT of those zones, to keep your zen with you and not get too annoyed, I suppose. ;-)...
Huh. I couldn't disagree more strongly. I think it works better at modeling story-driven games than anything else. I've certainly never had a problem with the rules in setting up any Adventure Paths to tell the exact story I wanted to tell, that's for sure.
+1s to both
|
I don't think it does. Maybe u see too much malice in people's posts. I think his girl was being sincere when she said that, not sarcastic.Care to elaborate on the bolded part mate?Really? You consider that insulting? I suppose it's a good thing I didn't elaborate on all the role-playing elitism.Paizo have also set a baseline, the early APs should be marked as 'expert-only' and they still err on the bad-ass so it is difficult ot get away from the damage is everything ethos.
Incidentally; don't be offended by Cartigan's deliberately insulting post, he does that to everyone.
It's all in there. And it just gets more derogatory from there.[...]
and we all passed on 4e as too combat focused for us (our opinion, not trying to start a flame war here.)
[...]
But then I get involved in reading a lot of the actual forum posts, and start seeing things like MAD and DPR thrown around. Multiple Ability Dependency and Damage Per Round, I had to explain to my girlfriend, her response: "This a WoW forum too?"It's still derogatory. The inherent implication is that WoW players - and thus anyone that plays like them - are below real role-players because they talk about stats. Well I don't know about how AD&D or 1E worked, but 3.0+ is about stats - stats affect everything characters do - intrinsically. You can role-play all you want, but that doesn't mean a character that relies on 4 stats isn't going to have a harder time fighting anything CR appropriate than a character that relies on 2 stats, short of DM fiat.
Nevermind the fact that the implication that WoW influenced table-top players is false. 3E was out well before WoW. The dynamic already existed that stats affected everything and that classes that relied on multiple high stats were at a disadvantage in the game.
And let's definitely nevermind the undercurrent of Stormwind Fallacy in his...
Cartigan,
Did you ever think that each of us has their own style of play? The OP was simply stating that their is an undercurrent that it on this forum and not saying one thing about WoW in a derogatory manner what so ever and yet you see the OP doing so and imply that the OP was simply calling a Min/maxing style of play as being beneath people that do otherwise and this was NOT the case.Not only that but you are basically doing the same thing you are accusing the OP of. That is you are reading something that is just not there. Just because someone mentions a style of play they do not like does not make them an elitist does it? Not everyone is out to get you.
Huh. I couldn't disagree more strongly. I think it works better at modeling story-driven games than anything else. I've certainly never had a problem with the rules in setting up any Adventure Paths to tell the exact story I wanted to tell, that's for sure.
All depends on your point of view.
James, could you point me in the direction of any AP's that may deal with:
Mass combat
Trials and other extended social interactions that have serious consequences for the PC
Ship to ship chase and combat rules. Coach to coach would be good.
It's a good system, it's a quite effective system but unless these things are tucked into an AP somewhere there are shortcomings in the rules.
Mass combat has been dealt with in a very simple manner my Kingmaker, chases by the games masters guide and curse of the crimson throne.(these can be applied to ship to ship and coach / coach chases, or even researcher researcher chases.)
James has pointed out that Jade regent will be very social in nature, so I am holding out hope for social conflict resolution systems for that.
[Mass combat has been dealt with in a very simple manner my Kingmaker, chases by the games masters guide and curse of the crimson throne.(these can be applied to ship to ship and coach / coach chases, or even researcher researcher chases.)
James has pointed out that Jade regent will be very social in nature, so I am holding out hope for social conflict resolution systems for that.
James and several other were nice enough to point me in the direction of those and I thank them once again.
I do wish that they were compiled togetether in the GMG / UC another setting-less book. Just to save my aching pocket book a little bit as our group tends to not run published adverntures buying an AP just for a mechanic is less than optimal, for me. I am sure others get more out of it. But it is what it is and that may be what I have to do.
[Mass combat has been dealt with in a very simple manner my Kingmaker, chases by the games masters guide and curse of the crimson throne.(these can be applied to ship to ship and coach / coach chases, or even researcher researcher chases.)
James has pointed out that Jade regent will be very social in nature, so I am holding out hope for social conflict resolution systems for that.
James and several other were nice enough to point me in the direction of those and I thank them once again.
I do wish that they were compiled togetether in the GMG / UC another setting-less book. Just to save my aching pocket book a little bit as our group tends to not run published adverntures buying an AP just for a mechanic is less than optimal, for me. I am sure others get more out of it. But it is what it is and that may be what I have to do.
Well several such mechanics have already been brought together in the afore mentioned GMG, and i suspect that as the game develops we will see future ones compiled into setting-less books in the future.
|
|
Welcome to the Boards, Holt!
I'm pretty new to all the acronyms, jargon and such, too, but even though I'm hugely a Fluff guy and heavy roleplay promoter, I greatly benefited as DM and all-around gamer because I have learned some of this Crunch crap. I have been, for example, strongly upset at the persistent existence of MAD (well, actually SAD) forever (well, actually just the mid 80s).
But mostly I'm a backstory & setting gamer -- all Fluff.
|
I'll agree with a lot of posters here:
- Mechanics are easier to talk about with disparate gamers in disparate groups and campaigns than fluff / storytelling subjects.
- Much of the theory crafting is done for love of math, statistics, and an intrinsic desire to pick stuff apart and see how it works. You know those kids that take apart a clock and put it back together out of an intense curiosity? Many posters have the same sort of mindset.
- An interest in making your character effective in their chosen area of expertise is pretty natural. It does not invalidate the player's ability or desire to roleplay.
- Playtests run on the forum further encourage those who enjoy fiddling with crunch to come to these forums and engage in theorycraft.
I enjoy crunch greatly. I'm a rules nerd - but part of the reason I'm a rules nerd is I want my understanding of the rules to be as seamless as possible so I can spend more time thinking about the story and characters involved than looking up rules interactions in the book during a game.
|
Creative Director
|
I do wish that they were compiled togetether in the GMG / UC another setting-less book. Just to save my aching pocket book a little bit as our group tends to not run published adverntures buying an AP just for a mechanic is less than optimal, for me. I am sure others get more out of it. But it is what it is and that may be what I have to do.
They most likely will be at some point in the future. The AP is a great place for us to experiment with new rules subsystems to model new types of adventures and encounters—we do four times as many of these as rulebooks, after all. Haunts, chases, traits, and other elements first introduced in an AP have "graduated" to hardcover status already, and once we're through doing player option books (hopefully with Ultimate Combat or soon thereafter) we can switch focus in the rulebook line to other topics like mass combat, kingdom building, or the like.
Until then, though, the AP (and to a lesser extent, the other book lines we do) will continue to be where we debut these new rules systems. The AP, particularly, since each volume of it is half adventure and half resource book.
I removed a handful of posts. Please try to stay civil.
They most likely will be at some point in the future. The AP is a great place for us to experiment with new rules subsystems to model new types of adventures and encounters—we do four times as many of these as rulebooks, after all. Haunts, chases, traits, and other elements first introduced in an AP have "graduated" to hardcover status already, and once we're through doing player option books (hopefully with Ultimate Combat or soon thereafter) we can switch focus in the rulebook line to other topics like mass combat, kingdom building, or the like.
Until then, though, the AP (and to a lesser extent, the other book lines we do) will continue to be where we debut these new rules systems. The AP, particularly, since each volume of it is half adventure and half resource book.
I cannot fault the logic of that process. I am glad to hear that more "compilations" are on the way at some point.
I enjoy crunch greatly. I'm a rules nerd - but part of the reason I'm a rules nerd is I want my understanding of the rules to be as seamless as possible so I can spend more time thinking about the story and characters involved than looking up rules interactions in the book during a game.
I like this way of looking at it. I spend a lot of my time here on the crunch so when at the table the cloud takes over.
I'll agree with a lot of posters here:
Mechanics are easier to talk about with disparate gamers in disparate groups and campaigns than fluff / storytelling subjects.
I want to point out that in games like World of Darkness and Savage Worlds, the fluff/storytelling is part of the mechanics.
I expect it is more about the players you meet, then just the system itself. Hopefully when the mechanics people meet the roleplayers (substitute better terms for both groups if you wish), they will share experiences and both will be better as a result. But I have stated on other threads that it is a dice game, so no matter how much you want to roleplay, there will be the best method to do it using dice, class, feats, etc. Unless you want to use a diceless system. Add to that the complexity of the system you are playing, and your choices will vary.
But in Storyteller games number crunching takes far more of a back seat than in D20 derivatives because much of difficulty determination is declared adhoc for each situation. GM's are far less bound by theorycrafting armchair experts in WOD then they are in D20/Pathfinder.I want to point out that in games like World of Darkness and Savage Worlds, the fluff/storytelling is part of the mechanics.I'll agree with a lot of posters here:
Mechanics are easier to talk about with disparate gamers in disparate groups and campaigns than fluff / storytelling subjects.
I'm not disputing that. I'm just pointing out that storytelling IS part of the mechanics of those systems and NOT part of the mechanics of D&D/pathfinder.
But in Storyteller games number crunching takes far more of a back seat than in D20 derivatives because much of difficulty determination is declared adhoc for each situation. GM's are far less bound by theorycrafting armchair experts in WOD then they are in D20/Pathfinder.I'm not disputing that. I'm just pointing out that storytelling IS part of the mechanics of those systems and NOT part of the mechanics of D&D/pathfinder.
Cartigan, you just reminded me of a conversation we recently had at the table. It was sparked by, funnily enough, the recent Community episode that is entirely devoted to a fake Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game. What sparked the conversation was a line uttered by Chevy Chase as the character of Pierce Hawthorne. He says, "I won. I won Dungeons and Dragons, and it was Advanced." Which of course is hysterical, BUT, it also seems to be a view that is creeping into gaming. (I'm not even going to intimate how or why it's creeping in, or for how long it's been creeping in.)
The idea creeping in? The idea that D20 fantasy RPGs are games that you try to win. Your idea that storytelling isn't part of the mechanics speaks so clearly to that idea. Many people treat games like 3.0, 3.5, and now Pathfinder as a boardgame that is meant to be won. I still can't grasp a hold of that idea. My idea of RPGs revolves most distinctly around what it says near the beginning of theThe Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is a tabletop
fantasy game in which the players take on the roles
of heroes who form a group (or party) to set out on
dangerous adventures. Helping them tell this story is the
Game Master (or GM), who decides what threats the player
characters (or PCs) face and what sorts of rewards they earn
for succeeding at their quest. Think of it as a cooperative
storytelling game, where the players play the protagonists
and the Game Master acts as the narrator, controlling the
rest of the world.
How do you win that game? In the groups I've GMed there have evolved three distinct views of "winning:" 1. Never fall below 0 hit points, 2. Get the most, best, and most expensive loot for yourself, 3. Kill more than anyone else.
Now, I might show just a shade of role-player elitism here, but I remember a day when, as I was playing a character, I chose to sacrifice the character in an act of foolish heroics, because it made a better story. By dying I allowed the rest of my party to escape through the narrow corridor, and get the mayor's daughter safely home. The GM and players of that game didn't even once tell me I was being stupid, or wasting a perfectly good mid-level character. At the end of the day, we were all thoroughly satisfied with a great story told.
That is not to say that I don't appreciate the idea that different people, can, and should, get different things from this game. If you want to "win" Pathfinder, go ahead, and please win it. I would just like someone to show me, somewhere in the Core Rulebook or even the GameMastery Guide where it says, "To win:."
Just because a game is 99% crunchy data and rules, doesn't mean that those rules aren't designed for the sole purpose of telling good stories. In one of my groups we have this saying: "Good rules = better, faster, easier storytelling. Bad rules = see rule 0 = contentious conversation."
Also for those interested you can view that Community episode in its entirety here.
Can I make a new fallacy up? It can be the fallacy that arguing storytelling doesn't affect mechanics is tantamount to saying you can win D&D.
No one bloody said you can win D&D. Unless you count trying to not die as long as possible as "winning." Which has jack all to do with storytelling not being mechanically relevant in D&D.
Can I make a new fallacy up? It can be the fallacy that arguing storytelling doesn't affect mechanics is tantamount to saying you can win D&D.
No one bloody said you can win D&D. Unless you count trying to not die as long as possible as "winning." Which has jack all to do with storytelling not being mechanically relevant in D&D.
I wasn't trying to say anything about arguing mechanics. I don't understand, though, how storytelling can not be mechanically relevant. The mechanics are there to drive the story, aren't they? The two aren't mutually exclusive, they are synonymous. You need the mechanics to tell the story, but the ultimate aim of the game is to tell a story, not be a master of the mechanics, isn't it?
Also, I never once meant that you were saying you could win D&D. I was just saying your post reminded me of that conversation we had. Particularly because one of my players said: "The fact that there are so many rules, makes it seem sometimes like there's an ultimate goal of winning."
I wasn't disagreeing with you, in fact I think I was wholesale agreeing with you. Storytelling is not part of the mechanics, and so I think a lot of times people lose sight of the storytelling aspect of the game.
I wasn't trying to say anything about arguing mechanics. I don't understand, though, how storytelling can not be mechanically relevant.
Really? You can't? Have you played both systems?
From what I understand of World of Darkness, the better you tell the story the more literal advantages you get to performing an action. Savage Worlds also gives you physical, tangible benefits for doing stuff in character and story appropriate.No matter how well you play a character or tell a story, you never get bonuses in D&D. Ever. In the rules of the game - not your house rules, the game rules, there is no way for you to mechanically benefit from good role-playing in D&D. Fact.
I wasn't trying to say anything about arguing mechanics. I don't understand, though, how storytelling can not be mechanically relevant.Really? You can't? Have you played both systems?
From what I understand of World of Darkness, the better you tell the story the more literal advantages you get to performing an action. Savage Worlds also gives you physical, tangible benefits for doing stuff in character and story appropriate.No matter how well you play a character or tell a story, you never get bonuses in D&D. Ever. In the rules of the game - not your house rules, the game rules, there is no way for you to mechanically benefit from good role-playing in D&D. Fact.
+1
I totally misread the other post then. I thought you meant storytelling had nothing to do with Pathfinder. That was my misread. You are correct, when you play the game RAW there is absolutely zero benefit to good story telling (other than telling a good story of course). No one could argue that. My bad.
From what I understand of World of Darkness, the better you tell the story the more literal advantages you get to performing an action. Savage Worlds also gives you physical, tangible benefits for doing stuff in character and story appropriate.
While I've played in games that had bonuses for good descriptions, I do not remember WoD to be one of them. Of course, I haven't actually played the latest edition, so I could be wrong on that point.
No matter how well you play a character or tell a story, you never get bonuses in D&D. Ever. In the rules of the game - not your house rules, the game rules, there is no way for you to mechanically benefit from good role-playing in D&D. Fact.
Actually, this is false. The GM can give you a circumstance bonus for anything. The most common way I've seen diplomacy used is the GM giving a circumstance bonus based on how good a player's speech or arguments are. That's not a house rule, that's just an oft overlooked one.
So you haven't read page 403 of the core rules then?
One handy rule to keep under your belt is the Fiat Rule—simply grant a player a +2 or a –2 bonus or penalty to a die roll...{/quote]
So you haven't read page 403 of the core rules then?
One handy rule to keep under your belt is the Fiat Rule—simply grant a player a +2 or a –2 bonus or penalty to a die roll...{/quote]
Can't believe I'm going to do this but I have to back up Cartigan here. The rest of that rule says:
One handy rule to keep under your belt is the Fiat
Rule—simply grant a player a +2 or a –2 bonus or penalty
to a die roll if no one at the table is precisely sure how a
situation might be handled by the rules.
I get the fiat rule, but that is supposed to be used purely in situations where the rules don't specifically say what should happen. In that case it's not a mechanical bonus for good role playing, it's a mechanical bonus (or in some cases negative) because nobody knows off the top of their head what the rules actually say.
This is always fun discussion when it hits gaming boards. The OP must have very different experience than I did as a gamer.
1) This optimzing and such has always existed in any RPG since the very first one. It just became more so as a more detailed character creations rules came out. I mean where do you guys think the Computer RPGs got it from orginaly? They just came up with all the fancy shorthand for it...tough I believe MAD came around from 2nd or 3rd D&D.
2) WoD in my experience attracted the largest number crunchers power gamers in my area. Not saying that WoD is a bad game...it was just the trend in my area of the WoD groups I have known.
3) D&D/Pathfinder I think is alot better in telling so many different fantasy stories than any other system. WoD? your hand are so tied in concept it is not even funny...it is very restrictive in certain ways. The world is a very strong say on what happens...I considers this a big weakness in the system.
4) The mechanic are very useful in telling a story. As rules keep things consistent...everybopdy agrees to them or can 'live with them'...and they bring a common understanmding to everyone involved. All these things are needed to collectively tell a story. Or you have bob launching rainbows from his ass...and Tim being the 'best at everything' including things other PCs are the 'best at'...and Ted who just want to be Drizzt or someother novel character rip off. With mechanics it becomes simpler to control these things. Otherwise you end up with players argueing like kids used to when playing make believe on rather you hit or not.
5) Optimizers are not a bad thing neccessary. They get a bad name due to two types of Optimizers that I have seen...
1) The Cheating one...you know the guy who always seems to 'misinterpert' the rules so they work exactly like the way he needs them too.
2) The mathtician...are the people who looks at their characters as a math equation and that is it.
But like in everything we focus on the bad examples and that becomes the sum of it all.
The thing is RPG gamers really have not changed as much as people assume...it is just that the internet just puts you in contact with people who have different play styles than you. Personaly this a great thing since I think understanding other peoples play styles open doors that you never know existed.