Sorry, try this link.
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EDIT: To give an example. The comic book character Venom from Spiderman fame started out pretty evil. He was motivated by revenge, was all about killing the hero spiderman, etc, etc. He had a few taboos and wouldn't harm anyone he deemed "innocent" (people like children, civilians, etc).Later on, he reconciled (and worked) with spiderman to a point, and kind of became a superhero. He became more like the punisher. He was a vigilante who would use unsavory means to overcome unsavory individuals (whereas spiderman might web you up and leave you for the cops, if venom got you the cops may never find all the pieces). As his character evolved, he became more and more "good", including heroically acting to rescue spiderman from a shared nemesis of theirs during a period where Venom was on trial (even after his lawyer explained acting out in the courtroom, even for heroic acts, would only get him into more trouble - but "If I don't, spiderman will die"; and the rest is history).
I'd just like to point out that Venom's becoming good was a pretty hardcore Flanderization of the character. The initial taboo against killing "innocents" was supposed to illustrate how insane Venom actually was, since it was mostly referenced when he was actually killing an innocent, along with some pretty unconvincing crocodile tears. Or his concept of "innocent" was so vastly skewed that pretty much anyone failed to qualify.
However, the character became popular, and eventually Venom fanboys started writing the character. As such, they ignored the aspects of the character they didn't like (such as the fact that his "honor" was largely just self-justification for what a giant jerkass he was).
The situation was largely remedied when Mac Gargan gained the symbiont. His Venom was shown be so unredeemably evil that even Gargan himself (no stranger to evil acts as the Scorpion) was sickened with some of the things it did. Of course, he was aided in his evil by the fact that almost the entire Gargan run as Venom found him in the role of lackey to Norman Osborne.
To reign myself in and post something vaguely related to the topic, I think that when you have a cool plot that bends/breaks the rules....damn the rules, full speed ahead! If you need some degree of justification, then the BBEG has an artifact. Or he's being aided by one of the evil gods. Or some other deux ex machina. Just be careful that that deux ex machina doesn't fall into the player's hands.
Now I'm curious. How many of y'all as GMs actually go through the rules to verify your major NPCs and, especially, the BB, can actually do major plot scenes like the above (or transform into a dragon or summon/conjure hordes of minions with a swift action as she makes her escape, etc....)Hey James,
I and some of my friends have always felt that the Undead raising Necromancer has never really gotten much love. Is there any plan to help fix this in the foreseeable future? also, is there any chance that some spells will be created that help raise a massive army of undead, as opposed to needing to cast many spells over and over and over again?The best way to have a necromancer that controls a lot of undead is to just write an adventure with him and give him lots of undead. You don't have to justify every tiny thing with spells and abilities.
NPCs follow all the rules....though those rules include spell research...magic items creation....and the all fun artifacts(though when I include artifacts of evil...the main quest is to destroy it....beating the guy holding it is just step A). And all of this is available to the PCs upon victory.
Though as KaeYoss said there are things beyond the rules that are open to PCs and NPCs...like I don't use leadership as a feat per se. If a PC works at it he gets the effects of it for free...likewise same with NPCs...plus hiring people.
In the case of the necrmancer it is very easy to do have a army of undead with in the rules.
Though when a player asks how is this possible under the rules...my response is why don't you ask the NPC in game.
Off-Topic: Venom
I'd just like to point out that Venom's becoming good was a pretty hardcore Flanderization of the character. The initial taboo against killing "innocents" was supposed to illustrate how insane Venom actually was, since it was mostly referenced when he was actually killing an innocent, along with some pretty unconvincing crocodile tears. Or his concept of "innocent" was so vastly skewed that pretty much anyone failed to qualify.
However, the character became popular, and eventually Venom fanboys started writing the character. As such, they ignored the aspects of the character they didn't like (such as the fact that his "honor" was largely just self-justification for what a giant jerkass he was).
The situation was largely remedied when Mac Gargan gained the symbiont. His Venom was shown be so unredeemably evil that even Gargan himself (no stranger to evil acts as the Scorpion) was sickened with some of the things it did. Of course, he...
That's great and all, but I have the comic where spiderman actually got the black costume, and I was an avid spiderman fan through this period right through venom's own comic book line; including the introduction of Cletus/Carnage where Spiderman and Venom begrudgingly team up for the first time, Maximum Carnage (one of the best series ever), and Separation Anxiety (another pretty good one focusing entirely on the symbiotic costumes), the development through Venom: The Madness series, and so on and so forth.
The character Venom has gone through less of a Flanderization and more of a character evolution in my opinion. Rather than being amazingly stale, the character has been explored by the writers; and sorry but the Venom I've always known and loved has indeed had kind of his own sense of honor, even if it was screwed up sometimes. That's what made him both a compelling villain - the believed he was justified, he felt he was right, and then later he evolved to a certain level of redemption. He reconciled with his heroic nemesis, etc.
If anything, I see "flanderization" when I hear about "New Venom" or "Antivenom" and so forth. "Venom" is Eddie Brock + Black Costume Symbiote, while Gargan + Black Symbiote might be called Venom, he's about as much "Venom" from where I'm sitting as the silver surfer or spiderman was Carnage when the Carnage symbiote latched onto them: In other words, they weren't. I haven't kept up with the trends for Venom and the gang these days, as I've been too busy with other things to keep up with comic books (quite sad, I know Q.Q).
In short, when I say Venom, I'm talking about classic venom. I'm talking about the days where it was specifically noted that the symbiotes themselves were influenced by their human hosts, which is why the Venom symbiote and the Carnage symbiote both had wildly different personalities, some different abilities, and so on and so forth. I'm talking about the Venom who killed those who threatened him, but saved a skateboarder from a traffic accident (a great issue by the way).
So, yeah, I mean Venom. The guy who started as a bad guy hellbent on revenge, who felt the world took a whiz in his corn flakes, and felt victimized by spiderman and those who would do him and other "innocents" like him wrong, and he wanted to make them pay; and his gradual evolution into a better person as he worked alongside the very morally upright Spiderman whom he so vehemently hated for a long time.
So yeah. Evil -> Neutral.
A really great game
I think you fall more into the "Half and Half" category than you may realize.
I assume you built the Lich using the established rules and ran the combat the same way. But did the Lich have to pay for the tower out of her WBL? Having a prepared defensive position did make her more combat effective, yes? What about the valuables? Where did the other creatures come from, Leadership? Were they purchased somehow? If so, was that taken from the Lich's WBL? In other words, what rules would a PC have to follow to get the exact same set-up that the Lich did?
Please don't interpret this as an attack on you or your style of gaming. It actually sounds like a well built and executed adventure. I'd have loved to play in it. I just don't see the problem with building an adventure using the rules to build the encounters (the bricks) and whatever is needed to create the story (the building).
A really great gameI think you fall more into the "Half and Half" category than you may realize.
I assume you built the Lich using the established rules and ran the combat the same way. But did the Lich have to pay for the tower out of her WBL? Having a prepared defensive position did make her more combat effective, yes? What about the valuables? Where did the other creatures come from, Leadership? Were they purchased somehow? If so, was that taken from the Lich's WBL? In other words, what rules would a PC have to follow to get the exact same set-up that the Lich did?
The tower was not part of her wealth by level, but then again neither is stuff that is used primarily for roleplaying purposes. Wealth by Level is noted as being the expected combined value of a character's equipment. Ergo, if a player takes time to expend gold to build a school (say a magician's academy) for roleplaying purposes, it would be recommended to even their wealth by level back out over some time through adventures; because the school - while a major party of the character - is not part of the character's equipment.
This is the same with NPCs. An NPC's WBL is only the stuff they can carry on hand, and/or material that counts as part of them for their challenge rating and the like. For example, a wand of summon monster I is is part of a character's equipment, so a Riding Dog summoned this way does not grant XP, while a pet outside of their WBL would.
The tower itself, humorously, wasn't intended to be a true fortress. Honestly it was filled with some servants and sentries, but literally every room was just that a room. It had a study, and so forth. It actually didn't really event contain any real traps, other than what amounted to a magical intercom that allowed the lich to communicate with servants and people on other floors of the tower. The tower itself could have been constructed simply with multiple castings of wall of stone and fabricate, which would have likewise cost the lichess nothing but some time.
That being said, the inhabitants of the tower were either her brothers and sisters in religion, or those that were helpful via Diplomacy, and so forth, and being outside her direct mechanical benefits/WBL retained their own CRs and motivations. In fact, there actually was nothing that she had that a player character couldn't achieve with work or dedication (which is the point, and why I wouldn't touch the lich-only artifacts I was OK'd to use against the party).
In all cases, with the appropriate amount of down time and/or application of money (let's face it, by about 11th level, TIME > MONEY because money can be produced infinitely by this point with a wide, wide variety of methods; but it takes time to produce power. Example: Assuming you're using standard limitations for items (IE - items with a cost greater than X are not easily purchasable anywhere) then you may find that you must craft or commission them yourself, at which point time becomes the limiting factor, followed thereafter by the limits of your level (or the limit of the highest available artisan).
An example would be another game I ran from 1st-29th a couple of years ago. A bit pre-20th level, the party had pretty much determined that their monetary resources that they could produce using their own abilities or time was effectively infinite, and I came to terms with this realization and had a talk with them about how the campaign would be progressing (I think communication is pretty key in a game, honestly). I explained that it would mean that questing for treasure would pretty much be moot; except for things that was out of their grasp based on their level and/or limitations, which they were fine with.
This actually had a positive effect on the game itself. The party was about as geared as they wanted to be, which honestly didn't make them that much stronger. However, what it DID do was make them more interested in downtime, casual role-playing, and pursuing options they might not have done before. When they found quirky magic items, they were less inclined to hurriedly selling them off to get something that gave more power (they had the best +X items their money could buy), for example. They invested in things that let them influence the campaign in ways outside of slaying monsters - and they did.
The party's wizard opened a school atop a mountain where he invited lowborns to come and study magic (as he was a commoner taken in by a wandering wizard). The party's healer opened a hospital and temple that preached the wonders of altruism and unity rather than an actual religion. The party's kobold sorcerer continued to build a small utopia into a hybrid sub/above-ground community that traded through underground tunnels with nearby cities and footed the bill and manpower to produce safe travel between his neighboring settlements and his own. The party's tiefling conjurer/malconvoker took this time to find peace in her existence and to teach others of acceptance and redemption. So on, and so forth.
This meant that when the party learned of a plot by a cabal of wizards who were seeking a forbidden power that could pave the way for a powerful demon to begin causing terrible unrest in the region, which could threaten their people and their work and their families, it was reason enough to meet the cabal of wizards and their minions in epic adventure.
Long story short, given time, sufficiently high level characters can achieve pretty much anything. They can change the world, build roads, bridges, cities, monuments, or even create new life. Money is less of a problem thanks to magic and the like (seriously, today's tech can't keep up with D&D-tech). A 17th level wizard can replicate every miracle in the Christian Bible (I'm a Christian btw, so don't think I'm knockin' the religion) from creating an every-expanding plane and creating its inhabitants out of dirt, to parting an ocean, raising the dead, calling the entire heavenly host down, coming back from the dead, etc, etc, etc (though some of these aren't as easy to do in Pathfinder as SRD-3.5). By this level, Fighters make Beowulf and Hercules look like little sissies ("You killed a hydra? Dude I killed so many of those things that I was wringing hydra-juice out of my 'jammies for weeks"). They're godlike.
There really was nothing that the PCs couldn't have achieved given the lich's level and an appropriate amount of time. The lich's motivations were based on this assumption as well. The lich, with her infinite lifespan had more grand-scale motivations, including an experiment involving the creation of a perfect society (very similar to a certain gold dragon that I didn't know about at the time).
Please don't interpret this as an attack on you or your style of gaming. It actually sounds like a well built and executed adventure. I'd have loved to play in it. I just don't see the problem with building an adventure using the rules to build the encounters (the bricks) and whatever is needed to create the story (the building).
Hey, not feelings of attacks here. I'm glad you asked actually, as I think it stirs the conversation and facilitates the flow of ideas. Also, thanks for the props, I appreciate it. It was a bit thrown together (it was a request, I had about one evening to prepare, etc) and I'm glad it turned out like it did.
I won't say that it's somehow terribly wrong to go outside of the rules, but I do believe that if you want to make something outside of the (vastly large) toolbox we have with 3.x/Pathfinder, I'd rather see it done in an elegant fashion, rather than "Oh, this badguy has yet another evil artifact of super powah" or poorly defined thing constructed out of handwavium. :P
Also, thanks for the props, I appreciate it. It was a bit thrown together (it was a request, I had about one evening to prepare, etc) and I'm glad it turned out like it did.
Sounds like an awesome fight, and an even more awesome conclusion to the fight. I always like villains you can reason with. I play with a bunch of incredible vindictive players who wants to murder everyone we cross, whereas I'm more easygoing and don't mind the BBEG getting away once we've foiled their plot.
In fact, my character in our current campaign is wooing one of the main baddies of the setting. Sure, they might be enemies in the field, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a good meal and pleasant conversation once in a while. :) Just can't let the other players know. They wouldn't understand.
Also, thanks for the props, I appreciate it. It was a bit thrown together (it was a request, I had about one evening to prepare, etc) and I'm glad it turned out like it did.Sounds like an awesome fight, and an even more awesome conclusion to the fight. I always like villains you can reason with. I play with a bunch of incredible vindictive players who wants to murder everyone we cross, whereas I'm more easygoing and don't mind the BBEG getting away once we've foiled their plot.
In fact, my character in our current campaign is wooing one of the main baddies of the setting. Sure, they might be enemies in the field, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a good meal and pleasant conversation once in a while. :) Just can't let the other players know. They wouldn't understand.
This wins so much. 6.^
EDIT: My younger brother actually called out Magneto of X-Men fame for being a great villain for this reason. Stan Lee himself, in an interview, noted that Magneto was such a compelling villain because often times the reader wouldn't know if he was wrong or not. Even Charles Xavier and his X-Men had met Magneto as a nemesis, but also met him peacefully many times, and he and Xavier were old friends. Even Xavier questioned if Magneto was in fact right sometimes.
To me, this was my biggest let down with the live-action X-Men movies that we got. They, IMHO, ruined his character by making him an obviously evil douchebag instead of the compelling villain that he was; and as a fan of the story, it hurt me here! *points to heart*
To me, this was my biggest let down with the live-action X-Men movies that we got. They, IMHO, ruined his character by making him an obviously evil douchebag instead of the compelling villain that he was; and as a fan of the story, it hurt me here! *points to heart*
Slightly off topic, but I couldn't agree more. :)
Now I'm curious. How many of y'all as GMs actually go through the rules to verify your major NPCs and, especially, the BB, can actually do major plot scenes like the above (or transform into a dragon or summon/conjure hordes of minions with a swift action as she makes her escape, etc....)
There's always a PrC for that. Just make the requirements unobtainable to the players if it's an issue for the game.
Command an army of undead? Undead Commander PrC. Requirements 1000 year old lich.
Now I'm curious. How many of y'all as GMs actually go through the rules to verify your major NPCs and, especially, the BB, can actually do major plot scenes like the above (or transform into a dragon or summon/conjure hordes of minions with a swift action as she makes her escape, etc....)There's always a PrC for that. Just make the requirements unobtainable to the players if it's an issue for the game.
Command an army of undead? Undead Commander PrC. Requirements 1000 year old lich.
I like Set's suggestion of using rituals better, personally.
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When I GM, I strive to create encounters mostly grounded in the ruleset.
Artifacts, BBEG-only magic items, and other stuff seems like "cheating" to me.
That being said, I tend to spend much more time than most of my players doing things like reading Char-Op guides, perusing ALL the Paizo books, and designing characters.
I found that almost anything you want to achieve, in game, has been suggested and codified somewhere, somewhen. Why wrack you brain for the "new rules" when they've already been written, playtested, published, and (in most recent instances) both emailed & shipped to me?
If a PC wants to do something funky and weird, and can justify the time/energy used at the table (i.e., won't be dully boring for everyone, can include at least most of the party, doesn't overtly offend me or others), then that usually gets worked out as we go.
A recent example:
In our Kingmaker game, the party druid kinda-sorta challenged Erastil. To his "face" essentially.
The end result: the Champions of Erastil encounter, where the party Sorcerer died.
The new plan: Reincarnate the dead Sorcerer, but into a Human with 100% surety.
On came a new adventure, wherein the party traveled to a Druid circle, the PC Druid met with and befriended someone capable of such a ritual, and the group dealt with the surviving Champion.
End result: satisfied players, in-game goals completed, new "Human Rebirth" ritual learned, NPC allies & enemies made, and a new adventure hook if I need it (that Naga Druid who taught you the Rebirth ritual is calling in a favor...).
Almost all of that was straight up RP, with a (very) short combat to collect the Champion's body, and no actual "rules" were shared for the ritual itself. An improv session, it still sticks in my (and my players') memory quite vividly.
Rituals are far easier to implement and are much more limited in scope.
Incantations or Ritual Magic can be implemented pretty easily within the framework of a game without completely unbalancing the game. Furthermore ritual magic can be a good late game reward for PCs that want to engage in ritual magic.
So the NPC necromancer needs a zombie army relatively quick? Well he might offer up 100,000 GP worth of component materials (gems, incense, etc) to Urgotha and spend several days casting a ritual with his chosen acolytes (say 50+ caster levels) and at the end sacrifice 100 HD worth of people including at least one individual from a rare or unique bloodline (reduces the ability to replicate said spell) in an orgy of bloodletting.
At the end of the ritual a gateway to the negative energy plane is created which rapidly infuses the population of an entire city of 20,000 individuals with necromantic energy. Low level creatures become zombies while higher level creatures might become Wights or even more powerful undead.
Some individuals might be shielded from the effect with personal magic or the effects of being on consecrated ground. As the gateway closes they try to flee the town.
These are the types of events that I think make for good backgrounds (PC x is a survivor of said disaster and has sworn to bring the necromancer to justice- Ranger with favored enemy undead). In theory the PCs could replicate said ritual (I personally like limiting really big ritual effects to planar/stellar conjunctions and other rare events or the ritual requires rare components) but it would make them irrevocably evil.
Good aligned rituals might give an entire community the protection of a consecrate effect or a fortress might gain a forbidance effect against dragons, demons, undead, etc.
That way I can bring in epic level effects into the game without needing to include the horribad epic level spell rules. Being able to include epic level effects prior to the PCs being epic is also a major benefit.
Plus it's really fun to have an insane acolyte of a god like rovagug to be able to "summon" some completely out of control death machine monster despite being relatively low level. It's very Call of Cthulhu in my mind giving isolated groups of individuals being able to summon the crawling chaos ;)
Why wrack you brain for the "new rules" when they've already been written, playtested, published, and (in most recent instances) both emailed & shipped to me?
Because I don't have the time, the money, or (most important) the inclination to do this:
That being said, I tend to spend much more time than most of my players doing things like reading Char-Op guides, perusing ALL the Paizo books, and designing characters.
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Why wrack you brain for the "new rules" when they've already been written, playtested, published, and (in most recent instances) both emailed & shipped to me?Because I don't have the time, the money, or (most important) the inclination to do this:
That being said, I tend to spend much more time than most of my players doing things like reading Char-Op guides, perusing ALL the Paizo books, and designing characters.
Fair enough.
Like I said, of our group of 7-8 players, I am one of 2 who routinely GM's, and usually the only one who is interested in the "behind the scenes" design stuff.
Most of the crazy, wild, probably should have failed stuff the PC's pull on me ends up being improvised on the fly. I've gotten pretty good at that, mostly due to my players wanting crazy shenanigans from time to time.
I think that this becomes a very slippery slope that leads to a storytime campaign.
A GM not wanting (or not being able to) devote "much more time than most [to] doing things like reading Char-Op guides, perusing ALL the Paizo books, and designing characters" ends up with "a storytime campaign"?
Because I don't have the time, the money, or (most important) the inclination
I think that this becomes a very slippery slope that leads to a storytime campaign.
That can work, and can even be fun at times, but it is not as rewarding (at least to me) as a well done out campaign that doesn't have to be ad hoc.
-James
But the APs routinely create new rules or modify existing rules all the time. Everything in the universe does not have game rules associated with it in order to model it. Sometimes plot devices are the best/easiest manner of generating a cool story effect.
The Starstone that can elevate mere mortals to divinity? Clearly not something that is possible to create within the core rules, yet clearly it exists within Golarion. Aboleths being able to summon said world shattering meteorite to shatter civilizations? Clearly well beyond a 9th level effect (if you allow this via Wish your campaign is going to have significant issues).
If the designers of the campaign world have free reign to create epic/divinity level effects I don't really see an issue with the DM being able to throw around similar level effects with ritual magic or artifacts or what-not. I don't even think it's remotely cheating in fact I think it's something that has been encouraged across all iterations of the game and it's only the extreme obsession in 3.x with describing everything in concrete game system terms that can get in the way.
I prefer that NPCs and PCs use the same physics for the most part but plot device level effects should be encouraged as well.
I don't even think it's remotely cheating in fact I think it's something that has been encouraged across all iterations of the game and it's only the extreme obsession in 3.x with describing everything in concrete game system terms that can get in the way.
Agreed. As I mused elsewhere:
All players using the exact same rules is a key feature of competitive games. Consider a game of Risk. Every player uses the same rules without exceptions because the game is competitive. There’s going to be one winner, and everyone else loses. If one player decides to use different rules from everyone else, then that player is cheating. The same applies to checkers, football, and five card stud.
RPGs are not competitive games. There isn’t a winner or a loser. Rather, RPGs are cooperative. Every player (including the GM) cooperates to create an entertaining story. The rules assist the storytelling, to be sure, but that’s only because there needs to be some mechanism to determine resource management and the success or failure of story elements.
The rules provide a structure for the players’ characters to ensure that they all use the same resource management and success/failure mechanisms. This structure sets the characters’ abilities in relative balance one with the other. The GM sets up situations to challenge how well the players manage their resources and exploit their characters’ strengths in order to tilt the success/failure mechanisms in their favor. Consequently, the challenges set up by the GM need to work within the parameters of the game’s system or else meaningful collaboration can’t happen. But this collaboration does not mean the GM is limited to the structure meant to balance the characters with each other.
I rate good/evil actions based on a combination of my own interpretations about what is good and evil and what is tagged with an "Evil" descriptor in the game.
Big difference between the game and real life is that alignemnt is a tangible thing, not just an oppinion. Evil and such can emit a palapable aura. It's detectable, like radiation.
Moral philosophy talks about how doing evil, even with good intentions, can taint the soul - but in the game world it's literal. A magic item can make you evil by contact, or chanelling evil power can infuse you with evil same as how handling plutonium can make you radioactive.
Way I consider it, good or evil acts generate good or evil energy.
So someone like a paladin is a dynamo of good, generating good energy with all the good acts they do like it's static electricity, until eventually it's even detectable as a residue where they walk. Likewise, the whole neitchian "those who fight dragons beware they do not become dragons themselves" is literal. Keep doing evil or using evil power, though with the best intentions for furthering the greater good, nevertheless risks personal corruption as the taint of evil builds up inside, threatening to overwhelm the good.
Let it go far enough, Anti-paladin.
Yes.
A DM not as concerned with the framework in which he places things in lieu of the story he wants to unfold...
I'm sensing shifting goalposts and hints of strawman added to the slippery slope fallacy. I never said anything about not being "concerned with the framework in which he places things in lieu of the story he wants to unfold". (Indeed, I'm not even sure what that statement is supposed to mean.)
...perhaps we just misunderstood one another?
That seems the most likely reason for conclusion jumping from not wanting GMing to be an extended exercise in CharOp R&D straight to "storytime" campaigns and not being "concerned with the framework".
One thing I always find interesting about these sorts of discussions is (almost?) every single GM who claims to do everything "by the book" ends up admitting to not doing everything that way. I've also observed that (almost?) no GMs who admit that everything in the game "universe does not have game rules associated with it in order to model it" ever claim that the resulting "violations" of the rules simply happen "just because I said so".
Every GM ever makes rulings and adventure-design decisions about things that aren't explicitly supported by the rules. The idea that any RPG requires the GM and the other players to use the exact same rules the exact same way seems to only exist as a thought experiment. It seems to be neither supported by reality nor by the rules of any RPG I'm aware of.
rules every step of the way, the players tend to appreciate it more when they are traveling in a world that has the same limitations they do.
The thousand year old necro deserves an army of at least a 100 soldiers you say? Well the PC lich can't so why should he
For me the PC lich can have thousands of undead if they want but first they need to spend a thousand years as a Lich. Since that's not going to happen I'm not going to worry about. If it does happen then I'll house rule it as I'm running something non standard in the first place.
Do you add it just to the NPC because you want such and such situation?
Or do you add it to your gameworld as something that you want to have in it?
That seems a lot like a distinction without a difference. Is the NPC not part of the gameworld?
Do you sit down and think "How can I do this within the rules?" ....
Or do you say 'I don't have time for those details, it just is'?
Has anyone in this thread said they prefer to do the latter rather than the former? I know, at least, I haven't.
Has anyone in this thread said they prefer to do the latter rather than the former? I know, at least, I haven't.
I know for myself most of the FUN is figuring out how things work within the rules. It makes it feel like the world is a living breathing place that I'm discovering and interacting with, rather than merely a baseless idea I'm dictating. I tell you if I wanted to just make stuff up, I'd be crazy to bother with a game with volumes of rules. I'd play indi rpgs.
I know you meant this basically as rhetorical, but the answer would be yes.
Just look over the thread and you'll see it from some posters.
I have read the thread. Didn't notice, so I hazarding the guess it hasn't been something that's been expressed often.
...yes there is a distinction between wanting a NPC to be able to do X to further a bit of your story for the moment and wanting people to have the ability to do X in the game as an option that can occur.
Not that I'm seeing. Perhaps some clarification would help me.