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It is hard to start a thread with “back in my day” and sound legitimate. I understand this RPG hobby of mine evolves and changes and every generation handles things differently. I also will concur it is my right to avoid game systems that use point buy and min/max stat blocks. With all of that being said, my question is:
“Do your players put as much time in their backgrounds as they do their stat blocks and feat choices?”
I just long for the day when Roger used a Scottish accent for his dwarf and suddenly all dwarves needed to have one. When you had four dump stats because your 3d6 didn’t like you. A fighter was still pretty awesome if he has 15 strength.
I just don’t understand the “uber” factor of my current player set. That is a broad generalist stroke I know, but I enjoy knowing my ranger should have bees wax for his bow string, so it doesn’t get ruined in the rain, and the rogue carried chalk to mark the corridors that were scouted… we made characters that played roles in a great story…not stat blocks for a squad combat mini game.
Maybe I just need a change of scenery, or to find a group of 40 somethings that are like minded and stop gaming with the younger gamers…It is probably just me being cantankerous….
I began playing 3E at the age of 13. That was 11 years ago. While I didn't play OD&D, 1E, or much 2E (barring PC games and research for curiosity's sake), I can say with confidence that it's not quite as bad as many might think it is.
I won't touch on the mechanical differences at the moment (there are some major considerations in that area but...), I feel like you're more nostalgic for what you might consider a quality game, where it's a little more personal than +X to hit and +Y to damage.
Fret not, my friend, for you are not alone. I run 3.x/PF pretty much exclusively, and yet the days of carrying whetstones and chalk are far from behind. While whetstones have no obvious mechanical benefit (you could easily make it so, but it hasn't been an...
I think whetstones have mechanical benefits now. Somebody said in Adventurers' Armory that weapons that have been sharpened with a whetstone gets a +1 damage bonus on the first attack that hits after a whetstone has been used on it.
Pretty hilarious IMO if true (I haven't double checked).
That's pretty much what I would have done if I was going to do it. However, I think I would have made the duration longer. +1 Damage on 1 attack is kinda meh. Then again, I guess it's a mild reward for someone who likes describing their character as sharpening their weapons.
Oh my lord I get so sick and tired of listening to these baby-boomer grognards whine about the current generation of gamers.
I can't stomach any more of this "back in my day, we didn't have your fancy dice, we had to go find a rock, use a lathe to cut it into the shape of a 20-sided die, then we had to paint numbers on it!". What a bunch of absolute garbage.
Gamers now are the same as they've ever been; there were powergamers back in the '80s, and they still exist. There were lurkers, players who insisted on playing exact copies of their favorite movie/comic book/anime character, great roleplayers and terrible roleplayers back in the day, and all those types still exist. NOTHING has changed except some people got old and cranky.
Oh, and by the way, rolling 3d6 straight down the line and making a character based on some crappy random stats doesn't qualify as good roleplaying. It's plain lazy and terrible character design. Instead of crafting a useful, well-designed and played character, you end up with a klutz who trips over his own feet, can't lift a sword, is such a jerk he gets thrown out of every tavern, and is dumb as a stump! You end up with a party full of characters who are walking liabilities.
That's not good roleplaying, that's trying to make lemonade out of a steaming pile of crap.
All I can do is smile.
All I can do is smile.You're a flaming skull, of course that's all you can do!
Tis true, tis true.
of course I am a bag with a toothy grin as well...
You're a flaming skull, of course that's all you can do!
<throws supernatural fire at ToZ to avoid the primordial magic defense thingy that stops all my spells>
edit:I rolled too many 1's. He probably survived that.
NOTHING has changed except some people got old and cranky.Getting a bit cranky yourself aren't you? You must be getting old!
<-- all in good humour :)
But seriously, you made some good points in your post, but your vitriolic tone ruined it all... Lighten-up a bit.
'findel
I apologize, I spat out more venom than I initially intended.
However, if you look at these boards and at the archives, there are at least half a dozen threads whose topic is all about spewing hate and venting pent-up nerdrage at younger gamers.I have yet to see a single thread whose topic is bashing older gamers (I don't mind being proven wrong, so if a thread like this exists, please point me to it).
I just feel that younger gamers get unfairly stereotyped and picked on, and the lack of retaliation from them says to me that they are acting in a more dignified way than older gamers in some ways.
NOTHING has changed except some people got old and cranky.Getting a bit cranky yourself aren't you? You must be getting old!
<-- all in good humour :)
But seriously, you made some good points in your post, but your vitriolic tone ruined it all... Lighten-up a bit.
'findel
I apologize, I spat out more venom than I initially intended.
However, if you look at these boards and at the archives, there are at least half a dozen threads whose topic is all about spewing hate and venting pent-up nerdrage at younger gamers.I have yet to see a single thread whose topic is bashing older gamers (I don't mind being proven wrong, so if a thread like this exists, please point me to it).
I just feel that younger gamers get unfairly stereotyped and picked on, and the lack of retaliation from them says to me that they are acting in a more dignified way than older gamers in some ways.
Well, grognards are not called grognards for nothing!
But truth is, even if roleplayers' habits have not changed much since day 1 (because you are right about that; they haven't), the game did changed, tactics changed and perhaps more importantly, the way the newer generation approach the game isn't the same as it used to be because the tools given to them put more or less importance on different things. I don't mean better or worst, but it isn't quite the same thing. How could it be otherwise? Gamers background, technologies, society in general have evolved. So did D&D.
Difference creates arguments (or at the least discussion), and there have been arguments in both directions on these boards about that subject.
'findel
It's hard to roleplay in a large game because only one person can talk to the DM at a time, and generally that's the "face" character with the highest diplomacy, bluff or so forth.
So, you don't roleplay with other players?
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It's hard to roleplay in a large game because only one person can talk to the DM at a time, and generally that's the "face" character with the highest diplomacy, bluff or so forth.So, you don't roleplay with other players?
I've actually been shutdown by the DM for trying.
I've mentioned my longest running game as a player before. The DM ran it at the local college on Friday nights for anyone wanting to learn the game. Because I have no life outside work, I attended pretty regularly, and so had one of the highest level characters.
After the alternate DM debacle, where the two other paladins turned blackguard and slaughtered the party, the regular DM reincarnated every character after offing the blackguards through fiat.
My scout/paladin came back as a yuan-ti. (Special reincarnate chart.) Once everyone was settled with the changes, my character spoke up. Being the only one to realize the betrayal before his death, I called out the other paladin player for slaying a party member. Him being a new player, he was flabbergasted by the question, and couldn't come up with an answer.
Then the DM stepped in and moved us along. I never got a chance to continue that thread after that, although I did play my character as less trusting of that character.
Maybe it was the large group, but it just shows that the DM and the other players are just as responsible for roleplaying.
Lots of interesting ideas here.
Just wanna throw in my 2 copper.
Optimizing is not a d20 issue. It may very well be that all of us ad&d grognards have our rose tinted glasses on.
I remember sitting down with a new group with my shiny ranger, asking what everyone else was playing and having everyone respond "fighter/thief/mage" like it was a silly question. Fact is there was pleanty of min/maxing back then. Same as now it depends on your group. My current group has a healthy mix of roleplayers and rollplayers, and there's nothing wrong with that. I for one am glad for the end of the fighterthiefmage era.
Cheers!
"I make my story start at the campaign's beginning"...is something I simply can't understand. Why does your character have a tattoo, wear all blue, fight two handed, why are the class they chose, why did they leave their home? How do they feel about discipline, ethics, and morality? How strongly do they feel about those things? These aren't fine details I am bringing up. They are general concepts that will help any player wrap his/her head around the character they portray, and the party/team knows what to expect from that character.I can play a dutiful rogue or a cowardly paladin, a stalwart fighter or a zealot druid...I am pretty sure in all those cases I know what feat I am going to take next level or what prestige class I hope for and when.
He wears all blue because his parents were in the royal army, loyalists to a lost cause in a kingdom swept up in tides of revolution. Thats what the color of his clothing means, the blue represents the sacrifice that his father and mother made for loyalty to their oaths of duty in a time when it was unpopular. The tattoo is a reminder, the heraldic crest on a signet ring given to him by his grandfather. He got the tattoo before he had to pawn the ring to afford a decent set of chain mail to go under his clothing. He wields two blades because his family has always fought with two blades. He seeks to emulate the style of his grandfather, the man who stood at the zenith of his family's long tradition of duty, honor, and glory. His family lost everything after the revolution, and the new lords wouldn't recognize his skill at arms due to his heritage, so it was to be mercenary work or adventuring. He makes the choices he has to make to survive. Sometimes he makes choices he would regret later, and upon reflection, decides to become a different person, for better or for worse.
Of course, this is all stuff that I could come up with off the top of my head, after the campaign started. Especially after the campaign has started since I start to get a feel for how my character acts, talks, and relates to the world by feeling the other players and npc characters out in dialogue and combat. I might share my invented backstory if my character felt that he needed something to share with a fellow party member that he was getting closer to, or if the DM was curious. Its also stuff that doesn't much matter if my character is suboptimal at combat and dies before a casting of resurrection can be afforded with his share of the treasure.
Planning out a backstory can create the antithesis of good role playing. I had a fellow party member with 6-8 pages of backstory, and all she would do in character was brood over her back story. It didn't matter if my character was a human willing to extend a hand in friendship and fellowship to a tiefling warlock. It didn't matter if I gave the character a chance to prove themselves based on their actions and not their heritage or power source. Her backstory said that her character lost all faith in people. No development, no interesting quirks beyond backstabbing and making deals the character couldn't make good on from a mechanics stand point. It was the most boring character ever.
I thought that she was just a terrible role player. Then we played in another game where she made a rogue with a build. It was a melee build, where she flanked with a greatsword so that she could sneak attack. She then proceeded to role play the most interesting, dynamic character in the party. Complete with an awesome villan-y accent. It was awesome, and really showcased her abilities as a role player to step into the shoes of an adventurer and fill in the blanks as she went along.
I'd venture that if your players can't answer questions about their characters, they aren't interested in their characters, they feel that their imagination is being limited by the rules of a campaign world that they don't have a firm concept of or they haven't given the characters names yet because it hurts more that way if the character dies before they get the feat they were looking forward to. Give the characters some wins under their belts and you might start to hear tentative, quiet talk about how maybe the character is the second son of a barbarian lord to the north because that would be cool, or how the ranger learned his archery from an elvish champion when he was a young man, and thats how he managed to slay that one ogre with a critical hit to the eye from two range increments away. You'll hear it among the jokes and the chatter that players tend to make when they get together, but if you reward heroic deeds without just making them level up, your players might want to justify the awesomeness of their characters.
