guys it is okay I am here now
I am trying to get my nerd rage up to appropriate levels to respond to this but I think instead I will just go play a fun roleplaying game with people who do not act the way the OP says they do
What makes you think you're entitled to fun?
I tell ya, kids these days...
Xexyz I am going to write an angry post in response to this but first I have to go do something socially irresponsible like hide an old person's keys and then stand on their lawn even after they tell me to get off it
then I am going to walk to school, but neither going there nor coming back will be an uphill journey
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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... You also rocket through the levels at many times the rate of 1st and 2nd edition, so players don't end up playing the same character for years as they did in the "old days", so I'd find it hard to argue that they are more attrached to them simply because the character creation process is more complex and time-consuming.
Character creation has become part of the fun, like building a Champions character, or like building a Magic deck. Nobody wants to play with the same deck for five years.
I agree about rocketing through levels. The current experience charts get your character to retirement in a year or so of continuous play, so you can start a new character. There's always a sense of novelty, as opposed to a sense of mastery.
It's fun to sample all the different types of characters, and it's good marketing on the part of the game publishers. ("A book of new spells? New Psionics rules? A book of Thief kits? No thanks; my character's a fighter, and I'll be playing her for another three years.")
An idea just formed: maybe one of the reasons AD&D changed setting so frequently -- Dark Sun, Jakandor, Ravenloft, Birthright, Starjammer, DragonLance, Planescape, Red Steel, Al-qadim -- was to get players to roll up new characters.
Actually, leveling was about the same pace in 3rd edition as it was earlier IF you followed all the rules in ad&d. Its just that a huge amount of dms houseruled away the 1gold = 1xp in the early editions effecitvely reducing the xp granted by encounters by half or more. 3rd edition devs saw a rule that was mostly ingnored and incorporated...
Didn't that rule actually disappear in 2E? Without compensating changes xp needed or xp/monster. I could be misremembering.
I never played 2E so I dont know, but I DO know from listening to the interviews of 3E creators that the increase in xp was deliberately made to match what was 'supposed' to happen with the gold = xp rule.
In the so called 'good old days' where character death was abundant, and barely thought about, most of us were younger, in school, or simply had more time on our hands. I used to game for 8-12 hours every friday after school. So hell, if i died and need to sit out for a couple hours, no big deal. I also didnt bother writing a backstory for my characters, or heck even naming them sometimes. You cant have emersive roleplay with interesting character relationships with a revolving door of characters due to death, AND in the vast majority of cases, even when you are a level where death is just an inconvenience, its FASTER IN REAL TIME to make a new character then to wait for the party to get somewhere they can raise me from the dead.
Of course, unless you're willing to completely drop suspension of disbelief, it may be faster to make up the new character but you still have to find a way to fit him in. There's only so many times the enemy that killed the last guy can have a previously unknown prisoner just waiting to join up. :)
This is my point. You LOSE somethign if characters are replaced in terms of believability and story. But you lose more time getting to play if you have to wait for an opportunity to raise.
Also, not long after you can afford Raise Dead, it's probably worth carrying a scroll and investing in a diamond as a precaution. Then you can do it on the spot.
Assuming the party has the available cash and other resources to just HAVE a raise or ressurection scroll on hand. I know lots of people play low magic item low wealth games. This isnt always and option and hasnt ever been in any of the high level games i've played in. So yea if character death is expected and this is possible its a good option, but those are a couple ifs in there.
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Nowadays, players always seem to think the world revolves around them. It used to be that if some orc with an axe got a lucky crit and took your head off, you sucked it up like a sir and rolled a new character. Now? They'll complain about how the game is so unfair and you get demonized as a GM - and that's even with the new change to -CON. It's like they don't want life fighting monsters to be dangerous.
My 14 year old brother just lost his dwarf alchemist to a 1st-turn greataxe critical from a raging barbarian bugbear. He laughed and said it was a great death for his dwarf (who had effectively halved the bugbear's HP through a series of traps and explosives on the way). There was much laughing around the table and from himself. He rolled up his dwarf's brother, a dwarf barbarian.
If you send monsters at them that they can't beat? You're a bad GM.
My PCs see enemies or obstacles they can't overcome frequently. These are generally set up as optional encounters or in scenarios where a direct battle is less desirable than a smart one. I've yet to have a player complain about me being a bad GM.
If the dumbass fighter overspecializes and spends five feats that only work with some obscure weapon? Apparently everyone in the world is supposed to suddenly start using that weapon and drop new ones for the fighter, otherwise you're a bad GM. As if you forced the fighter to take Greater Weapon Specialization (Whip), or as if goblins would really have a +4 whip lying around. If you make players track rations and arrows after level 1? The way players today act, you may as well have killed their dog.
Same here. If you specialize in some exotic weapon - or even a non-exotic weapon - be prepared to figure out how you're getting your own upgrades. I use a lot of random loot and/or diverse items in my games. If you spec longswords you'll still see many maces, axes, clubs, hammers, spears, falchions, daggers, staffs, etc, etc, etc, etc. If you specialize in some off the wall weapon that is exceptionally uncommon or exotic (such as kamas, spiked chains, falcatas, etc; you'd best have a plan for upgrading it without item drops). Again, nobody has complained.
The game seems to cater to this sense of entitlement. d8 hit dice for rogues? Raise Dead guaranteed to work with no XP penalty? Wealth by level? Magic loot should be special; you can't put it on a tight schedule like that.
I think you're misinterpreting a lot of this. The d8 HD was done to balance the rogue out better (it was pathetic in 3.x). Raise Dead and the like impose negative levels but nothing reduces XP because it creates a lot of unneeded bookkeeping and actually de-leveling your PC was always more complicated and irritating.
Applying permanent negative levels is more efficient and can be done in the middle of a game without troubles. This is especially true since the levels lost from level drain could be restored later on with spells even in previous editions, which meant a crap-ton of erasing and re-writing over and over again. Now you know -5 HP, -1 to all attacks, saves, checks, keep playing!
Wealth by Level is a guideline for both how much loot you should acquire over X levels. If you pay attention to the treasures per encounters thing, you'll notice WBL is roughly about 30% under what you are expected to make from enough equal-CR encounters to cause you to level (because you're expected to spend a % of your income on consumables and other uses). WBL is a tool, not a promise.
Magic items ARE NOT SPECIAL. They will not, ever, in any way shape or form be special in a world where people can fling fireballs from their fingertips. SPECIAL magic items are special. The rules already account for this. It's like pulling dragon teeth to get a +3 weapon in even a metropolis in the core rules. Powerful or exceptional magic items are rare. And for the record, they've never been special. I'm looking at my copy of OSRIC right now (which is basically 1E D&D). There is a 5% chance PER LEVEL of a classed NPC having a magic item in one of several categories, with 1-reroll allowed to try again.
What that means is that there is a 3/20 chance of a 3rd level fighter possessing a a magic weapon. And another 3/20 chance of him possessing a magic shield. Another 3/20 chance of possessing magical armor. Another 3/20 chance of him possessing a miscellaneous magical weapon. And another 3/20 chance of him possessing a magical potion. And you roll randomly to determine what sort of magic item it is, which means that 3rd level Fighter may be carrying around a +3 sword like it was no biggie.
Pathfinder is actually better about this. It's exceedingly unlikely that you will find a 3rd level fighter with magic weapons at all. A few 1st level potions, sure, but a +1 weapon is far beyond his means. You'd need to encounter a 12th+ level fighter before a +2 weapon is really within his grasp. It is not until 16th level that he may be carrying a single +3 weapon. A 20th level fighter may have a single +5 weapon. And generally speaking, most NPCs such as that should probably have a much more diverse but lesser set of equipment (instead of a +3 sword, a +2 sword and a +2 bow instead).
Magic items are RARER in Pathfinder than they are in 1E. You certainly cannot buy anything you want. Entire settlements (settlements, not single stores, but the whole damn city) cap out around 16,000 gp in core as for what is commonly traded. That does mean literally anything beyond a +2 weapon, +3 armor, +2 ring or amulet, or +4 stat modifier, is out of your grasp unless there happens to be a randomly generated medium or major item in that town that is suitable (which is exceedingly unlikely).
But if you deny the players the +3 armor they're totally entitled to at level 9 or whatever, somehow that makes you the bad guy. Should the game world notice that the characters have hit level 9 and spontaneously generate a large pile of cash in their bank accounts? And that's not even getting into magical healing becoming so easy to get now.
Only if you're a moron. Nothing in the game world throws money and/or loot at the PCs. But they are more than capable of taking the treasures they have acquired from enemies based on their treasure ratings and the loot in the dungeon and if they include no +3 armors could go and purchase a +3 armor at one of the largest cities in the world with about a 75% chance of success. Or wait around and try again sometime later. Again, wealth by level is a guide for how much wealth PCs should be expected to acquire of a period of time if the game is being more or less fair and running smoothly. It's also a measuring stick for the GM to know that he's not being too stingy, or to avoid Monty Hauls.
You're ranting against something that doesn't exist and never has, except in your own mind. In 3.x and in Pathfinder Wealth by Level does not work as you describe, nor does it suggest or say that it does. You can find many problems to rant about when you invent the problem.
Players weren't always like this. Once upon a time, the DM was god, and the players loved it. If the random encounter table gave them an ancient red dragon, they ran away, or they died, but they didn't complain about this CR junk.
Not much has changed, other than players are more educated. That being said, an ancient red dragon as a random encounter is stupid. I'd prefer my ancient red dragons to be something that isn't merely wandering down a hallway. PCs are still fleeing from random encounters though. Kingmaker and several Adventure Paths and Modules by Paizo are notorious for their random encounters (I was running Flight of the Red Raven for my brother and his friend and he and she encountered about a dozen wolves and other fare just trying to get somewhere). As I said at the beginning of this post, this is not a universal thing you are describing.
Poisons were deadly, traps were deadly, combat was deadly, bringing people back from the dead wasn't a matter of routine.
Poisons have been nerfed to hell. I'll agree with you here. In my home campaigns poisons function as a hybrid between 3.x and Pathfinder poisons. That is to say that you fail your save and then suffer damage over multiple rounds without but you don't get multiple saves against the poison (without a heal check), which makes encounters with things like spiders more amusing.
Traps are still deadly and troublesome. I'm not sure what game you're playing, but most traps I've seen deal excessive damage and/or have nasty surprises if they're CR appropriate. Especially groups of traps. Unless you mean traps like in the Tomb of Horrors where you spring the trap and just die. We don't have those anymore because they're stupid (though in a way we still do since you could have a trap of PW:Kill).
Combat is still deadly. I lose the most PCs that way. Bringing people back from the dead is only a minor matter at high levels. Levels that pre-3E simple could not hack effectively (the game effectively stopped advancing you in meaningful ways after around 9th level unless you were a spell-caster; otherwise you just got better saves and THAC0 and a smidgeon of extra HP+Con mod).
Life was cheap, and players didn't think they were action movie heroes entitled to kill all the baddies and save the world with their specialness. Please. Give me a break.
Again, sounds like a personal problem to me. I want my PCs to succeed, but it's rarely easy, and I don't remember the last time my players whined at me. The closest thing to it was recently there was some jibes about one of the d20s I was using be loaded. :P
Nobody appreciates what a true GM goes through anymore.
I dunno. I've seen a fair amount of appreciation go into GMs who deserved appreciation. I'm playing in a game right now on Saturdays and I tell the GM how awesome it was each time (because it was). He himself expressed sadness at the loss of the party's synthesist (who got offed by an gnoll with a longspear critical during an opportunity attack). Meanwhile, my tabletop group whines when I'm NOT running and talk about how much they want to play D&D.
GMs that deserve appreciation tend to get appreciation.
I spend hours creating a living, breathing world, of which the PC's are merely one small part. The world doesn't revolve around you. If you walk into a dragon's den, it doesn't spontaneously turn into a kobold because a dragon would be too hard. Traps don't magically stop existing just because you all wanted to play fighters with fifty special snowflake "feats" so nobody bothered to be a rogue. You're not special, you're not heroes, you're some average people who picked up swords, and you're not entitled to anything.
The funny thing is that you and I don't sound very distant in gaming styles. I've got traps. My GM on weekend has traps. Same with the dens turning into places. I've got none of that, and I generally prefer running sandbox style adventures with lots of plot hooks everywhere. The biggest difference between your "living, breathing world" and mine is that yours strikes me a bizarre (the magic item rarity in a magical world thing was red flag) and you're not taking into account that the PCs are actually special.
See, every class in the core rulebook? Special. They aren't people who merely picked up a sword and went on an adventure. That would be a Commoner with a sword. Most of those people die. The normal people of the world are adepts, aristocrats, commoners, experts, and warriors. Anyone with a "heroic class" is a heroic character. Plain and simple. Your "living, breathing world" seems to have some pretty serious issues being a believable world to me.
That's what gives my game world verisimilitude: it's not just a game or a story, it's a real world that exists for reasons beyond mere gameplay. Whether you find save or die spells "fun" is of no consequence; magic exists, so those spells will exist, and if one kills you, man up, because that's how life works.
Except for those verisimilitude crushing issues I mentioned before. On a side note, I also use save or dies in my games and enjoy them. Preaching to the choir here, though the choir seems to find issues in your reference.
But for the WOW generation, the only real fun comes from maximizing your damage per attack to mow through faceless mobs, and even a mild inconvenience ruins the game forever. Face it, sometimes goblins kill people; if you can't have fun roleplaying one of them, maybe ROLEplaying games aren't for you.
Oh hell no. Just Hellz naws. I'm going to skip this part because I could rant about your rant for twelve pages on this subject.
My point is: when did everyone suddenly decide that the point of games was for the DM to create a cardboard world to cater to the players' warped, shallow perception of "fun"?
Dunno. Sounds like you have bad players, or they have a bad GM. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe your players want something you don't, maybe you want something they don't. It happens.
Lots of interesting perspective
I would challenge your assertion that leveling is about at the same pace. Even including GPs, unless you had a hugely generous GM breaking the rules for monster treasure hordes, GPs only at most roughly doubled the amount of XP you got. Let's take that most basic of encounters, an orc. If I remember correctly, and forgive me, but I'm sitting on a military base a couple of thousand miles away from my AD&D DMG, an orc was worth roughly 15 XP, and maybe had a few GPs, so let's be generous and say he was worth 25 XP. To go up to 2nd level, a 1st level fighter needed 2000 XP. Now, contrast with Pathfinder, in which that same orc is now worth 135 XP (and admittedly his few GP don't add anything to XP), and that same first level fighter needs only 1000 XP to go up a level. So, if a party of four adventurers in PF kills 20 orcs in a single night of campaigning (not a sretch of the imagination at all), they are more than two thirds of the way to leveling. In AD&D, that same party of four that kills those same 20 orcs, are anywhere from 5 (wizard) to 10 (rogue) % of the way toward leveling. Kind of a significant difference, no?
If my brief foray into statistics fails to convince you on this account, let me return to anecdote. I once played in an AD&D campaign that had been going on for six years of once a week play, 4-6 hours per session. The characters were all around 11th level by the end of that. Are you aware of any PF game with that many gaming hours, even using the slow progression table, with advancement that slow? I certainly am not, and don't really see how it would be possible unless there was a hell of a lot of roleplaying going on and very little chance to pick up experience. For another example, it's not uncommon in my Pathfinder experience for characters to level every 1-3 game sessions. That was completely unheard of in AD&D (unless you were doing a massive weekend game marathon fueled by Mountain Dew and Twinkies).
As for your experience with characters dying endlessly in AD&D and noone even bothering to name them or develop any backstory because of that, all I can say is my experience was very different (except perhaps on our ill-fated foray into the Tomb of Horrors - hands-down the most brutal killer dungeon I've ever seen, but still a hell of a lot of fun).
I also never really have gotten bored when my character died, because groups I have been in have almost always had ways to keep people involved (playing a missing players character, playing an NPC henchmen, being assistant GM and playing NPCs against your party-diabolical fun, etc.). That is even more true now, as, like you pointed out, we're grown up now, have jobs and families and other real world commitments, so it's even more likely for one of our players not to show and need someone to play his character.
Again, not making the argument that AD&D was "better" than PF at all. Just that character rate of advancement is one of the ways in which it is dramatically different. It's also something that I think, from a marketing/mass appeal perspective, the designers got right. There is no doubt that part of the thrill of RPGs is leveling. So why not bring that thrill more often? I think most players prefer it that way, but it does come at a cost - that being long-running campaigns with characters that have been developed over that same long time. Trust me, when one of those characters die, its a true tragedy in the mind of a devoted gamer. Up to every individual consumer's opinion if that tradeoff is worth it. I would argue yes, but see both sides.
... You also rocket through the levels at many times the rate of 1st and 2nd edition, so players don't end up playing the same character for years as they did in the "old days", so I'd find it hard to argue that they are more attrached to them simply because the character creation process is more complex and time-consuming.Character creation has become part of the fun, like building a Champions character, or like building a Magic deck. Nobody wants to play with the same deck for five years.
I agree about rocketing through levels. The current experience charts get your character to retirement in a year or so of continuous play, so you can start a new character. There's always a sense of novelty, as opposed to a sense of mastery.
It's fun to sample all the different types of characters, and it's good marketing on the part of the game publishers. ("A book of new spells? New Psionics rules? A book of Thief kits? No thanks; my character's a fighter, and I'll be playing her for another three years.")
An idea just formed: maybe one of the reasons AD&D changed setting so frequently -- Dark Sun, Jakandor, Ravenloft, Birthright, Starjammer, DragonLance, Planescape, Red Steel, Al-qadim -- was to get players to roll up new characters.
I agree. I love character creation. I even loved the Traveller/Megatraveller character creation system, by far the most detailed and time intensive I've ever seen, and one in which your character can actually die before you even get to play him.
I go into every character creation process excited because even after 34 years of gaming, there are still so mamy characters that I haven't played yet.
Lots of interesting perspectiveI would challenge your assertion that leveling is about at the same pace.
Lots of interesting perspectiveI would challenge your assertion that leveling is about at the same pace.
Yep, but I'm lucky if I can remember what I said last week, much less a year and a half ago!
Actually, I do remember having this discussion, but couldn't remember with who.
Still not buying the argument that advancement is about the same pace.
Lots of interesting perspectiveI would challenge your assertion that leveling is about at the same pace. Even including GPs, unless you had a hugely generous GM breaking the rules for monster treasure hordes, GPs only at most roughly doubled the amount of XP you got. Let's take that most basic of encounters, an orc. If I remember correctly, and forgive me, but I'm sitting on a military base a couple of thousand miles away from my AD&D DMG, an orc was worth roughly 15 XP, and maybe had a few GPs, so let's be generous and say he was worth 25 XP. To go up to 2nd level, a 1st level fighter needed 2000 XP. Now, contrast with Pathfinder, in which that same orc is now worth 135 XP (and admittedly his few GP don't add anything to XP), and that same first level fighter needs only 1000 XP to go up a level. So, if a party of four adventurers in PF kills 20 orcs in a single night of campaigning (not a sretch of the imagination at all), they are more than two thirds of the way to leveling. In AD&D, that same party of four that kills those same 20 orcs, are anywhere from 5 (wizard) to 10 (rogue) % of the way toward leveling. Kind of a significant difference, no?
The problem is it isnt a straight 1-1. If we kill some orcs and then find a treasure chest 3 rooms later. In pathfinder/3E you only get xp for the orcs. In ADND you were supposed to get xp for killing the orcs, the treasure the orcs had on them, AND the gold in the treasure chest 3 rooms away. Individual encounters were worth less xp, but if you added up all the xp in a given module (keep in mind i havent done this as i dont have any of my old module anymore, this is just what i've heard in interviews) you would level at about the pace you do in a module of similar length in 3E.
If my brief foray into statistics fails to convince you on this account, let me return to anecdote. I once played in an AD&D campaign that had been going on for six years of once a week play, 4-6 hours per session. The characters were all around 11th level by the end of that. Are you aware of any PF game with that many gaming hours, even using the slow progression table, with advancement that slow? I certainly am not, and don't really see how it would be possible unless there was a hell of a lot of roleplaying going on and very little chance to pick up experience. For another example, it's not uncommon in my Pathfinder experience for characters to level every 1-3 game sessions. That was completely unheard of in AD&D (unless you were doing a massive weekend game marathon fueled by Mountain Dew and Twinkies).
There are a number of factors here. First is the aformentioned gold = xp rule getting ignored ALOT. If you more then doubled the amount of xp you were getting in that six year campaign you are down to 2 or 3 years.
Second is the relative difficulty of encounters. There has certainly been power creep (relatively speaking) between adnd and today. Think about the relative challenge of the afformentioned one orc, then and now. PCs can take on much more difficult challenges and thus challenges ARE more difficult, granting more xp per encounter. Where in Adnd you might fight 2 orcs, today the same encounter might be against 4 orcs, or 2 orcs and an orc warcheif. The encounter probably takes the same amount of time give or take due to the increased 'power' of characters but the xp is much more.
Third, is a matter of pace. The modern game is MUCH more action packed. The concept of RP xp or Roleplay Encounters exists now, where in ADnD it was not codified at all, and mostly was at the whim of (lets admit it) relatively stingy gms. Things like traps took longer, so did encounters that involved lieing, sneaking, talking, researching etc. With the nature of the modern games skills, these things move faster. What that means is you end up at 'encounters' a whole lot quicker even with the same amount of roleplaying.
Again, we DO level up faster now then we did in ADnD. But it has nothing to do with the rules as they were written. It has to do with a very common (often accidental) houserule about xp, AND the way we played the game now as opposed to then. Its not about the XP rules.
As for your experience with characters dying endlessly in AD&D and noone even bothering to name them or develop any backstory because of that, all I can say is my experience was very different (except perhaps on our ill-fated foray into the Tomb of Horrors - hands-down the most brutal killer dungeon I've ever seen, but still a hell of a lot of fun).
I played in alot of gygaxian dungeons, but in reality the game was just alot more deadly. If people want the players to always be under threat of death, that means they are going to die alot. If you have 1-2 deaths a session, you are rotating out characters every 3 sessions. Think of your current game and think if you replaced your characters every 4 sessions what that would do to the story. Its not a big deal if you are just assaulting castle greyhawk, but if you are trying to tell a developed story, its a problem.
I also never really have gotten bored when my character died, because groups I have been in have almost always had ways to keep people involved (playing a missing players character, playing an NPC henchmen, being assistant GM and playing NPCs against your party-diabolical fun, etc.). That is even more true now, as, like you pointed out, we're grown up now, have jobs and families and other real world commitments, so it's even more likely for one of our players not to show and need someone to play his character.
That can be a good way to handle it, and if you could that'd be great. But that wont work for alot of groups. My group doesnt use henchmen for instance, and often handing players npcs would be mega spoilery in todays APs without alot of work on the part of the gm to cover up motivations and back story but still give the player the tools to run the npc convincingly.
We also dont play characters whose player isnt there, mostly because I dont think its ok for someone else to be making choices for the character, and if you arent making real choices whats the point of playing the character? To have another attack or whatever? I'd rather as a dm scale the encounters for who is there, and not have to worry about the can of worms that comes from a character getting into a roleplay mess of having someone else play them.
Again, not making the argument that AD&D was "better" than PF at all. Just that character rate of advancement is one of the ways in which it is dramatically different. It's also something that I think, from a marketing/mass appeal perspective, the designers got right. There is no doubt that part of the thrill of RPGs is leveling. So why not bring that thrill more often? I think most players prefer it that way, but it does come at a cost - that being long-running campaigns with characters that have been developed over that same long time. Trust me, when one of those characters die, its a true tragedy in the mind of a devoted gamer. Up to every individual consumer's opinion if that tradeoff is worth it. I would argue yes, but see both sides.
It still seems like there are longrunning games, and in the end it depends on the group. Heck how many people have abandoned xp all together? Ive seen aps go for 2 or 3 years. Heck my groups kingmaker game has been going for something like 2 years and we are only about half done (not using xp and we have done ALOT of side work, i can link you to my kingdoms constitution which was debated in character and has been used for the length of the campaign so far to alot of interesting results if you are interested). So it can still happen, you just cant have a hack and slash dungeon adventure that goes over that kind of timeline.
Nowhere in the rulebook does it say I don't deserve everything. Therefore I deserve everything.
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It's hard to compare 1/2 ed D&D with 3+, since in the older editions classes needed different amounts of XP to level up, and also got XP for doing different things.
That fighter gets bonus XP for killing monsters.
That thief gets bonus XP for acquiring gold.
That thief needs less XP to level up than the fighter.
That thief's level may also be less powerful than the fighter's next level.
So all in all it's comparing apples and urchins.
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Again, we DO level up faster now then we did in ADnD. But it has nothing to do with the rules as they were written. It has to do with a very common (often accidental) houserule about xp, AND the way we played the game now as opposed to then. Its not about the XP rules.
I have to disagree on that point. Having dug into some comparisons of levels gained in 1e AD&D and 3.5 (I haven't specifically gone into the PF XP tables), on a superficial level they are pretty similar. At the end of an adventure like Keep on the Borderlands, PCs could be about the same level... if you looked just at XPs gained (via monsters and GP value in 1e, monsters in 3.5). But in 3.5, PCs jumped from 1st to 3rd faster if you assumed they didn't go for cave K (with a lot of GP loot value) until the end (when they were able to successfully take it on without dying in droves). And if you factor in training time and costs, there are a number of times in which PCs can't gain more XPs until they manage to rack up enough cash to level up - leading to XP waste in 1e that doesn't occur in 3.5. For example, when a thief is eligible to train to 2nd level, he is probably unable to pay for it for some time. His minimum training cost is 1500 gp and has gained only 1251 xps. And that's if his playing was exemplary rather than just good, which would require 2 weeks of training for 3000 gp.
So the rules could definitely lead to different rates of advancement... if you used them all. It's not just a case of how we play. Now, exactly how that translates to PF's medium and slower rates, I don't know yet.
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Posts like this are a sign of one thing. The gamers of the "70s and '80's are doing the one thing they swore that they'd never copy their parents in.
They're getting old and cranky. Being fatigued of the changes of the last couple of decades, they look back to what they perceived as a simpler, more correct time, forgetting that back in the day, their parents did the exact same thing.
As rare as we might be, there are a few of us over 50 gamers who remember how it really was. Things have changed, true, but not as much as some whould have you believe. We always have had the power gamer vs amature actor fights for example. I remember back in the 70's seeing both the GM who spends years developing their world and the GM who just picks up a preprinted module and runs it without reading it.
This thread has been a fun one to read so I think I will return to lurking mode.
Players come to games to feel larger than life, and each brings a character that has aspirations, desires, abilities, and unique ways of looking at the world. The Game Master’s job is to help guide the story and involve each character in a way that makes her actions feel meaningful. This means listening to the players while simultaneously keeping your own preferences in mind. No two gaming groups are the same, so groups that discuss their preferences for styles of play, tone, and group dynamics are more likely to enjoy long-running, trouble-free games.
*Takes a deep breath*
To use a common analogy, roleplaying games are like movies where the actors get to improvise and alter the script as they go, working off prompts from the Game Master. Extending this comparison, if the players are the actors, then the Game Master is the director—and often the screenwriter, even when basing the story on a published adventure. While this is a generic comparison, it illustrates some of the multiple roles the Game Master fills. The position can also be broken down into a number of other duties and responsibilities as follows.
Storyteller: Weaving plots involving the player characters and any number of nonplayer characters, leading dialogue, and unfurling a vast tapestry of ideas, stories, and adventure, the Game Master is a storyteller first and foremost. While the game is a collaborative narrative told from all sides of the table, the Game Master paves and maintains the road along which the adventurers walk.
Entertainer: Despite the best-laid plans and most intricate plots, if the game isn’t fun and engaging, it isn’t worth the effort. It’s the Game Master’s job to do whatever’s necessary to keep the players’ energy and interest up, immersing the group in the story through the use of strange voices, animated gestures, and generally making a fool of himself in the most classic sense. In order to fulfill the role of every individual the player characters encounter, the Game Master needs to be impressionist, comedian, and thespian all in one. In the role of the entertainer, the Game Master is the steward of every player’s experience, keeping everyone at the table involved and the story moving along at the proper pace.
Moderator: While important in any game, the role of moderator becomes even more important in games with new players unfamiliar with the rules, or situations where the Game Master might be running a game for strangers, such as “organized play” sessions at gaming stores and conventions. Many players enjoy the tactical aspects of the game and make the most of the rules in and outside of combat. The Game Master should know what each character is capable of, as well as the abilities of the nonplayer characters and monsters, and should be prepared to pass judgment on any contradictory or disputed interpretations of the rules. And while it’s important for the Game Master to be fair and hear out players’ opinions and arguments, a good Game Master has the confidence and resolve to hold firm once he’s made a decision.
Creator: Not only does the Game Master bring stories to the table, but many times he is also the creator of entire worlds. More often than not, he spends more time preparing for the session than the session actually takes to play. When not using a published setting or adventure, the Game Master must take the time outside of the game to create the plot, build enemies, construct encounters, develop magic items and spells, design monsters, and flesh out the world of adventure the players will soon inhabit.
Instructor: Not everyone is going to show up to the table with an equal—or even sufficient—understanding of the rules. Some of these players will be young, the new generation of gamers eager to enter into the ranks, and others will be friends you’ve encouraged to learn the joys of roleplaying games; some may even be fresh recruits at conventions or game stores. Everyone has a different aptitude for the admittedly complex rules of roleplaying games, and many people are intimidated by them. Part of a Game Master’s role is to guide players in learning the game—after all, the majority of Game Masters playing today learned from another Game Master who was patient with them.
Player: Despite a pervasive myth, roleplaying games are not about pitting the Game Master against the players. They are not competitions, and the Game Master does not lose when the players succeed—rather, if the players leave the table feeling tested but triumphant, then the Game Master has achieved the best possible result. Though one person guides the game, everyone is a player in some sense.
Game Masters must be as convincing with the nonplayer characters they control as the players are with their own characters, if not more so.
In addition to these roles, the Game Master might also fill a handful of others. Many groups maintain a set of house rules for their games, and the Game Master has the final say on particular interpretations and arbitrations of rules (though everyone in the group should be aware of
any house rules beforehand). The Game Master may also act as host for the game. At the least, the host provides an ample place to play. While some extraordinary Game Masters might provide all materials, including books, character sheets, pencils, dice, miniatures, and a battlemat, groups should decide upon those details themselves. As the host for a game, it is important to provide a surface large enough to play upon, a place for everyone to sit, reasonable facilities, and the desire to get a good game going. Whether played at a Victorian dining table lit with candelabras, on the floor of a spartan apartment, in the library during recess, or in the back of a van on the way to a family camping trip, roleplaying games can be tailored to most any situation, as long as there’s excitement and a desire to play.
*Takes an even bigger deep breath*
The basic types of adventures are linear, unrestricted, and nonlinear.
Linear: A linear adventure scenario is pretty straightforward; the PCs begin at point A, travel to point B, then C, and so on until they reach the end of the adventure. What exactly those points are, and which of them are combat encounters, roleplaying encounters, or merely places to rest and buy new equipment varies from adventure to adventure. For example, a scenario may start at a village where orcs just attacked, follow a survivor’s directions toward the orc lair, deal with the orcs in the lair, and end with the PCs returning triumphantly to the village; there isn’t much room for deviation from the expected plot. Most published adventures are linear adventures simply because a book only holds a limited amount of information—it’s impossible to account for every possible character motivation, wild goose chase, or wrong turn that the PCs may take during the course of one or more nights of play.
With linear adventures, the GM has to be ready to steer the PCs back to the task at hand; one of the easiest ways is to use a timed event to encourage the PCs to stay on track (such as a prisoner held captive in the next location who must be rescued before the monsters kill him), but some GMs fall into the trap of using brute force, such as an army of lizardfolk that coincidentally appears whenever the PCs try to go a different direction. Linear adventures are often called “railroads” because there’s only one place the PCs are supposed to go—but this isn’t always a bad thing. If you’re just running a one-shot game—say if an old friend is in town for a long weekend or the gaming group wants to play a single game with high-level characters—it’s perfectly acceptable to railroad the characters; the expectation is that everyone wants to finish the adventure, and wasting time looking for clues in the wrong place just makes it more likely the group won’t finish in the allotted time. In these situations, it’s okay for the GM to say, “you don’t think this has anything to do with the Dungeon of Bloody Death, and heading to Black Blood Mountain is clearly the way to deal with this threat.” In the same way that your group can use their imaginations to see ex-quarterback Bob as a female gnome rogue, they can accept a gentle push in the direction of the actual adventure when things get too far off track.
In an ongoing campaign, you have to be prepared for the PCs to go off the rails and stay off the rails for extended periods of time. Even if your plan is to run a linear adventure, it’s a good idea to have some miniadventures, random encounters, or interesting locations for the PCs to visit should they detour from the plot of the adventure. With careful planning, these deviations can help steer the PCs back toward the main adventure—a random encounter with an orc raiding party that’s fresh from cooking and eating some peasants may inspire the PCs to deal with the lair; an old ranger needing help fighting a dire wolf may have a few +1 orc bane arrows he was saving for a special occasion, and so on. Of course, the best solution is to have several linear adventures planned, seeding the PCs with information about each, and letting them pursue whichever one they want—which actually works much like the next adventure type.
Unrestricted: In an unrestricted adventure, the PCs can go anywhere and do anything; they may not even be aware of your initial ideas for the first adventure. This sort of gaming is often called a sandbox” because there are no limits to what the PCs can do, like children on a playground creating their own imaginative stories with toys. Running a sandbox game requires a GM with a lot of prepared game material or the ability to create multiple story elements on the fly. An easy way to “cheat” at running a sandbox game is to have several parallel adventures planned so if the PCs wander away from one 3rd-level dungeon, you can insert another one in the path of the PCs.
Another trick is to “re-skin” one adventure with a different flavor, such as taking a fire-themed temple and changing all encounters, spells, and monsters from fire to cold as the players go through it. If you’re running a sandbox campaign and you get stuck, either because the PCs have lost track of adventure hooks or they’re heading toward something you haven’t thought much about, use the same tactics you’d use in a linear or nonlinear adventure (see below)—steer them in a new direction, tell them where they’re headed isn’t ready yet or is too powerful for them, or ask them what they expect to find there and use that to inspire what’s actually there.
The one big potential trap of a sandbox game is that because there’s so much to do, some players may split off from the main group for extended periods, leaving you to GM one group of players while the rest have to sit and wait until it’s their turn. If this happens, steer the wandering PCs back to the main group, as dividing your attention for too long leads to bored players. Sometimes it’s best to arrange a short session (or even a series of emails or messageboard posts) for just those PCs to let them deal with their plot elements and get back on track with the main plot. Sometimes the most drastic and mysterious action is best—if the wandering PCs turn up near the main group, disoriented and with no memory of the last few days except a sense of horror, you can move on with the main plot and plant seeds for what happened to that “missing time.” For more information on dealing with split parties, see pages 65–66.
Nonlinear: If an unrestricted adventure is a blank page, a nonlinear adventure is a flow chart, as when the PCs have multiple options for engaging a storyline, they feel more in control, and the adventure starts to look more like a flow chart or series of crossroads than a straight railroad—this is the core of a nonlinear adventure. In many cases you’re able to bend or add to the developments of a linear adventure based on the actions and desires of the PCs, turning it into a nonlinear adventure.
For example, in the aftermath of an orc raid on a village, the PCs may decide that tracking the orcs back to their lair is too difficult without a ranger and decide their abilities are better suited to building defenses for the town and waiting until the orcs come back. Instead of the PCs dealing with the monsters room by room, you can use those area-based monster encounters to attack the town in waves, or (if you think the PCs are up for it) to attack from two different directions. The PCs don’t need to know that the encounter with the orc monster tamer and his worg pet was supposed to be area 4 of the orc lair, and perhaps the increased mobility of an open area brings an interesting twist to what may have been an otherwise routine encounter.
Nonlinear adventures require you to plan ahead for what the PCs may do, and think on your feet in case they come up with something you weren’t expecting. For example, if the PCs are intimidated by your description of the damage from the orc raid and ask about finding better weapons to help deal with the orcs, you may be momentarily caught offguard because this sort of action wasn’t in the original idea of the lair-based adventure. However, developing a stable of secondary characters and side treks lets you quickly insert an appropriate NPC for this purpose, such as the aforementioned old ranger with the +1 orc bane arrows—who no longer needs help with a dire wolf, and is now willing to trade the arrows for a favor to be named later (which you can use as a plot hook for the next adventure). If you’re stuck for ideas when the PCs make an unexpected shift, don’t be afraid to ask the players what their characters are looking for; if they ask about orc bane arrows, that may inspire you about a hermit ranger, but if they ask for potions or scrolls, it may inspire the idea of a lonely, half-mad cleric living at a ruined shrine, and the players don’t need to know that their suggestion as to what they’re looking for helped define the course of the adventure.
*Shows signs of hyperventilating, but presses onwards anyways*
Anyone who is taking this thread too seriously really needs to read the GameMastery Guide (or read it again). It directly covers nearly everything discussed in this thread, covers a whole lot of common situations not mentioned in this thread, and gives an amazing amount of insight into how the Pathfinder Tabletop Roleplaying Game was meant to be played.
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Lots of interesting perspectiveI would challenge your assertion that leveling is about at the same pace.Yep, but I'm lucky if I can remember what I said last week, much less a year and a half ago!
Actually, I do remember having this discussion, but couldn't remember with who.
Still not buying the argument that advancement is about the same pace.
You don't have to buy it, but it's still true. Furthermore in 3.x you earned less XP as your levels rose. In a well built campaign you will actually get progressively slower in your level advancement as you rise in levels. Pathfinder is a little more generous (you can still earn XP for defeating low level enemies) but the XP requirement to level is exponential, which means that you'll be there a while if your idea of leveling is slaughtering wild piglets in the introductory area. :P
3.x D&D XP Progressions
3.x had a rather ambitious - if oft misused - system of awarding XP based on level vs CR. It was a system that rewarded you when you manged to overcome something particularly nasty and also allowed you to build encounters with many enemies without them overflowing your PCs with XP. Unfortunately, the most common (if boneheaded) method of building encounters went like this.
#1: Open Monster Manual. Find single foe of CR = APL. Done.
#2: Whine about encounter being too easy. Next encounter, grab single foe of CR = APL+2.
#3: Whine about the encounter being somewhat harder but now your PCs are leveling fast.
Where in reality, the DMG is pretty clear that the world is built on a pyramid-scheme. Higher level NPCs/creatures are rarer than lower levels and the vast majority of the world is covered in 1st level commoners. The idea that enemies scaled infinitely with your level is not present nor encouraged by the texts or commentary of the DMG at all.
Meanwhile if you actually built encounters reasonably you had way more challenge and far less fast-track leveling. For example, let's look at an encounter with a wyvern in 3.5. Now at 6th level, a party of 4 PCs fighting a lone wyvern will earn 450 XP each (it would take about 13 ghouls to level from 6th to 7th level). Yet each time they level, the amount of XP the wyvern is worth to them goes down. When they're level 7, each wyvern only is only worth 350 XP per party member (which now means you'd need 20 wyverns to level). Then at 8th level each wyvern is only worth 300 XP per party member (26 wyverns to get a level). Then 225 XP at 9th (40 wyverns). By 13th level, a wyvern isn't worth more than 81 XP per party member (160 wyverns to level).
Which means that 3.x very comfortably allows you to set the pace of leveling based on what sorts of NPCs you use while also ensuring a measure of fairness. If most of your adventures include one or two strong opponents and encounters that mix weaker opponents you get not only games that feel more dynamic and alive but you keep a very nice pacing when it comes to leveling (by laws of action economy, more weaker enemies are generally just as good if not better at challenging PCs than singular strong enemies anyway).
XP Progression in Pathfinder
This same concept is more or less alive and well in Pathfinder. It's just in a much more streamlined system. On the medium XP progression it'll take you 80 kobolds to get a 4-man party from 1st to 2nd level. Then another 120 to go from 2nd to 3rd, and so forth. The rules are also much smoother for dealing with mixed encounters (due to the XP budget system which is a work of brilliance).
You don't level that fast in Pathfinder unless your GMing is gearing for you to level that fast. At that point you cannot whine about the system but the GM.
MEANWHILE BACK AT 1E
Popping open my copy of OSRIC (the closest thing I can find to a legal copy of the 1E ruleset that's affordable), I see that your average bandits in D&D have an average of 3 Hp, and are encountered in groups of 20d10 (hopefully spaced out through the adventure, Jeebus!). Each bandit has a base of 5 XP +1 XP for every HP the bandit has, then you get XP based on the value of their treasure. Each bandit carries an average of 5 gp on them (setting their likely XP per bandit to 13 XP) plus the value of the gear they're carrying. If we give our bandits longswords and shortbows, that's another 30 gp = +30 XP. Then if we put them in studded leather armor that's another 15 gp = +15 XP.
So our average bandit is worth about 58 XP. And the book suggest their encounter number is 20d10, or an average of 110 bandits. For every 20 bandits we add a 3rd level fighter (5), for every 30 bandits we add a 4th level fighter (3), for every 40 bandits we add a 5th level fighter (2), and for every 50 bandits we add a 6th level fighter (2). Each of those fighers has a 5% * level chance of having magic armor, shield, weapon, miscellaneous weapon, or potion (which is randomly determined but likely worth tons of GP which you can keep the magic item and get 10% of its value as XP or sell the weapon and get the other 90% of its value as XP as well).
But just coming back to the bandits and ignoring their fighter leaders, we have an average of 6,380 XP for just the less than 1 HD bandits running about. Not counting the loot in their lair (which is an excessive amount with an average of about 875 cp, 1,050 sp, 1225 ep, 2200 gp, 62.5 pp, 13.2 gems {usually about 3,960 gp}, 8.25 jewelry objects {too complicated to average at the moment but it's likely more than gems object for object so we'll say 400 gp x object value rather than 300 gp x object value}, and a decent shot at 1 magic item), not counting their bosses (and their gear).
If your entire adventure was just the party vs these bandits, a party of 4 fighters (1,900 XP to get to 2nd level) would nearly level just on the mooks alone. After factoring in their treasures and such, you could easily be looking at around 15,840 XP for your little adventure of just you vs the bandits and then looting their lair. That's nearly enough XP to go from 1st to 3rd level in a party of fighters. If we factor in the bandit leaders (the 5 3rd level fighters, 3 4th level fighters, 2 5th level fighters, and 2 6th level fighters) and their gear then we'd end up above 3rd level, just from this single adventure.
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Nowhere in the rulebook does it say I don't deserve everything. Therefore I deserve everything.NO SOUP FOR YOU!
But...
But...
I like soup.
**lip quivering**single tear**
I don't have the time or energy to read through the nearly 170 posts at this time, but I would like to insert my opinion on the matter from both perspectives. I've been playing and GMing for well over a decade. I know I'm not a grognard, especially in comparison to some of you who have been playing/GMing since the 70's.
As a GM - Yes, I think some players get this feeling of entitlement that they NEED to have WBL, that their PC's should be nigh invincible, the paladin doesn't get a +5 holy avenger just because he wants one, and that they shouldn't run into trouble that could possibly kill them. I don't like having to deal with those kinds of people in my games, they are part of the world, but they are not the center of the world/multiverse that I built. PC's die and another hero is rolled up and ready to take on the mantle. I don't care if PC's optimize or min/max as long as they aren't trying to exploit loopholes or grey areas in the RAW. If I don't like a class (i.e. gunslinger) I tell my players ahead of time and make sure that they don't take it in my world.
As a Player - I feel that the GM should have the outline of the world where the PC's are the main heroes, they aren't invincible, they die and they fail, it isn't always a happy ending. I don't like it when my PC dies, but neither am I going to throw a nerd-raging fit if it happens. I roll up a new character and join the party again or if it was a TPK we either start up where we left off or start a new campaign. I don't like it when a GM tells me that I can't optimize or min/max, I enjoy having a character who is survivable and who has a good back-story at the same time. I don't want a GM telling me what I can or can't take certain feats or multi-class combinations if I have a good reason for it, but I will not try to find loopholes or tread in grey areas that are questionable for purposes of gaining more power. I understand some games are high magic and some are low magic and will abide by whatever game the GM is running and not expect to have WBL.
Just my 2 coppers, take it or leave it.
you do realize in your 1e example, you are putting a 1-3rd level party, not only against 100 or so mooks (not a huge deal) but 12 fighters WAY above their ability to defeat, right? I mean 2 6th level fighters alone would be a TPK.
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[shakes cane]
Back in my day we didn't drive to a friends house to game we walked 5 miles thru snow, and we treated our DMs with more respect, we bought them piza and massaged their feet. You new fangled players are spoiled with your +2 weapons and not having to calculate thac0!
[/shakes cane ephatically]
Seriously I've been gaming since the 2nd ed AD&D and this is all nothing new. Heck I remember killing another character in a Vampire LARP back in '97 and the STs wouldn't let me because the player whined that he had spent $500 on his costume which by the way was a tux. Like you can't make another character that would use a tux, or heck use a tux outside game!
Had another GM where we couldn't get thru 3 games without a TPK, yeah that was super fun. Right now my youngest player is in his 30s and 1 seems to want to be the hero all the time while another thinks I'm a soft touch GM if I'm not killing a character every session.
Its not your game. Its not their game either. In fact no work of literature belongs to an author once it hits print, it belongs to the audience at that point for better or worse.
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I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be when thread people tell me how long they have been gaming
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I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be when thread people tell me how long they have been gaming
I think it just gives perspective. It shows the difference in the generations in the hobby and allows you to know from which kinds of games they are used to playing. Such as the grognards who've been playing since OD&D and the younger ones who've only just started playing. Different rules, gaming cultures, expectations, and experiences happen. It gives you more information. At least that's what I think, but to each his own.
I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be when thread people tell me how long they have been gaming
Respect your elders!
And get off my lawn!
you do realize in your 1e example, you are putting a 1-3rd level party, not only against 100 or so mooks (not a huge deal) but 12 fighters WAY above their ability to defeat, right? I mean 2 6th level fighters alone would be a TPK.
Well I imagine that's where being a GM comes in (I did note that unless god hates you, hopefully you won't be encountering all those bandits and their leaders in a single encounter). I'm just using the statblocks for said enemies (which includes a number encountered/organization mechanic). Spread out over an adventure, however, and it would actually look about right. You'd begin your adventure killing off the local bandits and probably working your way to their lair, amassing XP and treasure as you do (possibly dealing with some random encounters along the way to get more XP). Hopefully you wouldn't fight those high level fighters all at once, more hopefully that they are spread out doing commander-things with the bandits (say road X is patrolled by group #1, road Y #2, and so forth, each group governed by one of the leaders).
Now a party of 4 1st-3rd level fighters could definitely put a hurting on a single 6th level fighter (plus maybe some of the mooks) by sheer action economy (especially if you're wielding bows which add +1 attack per round, or are using the optional specialization rules which grant extra attacks). But these might be enemies they want to avoid if possible, or ambush when they're at their weakest (such as sleeping so they can catch them with a low AC without their armor).
My point was is that if you followed the recommended guidelines in OSRIC (OD&D) you end up with just as much likelihood of leveling or better during a single adventure as today. Perhaps moreso since you also had random treasure generation and it's entirely possible for you to find a vorpal sword or somesuch nonsense in a bandit's lair at 1st level. Then if your ability scores were decent you also got an extra +10% experience points on top of everything else (which means your whole party actually would have leveled just on mooks if your fighters had a 16+ Strength).
It's actually a lot smoother in PF and your likelihood of just finding random epic weaponry lying around is much lower. In core Pathfinder it's legitimately very difficult to get a hold of a +3 weapon without crafting it yourself (which implies great rarity). I mean I would be surprised to see a 6th level NPC fighter with more than maybe a few cheap magic items (a cloak of resistance, +1 armor, etc). In OSRIC your average 6th level fighter has about a 1/3 chance of sporting a magic item in weapons, alt weapons, armor, shield, and potions. And those items could be anything from +1 varieties to legendary items like vorpal swords.
Meanwhile, I rarely have PCs leveling like nuts. Heck, on Saturday's I'm playing a wizard in a game that is essentially one giant dungeon crawler (so we're finding traps, fighting monsters, doin' random XP-gaining stuff almost in its entirety) and we've only leveled once in 3 sessions, and only then it was after an encounter that we were both outnumbered AND outmatched (us little 1st level dudes against a 3rd level rogue and a ton of orcs and bandits trying to turn us into paste).
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I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be when thread people tell me how long they have been gaming
Well, I can't speak for everyone, but in my case you should kneel, bow, kiss my Gary Gygax anointed silver GM ring and listen respectfully to whatever I say.
Oh, and get me a sammich. Tuna, with cheddar and roasted to melt the cheese.
Seriously though, when I say "I've been playing for 30+ years" it's usually because the subject at hand is involving some assertions by someone about how the game "used to be" or how players or GMs "used to act". So I indicate my longevity as a means of providing some sense of credibility to my own perspective.
I think it just gives perspective. It shows the difference in the generations in the hobby and allows you to know from which kinds of games they are used to playing. Such as the grognards who've been playing since OD&D and the younger ones who've only just started playing. Different rules, gaming cultures, expectations, and experiences happen. It gives you more information. At least that's what I think, but to each his own.
I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be when thread people tell me how long they have been gaming
That is how I take it as well. It is a way to understand where they might be coming from. Some of what might have shaped their point of view.
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I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be when thread people tell me how long they have been gaming
My reaction is generally a poor one. I'm getting to the point where I've had three editions under my belt and deal with a lot of people who've never played or who have only played for a short time. If I have a disagreement with them (such as when some new players expressed concerns over wizards being underpowered in 3.x/Pathfinder) I acknowledge them and discuss with them civilly, and I show them a few things that I've gained from experience over the years that they may not have yet considered. I do not, however, assume that my experience means that I am right, nor that they aren't worthy of my attentions.
If the best thing someone has is "I'm older/been at it longer" in a conversation or opens a rant with "back in my day" or some derivative thereof, I roll my eyes and shake my head. I know it's probably going to be one of those days.
Hopefully I will continue to make my Will save with each passing year and avoid turning into the dreaded Grognard mutant trollface that is the image of the elderly fogie gamer with a cane in one hand, a d20 in the other, yelling at those young-uns to stop using anime pictures for their character portraits because "that's not the right way to play".
I may shoot myself if I feel the change coming on, or ask for a volunteer. I'm not sure what sort of bullets it takes to put down such a terrible beast. Mayhaps silver, or cold iron, or melted down mountain dew cans. All I know is I never want to face that fate.
I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be when thread people tell me how long they have been gaming
Means it ain't my 1st rodeo! Whippersnapper!
But really what ub3r_n3rd said. Perspective, there's been enough editions to the game that perspectives varry. Someone who remembers the 2 swashbuckler's kits from 2nd ed might view the rogue archetype differently then say someone who started in 3.5 and knew the swashbuckler 1st as a class.
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I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be when thread people tell me how long they have been gamingRespect your elders!
And get off my lawn!
I already covered that:
Xexyz I am going to write an angry post in response to this but first I have to go do something socially irresponsible like hide an old person's keys and then stand on their lawn even after they tell me to get off it
then I am going to walk to school, but neither going there nor coming back will be an uphill journey
that being said I think I am basically the dude so to speak that this thread is sort of about in that I did not ever play any of the other editions of *ahem* "The World's Oldest and Most Popular Roleplaying Game" and yet I play Pathfinder
there is nothing in the OPs post that I see in me, nor in anyone else that I play with
we respect the game and the history behind it but we also do not ask people to reference their gather information skill or use a spiked chain because it is the bestest last I checked or play a class that does not exist anymore or how clerics are the greatest melee class ever, oh wait they changed? sorry back in my day they were hurmph durmph burmph
play with more people than just your people and widen your perspective
the best old dudes and dudettes are the ones who use their experience to teach, not to make young dudes and dudettes feel like they either are not allowed or not good enough
ugh I hate when you guys make me type long posts but I had to drop a mini-ashiel on this one
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I may shoot myself if I feel the change coming on, or ask for a volunteer. I'm not sure what sort of bullets it takes to put down such a terrible beast. Mayhaps silver, or cold iron, or melted down mountain dew cans. All I know is I never want to face that fate.
I will be your second.
Funniest. Thread. Ever.
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It occurred to me, about the 500$ tux thing (Ill tell a story about that in a minute)
Players these days (most) DO put ALOT more into characters than int he old days. I mean look at character creation alone, never mind backstory blah blah blah.
In 1e, roll 3d6 a few times, pick a class, all him ulfgar and start playing (sure there were always people who put more into their characters, but NOW it's so much more)
Two stories:
1) Last night I was running around in my favorite MMO, I play a favored soul (my all time favorite character class) Side note: even tho oracle seems to be a "favored soul" I just cant get into that character class, why?
Anyway, my soul is in high demand to join groups because he's a combat healer (fights in the middle of combat, has a high AC and heals while standing there in the trolls face)
So I can join any group I want, usually.
It imparts a bit of a sense of entitlement, because before joining ill look at who is in the group and decline if it looks like it's doomed to fail (I really hate going through the effort of trying to keep everyone alive and tow them through a quest).
Last night I inadvertently joined one of these groups without realizing it. I was traveling with this fighter who (and I have no idea how) was running about one shot-ing most monsters, he would kill giants before my flame strike even landed.
We both joined another group who was running through a long, annoying chain of quests that had a sweet end reward.
First there was a redundant rogue (beware the redundant rogues!) she kept dying, on cue, every other combat. In one quest (the space of 5-10 minutes) she died FIVE TIMES!
I think she thought she was a barbarian, she must have had some insanely powerful weapon or something because she was killing twice as much as me, which almost never happens.
But dying every minute or so.
Then I was convinced to drop my sorcerer hireling to let in this wizard dude, who every 5 minutes kept saying he was going to leave, but then, didn't actually leave.
so you had this psychological thing of thinking he wasnt there, but then there he was. It took him all of three combats to be totally out of spells.... what the heck?
He would run around the quest for half the combat two weapon fighting with something that looked like twigs (I think they are wands)!! Hilarious. But highly annoying.
I cant recall the other doofus that was trotting around with us, but it became painfully obvious, that I had to change my tactics and game playing style to "let" the other players "play" and that , as my stress level began to rise (the opposite of the reason I even play the game) it was plain to see, the fighter was doing 3/4 of the killing and I was doing all the nannying.
Then end result is we get to the last fight (which we didnt know was happening, unlike in most cases in MMOs) as we walk around the corner into SURPRISE here they are! At int he first minute it looks like...mwahahaha I OWN you!.
But then Im back peddling as I cant heal everyone fast enough, throwing flame strikes like confetti at icy creatures that wont go down, and arent stunned by my Divine smite either....
then the unthinkable happened.... the fighter went down... (he ran down a slope and was out of range of my heals....more frustration) and then I was ganged on by three of these things and I can't run that fast (too much armor)
The first thing that happens? Auto-die rogue and spell less wizard start complaining they were killed! SERIOUSLY?
Then, they all want to wait there, while i release, go back to my last save point and then run (literally) the ten minutes all the way back to reenter the quest and save them!
Ironically, I DID IT!.....man Im a sucker.
By the time I did all the running back, and killing respawned giants in the entry way (man those things breed fast) The wizard and the rogue disconnected, because they had to WAIT too long?
Oh my gosh.
The fighter and I get killed....AGAIN.
I throw my hands up in there air... Im done.
Too much trouble for SQUASH.
One more story, these both tie into the point.
In Live role playing, almost 20 years ago. In order to play, I had to drive from CT to MASS (hours, man hours) I was playing this game AT REQUEST because it was a new group and they needed more participants.
the way the rules work, everyone has five lives. and you can go back to a res point (like a video game) but once you died the fifth time you were permanently dead. You also remember everything that happened (just like in an MMO)
So, here I am, playing my assassin character who has illegal magic and abilities. What do I do? I knock out a "farmer" (who I really didnt believe was a farmer anyway) and move through this encounter with my entirely EVIL party (we were the ONLY one in the whole game, and everyone thought it was great because all the DEVS wanted one).
It was interesting because my character wasn't wholly evil, well he was, but it's a long story... it was more about easy power.... but i digress.
In the end of the quest, we get back to town to be arrested by a gang of player characters who are easily out numbering us by 3 to 1 and are all much higher level than we are.
apparently the farmer died from knock out (2 damage? supposedly he had ONE body point)
and we were being arrested for killing a farmer AND practicing black magic (on quest when no one is around we through death magic like it's candy...and the rules are that death magic and necromancy...oh and assassins, are illegal)
So after successful questing, we are arrested and murdered, for knocking out a farmer, who testified against us that we used black magic...which we didnt even do when he was alive.
The argument was he was knocked out when we did it and so was present.... well then genius, we must not have killed him eh?
No, we both killed him and used black magic while he was unconscious but could hear it being used.... huh???
So did I complain?? HELL yea. Drove 4 hours, paid money, to get bullied by meta gaming and dumb rules? I was PISSED.
I spent my other four lives hunting down the sheriff, every other member of the arresting posse, the town magistrate, and even the cleric that raised the farmer. I also killed a few knights who had nothing to do with it just for good measure.
All targets of opportunity, all killing blows when no one was looking, all when they were unconscious from battle with someone or something else.
But the WHOLE town knew I WAS the master assassin...
Yea, I stopped playing.
So being said all that, Am I against, 'entitled' players? Yea. But...cmon man, sometimes you are breaking it off.
People put alot of time and resources (in some cases) into their characters, does this mean they are immune from being killed ad turned into dragon food? no. I had a player whos character died in LoF BEFORE their mini arrived in the mail from paizo! Literally never got to use the mini!
Was a fit thrown? No. It just became legendary haha!
So have I thrown fits in the past? Been an 'entitled' player? Apparently, yes. Am I against the idea of "I should have this magic item because I planned on it" or "You can't kill my character because I dont want you to"?... emphatically yes!
but the above is some examples of why someone who might ordinarily think like you do, becomes an entitled player... do a reality check, what just happened.
What steps would you take in game where everyone knew the players secret identity, knew he had poison they had never seen, and people raised from the dead could recall spells cast they heard in an unconscious state (and NOT be spell casters themselves??)
LEarn to see things from the players POV.
However... there is also the flip side.
Maybe the farmer WASNT a farmer. Maybe he was secretly an evil guy too, trying to frame me for something, maybe a buddy killed him, so they could set me and my party up?
Yea... the thought occured to me. I might have accepted it if the DEVs had told me there are plot reasons such and such happened... but they didn't AND it doesnt make sense... so the death magic guys are the ones being set up by the death magic guys?
The WHOLE purpose of my group was to LOOK like bad guys, so the bad guys would approach us, so we could get in good with them, team up, get loot, get powerful, then betray them an take over their gig, all the while looking like heroes for defeating them.
So some how, at level one, the real bad guys knew that, and set us first? Yea, not buying it. Entitled to an explanation I never got? Yea I think I am.
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I...
wait what
I feel like the debate moderator in Billy Madison or that I just saw one of those Family Circus comics where his Mom tells Billy to go get some Milk from the Store and he does like that dotted line thing all over the dang town
I generally only bring it up when someone is ranting about how old school gaming was so much better/worse than it is today.
When you're talking about how the game has developed and changed, it's worth mentioning whether you were involved at the time or not.
It's not that old school gaming is better. This game is better.
Saying 1E is a better system than pathfinder is saying Id rather drive a 74 vw thing rather than a new jetta.
It's the social crowd that has changed.
It's the please me now mentality, and the exploit generation.
The same people who say "weapon space requirements were in 1e, that's not in this rules set, so I can swing by great sword in a 3' diameter tunnel" are the same people that need to be reminded that even tho this game isn't 1e, it's also not whatever MMO you are trying to bring into it.
Why are weapon space requirements not in modern rules sets? Ask any publisher, they will tell you it's a waste of space to print something that should be common sense.
Rule 0. The weapon space requirements ARE printed. There ya go.
As soon as people stop trying to hand wave and trivialize Rule 0, as house rules. "well thats a nice house rule, but i dont agree with it"
Then 'old timers' will stop (due to having no reason) making others feel like they aren't allowed or not good enough, as lamontius put it.
the offending party, has and always will be, the rules lawyers and exploiters in the game.
As soon as someone says "but the rules don't say that" they are rules lawyering, and not playing THIS game anymore.
If a GM says you can't swing your greatsword in a 3' diameter tunnel, then you can't.
If he rules you can't use HiPS the way you think the rules say you can, then you can't.
IF the evil Cleric keeps casting from hiding invisibility and there is nothing you can find in the rules to legitimize it? Well HIS cleric can do that.
If this all ticks you off, don't play at that table.
But that also doesn't mean that the next guy will let you do everything you want either.
Not getting things your way =/= Bad GM, or stupid house rules
everything not explicitly in print =/= lame houserule.
With the exception of organized play, this will ALWAYS be, to some extent, a house rule game.
There is ONLY one interpreter of rules during game play. That's a Game Master.
This forum is more or less, like congress, always arguing over and putting people down over what THEY think the book says.
the VAST majority (not all) of offenders are MUCH newer players, who do not know how the game HAS BEEN played, or why MR X or Miss Y might say or think something because it "clearly doesn't say that in the books".
Those people are, in my opinion, LOOKING for a way to get away with what they want to do as their latest and greatest (dumb) idea; and then RAIL against anyone who says otherwise.
Yes, in MMOs there are places you can get away with this thing or that thing, but you cant do it over there....it's called a Glitch. Table top games have glitches too. It's up tot he DM/GM to smooth them out. In the MMO, that live person isn't there to spoil your fun.
That's about the only thing that happens "faster" in table top, than MMO.
Can't use the 'fun' card to always get your way.People who dedicate hours out of their week to playing a game feel entitled to have fun doing it?
Outrageous!!!
*rabble rabble*
You can, if you and the people you're gaming with aren't jerks.
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Pendagast, the "baby boomer" generation, which is the generation that mostly got involved in the early days of RPGs, especially Dungeons and Dragons, are not called the "Me Generation" for nothing you know.
Do you truly believe that today's youth feel more entitled than the generation that rallied around the "Sex! Drugs! Rock and Roll!" battle cry?
I'm just not getting that.
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IF you believe that things like WoW and 4e haven't had a meaningful impact on PnP RPGs then I have a '76 Pinto I'd love to sell you. Mint condition.
Has it changed EVERY player? No. But I've seen enough examples of the things people have said on here and games I've seen in person to know it's not just people trolling or anecdotal incidents. Players now are beginning to feel like they should have much more control over their characters than they ever used to have.
Every example you can name was in existence before WOW. You are looking at things through rose colored glasses.
There's a feedback loop. Change the rules to make magic more common and give each character absurd powers, and you make the playerbase expect this, and attract a playerbase that wants this. Next time you change the rules, you follow what your playerbase wants, and so you get even more common magic and powers. Repeat for a few cycles and you get monks who can teleport just by meditating really hard and a CR system where players are assumed to survive and win constantly instead of needing to be worried.
Absurd is relative. Just find someone that likes your playstyle.
Discussing playstyle up front solves a lot of problems.
example: One thing I do is tell players up front that they very well may die in my games.It keeps those who "expect" fudging away from the table most of the time.
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Now that I think about it, I would say that more of my players in the last decade have refused to play MMORPGs than have played them. I have seen no correlation between those who did or did not play MMORPGs and those who were power gamers or munchkins. The most egregious munchkin I ever played with HATED MMORPGs, and I think the reason why is because he was not able to try to cajole, intimidate or bully the game server into granting him his way.
The "WoW fallacy" lives on.
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My brick to the wall of the troll.
I am definitely not a WoW-generation player. And still I would end up guilty of all sins according to the troll's criteria.
Because I want to play a character (in fact, more than just a role). And for that, I need that character to survive more than 1 or 2 levels, rather than die randomly for a disturbed GM's peace of mind.
I remember the time many years ago when I stopped naming my characters because they died so quickly. Talk about some profound roleplay there.
Not much nostalgia for me in these "good old days".
And, horror of horrors, as a GM I encourage my players to put thought and effort in their character. And I avoid killing these PCs randomly too. What a heretic I be.
Add to this list of unforgivable sins that I believe that RPGs are fundamentally a collaborative work between the GM and the players and I shall readily burn in many hells for all my blasphemies.
I'm suspicious of any claim that there's been some vast social change. The rules are clearer now, but there are a lot more of them. Leaving more for rules lawyers to work with. And there's the internet to magnify anything into a flame war.I generally only bring it up when someone is ranting about how old school gaming was so much better/worse than it is today.
When you're talking about how the game has developed and changed, it's worth mentioning whether you were involved at the time or not.
It's not that old school gaming is better. This game is better.
Saying 1E is a better system than pathfinder is saying Id rather drive a 74 vw thing rather than a new jetta.
It's the social crowd that has changed.
It's the please me now mentality, and the exploit generation.
As soon as people stop trying to hand wave and trivialize Rule 0, as house rules. "well thats a nice house rule, but i dont agree with it"
Then 'old timers' will stop (due to having no reason) making others feel like they aren't allowed or not good enough, as lamontius put it.
the offending party, has and always will be, the rules lawyers and exploiters in the game.
As soon as someone says "but the rules don't say that" they are rules lawyering, and not playing THIS game anymore.
Jeff that IS the change, the internet, easy access to shallow information (but mostly not in depth information) makes people feel more informed, when they didnt take the time to actually research something, and go forth, feeling informed. That's the social change.
Yes, more rules give rules lawyers more chances to lawyer (which is why I likened it to congress) Lawyering used to be rare, it's much more common now as the "trend has caught on"
I think that's due to as the game grows, and spreads there are more people who wouldnt have been DMs before, but are now, because everyone wants to play and someone has to be DM...so they get shoved around a bit more, which encourages said rules lawyers with a taste of success.