To me d&d style games are best when role play, story, and combat are in mostly equal measure.
Never understood why, those who say they have the most fun when role play is 90% or more of what happens, they play games like d&d when there are other things like 'live action role play' which is 100% RP.
I like things in equal measure, too, but to answer your question here more directly, LARP requires money be spent on costuming, accessories, and some skill or talent be required in those things, and time spent on them. Not to mention that getting up in front of people, often in public, is embarrassing for many. (Not to mention that there are plenty of LARPs out there that DO revolve around at least basic rules systems, making them less than 100% RP in that regard.)
Playing a tabletop game around a table is a totally different experience that for many people requires less commitment and is less embarrassing. Some people like more riddles and plot. Some people like more combat. You could argue that people who like more combat ought to be playing wargames, and people who like more riddles ought to be spending Friday night reading puzzlers to each other, or even that people who want plot should be LARPING, but in the end neither you nor I get to decide how much chocolate another guy likes with his peanut butter, or how much peanut butter he likes with his chocolate.
Unlike conventional board games, RPGs are what you make of them and need not adhere to a strict game play format or single style of play.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I started in 1974. Fun times. What's changed... time to mentally wander around :)
PCs take forever to create in 3.x...
I like classes and now archtypes but there are too many. Nice for customization, not so nice for complexity.I like feats too, but there are too many choices and they require way to much planning. The Magic User used to be the only class with choices to make. The result is, again, long character generation and the loss of the advantage of simplicity that came with a class based system. Skills work out. I remember we adopted the background skill system from Empire of the Petal Throne when it came out. Players invest heavily in their character as a result of the time / complexity. Backstories have become common. We wrote our stories in game. Players are horrified when their 1st level PC dies... while I wonder why. Fortunately PCs are harder to kill these days. And easier to resurrect.
As others have said, traps and poison used to be deadly. Now, not so much. The whole save or die thing for poison, spells, etc. made for some real tension. Mind you, it *did* suck sometimes. Level draining was d@mn near as bad as poison.
Combat is slower. Much slower. And smaller. Fewer enemies, more time spent.
Players expect class "equality". We just played what we wanted to
without worrying about which class was more powerful.
Too many magic items. I prefer magic to be rarer, not just technology for the fantasy game. Too much crafting goes with that. I like crafting but not the amount in most games now.
But, the game is still fun and that's the main thing :D
Players expect class "equality". We just played what we wanted to without worrying about which class was more powerful.
I've noticed that too. The concept of WBL, even the fact that all classes level at the same amount of experience (introduced in 3.0.) I always forewarn my players that all of the characters will certainly not be equal. Some are going to have better rolled stats than others, some are going to get luckier, etc. Its just the nature of the game.
Too many magic items. I prefer magic to be rarer, not just technology for the fantasy game. Too much crafting goes with that. I like crafting but not the amount in most games now.
Definitely agreed. Hearing people talk about empty magic item slots really rubs me the wrong way. Its like the standard is that a character should be adorned in magic items from head to toe. In my group, we play low magic, common folk are very suspicious of arcane casters, etc. Works for us.
But, the game is still fun and that's the main thing :D
That's always good to keep in mind when the minutia starts to weigh a session/campaign down.
Players expect class "equality". We just played what we wanted to without worrying about which class was more powerful.I've noticed that too. The concept of WBL, even the fact that all classes level at the same amount of experience (introduced in 3.0.) I always forewarn my players that all of the characters will certainly not be equal. Some are going to have better rolled stats than others, some are going to get luckier, etc. Its just the nature of the game.
WBL... my least favorite innovation. Useful for new characters entering above 1st level though. I like my players PCs to have the opportunity to be filthy rich or dirt poor. I like the equal xp system in a way, it simplifies things but it removes a balancing factor in favor of keeping everyone in lock step for advancement. Good for an AP I guess, but I run a sandbox game and players levels typically vary a bit anyway. And we roll for stats. the "all must be equal" crew like point buy I think. Almost like it's a competition between players and they have to be equal...
Too many magic items. I prefer magic to be rarer, not just technology for the fantasy game. Too much crafting goes with that. I like crafting but not the amount in most games now.
Definitely agreed. Hearing people talk about empty magic item slots really rubs me the wrong way. Its like the standard is that a character should be adorned in magic items from head to toe. In my group, we play low magic, common folk are very suspicious of arcane casters, etc. Works for us.
Yeah, the Christmas tree effect. Every slot filled or your character is "underpowered" and not equal of course. I guess my players are "underpowered" although they don't see it that way. Low magic works for us. Different play styles, for different people.
But, the game is still fun and that's the main thing :D
That's always good to keep in mind when the minutia starts to weigh a session/campaign down.
There are a lot of good things in and about 3.x, but they also lost some good stuff too. That's why we have house rules though.
About Erol Otus art...
The art is too weird for me to "like" it and too alien for my D&D games, but it is so fascinating that you cannot pass the opportunity to look further.
Definitely influential to the "feel" of old school D&D.
Certain optimization-loving players assure me that there is a fourth style, a Perfect Game that justifies their love of high-performance builds. Maybe there is; haven't seen it myself.
That may be because they're speaking only from their own perspective, and it's actually either alternative two or three from above.
Unless you have an entire table of optimization fans, I'd say you're pretty much right. A lot of people don't really notice the fun / lack thereof of the other players at the table. And some, but not all, of them think when they're having a blast and others aren't that it's everyone else's fault. *sigh* My level of cynicism is too high today. I think I need to go take something for that before it hits terminal levels :)
Ender's Game: The GM and the player are up to the challenge, but the game is not fun for the GM. At all. Instead of focusing on family fun for everyone, he has to warp his entire game around the enhanced capabilities of that one player. Increasingly, the rest of the table are either servants or spectators....all the advice floating around on how to build the "most effective" character. Those "build guides" over on the Advice board really rankle my feathers... It teaches the wrong lessons to novice players, encouraging them to power-game and min/max...Also, what I don't like is the attitude and assumption that everyone plays that way, thus Paizo must cater to their demands.
That was a big part of what doomed my last campaign (Rise of the Runelords): The player of the barbarian was a real number-cruncher, and he completely optimized his PC for combat. By level 12, he was dishing out 150+ hp/round-- more than three times the amount of the rest of the party combined, including the wizard. The rest of the players were getting bored and/or discouraged that they were always being outclassed by the barbarian. I was having a hell of a time re-writing every single stinking encounter to try to downplay the barbarian's effectiveness while trying to give opportunities for everyone else to shine.
While I spoke with the player, and asked him to re-work the character to tone him down a bit, I could tell he wasn't happy with that solution. Running the game became more work than fun for me, and I think that started to show. Two other players quit due to losing interest in the game. I ended up just disbanding that game after a long custom chapter I'd written ("Quest for the Seven Swords") that I ran between "Hook Mountain Massacre" and "Fortress of the Stone Giants".
It was kind of a drag.
I have limited experience with optimizers, but what experience I do have suggests that when someone builds a character that "seems" to exceed reasonable boundaries, then typically there is a well hidden flaw in that build somewhere, some kind of technical rule interpretation that is actually not correct at all.
That is sometimes the case, other times it is certain assumptions that the player has made. They made build their character as a super sneak attacker to the point that they can eliminate opponents in a round if they land all their attacks. Or they create a character with such a high AC that even heavy hitters need 18+ to hit them.
Of course then when the immune to sneak attack opponent or the touch attack opponent shows up, the players suddenly get upset.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've been playing RPGs, mostly D&D, for nearly 20 years. Unlike many of the other posters, I didn't start when I was a child. I was in high school when the first D&D game was released, and I didn't know anyone who played; not to mention, I'm female and in the '70s in small-town Texas I'm not sure I would have been able to find any male players who would have been willing to include me in their group.
I started playing when I was 35. My first RPG was RuneQuest. My husband played regularly and told me about his games, and one afternoon I was bored with being left at home so I asked if I could go with him as a spectator. The GM suggested we arrive early so I could roll up a character. I've never looked back.
I've played a lot of other systems besides D&D, but the d20 version and its derivatives are my favorite. I hated Thac0 in AD&D; it was counter-intuitive to me. D20 is nicely streamlined for my taste. I wish the designers could find more ways to incorporate d12s so I wouldn't have so many unused dice in my sets, but otherwise I like using the polyhedral sets with a focus on the 20-sider. Most of the rules are easy for me to comprehend, which is more than I can say for the rules of some other systems I've tried.
The big difference I've seen is the commercialization. The designers always seem to be trying to find ways to make more money for the shareholders these days. I like D&D 3.5 quite a lot, but the proliferation of splatbooks got out of hand, and I hope that Pathfinder doesn't succumb to the same drive to sell more and more product.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have played since the original blue and pink-ish (it was actually more of a maroon when brand new but faded to pink really quickly) books. And the friend that got me started had a copy of the even more original loose-leaf black and white pamphlet like books.
Probably my most memorable experience was when the light finally dawned on our first non-dungeon crawl adventure. We were working for the locals trying to find out who killed X and made off with the treasure of Y. We were amassing clues, guesses, and descriptions when we suddenly realized they were all pointing at us. We were being setup to take the blame. “Hey wait a minute! Holy Crap!! How the heck did …” It was really pretty wild. I don’t think it’s just nostalgia. I really think he was the best GM I’ve ever played with.
There have been a lot of changes over the years. Mostly they are good, but some not so much.
- Lethal traps and poisons – Good and bad. I admit it wasn’t fun to lose your character. But I do have a hard time with why anyone would bother with a trap/poison that would barely inconvenience a girl scout.
- De-Emphasis in Traps and Puzzles – Good. I could never understand the fascination with puzzles. It would almost completely break my immersion. Why in the heck would I put a puzzle on the entrance to my bedroom?!? A magical lock that only recognized me? Yes of course, that’s logical. A puzzle that requires 2 people 15 minutes even once you know the solution… Uhmm… Just no. Traps on the other hand made sense (at least sometimes). If I had a secret entrance to my lair, yes I would trap it in every lethal way I could think of. But even though it would make sense it doesn’t make for an exciting adventure to spend 2 hours watching the rogue (who was absolutely necessary) slowly work his way down every hall.
- Level Appropriate – Good and bad. Back when, it just didn’t exist as an explicit considered concept. I don’t think I ever heard the term until late 2nd or early 3rd edition. Now the party will coincidentally only encounter the weakest of Mr Evil’s henchmen until they themselves become stronger. Back then you would have to carefully nibble around the edges of the ME’s organization or you would get easily swatted by something x3 your level. Again it wasn’t fun to always lose your character, but the world seemed more believable.
- Killer GM’s – Mostly good and somewhat bad. All of us were. It generates a huge amount of hate now if you kill PC’s on a regular basis. None of us were trying to be mean, on a power trip, adversarial, etc… We just all thought that was how it was ‘supposed’ to be done. If you haven’t played through the slow progressive change (I didn’t, an almost 15 year gap in playing), a lot of the current stuff looks like slow pitch whiffle ball compared to competitive baseball. Not saying it necessarily is, but that is what it looked like when I first came back to RPG’s. It took some adjustment.
- Increased Pace of advancement – Good. It used to take figuratively forever to get to high levels. I really like that it doesn’t take that long anymore.
- Magic Items lost their luster – To me this is almost completely a bad change. Used to be that magic items really seemed special. When you found the Spear of Zunga that gave bleeding wounds. It was kool. It stayed kool. Even if you didn’t usually use a spear, you kept it throughout your career for those times when it was useful. Because you would probably never find anything like it again. And it would be useful throughout your career. At 12th level you might encounter something that was particularly hard to hit. A bleeding weapon was perfect. Now magic items are just expensive high quality gear of very limited useful life. Found a Wounding Spear? Meh, I prefer the falchion. Just sell it to have someone enchant my falchion a bit more. Even if you decide to use it, within a few levels it will be almost considered as useless as the blade you started with. I do find this change particularly saddening.
- Tremendous Increase in Rules – Some old timers don’t like this, but I think it is great. Back when if you wanted to “I trip the knight and when he’s off balance I shove him off the bridge!” It was entirely at the GM’s whim as to how likely it was to succeed or even if it was possible to try. GM1 and GM2 might have very different notions of how hard it should be. Even GM1 might drastically change depending upon how difficult he wanted this fight to be. Now, there are rules for it.
- Hugantical Increase in PC Options – This is all good to me. (Again I know some old timers don’t like this.) Unless someone got stupidly lucky (or unlucky) in rolling stats, there used to be virtually no difference between fighter X and fighter Y.
- Social Acceptability – When you got above about 13 or so you were probably ostracized if people knew you were one of ‘those’ people. Now, ok you might be a bit more of a dork than otherwise but not to a huge extent. And you don’t have the local ignorant church gang holding an intervention to try and save you from devil worship or kick you out of the community for devil worship.
- Bathing – Thankfully that unfortunately applicable stereotype has mostly died a needed death. I can remember trying to get to the game/comic shop first thing in the morning so there weren’t too many people there. Because later in the day the B.O. was so bad I couldn’t stand to walk into the shop long enough to look at any of the books. I am grateful that has almost completely been eliminated from the hobby.
On the whole, I think most of the changes have been very much for the better. The loss of magic’s special-ness is really my only significant gripe.
The big difference I've seen is the commercialization. The designers always seem to be trying to find ways to make more money for the shareholders these days. I like D&D 3.5 quite a lot, but the proliferation of splatbooks got out of hand, and I hope that Pathfinder doesn't succumb to the same drive to sell more and more product.
Well, publishing companies make money by selling products, and they have to keep producing more products to sell in order to stay in business.
Paizo, BTW, is a privately-owned company that doesn't sell stock. There are no shareholders. But they still need to turn a profit-- which isn't easy when you're a small publishing company that markets a niche product. They may be an industry leader, but it's a very small industry!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I never understood why people gripe about a company selling things to make money. How are they going to stay in business if they don't keep putting things out? If Paizo had released the Core Rulebook and Bestiary only, by now they'd be a distant memory. And the first rule of new gaming products states you don't have to buy it. Ever.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I never understood why people gripe about a company selling things to make money. How are they going to stay in business if they don't keep putting things out? If Paizo had released the Core Rulebook and Bestiary only, by now they'd be a distant memory. And the first rule of new gaming products states you don't have to buy it. Ever.
Its not a dislike of producing more materials, its a dislike of unbalancing the game. As you said, companies need to make money. In order to make money in an RPG with today's audience, you have to offer them something better than what your older materials already had.
As such, the new books that come out tend to have more powerful options than the previous books. Thus the core rules become unbalanced versus newer materials.
This was really noticeable in 3.5, and some of it is apparent in Pathfinder. I'm sure it will only get worse as more materials are released.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I never understood why people gripe about a company selling things to make money. How are they going to stay in business if they don't keep putting things out? If Paizo had released the Core Rulebook and Bestiary only, by now they'd be a distant memory. And the first rule of new gaming products states you don't have to buy it. Ever.
Except we seem to have an unquenchable thirst for APs and modules, and lots of regions in Golarion are barely outlined at all :)
It's a very fine balance: how to keep the game fresh and interesting for long-time players, while not introducing new content that completely overpowers the original content.
Another important thing to avoid is splitting your own fan-base.
TSR/WoTC made some very serious missteps in the '90s and '00s by churning out too much content in splatbooks that weren't sufficiently play-tested. Some of those options (in both 2nd Edition, and in 3.x) were flat-out overpowered compared to the options available in the Players Handbook. So far, I think that Paizo has mostly avoided this, but you always run the risk of a player combining stuff from different sources in an imbalancing way.
Paizo has also managed to avoid splitting its fanbase: they only make one campaign world. That allows their creatives to really write deeply-- and Golarion is so much the richer for it.
TSR/WoTC had too many different campaign worlds. Off the top of my head, I can think of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, DragonLance, Ravenloft (Demiplane of Dread), Eberron, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Planescape, and a bunch of smaller pseudo-historical settings (Vikings, Holy Roman Empire, Knights of the Round Table). While having all those options available was cool, they really split their audience. If your campaign is set in Greyhawk, you aren't so inclined to buy supplements and sourcebooks for differnt settings. (That's what I did. I never bought any TSR/WoTC campaign setting stuff that wasn't Greyhawk.) That weakened sales throughout.
|
I have to say that I've always despised traps. As a gameplay experience, it's just minutes/hours of watching the thief player make rolls, until you know he's failed a roll but can't act on that meta-game knowledge so you have to step into the trap and die or be a cheater.
I played through the original Tomb of Horrors, and saw the module afterward. The main corridor was so full of traps that even the people who made them couldn't survive walking down their own corridor. The preponderance of traps seemed so stupid. If they really didn't want you to go there, just brick it up!
I also always hated dungeon crawls. I actually started playing other games in the late '70s/early '80s just to get away from them.
|
I am itching for an AP set (at least partly) in Vudra and have been ever since the Arkonas were detailed in 'Curse of the Crimson Throne.' Despite the plethora of fantasy settings over the last 40 years, India's been overlooked (aside from a few half-hearted suggestions in 3.0's Oriental Adventures) and I'm feeling the need for a few adventures involving brahmin, karma, pariahs, reincarnated villains, and a trap that includes stampeding elephants. (Bonus points if it gives me an archetype that will let me create a knife fighter worthy of the Gurkha or the Sikhs.)
I wish there was an option to increase the favorites on a single post.
Many armed Goddess, death cults, fallen temples and horrific cannibal demons.
Bring it.
I am hoping this will be announced for after Expedit...er the Iron Gods Ap.
I have to say that I've always despised traps. As a gameplay experience, it's just minutes/hours of watching the thief player make rolls, until you know he's failed a roll but can't act on that meta-game knowledge so you have to step into the trap and die or be a cheater. ...
Yeah, the old time preponderance of traps was always kinda irritating. It they were lethal enough to be realistic, it was usually a TPK. Or like you said they were locatable and lame. So you just watched the rogue forever.
..
... I played through the original Tomb of Horrors, and saw the module afterward. The main corridor was so full of traps that even the people who made them couldn't survive walking down their own corridor. The preponderance of traps seemed so stupid. If they really didn't want you to go there, just brick it up! ...
If it is the one I'm thinking of, that was one of the few that actually made sense. It was made to keep the demi-lich safe. He was a floating skull so could get past all of it. He didn't care if it killed all the workers. he would certainly have killed any that survived. Plus iirc it was closed up until an earthquake or something opened it up.
Of course making sense, didn't make it fun to play.
.
.
... I also always hated dungeon crawls. I actually started playing other games in the late '70s/early '80s just to get away from them.
As an occasional one shot or sub-quest in a larger campaign they are ok. If it becomes too constant, I find them tiresome. I start asking myself, "Why are we here?"
I am itching for an AP set (at least partly) in Vudra and have been ever since the Arkonas were detailed in 'Curse of the Crimson Throne.' Despite the plethora of fantasy settings over the last 40 years, India's been overlooked (aside from a few half-hearted suggestions in 3.0's Oriental Adventures) and I'm feeling the need for a few adventures involving brahmin, karma, pariahs, reincarnated villains, and a trap that includes stampeding elephants. (Bonus points if it gives me an archetype that will let me create a knife fighter worthy of the Gurkha or the Sikhs.)I wish there was an option to increase the favorites on a single post.
Many armed Goddess, death cults, fallen temples and horrific cannibal demons.
Bring it.
I am hoping this will be announced for after Expedit...er the Iron Gods Ap.
I would also like an AP set in Vudra.
James Jacobs has mentioned over on his "Ask Me Anything" thread that one of the big stumbling blocks for producing a Vudran AP is the issue of psychic magic. He's said that they can't do a Vudran AP justice without nailing down official PFRPG rules for psychic magic. He's suggested class names like: telepath, telekinetic, seer, fakir, mesmerist, or medium.
JJ has gone on-record as wanting psychic magic to be a third sort of magic, along with Arcane and Divine, which would use the regular magic system. He's said that he sees no need for a completely separate "spell point" system for psychic magic. This, of course, flies in the face of the 3.5 OGL psionics system, and the PFRPG conversion of that system by Dreamscarred Press. That system has a plethora of diehard supporters. It's a very good product. Which means that if PFRPG produces its own rival set of rules for psychic magic, they will make a lot of people unhappy, and possibly hurt the sales of an allied publishing company.
I'm actually with JJ on this-- I never liked psioncs, and wished it had been treated just as another kind of magic-- if at all.
I hated psionics way back to 1st edition AD&D. If a PC actually made a psionics check, then the rest of us knew that he'd regularly be engaging in psionic combat one-on-one with the GM every session or two. And if that happened, the rest of us might as well walk over to the pizza joint down the street and play pinball or Defender for an hour.
... I'm actually with JJ on this-- I never liked psioncs, and wished it had been treated just as another kind of magic-- if at all. ...
I'm completely at the other end of the spectrum. I wish the arcane and divine magic was treated like the DSP psionics system.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Im a tad over the hill and been gaming since the fifth grade.
Theres been lots of changes over the years and they've mostly been good as many have pointed out here already. Although I still curse those weapon charts from Rolemaster.
For me the biggest improvement has been the internet and in effect boards like this one where we can game with others all over the world without having to schedule certain days and times that will work with everyone's schedules...which is growing more difficult the older I get. Add to that that this medium almost enforces actual role playing and deep character development. Sure, we still get those that just post a skill check, attack roll or save without anything else but they are few and far between.
Ive been lucky to have found a few people to play with in RL that focus on Roleplay and some of our best times are when we fail but stay true to character. But here on the Paizo boards, Ive been more than impressed and inspired by the vast amounts of creative ideas for campaigns and characters. Glad to be a part of it.
Ah, nostalgia...
I started gaming when I was 2 years old and held up to the Dragon's Lair arcade system. Got my first NES when I was 3, and started D&D with AD&D 2nd when I was 4. Woah, have I seriously been doing TTRPGs for 21 years now? Kind of makes me feel old, lol.
Parents started me in on it, since they've been playing since the original Red Box. I ran with dumbed down rules for six months with nothing more than some dice and a white board before I actually got into the whole thing for real. Sadly, since it was so long ago, I don't have many amusing anecdotes for this thread.
That said... The games sure have changed a lot. They've gotten more complex math due to all the mechanics bloat. More options, more math, longer combats.... While they're pretty fun, I miss the old days where I didn't have to take a feat to tell my GM that my elf was running up dragon's back to plant my blades in its skull. Now-a-days it's like "You want to pick your nose AND scratch your ass? Take feat!"
Still, as others have said, the changes have generally been positive. I like the D20 system, I like Hero 6e, I like the Storyteller system. I have yet to try Rolemaster, but I like the idea of having the capability of a first level halfling commoner killing a suped up ogre juggernaut with a lucky rock to the nasal cavity.
I'll have to admit the only thing I don't like is D&D 4th... It's too.... MMORPG for me, and I've got enough of those as is. Sure, you can refluff everything, but everyone does pretty much the same things in the mechanics....
They do have a few things I happen to like about it though... Being able to 'baleful teleport' someone, and teleporting pretty easily... I just like the teleport shenanigans. Built an Eladrin Warlock who's entire point was to go "Oh, you're right next to me about to hit me with a club? *Poit!* You're now five squares in the air, and four squares east, right over the edge of the cliff... Buh-bye!"
... Can't do that in Pathfinder, though I would really love to. Still, the Dimensional Dervish feat tree is a good start...
To be honest, I both highly fear and highly anticipate the future of TTRPGs. While I long for the mechanical simplicity of my youth, I'm intensely curious to see what designers will come up with next.
Edit: That said, I wasn't sure 21 years would qualify me as an 'old timer' for purposes of this thread. Regardless, I posted anyways.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Girt orf mah lawn. =)
That said, I wasn't sure 21 years would qualify me as an 'old timer' for purposes of this thread. Regardless, I posted anyways.
Ya may be a yung'un, but I like the cut of yer jib! Welcome aboard!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I started playing AD&D in the summer of 1980; I was 6. I'm the youngest in my family and my 2 next older brothers - Matt, 8 and David, 13 were looking to "play test" the "Q" series of modules. I was handed a character sheet with the name "Gandalf", introduced to Matt's ranger - Killgore, and away we went.
What followed was the most ridiculous, frustrating, and hilarious summer I ever spent with my brothers.
Now I'll be turning 40 in a couple months. I've been gaming in TTRPGs this whole time. I won't bore you folks with endless stories and what not; suffice it to say Its been really fun so far. I've stuck to D&D and more recently Pathfinder though this whole time.
I never got into video games, didn't play a lot of board games and have never owned a dedicated gaming computer. Nearly all of my gaming experiences have been with live people around a table, rolling dice and talking.
I resisted 3x for a long time. When I finally yielded we were already moving to 3.5. Then I discovered Paizo through Dungeon Magazine. As 4e drew closer I looked at all my new 3x stuff, shrugged and prepared for another change.
Then I get this notice in the mail with the hard copy of one of my last Dungeon mags. The paper tells me that Paizo is losing the zine and the rest of my subscription is a credit to their online store. There's also the murky mention of something called "Pathfinder."
I had moved and didn't really have a gaming group at the time, so I took a break from TTRPGs to join a new buddy of mine in his board game group. I learned what Settlers of Catan was, lost a lot and networked a bit in the new group. Still in the back of my head there was this nagging word: Pathfinder.
Finally I broke down and bought the CRB. I've been a happy gamer ever since. I don't know; something with me and PF just clicked. I haven't really played other TTRPGs since. Except Marvel Super Heroes from 1985 - that one will ALWAYS be in my rotation!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My group decided Pathfinder is the last iteration of the D&D rules we'll use. No one liked 4e and there's no excitement for 5e (or Next, whatever they're calling it).
I have to say that I've always despised traps. As a gameplay experience, it's just minutes/hours of watching the thief player make rolls, until you know he's failed a roll but can't act on that meta-game knowledge so you have to step into the trap and die or be a cheater.
I played through the original Tomb of Horrors, and saw the module afterward. The main corridor was so full of traps that even the people who made them couldn't survive walking down their own corridor. The preponderance of traps seemed so stupid. If they really didn't want you to go there, just brick it up!
I also always hated dungeon crawls. I actually started playing other games in the late '70s/early '80s just to get away from them.
Traps are clearly not being run right for you.
Running trapped dungeons well takes time to learn, and it is best to skip the boring bits.
That said, I wasn't sure 21 years would qualify me as an 'old timer' for purposes of this thread. Regardless, I posted anyways.Ya may be a yung'un, but I like the cut of yer jib! Welcome aboard!
Lol, are you an old-timer if you started extremely young, but have actually been playing for a very long time (20 years), but are not yet old?
Sincerely,
Child soldier in a dungeon
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Except Marvel Super Heroes from 1985 - that one will ALWAYS be in my rotation!
That's AMAZING! Or maybe even INCREDIBLE!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Except Marvel Super Heroes from 1985 - that one will ALWAYS be in my rotation!That's AMAZING! Or maybe even INCREDIBLE!
Pretty REMARKABLE if you ask me!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Except Marvel Super Heroes from 1985 - that one will ALWAYS be in my rotation!That's AMAZING! Or maybe even INCREDIBLE!
No, it's AMAZING. Don't lessen it, Haladir! =)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That said, I wasn't sure 21 years would qualify me as an 'old timer' for purposes of this thread. Regardless, I posted anyways.Ya may be a yung'un, but I like the cut of yer jib! Welcome aboard!Lol, are you an old-timer if you started extremely young, but have actually been playing for a very long time (20 years), but are not yet old?
Sincerely,
Child soldier in a dungeon
Lol, good question. I'll just operate under the impression of 'old timer' being someone from 2nd or earlier for purposes of this thread. That said, I get mistaken for 30s or higher all the time, I've grayed early! I'm 'skunked' at 25, and my back bloody creaks, don't get me started on mah knees. For a gamer nerd, I've had too active a life >_<! (lots of recreational sports/martial arts injuries/strains).
In the mean time... I just recalled an amusing anecdote. At least part of it...
AD&D 2nd, Forgotten Realms setting... Playing an Elven Thief (Whom my Paizo forum handle is named after). I can't recall what of my parent's home brew campaigns we were playing, but it was me, me mum, my old man, and an old family friend Steve. (Side track: Good gods these three could run some freaking games. Their casts were HUGE! Ten characters a piece was actually COMMON for them, I can't even wrap my head around it to this day! /Side track).
For some reason, we wind up in Elminster's tower, getting debriefed/conscripted to help deal with some extraplanar threat. One of Steve's more prankster types winds up lifting up Elminster's robe to see what kind of tricks he's got under there.
At which point my thief (remember I was about five at this point), who had been trying his damnedest to find something he could pocket the entire time, looks over at him and goes "That's just childish!"
Apparently, a five year old telling a grown man in his late twenties the actions of his character were childish was funny as hell.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Enjoyed reading this thread a lot I think the main things that have changed is the options that a player has about his character are huge so many classes feats even races and they all effect the mechanics of the game and not just the flavor .
I shudder to think how many possibility there are when you make and or level any character.
And i think among all the math and optimization maybe the soul of the game has been lost from sight, you don't need a rule for everything thats why you have a DM not to just adjudicate whats in the rule books or to ne argued with but to make a judgement and keep the game flowing smoothly .
Also i feel a lot of players expect to be ableto defeat every encounter with a few well chosen feats and a roll of the dice
I love role playing games have done got over 30 years but of later a lot of role players get right on my t~%@ with there need to have a rule for everything and o optimize there characters so that nothing is a challenge
Where's the thrill an adventure when there is no risk or consequence
Or maybe I'm just getting old just my two coppers worth
Have fun and may your dice role high
Sorry about the spelling mistakes not easy to post using an old phone on a bumpy train
+1 with Lincoln and Tony.
Seriously, I think that's why these days I am, to use an MMO term (Gasp! Blasphemy!), an 'Altoholic'. I have trouble keeping with a given character these days. Which worries me, I used to be able to stick with a single guy until he kicked the bucket permanently, or story purposes made him retire.
Reason I wind up character hopping, I think, is because there isn't any challenge or threat of death. Even building for character concept, such as my World-Walker (Half-elf Warden ranger/Spherewalker/Horizon Walker), he kind of just... Walked through everything without too much of an issue. Was built more for out of combat survival than combat effectiveness, and still skated through the adventure until I grew bored and retired him. I keep jumping to 'weak' builds and concepts, but I just never seem to recapture that High Risk thrill, even playing skill-monkey social non-archetyped rogues.
Even my gf hates the "No-Risk-High-Reward" the games feel like these days, and she only started TTRPGs three years or so ago. She especially hates the kiddie gloves GMs seem to wear these days concerning PC death.
At my table, I typically have a nice, framed set of rules and warnings to players that I set up. Rule 0) I simply reiterate Rule 0; R1) Rule 0 is King; R2) Expect to die, horribly; R3) Resurrection spells are NOT easy to find... Among others.
That said, I typically bring several pre-gens to the table for PCs that die, if their player hadn't rolled a back up.
Anyone else have a problem with the massive sense of entitlement it seems most bring to the table these days? Among them: Resurrections are instant and easy, Death is nigh non-existent, Can get whatever they want out of Ye Olde Magick Shoppe such as artifacts (!!), and my personal favorite to hear b+$!!ed about... "Challenging encounters should have the GM fudge all his rolls so we can win!"
...my personal favorite to hear b@&~$ed about... "Challenging encounters should have the GM fudge all his rolls so we can win!"
I started playing just before 3.0 came out so I don't have the longevity of others. However, I agree with what Artemis just said.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...
Anyone else have a problem with the massive sense of entitlement it seems most bring to the table these days? Among them: Resurrections are instant and easy, Death is nigh non-existent, Can get whatever they want out of Ye Olde Magick Shoppe such as artifacts (!!), and my personal favorite to hear b@%$@ed about... "Challenging encounters should have the GM fudge all his rolls so we can win!"
I wouldn't go so far as to say entitlement with my group. (Except for magic mart - they are pretty insistent on that one.) My group wants to be challenged even if it results in PC demise. Though they wouldn't be happy with weekly TPK's that's going to far.
More my problem is the whole level appropriate concept. Some wild animal has been killing villagers and live stock and the militia can't handle it. "An advanced feral dire bear?!? We're only 2nd level. We have no chance of killing it." Look if something can't be stopped local guard it is dangerous. They could have stopped a regular bear. You may have to spend some time digging a pit trap, run away a few times, gain some allies, or even go away and come back after you've gained some levels.