Fair warning: Puns.
More seriously in book 1 some of the dialogue (and especially the inner monologues) are clunky, but it improved greatly by book 2.
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For me, when I dm I try to emulate the style of the game to be a mix of LoTR and the 80's Conan movies. Though much more on the Conan side, like 70% Conan and 30% rings. I feel like those old films really capture what it feels like to be an adventurer with a party and delving into dungeons and quests. Especially the second Conan, that one really feels like an adventure path when I watch it.
As for video games, structurally I take inspiration from Zelda. The "Find 8 things and kill Ganon" formula is something I have shamelessly copied before. It's such an easy way to make your game longer. I also take inspiration from anime style action scenes when players do killing blows. When they crit or kill an enemy I like to really describe them doing the kill as a Jedi or anime hero would. Especially when making a sweet comeback in a fight.
Have you checked out Kendle Unlimited? There are some good older books available sometimes.
I haven't yet; isn't it a subscription service? That would keep me from using it at this point in my financial status.
I try to just have really cool, semi-personalized loot drops, but when AP's assume you'll have the "Christmas tree" by such and such a level, it gets hard.
I try to do the same.
My problem arises when Pathfinder and its same-generation-predacessors fail to properly represent the capabilities of martial characters. By the time a martial hits level 6 or so, he should be capable of anything Guts did in the original Anime or the OVA trilogy. They should be beasts of martial prowess flying across battlefields of level 1-3 soldiers leaving puddles of blood and gore in his wake. Instead we have martials who stand still to trade blows or move no more than 80 feet [if a Barbarian or under the effects of Longstrider] and attack one opponent.
So if martials achieve that kind of power within 6 levels, what's left for the remaining 14 levels? Also keep in mind a round is only 6 seconds - a 6th level martial can wipe out a small goblin or orc tribe within a minute.
If you want more mobility, there is content like the Mobile Fighter archetype, the Dimensional Dervish feat and the Mobile Melee variant rule from Unchained. It all comes at a high price though, hence the alternative (smart positioning, then full-attacking) is still viable.
Personally, I like the power level as it is. I don't want anime super heroes as standard for low levels in RPGs. One a reason is: If you remember how weak you were at low levels, it feels twice as good to be much more powerful at high levels...
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Fantasy literature has largely changed in style over the years as well.
Authors like Brandon Sanderson, Jim Butcher, and Brent Weeks are the norm now, and Rule of Cool takes a bit more of a center stage than some of the more grounded series of the past.
It's kind of interesting conceptually. Currently the norm for fantasy is closer to where ancient legends were thousands of years ago. Gilgamesh and Hercules could feel right at home on the pages of some of Sanderson's works, with the deeds they perform.
Right now a lot of focus seems to be on more legendary figures as far as deeds, though generally with more character development than the ancient myths.
Likewise, many anime, cartoons, and video games have followed this style as well, though longer since in some cases (and especially in the case of comic books and manga).
Sanderson, Butcher and Weeks are popular but far from the only prominent voices around. Even as they pull in one direction, others such as Joe Abercrombie and Mark Lawrence, N.K Jemisin and Brian McClellan, Neil Gaiman and Robert Jackson Bennett all push in their own directions.
I'm with theJeff. I think it's easy to say that A Song of Ice and Fire was a serious game changer (if only because so many contemporary authors have read him and explicitly said they were inspired by him). Previous to that Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and The Wheel of Time had a huge influence. I suppose that Dresden Files has actually been going long enough to be considered an influence on many modern authors too.
But either way, I think it's incorrect to classify modern fantasy as "Sanderson, Butcher and Weeks".
Butcher is popular, but I don't know if I would consider his books game changers in the way GoT, LotR, or even Shannara were. Butcher started out in a pretty well established genre (urban magic). At best...Butcher most novel contribution is to reduce the paranormal romance angle that had been a major element of the books before this, and to up the humor.
I am not familiar enough with Sanderson and Week's books to really comment on them.
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What are the Thematic and Genre staples that constitute the Standard from where your games are derived?
I don't take my RPG and try to retrofit it into a different setting from a different author in a different medium. In fact, I'd wager a guess that people's tendency to do so probably contributes to a nontrivial number of internet arguments.
Instead, I take the ruleset itself as being the "standard" for that game's fantasy setting.
For example, if the ruleset says I can reach a point where the same stab-wound that would have laid me out at first level is now barely relevant, then that's how that setting works. No need to try to twist the HP system into being split between "meat" and "heroic dodging" in order to make it fit some other fantasy setting's paradigms. I can just take it as it is: a 1st-level thug's stabbing becomes less and less relevant to my physiology as my badassery increases.
Seriously, gamers could save themselves a lot of headaches by just accepting the ruleset as actually describing that setting, rather than trying to force it into a different setting's mold.
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Butcher is popular, but I don't know if I would consider his books game changers in the way GoT, LotR, or even Shannara were. Butcher started out in a pretty well established genre (urban magic). At best...Butcher most novel contribution is to reduce the paranormal romance angle that had been a major element of the books before this, and to up the humor.
I am not familiar enough with Sanderson and Week's books to really comment on them.
Yeah, I guess I agree. Butcher didn't really do anything new, merely became a sort of a standard for the things that he does.
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Have you checked out Kendle Unlimited? There are some good older books available sometimes.I haven't yet; isn't it a subscription service? That would keep me from using it at this point in my financial status.
$10 a month unlimited number of books a month. Of course not all books are available through Unlimited just a large number.
Edit: I think limited to 10 downloaded at a time.
I started playing around the beginning of middle school (~1986) and can't say I was much or a reader until about 7th grade when my friends introduced me to Dragonlance. (It took a while because my friend had a slight lisp, and I thought he was saying Legend of Humor which didn't sound very fantastic.) I read as many Dragonlance books as they would print - luckly, they printed a lot. Oddly, we never played in the dragonlance universe. A little later, I read Hobbit/LotR, some Peirs Anthony, Dune series, but by that time AD&D had warped my mind into a definition of fantasy that lasts to this day.
Oh yeah, and fantasy movies. Probably starting with Last Unicorn, Wizards, and the animated Hobbit movie. Later Conan, and Excalibur. I don't recall much else in the way of fantasy movies, and I never saw Asian fantasy live action or animation until much later.
I was raised on the old Kung-Fu martial arts movies, but they seemed separated from AD&D which was almost exclusively European (obviously excluding Oriental Adventures.)
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I don't take my RPG and try to retrofit it into a different setting from a different author in a different medium.
I don't think most people do this intentionally, it is simply people's preconceived expectations based on what they've been exposed to.
As an example, when I read the description of the fighter class, I come away with the idea that this is a normal person who is really good at fighting. He's not supernatural in how good at fighting he is, he's just very skilled. That matches my expectations of my previous encounters with people in books, movies, and games that I would consider to be a fighter.
Another person who reads the class description may imagine some anime character that can fly through the air, shout out names of abilities and unleash magic sword attacks and such.
The text of the description didn't change - its just that my viewpoint and this hypothetical other person's viewpoint is different based on our past exposure to the concept it seeks to embody.
As such, I think the thread is very spot-on for explaining the differences of opinions between gamers.
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I don't take my RPG and try to retrofit it into a different setting from a different author in a different medium.I don't think most people do this intentionally, it is simply people's preconceived expectations based on what they've been exposed to.
Guilty as charged! In my case, it was going from Final Fantasy Tactics monk class to D&D 3.5 monk class.
Very different things, as I learned the hard way.
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Guilty as charged! In my case, it was going from Final Fantasy Tactics monk class to D&D 3.5 monk class
Very different things, as I learned the hard way.
Very different indeed. That brings up a whole different discussion as to if it makes sense to try to adjust the rules of the current game system to match the individual's (or hopefully the group's) expectations, or if it makes more sense to find a different game.
Well, mostly leaping through the air and doing devastating physical sword attacks :P
Okay, that works too. My point being that to some of us (particularly those of us that cut our teeth on early versions of D&D or other systems,) the idea of anime-style fighting or combat would be very off-putting. It doesn't mean our way is right or the new way is wrong, its just different expectations.
I'm sure in 20+ years the expectations will be significantly different from what they are now.
I think it depends. I think there are at least two, maybe three, main groups of fantasy these days, at least among those younger than 20 (maybe 30).
1. Anime has had a HUGE influence on many gamers. There is this sort of similar type themes found in most fantasy Anime (which in many ways correlate to modern TRPGs, with your warrior type, your healer spellcaster type, your main spellcaster, your bard/singer type, and your comedy type...).
However, it also has some things which are slightly different such as animal people, many times mixed in modern technology with medieval stuff, and occasionally monsters being part of the party.
However, you almost always have a BBEG in the background which eventually comes to the forefront as the series advances.
2. Your traditional Western Fantasy types. To think most younger people play around Riorden or the types I think isn't exactly right. They outgrew them by the time they hit 4th grade (well, I would have). They now read more of your traditional stuff, such as Shannara, Chronicles of the Necromancer, Wheel of Time, Redwall, and even Game of Thrones...so not too different than what was read in the old times...just different authors. The biggest thing is most of them are humancentric (with the exclusion of Redwall), though if you include Salvatore's Dark Elf series...it kind of has more than just humans...but not as much monster centric as the Anime group.
3. This could be a group...or not. These simply get their material from D&D books, but read other things rather than just fantasy. They'd be your WH40K Bolter Porn nuts (for example, I'm a total WH40K reader, not as much WH fantasy though), but read a lot of other items such as your typical fantasy, or Westerns, or other genres. A LOT of their fantasy flavor would be through movies (for example, I've seen but never read Harry Potter), like HP, or the LotR and The Hobbit Movies.
At least that's my impression of current fantasy standard influences these days.
Are we talking about RPG systems, or settings?
I feel that systems are designed with core mechanics as standard since the late 90s/first millennial decade. Gone are the days when (D&D) you'd role a d20 for combat, a d% for some skills and a d6 for others. Gone too are the days when (Traveller) baseline human character have one set of ability scores, but aliens replace Social Standing with Social Level, Caste, Charisma, Sense and Caste (but, like, different castes, don't worry about it), Psi (actually, any character you generate rolls for psionics, but it's recommended to play an intendant or noble if you're going Zhodani), Party Standing or Curiosity. (Darrians kept the baseline human ability scores, which feels like a real missed opportunity; given how transparently they were space elves, you think they would have replaced Social Standing with "Elfness" or something, but I guess at that point whoever wrote the alien modules had just had enough.)
Fantasy settings, on the others hand, have to be pre-industrial; the more I think about it, that's the one differentiating factor between fantasy and science fiction. Of course, the more I think about it, the more sure I become that RPG settings always ALWAYS blur the dividing line. At this point I feel like RPGs can't really have a standard setting. Just in order to break even, you have to account for stone age Quest for Fire characters adventuring alongside The Ship Who Sang cyborg types. Then again, I'm the sort of gamer who watches Michael Clayton and starts thinking about adapting it to D&D when it really should (obviously!) be Top Secret.
Sanderson, Butcher and Weeks are popular but far from the only prominent voices around. Even as they pull in one direction, others such as Joe Abercrombie and Mark Lawrence, N.K Jemisin and Brian McClellan, Neil Gaiman and Robert Jackson Bennett all push in their own directions.I'm with theJeff. I think it's easy to say that A Song of Ice and Fire was a serious game changer (if only because so many contemporary authors have read him and explicitly said they were inspired by him). Previous to that Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and The Wheel of Time had a huge influence. I suppose that Dresden Files has actually been going long enough to be considered an influence on many modern authors too.
But either way, I think it's incorrect to classify modern fantasy as "Sanderson, Butcher and Weeks".
I said authors LIKE Sanderson, butcher, and Weeks. They are not the only, but they're some of my personal favorites.
And you can see the hintings of those in at least one you've mentioned: Wheel of Time. A sort of step in the process.
It still has the initial "Farmboy with a great destiny" premise, but by the end Rand and the others really do fill the shoes of legendary protagonists. Look at what Rand and Egwene and Lan do in the last book. And, well...the last three books were written by Sanderson.
Likewise I was not thinking of the Dresden Files when I mentioned Butcher, but his other series (Codex Alera).
There are a lot of authors writing within this general theme right now, in many sub-genres.
I think it depends. I think there are at least two, maybe three, main groups of fantasy these days, at least among those younger than 20 (maybe 30).
1. Anime has had a HUGE influence on many gamers. There is this sort of similar type themes found in most fantasy Anime (which in many ways correlate to modern TRPGs, with your warrior type, your healer spellcaster type, your main spellcaster, your bard/singer type, and your comedy type...).
However, it also has some things which are slightly different such as animal people, many times mixed in modern technology with medieval stuff, and occasionally monsters being part of the party.
However, you almost always have a BBEG in the background which eventually comes to the forefront as the series advances.
2. Your traditional Western Fantasy types. To think most younger people play around Riorden or the types I think isn't exactly right. They outgrew them by the time they hit 4th grade (well, I would have). They now read more of your traditional stuff, such as Shannara, Chronicles of the Necromancer, Wheel of Time, Redwall, and even Game of Thrones...so not too different than what was read in the old times...just different authors. The biggest thing is most of them are humancentric (with the exclusion of Redwall), though if you include Salvatore's Dark Elf series...it kind of has more than just humans...but not as much monster centric as the Anime group.
3. This could be a group...or not. These simply get their material from D&D books, but read other things rather than just fantasy. They'd be your WH40K Bolter Porn nuts (for example, I'm a total WH40K reader, not as much WH fantasy though), but read a lot of other items such as your typical fantasy, or Westerns, or other genres. A LOT of their fantasy flavor would be through movies (for example, I've seen but never read Harry Potter), like HP, or the LotR and The Hobbit Movies.
At least that's my impression of current fantasy standard influences these days.
Why do you assume groups 1 and 2 are somehow exclusive to eachother? A whole lot of people read and watch both.
I would also like to point out that fantasy anime has strong roots in dungeons and dragons. Record of Lodoss War is often sighted as part of the foundation of the genre, and it is based off of the author's d&d campaign.
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I don't take my RPG and try to retrofit it into a different setting from a different author in a different medium.I don't think most people do this intentionally
Hence why it's worth pointing out. :)
Interestingly, you provided two very good examples of (unknowingly) forcing a certain fantasy paradigm onto a ruleset that doesn't support it.
Example 1:
As an example, when I read the description of the fighter class, I come away with the idea that this is a normal person who is really good at fighting. He's not supernatural in how good at fighting he is, he's just very skilled. That matches my expectations of my previous encounters with people in books, movies, and games that I would consider to be a fighter.
If you read the fighter, you'll see that he gets 1d10+CONmod HP per level, and can advance as far as 20th level. Since being lit on fire deals 1d6 damage per round, and since HP loss doesn't hinder your activities at all until you hit 0, that means that every level of fighter is about 5-10 seconds (so, in the 2-3 minute range by 20th level) that you can just sit there ON FIRE before you're actually in real danger.
I'd hazard a guess that this does NOT "match you expectations of your previous encounters with people in books, movies, and games that you would consider to be a fighter". Thus, you've forced a match between a fantasy paradigm and a ruleset that doesn't support it.
Example 2:
Another person who reads the class description may imagine some anime character that can fly through the air, shout out names of abilities and unleash magic sword attacks and such.
If you read the fighter, you'll not only see a lack of any flight-granting abilities, but also that he doesn't get Jump Acrobatics as a class skill, and in fact see that he's expected to wear armor that actually hinders his ability to leap through the air. Thus, the fighter's description actively pushes him away from aerial mobility, not toward it. And although nothing stops any character from shouting names for their attacks, the "magical sword attacks" thing is quite clearly absent.
Thus, just like your first example, this person has forced a match between a fantasy paradigm and a ruleset that doesn't support it.
The text of the description didn't change - its just that my viewpoint and this hypothetical other person's viewpoint is different based on our past exposure to the concept it seeks to embody.
As such, I think the thread is very spot-on for explaining the differences of opinions between gamers.
Yep. And becoming aware of the thought processes going on "behind the scenes" and recognizing that "rules support X" is not the same as "rules support a concept from somewhere else that I could see giving the same name as X", can be quite freeing and remove lots of conflict, both external and internal.
Fist of the North Star? I'll see you that and raise you a Lone Wolf and Cub! (Fine, it was manga dramatized in live action, no anime involved, but it's one of the greats, right?)
Edit: That was handed off from TOZ, back before I was ninja'd. /sigh
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If I never saw another "video games did it" thread on these forums, I'd be okay with that.
And it's a historical action drama, not fantasy.Fist of the North Star? I'll see you that and raise you a Lone Wolf and Cub! (Fine, it was manga dramatized in live action, no anime involved, but it's one of the greats, right?)
Edit: That was handed off from TOZ, back before I was ninja'd. /sigh
I'll freely admit that there aren't any wizards or magic in the story, but there are plenty of examples of Itto Ogami displaying supernatural combat prowess.
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1. You've set your standard for fantasy warriors on the basis of Anime. If you want to see what Gygax had in mind for Fighters, and Rogues for that matter, you should be reading Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series of books.
What if we want to see what Gygax had in mind for casters? I bet they look a lot different than Pathfinder ones.
2. Casters level into "gods" only in campaigns and DMs that let them. Since I enforce the rules regarding magic very strictly, I've never seen that happen in either my home campaigns or the PFS tables I judge, and I'm far from the only GM that I know who judges that way. Magic DOES have limits and they are clearly defined. If you're looking for anime fighters, the Magus is probably one of the classes you really want to play.
I'm really curious what built-in limitations you're enforcing that prevent the kinds of things that people actually complain about in terms of outshining martials or becoming "gods". Or to phrase it another way, I'm really curious what you think people are complaining about with casters such that enforcing the spellcasting rules would prevent it.
1. You've set your standard for fantasy warriors on the basis of Anime. If you want to see what Gygax had in mind for Fighters, and Rogues for that matter, you should be reading Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series of books.
Why should I give a rat's ass what a dead man who hasn't had a hand in the direction the game is taking for decades intended?
2. Casters level into "gods" only in campaigns and DMs that let them. Since I enforce the rules regarding magic very strictly, I've never seen that happen in either my home campaigns or the PFS tables I judge, and I'm far from the only GM that I know who judges that way. Magic DOES have limits and they are clearly defined. If you're looking for anime fighters, the Magus is probably one of the classes you really want to play.
Doesn't matter how strictly you enforce the rules. Casters can create entirely new planes of existence and shape them to their whim. Fully RAW, fully RAI of the spell(s).
Is that not godlike enough for you?
If I never saw another "video games did it" thread on these forums, I'd be okay with that.
Good news, you can hide threads. Do that instead of posting in the thread you don't want to see about how much you don't want to see it.
North Star isn't fantasy...WTF difference does that make? Is he not an anime fighter that people can take for reference in their games?
Also, until the entire surviving population of the Earth in living through a post apocalyptic drought, I'm gonna put it in the fantasy category.
ZOMG, they're already living like that in California; The End Is Nigh!
Doesn't matter how strictly you enforce the rules. Casters can create entirely new planes of existence and shape them to their whim. Fully RAW, fully RAI of the spell(s).
Is that not godlike enough for you?
You've got to be kidding me.
The Create Demiplane family of spells is really nothing more than a Mage's Mansion with pretensions.
It's a far far far cry from creating actual full size INFINITE plane with worlds upon worlds stacked on it, or even creating a single world at that.
...Your point?
"It's not as good as YHWH's version" doesn't mean it isn't a spectacularly powerful spell, narratively speaking (interestingly, it has limited mechanical power if the rules are strictly enforced. Part of the reason I like it.).
It is, at worst, Demi-God level power. You are literally creating something from nothing that exists outside our normal dimensions. It is, by definition, godlike.
"resembling or having the qualities of God or a god" You can't tell me it doesn't at least RESEMBLE the powers a god might have. If a high level Wizard showed up and created an Abundant Demiplane and took people there, you don't think people would fall to their knees and worship him as their new lord and master? In large numbers.
And regardless, even the gods of Golarion (most of them) live on Demiplanes, or small niches carved out of existing ones. IIRC they did not create the universe as it is, they came into being afterward.
And, given thousands of years, a caster COULD grow his Demiplane to those sizes.
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Interestingly, you provided two very good examples of (unknowingly) forcing a certain fantasy paradigm onto a ruleset that doesn't support it.
I always assume that when I talk in generalizations, people are aware that I am talking in generalizations rather than specifics. That's my bad.
Example 1:
If you read the fighter, you'll see that he gets 1d10+CONmod HP per level, and can advance as far as 20th level. Since being lit on fire deals 1d6 damage per round, and since HP loss doesn't hinder your activities at all until you hit 0, that means that every level of fighter is about 5-10 seconds (so, in the 2-3 minute range by 20th level) that you can just sit there ON FIRE before you're actually in real danger.
I've never actually analyzed it to that degree, to be honest with you. While a weapon may be listed as doing 1d6 damage, I assume that's based on a typical combat scenario. I don't assume that if someone said "Here, hit me right in the neck with your short sword," i.e., didn't defend the attack, that the attack would still do only 1d6 damage.
So using your example of fire, I would never rule that someone who intentionally immerses themself in fire only takes 1d6 damage. I think the 1d6 damage is supposed to represent someone actively trying to avoid the fire. I also don't think characters can actually fall from 5000 feet and only take 20d6 damage.
While I respect that these are the rules as written, my interpretation is that the rules are written that way with certain expectations. I personally don't believe they're intended to be taken as literally as many other players do.
Aside from all that, I actually wasn't even referring to the mechanics of the character when I was speaking of people's expectations. I was referring to the descriptive text. I was trying to point out that when I read the descriptive text, I connect it with certain characters I've seen before.
I then view the mechanics from that perspective, and they make sense to me.
Someone else may read the descriptive text, and based on a completely separate set of experiences/expectations, the mechanics would not make sense to them.
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So using your example of fire, I would never rule that someone who intentionally immerses themself in fire only takes 1d6 damage. I think the 1d6 damage is supposed to represent someone actively trying to avoid the fire. I also don't think characters can actually fall from 5000 feet and only take 20d6 damage.
While I respect that these are the rules as written, my interpretation is that the rules are written that way with certain expectations. I personally don't believe they're intended to be taken as literally as many other players do.
Exactly! You have an expectation based on something outside the ruleset, and every time you discover a place where the ruleset and your expectation diverge, you (like most gamers, in my experience) conclude that "Oh, the rules must not really mean what they say," rather than "Oh, maybe this ruleset and my expectations deal with two different settings".
And typically, they don't even realize they're doing that, as the notion of their own expectation being off the mark never even enters their minds. This is of course why so many people in various threads often respond to plain-english readings of the rules as being "hyper-literal" or otherwise biased toward one thing or another. After all, I know the result is supposed to be X, so if the words say not-X, then the words must be wrong (which is what "you're reading it too literally" actually means).
Readers enforce their expectations, and clash with those who have different expectations to enforce, as well as with those who simply read the text as plainly as any author would expect their words to be read. This is the root of a large proportion of rules debates.
Readers enforce their expectations, and clash with those who have different expectations to enforce, as well as with those who simply read the text as plainly as any author would expect their words to be read. This is the root of a large proportion of rules debates.
I agree with the vast majority of what you're saying. My only point of contention would be that writing plainly doesn't always convey an author or designer's intent (as I think we can all clearly attest to.)
My assumption would be that if you asked all of the heavy hitters that created PFRPG if a character can fall 5000 feet and only take 20d6 damage, they would give you some answer other than "Of course, that's what the book says isn't it?"
In other words, while you may think that reading the plain text is the best way to go as it relies on the author having selected the correct language (and who better to do so, they created it,) I would argue that the author is assuming you're applying common sense.
And once again I agree with your previous point that many people's common sense is different from one another and the cause of many arguments.
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My assumption would be that if you asked all of the heavy hitters that created PFRPG if a character can fall 5000 feet and only take 20d6 damage, they would give you some answer other than "Of course, that's what the book says isn't it?"
In other words, while you may think that reading the plain text is the best way to go as it relies on the author having selected the correct language (and who better to do so, they created it,) I would argue that the author is assuming you're applying common sense.
There's a difference between "applying common sense" and "making the necessary adjustments to align the game with my preferences".
That which you label as "common sense", you attach a certain weight to. That is, by labeling something as "common sense", you effectively call anyone who disagrees with you an idiot. Sure, you technically give them room by saying that everyone's common sense is different, but I'd wager a guess that if you made a ruling at your table that one of your players contested, and (as with your own example) the ONLY rebuttal they could offer was that you were failing to "apply common sense", you'd be insulted.
Because to tell someone that the difference between their conclusion and yours is the application of common sense is to tell them that they're behaving stupidly. You ought not look at people's good-faith readings of game rules and say "You're just being stupid."