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Okay... I am finally recovering from a week of coughing, swollen eyes, runny nose, high temperatures... I find I have lost about ten pounds from it all, even though it feels I haven't been eating anything but sandwiches and candy. On one hand, it's welcome... on the other, f*!! being ill...
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Paizo have a profanity filter for a reason - they don't want you to post certain words on their site.
Working out "clever" ways to circumvent that is downright disrespectful and just adds to the moderator workload in an entirely predictable way.
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ugh just stood in line for 90 min getting to the gate at Charles De Gaulle so I can fly home. Its been two weeks and one hell of a Euro vacay, but I miss my girl and my dog....
Well you can't move the entire topic to twitter, so I don't know what to tell you.
I thought about starting a version of this in off topic discussion, but that might just be spreading the virus.
Here's a game related gripe. Some people gotta swear. If you put out a swear jar, they will claim they don't have any money left. They'll fill the flipping thing with IOUs.
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We donate all our swear jar money to the Humane Society or Habitat For Humanity, so my daughter doesn't take IOUs. :-)
She also accepts smaller denominations then a quarter. :-)
My grievance: The jar does not exist large enough for my group's tidal waves of creative profanity.
Fortunately, we don't bother with one. But just saying, we could probably finance another moon landing if you gave us a week...
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I'm disappointed that everyone that showed interest in Strange Aeons before it came out have expressed zero interest since. :-(
And I'm the guy that hasn't read a word of Lovecraft.
Well, I can't read ahead or read GM threads on that one... but trust me, we're all fired up here.
^Currently playing in a SA game on the forums and I'm super excited about it! But that also means I'm trying to avoid spoilers.
If I could afford the Strange Aeons releases I'd be all over them. But I can't. And my printer is dying, which is just as well because I can't even afford the .pdfs in order to print them.
A swear jar? No, that would not be happening. It would be a very good reason to seek other company to me.
My complaint I just keep seeing the same 3 arguments replayed over and over by different people.
Well ours was primarily for the kids benefit, now that they're past the "s$@@! F&#!! Damn!" Phase of early childhood it's become a "jerk jar" basically, when the kids are jerks to each other enough to be called on it they have to put a coin in the jar. It's mostly so they realize how much they were bickering and how silly what they were bickering about was.
It's worked like a charm!
It's called Deja Vu.
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I wish we had the time and energy to put more verisimilitude into our game sessions. After 25 years of gaming, I'm really tired of being told that we've just found a 'ring of [insert magic type here]' with no other description. Occasionally we might get as much as "a gold ring set with a red stone", but little else. And wands or staffs or weapons or armor with a description beyond what they do? Forget it.
"It's a +1 'keen' longsword." Okay, what does it look like? Is it Damascus steel? Does it have a sharkskin grip? Does it come with a green leather sheath embossed with a series of intricate leaf designs? Is the pommel sculpted in the shape of a claw grasping a chunk of polished amber?
What's that 'wand of magic missile' made of - bone, metal, wood, glass, quartz crystal? Does it feel warm to the touch, or hum slightly when you pick it up?
Is that gold ring plain or fancy? Is it yellow, red, green, or white gold? What kind of stone is the red stone? Can you see a tiny swirling shape in the center of the stone if you hold it up to the light?
I guess it's just the writer in me wanting more detail to make me feel more immersed in the game world.
What I love about gaming with my wife and daughter is their sense of fashion demands I figure that out beforehand, otherwise they'll do it themselves when they find it, and then there's half the night right there. :-)
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It's called Deva Vu.
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Re: items and verisimilitude
The GM has a lot on his plate, think of this as an opportunity to express your own creativity. These nondescript items are just waiting for you to find them (and in so doing discover their allearance and -GM willing- their history as well.)
I know, that's why I said I wished that we had enough time and energy. It's hard to describe every item when you've got 5-6 players asking for information, and you're finding lots of loot. I fear that if we tried to describe everything - no matter who it is that's doing the describing - we'd get even less done in a session.
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I'm post-happy today, apparently.
Grievance #2 for today: Why don't rule books or bestiaries have a glossary?
I'm good with English vocabulary. It's one of the few skills I have. So I know that 'chitin' is pronounced 'KEYE-tin' and -not- 'CHIT-in' with the CH sound as in 'channel'. But if you're not an entomologist and you've never looked that word up in a dictionary, you may not know the correct pronunciation. It's not exactly a commonly used term.
And then we can look at all the fantasy game names and terms that are not part of real-world language, like 'bulette', or from non-English root languages like 'nuckelavee'. I've always pronounced 'bulette' as Byoo-LET, due to the double T and (presumably) silent E at the end. But some of my friends say 'bullet', and others say BOO-let. And I've really got no idea how to say 'nuckelavee', as it doesn't really approximate any word I'm familiar with. 'Knuckle-AH-vee'? NYOO-kuhl-ah-vee'? Nyoo-kuhl-ah-VEE? Yes, I know Wikipedia has a pronunciation for it. But until I looked it up I thought it was invented for Pathfinder rather than based on a real-world mythological creature.
Maybe an entire glossary is too much, but it would be nice if game designers included a pronunciation guide for unusual creature names. And if it's a difficult name like nuckelavee, maybe some alternate names to take pity on GMs or players who will have trouble with it.
for today: Why don't rule books or bestiaries have a glossary?
I agree. I'm proud of my pronunciation skills, and having an interest in history and mythology helps a great deal with being able to correctly pronounce the names of creatures. But there are some that I'm totally lost on and just give it my best guess. So yeah, a glossary would be very helpful.
Grievance 1: Two of my younger siblings assure me that they're willing to learn Pathfinder at any time but whenever we're all free they don't wanna play.
Grievance 2: My first complete GM experience in Kingmaker with the Arcanist and Shaman have irreversibly cemented my idea of the power casters can wield and now I feel obligated to ensure that groups I'm in / GM for have at least one full caster so as to make the endgame winnable.
Grievance 3: I really like the idea of a bombing Alchemist, but most archetypes seem to be focused on literally anything else. Grenadier comes close but is much too focused on using a weapon. Most of the archetypes that do add interesting bomb abilities are locked into a specific race. With all the love Mutagen has been getting, perhaps Bombs could get some love?
Grievance 4: Censors do a lot of good work on this site, ensuring that things stay mostly civil, but there are many inflammatory words that aren't covered under the current system. Thus, I move to add the words "Stormwind", "Paladin", "Alignment", "Fall", "Broken", and "Cyclops" to the blacklist. This should fix most of our problems here on the forums.
Grievance 5: Why does Paizocon have to be so dang far away? Could we possibly get all the forum posters together, take Seattle, and push it closer to the midwest? That'd be great.
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RE: verisimilitude in our game sessions.
One of the objections I've heard DMs and players voice about this is that even if the DM describes something as "This is Shimmerfang, a long-lost blade forged 300 years ago in the Kingdom of Varsokor. Crafted from mithral with the pommel shaped into a decorative rose, it functions as a +1 Frost Longsword.", the players will just write down +1 Frost Mithral Longsword and forget the rest.
I've never tried my solution to this, but it seems to me that a good way around this would be to have more of the magic weapons function like the special weapons in the book. For example, you could add "Twice per day as a swift action, Shimmerfang's wielder can focus the energy of the blade for a short time, increasing the frost damage done on the next successful hit by an additional +1d6." to the weapon's description. The idea is that, if done right, this doesn't significantly change the power of the weapon, but it does make it feel more special and can't be as easily abbreviated as the first version.
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RE: verisimilitude in our game sessions.One of the objections I've heard DMs and players voice about this is that even if the DM describes something as "This is Shimmerfang, a long-lost blade forged 300 years ago in the Kingdom of Varsokor. Crafted from mithral with the pommel shaped into a decorative rose, it functions as a +1 Frost Longsword.", the players will just write down +1 Frost Mithral Longsword and forget the rest.
I've never tried my solution to this, but it seems to me that a good way around this would be to have more of the magic weapons function like the special weapons in the book. For example, you could add "Twice per day as a swift action, Shimmerfang's wielder can focus the energy of the blade for a short time, increasing the frost damage done on the next successful hit by an additional +1d6." to the weapon's description. The idea is that, if done right, this doesn't significantly change the power of the weapon, but it does make it feel more special and can't be as easily abbreviated as the first version.
I'm too lazy to link it, but there is a "Legendary Weapons" third party product that does this sort of thing.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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RE: verisimilitude in our game sessions.One of the objections I've heard DMs and players voice about this is that even if the DM describes something as "This is Shimmerfang, a long-lost blade forged 300 years ago in the Kingdom of Varsokor. Crafted from mithral with the pommel shaped into a decorative rose, it functions as a +1 Frost Longsword.", the players will just write down +1 Frost Mithral Longsword and forget the rest.
I think part of it has to do with what game you're playing.
If you give me that sword in 5E, you can bet I'm paying attention. Stuff like that doesn't grow on trees, and I'll be proudly wielding it until the day I die. I'll be looking for ways it might tie into the plot/setting. I'll remember it after the game is done.
If you give me that sword in Pathfinder, it's just an antique version of something I literally could have bought in a shop in a big enough city. And if I adventure long enough, it's actually going to get sold to fund my next upgrade. Or heck, it might already be behind me and I'll just sell it immediately.
Pathfinder is designed with a massive rotating door of magic items: get one, use it for a while, ditch it for an upgrade. Do the same for all your other slots. You'll churn through way too many items for any one of them to be worth much headspace. But in a game where magic items aren't manufactured and moved daily in the bazaars, where you might find a magic sword and use it for the remainder of the whole campaign, that's a whole different matter.
Grievance 3: I really like the idea of a bombing Alchemist, but most archetypes seem to be focused on literally anything else. Grenadier comes close but is much too focused on using a weapon. Most of the archetypes that do add interesting bomb abilities are locked into a specific race. With all the love Mutagen has been getting, perhaps Bombs could get some love?
I like the Alchemical Sapper...
Had a player do this very thing after our last session. Upgraded her crossbow rather than going out and trying to buy a brand new one. I don't give out much in the way of magic weapons, so unless they want to keep a +1 sword they better get to upgradin'.
Grievance 3: I really like the idea of a bombing Alchemist, but most archetypes seem to be focused on literally anything else. Grenadier comes close but is much too focused on using a weapon. Most of the archetypes that do add interesting bomb abilities are locked into a specific race. With all the love Mutagen has been getting, perhaps Bombs could get some love?I like the Alchemical Sapper...
As do I, but I find it harder to use as a player than it is as a GM. I actually rebuilt a certain alchemist in Wrath as this archetype and it went about as I expected - loud, and explosive. The archetype is severely limited in focus, lending itself well to trapping and object destruction but only a few times a day and with no more than one bomb a round. I'm talking about a more active bombing role during combat - utility is all well and good, but I'd like to see more features and/or discoveries bent on controlling the battlefield or dealing damage with bombs.
My grievance now is that this person is trying to mess with my head VVVV
My complaint is that I keep seeing the same three arguments replayed over and over again by different people.
I also find it annoying that various people claim the same three grievances.
I find it annoying that everyone is trying to steal my phallacy thing, they aren't even spelling it right!
I'm overdrawn at the bank. That's my grievance.
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My grievance is people post uber damage builds on the forums that can kill an ancient wyrm with one hit .
Then loads of others copy it like simple minded sheep because they think it's "cool" to be able to one shot things instead of being creative and think for themselves
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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My grievance is when there are two groups of people, one where everyone shares one idea and another where everyone shares a different idea; and someone in the first group says that the only reason the folks in the second group all share one idea is because of simple-minded, sheep-like failure to think; but he himself and all the people in his own group definitely arrived at their own shared belief through careful individual thought; and it couldn't possibly be the other way around, and it couldn't possibly be that one or the other of those two explanations applies to both groups, and it couldn't possibly be that both groups contain a mix of both types, and it DEFINITELY couldn't be that both positions are valid in the first place.
^ :)
Grievance 4: Censors do a lot of good work on this site, ensuring that things stay mostly civil, but there are many inflammatory words that aren't covered under the current system. Thus, I move to add the words "Stormwind", "Paladin", "Alignment", "Fall", "Broken", and "Cyclops" to the blacklist. This should fix most of our problems here on the forums.
I second this.
Or you know, get rid of this line from the CRB: "....and loses all class features except proficiencies if she ever willingly commits an evil act.....A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and class features (including the service of the paladin's mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any further in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description in Spell Lists), as appropriate."
Just let the DM tell the player "Hey, I said NO EVILS!"
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I only get to be a player very rarely, and so I rolled up the party cleric. Her name is Tasmit, which is ancient Assyrian for "She Who Listens". She ended up being the party face until....
....she drew a bad Harrow card and is now permanently deaf. Only a Wish or Miracle spell can heal her. So "She Who Listens" is deaf as a post, with all its attendant penalties to Perception, spellcasting, and communication. She can read lips (a little) thanks to the Linguistics skill. But overall she is never privy to the rest of what the party is saying.
The irony.
....she drew a bad Harrow card and is now permanently deaf. Only a Wish or Miracle spell can heal her.
Huh? AFIAK, Harrow cards dont do this?? Or was it the Harrow Deck of Many Things?
But I do admire the irony there....
....she drew a bad Harrow card and is now permanently deaf. Only a Wish or Miracle spell can heal her.Huh? AFIAK, Harrow cards dont do this?? Or was it the Harrow Deck of Many Things?
But I do admire the irony there....
That's what the GM said. I know nothing about Harrow cards, so I took his word for it.
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I don't care if Q himself stuffed poison joke down your throat. If the GM ruins your character like that, the right thing to do is give the GM their new NPC and leave the table till they are willing to negotiate. Thing got worse from there, didn't they.
As a temporary effect, I can see it. Defects like that should be carefully chosen. They should come with a mystery or some other compensation. Maybe the god of dreams should start to talk to you in your dreams and give you oracle powers. Maybe a god of misfortune should mark you as their chosen(bad things happen to others instead of you).
I'm sorry, I'm having a bad week.