Bluenose wrote: I'm sure that making magic something indistinguishable from a science in which there's one way and only way one it works and nothing else is possible is possible. It's also one of the best ways to remove the "wonder of magic", making it incredibly reliable and predictable and only working in one way. How is magic depending on random bloodlines and being spontaneous but not learned makes it more scientific and reliables? I don't follow.
Bluenose wrote: I'm sure that making magic something indistinguishable from a science in which there's one way and only way one it works and nothing else is possible is possible. It's also one of the best ways to remove the "wonder of magic", making it incredibly reliable and predictable and only working in one way. Magic is already a science in PF since the CRB.
It shows a lack if creativity.
You can call bloodlines magic subschools, and sorcerers still use knowledge, but they're just intuitive or lucky wizards, rather than smart.
Witch patrons don't have to be mysterious forces, they can be magical thesises for a grand term paper. The familiar is a spellbook they accidentally polymorphed.
You show an extreme lack of creativity when you won't allow mechanical reflavoring.
Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: It shows a lack if creativity.
You can call bloodlines magic subschools, and sorcerers still use knowledge, but they're just intuitive or lucky wizards, rather than smart.
Witch patrons don't have to be mysterious forces, they can be magical thesises for a grand term paper. The familiar is a spellbook they accidentally polymorphed.
You show an extreme lack of creativity when you won't allow mechanical reflavoring.
'If you don't let me have my way you aren't creative!!!!'
It shows an extreme lack of creativity that you cannot realize your concept without that specific set of crunchy bits. There. Now I've gone where you went.
Besides which, if you think I said I don't allow mechanical reflavoring you obviously just skimmed and didn't read my posts at all.
Closemindedness is more indicative of a lack of creativity. I won't deny it's a two way street - but then that's why I move on when I see this labels. As do many others.
My point is if your argument is flavor - its really not. There is another underlying reason, because ANYTHING can be reflavored.
I don't want you to give what I want as a player if your supposed reasoning is flavor.
I want for you to just admit you don't like the mechanics if thats your reason, instead of hiding behind arbitrary flavor that you as the GM can handwave away.
Not you, specifically, but the general second person perspective. I read your posts - there's more here than you literally when I use second person perspective.
There is not underlying dislike of the mechanics. The next game might be just the reverse. Or feature what wasn't in the previous game.
What you leave out of a setting is as much a part of its flavor as what you put in.
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To be honest, as a GM I'm wary of players wedded to specific mechanics, but willing to reflavor any way suggested. Makes me worry they're thinking strictly in those mechanical terms and don't care about the rest of the game.
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Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: It shows a lack if creativity.
You can call bloodlines magic subschools, and sorcerers still use knowledge, but they're just intuitive or lucky wizards, rather than smart.
Witch patrons don't have to be mysterious forces, they can be magical thesises for a grand term paper. The familiar is a spellbook they accidentally polymorphed.
You show an extreme lack of creativity when you won't allow mechanical reflavoring.
Except sometimes you have already said x mechanic = y flavourwise in gameplay and having x mechanics = z flavourwise out of nowhere with no explaination would be ... well stupid.
Also.... some reflavours aren't just reflavours, for example "The familiar is a spellbook they accidentally polymorphed." has rules implications and is not just a reflavour it's homebrewing.
I allow tonnes of reflavouring, but not if it defies the settings pre-existing rules or isn't actually reflavouring.
Milo v3 wrote: Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: It shows a lack if creativity.
You can call bloodlines magic subschools, and sorcerers still use knowledge, but they're just intuitive or lucky wizards, rather than smart.
Witch patrons don't have to be mysterious forces, they can be magical thesises for a grand term paper. The familiar is a spellbook they accidentally polymorphed.
You show an extreme lack of creativity when you won't allow mechanical reflavoring.
Except sometimes you have already said x mechanic = y flavourwise in gameplay and having x mechanics = z flavourwise out of nowhere with no explaination would be ... well stupid.
Also.... some reflavours aren't just reflavours, for example "The familiar is a spellbook they accidentally polymorphed." has rules implications and is not just a reflavour it's homebrewing.
I allow tonnes of reflavouring, but not if it defies the settings pre-existing rules or isn't actually reflavouring. Nor are hexes just a reflavoring of anything wizardly. They're an entirely different mechanism.
Really? You can't call them non-vancian reusable spells?
In the proposed rule set I mentioned I probably could work with a witch, yes.
You can go and reflavor anything you like, just don't expect the rules or rather rules tied to official flavor to support your idea.
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Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: Really? You can't call them non-vancian reusable spells? I could call them anything I wanted. They just don't work like any other spells. Or like anything the other wizards can do. Apparently you get them by polymorphing your spell book into an animal - accidentally. Before 1st level.
If I don't care about having consistent magic and don't have an idea how it works already, then I'd be happy to handwave it. But in that case, I wouldn't have set the world up the way I did and we wouldn't be worrying about it.
I'll give my standard response here: "Looks to me like you're suggesting a character who doesn't fit the campaign we were talking about. Did you misunderstand something or am I missing something about the concept?" Then, assuming it's not just a misunderstanding, "Well, sell me on it. What makes this character work for the game, despite first appearances?"
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I don't mean to accuse anyone of badwrongfun, but are people convinced that the mechanics are so mated to setting that a class like swashbuckler (with the panache pool) significantly contradicts the setting in a way that fighters and rogues don't? I feel like focusing on spell casters muddies the issue, whereas new new mechanics for martials are usually answered with, "He just fights that way."
Full disclosure, I think "I was caught in an experiment gone wrong at the arcane college, so my spell book transformed into a familiar and now my magic's all screwy," is a terrific rationale for introducing the witch class to a setting.
Seems like a lot of negotiations, when you can say "f$#! it, let's just go adventuring"
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Hitdice wrote: I don't mean to accuse anyone of badwrongfun, but are people convinced that the mechanics are so mated to setting that a class like swashbuckler (with the panache pool) significantly contradicts the setting in a way that fighters and rogues don't? I feel like focusing on spell casters muddies the issue, whereas new new mechanics for martials are usually answered with, "He just fights that way."
Full disclosure, I think "I was caught in an experiment gone wrong at the arcane college, so my spell book transformed into a familiar and now my magic's all screwy," is a terrific rationale for introducing the witch class to a setting.
Honestly, ninjas and samurai are usually the go to examples for this, particularly ninja, since they usually work better than the rogue.
As I said above, if I don't already have a mechanism for how magic works, that justification would be fine, but in that case so would "I'm a witch".
captain yesterday wrote: Seems like a lot of negotiations, when you can say "f~*& it, let's just go adventuring" If all you ever want is kitchen sink or made on the spot settings, sure.
One could just. Easily say 'look at the LONG list of things that are in, why don't I just pick one of those and then we can go adventuring without a ton of negotiation!!!'
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captain yesterday wrote: Seems like a lot of negotiations, when you can say "f+~& it, let's just go adventuring" Some of the best games I've played in have been intentionally limited, quirky settings with strong reasons tying each of the characters into the campaign. They involved a lot of upfront planning and negotiation and it was all worth it.
You can have a lot of fun with the "Nobody cares who you are, let's just go adventuring" approach. No denying it. Sometimes you can get a bit farther with some work.
Hitdice wrote: I don't mean to accuse anyone of badwrongfun, but are people convinced that the mechanics are so mated to setting that a class like swashbuckler (with the panache pool) significantly contradicts the setting in a way that fighters and rogues don't? I feel like focusing on spell casters muddies the issue, whereas new new mechanics for martials are usually answered with, "He just fights that way."
Full disclosure, I think "I was caught in an experiment gone wrong at the arcane college, so my spell book transformed into a familiar and now my magic's all screwy," is a terrific rationale for introducing the witch class to a setting.
Rarely, except perhaps in e case of guns, would the mundane things a martial class can do inherently contradict a setting in the way it's possible for magic to do.
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thejeff wrote: captain yesterday wrote: Seems like a lot of negotiations, when you can say "f+~& it, let's just go adventuring" Some of the best games I've played in have been intentionally limited, quirky settings with strong reasons tying each of the characters into the campaign. They involved a lot of upfront planning and negotiation and it was all worth it.
You can have a lot of fun with the "Nobody cares who you are, let's just go adventuring" approach. No denying it. Sometimes you can get a bit farther with some work. The worst games I ever played in were intentionally limiting, to each their own. :-)
captain yesterday wrote: thejeff wrote: captain yesterday wrote: Seems like a lot of negotiations, when you can say "f+~& it, let's just go adventuring" Some of the best games I've played in have been intentionally limited, quirky settings with strong reasons tying each of the characters into the campaign. They involved a lot of upfront planning and negotiation and it was all worth it.
You can have a lot of fun with the "Nobody cares who you are, let's just go adventuring" approach. No denying it. Sometimes you can get a bit farther with some work. The worst games I ever played in were intentionally limiting, to each their own. :-) The worst I ever played in weren't.
Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: TriOmegaZero wrote: Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: Further, If you have players that are that stubborn, the problem isn't the system. Who said the system was the problem? Fair enough.
You really should try to expand your circle then, man. Aside from earlier, I've never seen you lose your s*it over something like that. Sounds like you have severely toxic players.
Do they even know you're...you...on here? Can they read this and just don't care? That's easy to say in your experience but you should note that in many cases it's not that easy or simply to just do so. When I lived in NY ( that is the state, NOT the city ) I had to drive an hour minimum, to even FIND other gamers. Much less find more.
It's never as simple as your experiences make out.
Upstate NY here too, yeah, not easy to find decent players upstate. Hell, people can't even remember there IS any upstate half the time.
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Upstate New York City is a myth mothers in Brooklyn tell kids to scare them straight.
"If you don't get your s%$& together, you'll wind up in Buffalo!"
"Sorry mama, I won't skip school anymore, I swear!"
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RDM42 wrote: Many GMs and players - like an established world with history and detail and dangling loose ends, including past achievements of past characters, and for not every world is mos eisley cantina an appropriate atmosphere.
There is nothing wrong with that sort of world, it's just not the only one that should ever see play because it's somehow criminal to have infinity minus one choices to build your characters instead of infinity plus one.
Despite the haughty language and finely crafted artisan strawman, races have tangible mechanical implications to the game and to your world. Limiting race choice is worse than limiting class choice in how Pathfinder character creation works. Not only that, having someone play a particularly brutal human and use orc stats has zero impact to your world. Races are the easiest things to refluff in the game.
I choose to allow people to play the races they want because (shockingly) the players find them interesting. If my Golarion has grippli as a common sight because a player likes frog knights that praise the sun, then I can easily swap things in my setting concept without making massive changes.
As far as world building goes, I never claimed anything to be better - that was an argument of your own invention. So is your mocking world building with the players as "all players start in a tavern" when that has nothing to do with the style of GMing and more to do with experience. I'm a big session 0 guy. It establishes the world and the player's place in it. I even have detailed rules how I like to do it here. I've done the detailed history and hours and hours of worldbuilding. I will never do it again because as much as I enjoyed the experience 5-10% ever got explored in detail and I have a child that demands my free time.
Envall wrote: Because Brand™ RPG is married to Brand™ other products?
I mean sure Pathfinder RPG can have affair with any other setting you like, but it will never work perfectly.
Golarion is not Glorantha, and Pathfinder is not RuneQuest 2nd edition.
thejeff wrote: To be honest, as a GM I'm wary of players wedded to specific mechanics, but willing to reflavor any way suggested. Makes me worry they're thinking strictly in those mechanical terms and don't care about the rest of the game. You are doing the same thing in reverse. You are only limiting mechanics for arbitrary reasons because your setting can't be anything but your vision in a social activity.
I also hate the "only worried about mechanics" argument when in a thread about bloat. This game has countless combinations, people build characters for fun, and there is a lot of the narrative stripped from the GM's hands by hard DCs set by the rules. None of this is a bad thing, but it means it is a mechanically focused game with players that want mechanically crunchy play experiences.
Envall wrote: You can go and reflavor anything you like, just don't expect the rules or rather rules tied to official flavor to support your idea. They're talking about home settings and not Golarion, so refluffing is sort of the norm. I don't understand why you think official flavor matters outside PFS?
thejeff wrote: Some of the best games I've played in have been intentionally limited, quirky settings with strong reasons tying each of the characters into the campaign. They involved a lot of upfront planning and negotiation and it was all worth it.
You can have a lot of fun with the "Nobody cares who you are, let's just go adventuring" approach. No denying it. Sometimes you can get a bit farther with some work.
Yes, games that discuss the game beforehand end up better... but what you are describing is the typical way the "on the spot" setting RDM doesn't like work. The GM still sets limits, but they are mostly to make everything gel together up front. Having the GM dictate more and more and more doesn't improve the experience, but then again some people are big fans of GMs like John Wick and I can't stand his approach to GMing.
RDM42 wrote: The worst I ever played in weren't. Well I have 40 friends I can attest to having a different opinion!
I never understood how adults live places they don't want to live...
[rabble] Moving costs/low wages there Scruffy :) And in my case, need to sell my house (for at least what I paid for it) before I can bail. [/rabble]
Very rarely will the lack of an additional plus two here or there make or break a character concept.
But yes, in most cases the bans which are flavor bans are LITERALLY flavor bans. If elves don't exist they don't exist, and you could have the stats of an elf, sure, save for the whole sticky wicket of the long life and possibly various magical fiddle bits. If you want to reflavoring say a ninja as a type of holy warrior for Osveta the goddess of vengeance then that's cool. It fits the setting. Groovy. If you want to take a samurai and strip out the eastern flavor bits and insert the bits from the mountain city state of Azar, a lawful good society with a warrior ethic and a lay worshippers of Azar working with the Paladin council of ten in High Azar then cool, thats a pretty good fit. If you wanted a tiefl the. Use tom differing cosmology that might become a problem, but if you were willing to take the equivalent faeborn 'touched by the first world' and make a few mechanical tweaks and swap outs why not?
Not all mechanical changes are numeric. Some are simply different approaches. You're assuming it's always for an advantage, mechanically. Sometimes it's just an easier to understand class, or a simpler rule set, or any other number of reasons.
But if you're worried about minmaxing, no amount of option banning will stop it. You just find that player type and boot him faster than (insert appropriate metaphor here) and move on.
A Minmaxer will Minmax with anything available. If it were all about power, core wizards and druids should be your first target.
EDIT - deleted an unnecessary insulting paragraph - and I apologize for putting it in the first place.
Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: Not all mechanical changes are numeric. Some are simply different approaches. You're assuming it's always for an advantage, mechanically. Sometimes it's just an easier to understand class, or a simpler rule set, or any other number of reasons.
It's easier to justify close mindedness when you think you're on holier ground, though.
But if you're worried about minmaxing, no amount of option banning will stop it. You just find that player type and boot him faster than (insert appropriate metaphor here) and move on.
A Minmaxer will Minmax with anything available. If it were all about power, core wizards and druids should be your first target.
And refusing to do any build other than the first way you want to come hell or high water is exactly equal in its closed mindedness.
And you go through that WHOLE post and that is the only sentence you can respond to? Really?
It's the only part I disagreed with.
Also, please note I edited my post before your reply. I felt the holier comment was out of line. I may have gotten too involved emotionally.
Would you like to tip a cow, ole Bessy here hasn't been tipped in a while.
Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: It's the only part I disagreed with.
Also, please note I edited my post before your reply. I felt the holier comment was out of line. I may have gotten too involved emotionally.
Give an example of your non numeric reasons for needing the ruleset for one race reflavoring as another? Elucidate.
And apology accepted, but note that it's rather rude, insulting and condescending calling someone repeatedly 'closed minded' because they take a different approach to something than you.
I did specifically say for races it made sense in my initial commentary, and that my issue was entirely with class or feat banning.
Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: You are marrying class mechanics with person.
For race, that argument makes sense, but for class? Why can't I call my witch a wizard and use the witch chassis if your world has no witches?
As I said.
Myrtle here, is practically giving it away (she might be a little drunk, party animals amiright).
Well, given the reasons for class banning are usually very specific and limited to a few isolated examples in limited applications, mostly related to the basics of how arcane or divine magic work and the presence or not of guns in the setting - although even there the bolt ace, for example, would work - most things in classes are plausible albeit with significant reflavoring to make it fit, and you as the person who wants to bring n that concept are responsible for the work to make it work, although certainly I'll offer suggestions or answer questions to help.
Ha.
It seems this entire time you and I agreed about 80%.
That's funny.
Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: You are marrying class mechanics with person.
For race, that argument makes sense, but for class? Why can't I call my witch a wizard and use the witch chassis if your world has no witches?
As I said. And if, as an example, the rule was 'arcane magic users are priests of a specific God, and spontaneous casting does not exist" then yes a witch would be really easy to flavor in and really likely wouldn't have been on the outs anyway. If I can think of a really easy way to make a class fit within a setting I've usually already done so, and given it a way to exist within the cosmology.
However, if all magic is spontaneous casting and tied to bloodlines, then a prepared casting witch would be kinda hard to fit.
Maybe it's just me, but I as a GM don't try and hammer my players concepts into a preexisting mold of a world (unless it's a setting that already exists like Golarion or Fallout) but I instead ask what they want to do and make my world fit them.
It takes a little more prep work, but if I didn't like prep work, I wouldn't GM in the first place.
Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: Maybe it's just me, but I as a GM don't try and hammer my players concepts into a preexisting mold of a world (unless it's a setting that already exists like Golarion or Fallout) but I instead ask what they want to do and make my world fit them.
It takes a little more prep work, but if I didn't like prep work, I wouldn't GM in the first place.
And I don't see why published campaign settings should for some reason get more respect or reverence than long established home settings.
Call it a 'these things don't fit right out of the box and will require significant work to make them fit' list, although that's rather more unwieldy to say.
Probably because they have a history of published canon.
Home worlds are only as established as you, the GM, want them to be.
I get what you're saying - but if one of your players want to be a sorcerer, maybe, just maybe, that's not the setting to use. It's a group game - not a dictatorship. The GM's word is final but he should be a president listening to his cabinet, not a dictator ordering his lackeys.
RDM42 wrote: Very rarely will the lack of an additional plus two here or there make or break a character concept.
But yes, in most cases the bans which are flavor bans are LITERALLY flavor bans. If elves don't exist they don't exist, and you could have the stats of an elf, sure, save for the whole sticky wicket of the long life and possibly various magical fiddle bits. If you want to reflavoring say a ninja as a type of holy warrior for Osveta the goddess of vengeance then that's cool. It fits the setting. Groovy. If you want to take a samurai and strip out the eastern flavor bits and insert the bits from the mountain city state of Azar, a lawful good society with a warrior ethic and a lay worshippers of Azar working with the Paladin council of ten in High Azar then cool, thats a pretty good fit. If you wanted a tiefl the. Use tom differing cosmology that might become a problem, but if you were willing to take the equivalent faeborn 'touched by the first world' and make a few mechanical tweaks and swap outs why not?
For races? it absolutely does. A dwarf can only ever start out as a sorcerer with 16 CHA. Period. Not only that, but that 16 CHA destroys their other stats. Race choice is very important in Pathfinder, honestly more than it needs to be. Eventually magic items and such mean the class catches up for the most part, but most games are low level.
However, I think we agree that a GM filtering broken builds or a mechanically lopsided party is a good thing and a GM open to refluffing is a good thing. I also agree that players have to be more flexible, but honestly try to build an (effective) Evangelist Cleric without finding out how delicate making that simple concept (CHA/WIS focused cleric party face) can be. Minmaxing for CHA and WIS to be high breaks nothing in the class, and simply gives more interesting channeling/bardic performance options. The important thing is the middle ground, and to be flexible even with a hard-coded setting in mind.
Actually, I'll give a (non-Pathfinder) example to illustrate my point. I had a very detailed setting in a hot hot jungle with magical jungles, detailed political unrest, etc. and the system assumes all humans at creation. Three players wanted to play some version of elves (half-elf, high-elf, drow), so I wrote them into the world and it was made richer for it. The high-elf was the eldest son of the leader of a diabolist cult and was a smarmy ass and lots of fun to mess with (he was beautiful until caught by a fire-breathing monster's breath, and went full Zuko), the drow was just a elven ethnicity that was native to the southern end of the known land in the continent and I ended up making one of the historical heroes a drow which ended up with drawing a melting pot to the cities and giving a lot of great NPCs, and the best result was the half-elf. His family were barbarous zealots and he was always trying to prove himself despite being the bastard. We worked out what his religion was like (they worshiped a hero they preserved the bloodline with in their family line making his birth even worse for him), we worked out the way the traditions were passed on with cultures that didn't read (they used oral traditions supplemented with elaborate tapestries and scrolls drawn from IRL Chinese traditions), and it ended up in a fantastic addition to the world I could never do on my own. In general, a collaboration with the GM drawing from what he likes best will never hurt a setting.
Ethel is always fun to tip.
Redbeard the Scruffy wrote: Probably because they have a history of published canon.
Home worlds are only as established as you, the GM, want them to be.
I get what you're saying - but if one of your players want to be a sorcerer, maybe, just maybe, that's not the setting to use. It's a group game - not a dictatorship. The GM's word is final but he should be a president listening to his cabinet, not a dictator ordering his lackeys.
If you go that route than published settings are only as established as you want them to be.
And is that player ONLY capable of having fun by playing something not available in the setting instead of the vast multitude of choices still available?
Maybe, just maybe, that is the campaign to put away your sorcerer and try something different?
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