Gaming Terms that Annoy You... and why

[Alzrius]

Sundakan wrote:

Talonhawke wrote:

Alzrius wrote:

I hate the term "dead levels."

I first heard about this in an old WotC article which set out to "fix" this problem.

For those who don't want to read through that page, "dead levels" are levels in a class progression where you don't gain a new class ability (or an improvement of an existing ability). Note that spellcasting classes gaining new spells (or even spell levels) are still considered to be "dead levels" if there isn't a separate class ability given as well.

I absolutely can't stand this, since even aside from the sense of entitlement (e.g. the idea that there "should" be some new class ability at every single level), I hate how it reinforces the meta-game involved in D&D/Pathfinder. I much prefer to have the focus be kept on what the characters accomplish, not what abilities they have.

The problem for a lot of classes what they can accomplish is tied to what abilities they have.

This.

It's kind of why the classes exist in this game.

Maybe that's a problem for a lot of classes, but characters are more than their class abilities.

Call me old-fashioned, but I'm of the opinion that what you can accomplish is primarily determined by role-playing, including a combination of ingenuity, preparation, and good die rolls. Obviously that won't be enough to let you do whatever you want, all of the time (particularly if the dice roll badly), but if you can reliably pull that off then I'm fairly confident that there's a way for you to contribute and have fun just as much as if you hadn't received a new cookie when you leveled.

[Alzrius]

Irontruth wrote:

The reward system of D&D isn't new or novel, it's been there since before it was called D&D.

This is a skillful way of confusing the issue, since you've slyly conflated "class abilities" with "advancement." In fact, the idea of "rewards" and "advancement" is entirely separate from the issue of making sure that you get new class abilities each and every time you level up; that's kind of the point that I was making.

Your whole bit about "the reward system of D&D isn't new" purposefully ignores the fact that back then, virtually every level for every class was a dead level, and yet gaining XP and leveling up was still incentivized. That was because levels were simply adding to existing abilities (primarily defensive in nature, such as the ability to receive more damage via increased hp, or avoid damage with better saves).

It was when gaining some new ability in addition to that became expected that the meta-mechanics became a goal unto themselves, instead of being something that would help accomplish a character's goals.

Quote:

You're essentially railing against the evolution and improvements in understanding of a subsystem that has been present for the entirety of gaming.

Not so much, no. The idea that leveling needs to have cookies added to them or they're "dead" isn't an improvement to the game itself. It's just a heightened expectation on some people's part.

Quote:

BTW: there are games that don't use levels and don't include advancement. I can recommend some if this is a huge issue.

I strongly urge you to go and play those games. If you do so, you'll develop a greater understand of why "dead levels" are a canard, and broaden your horizons.

[Sundakan]

Have played one of them (Savage Worlds). Being required to choose between higher stats (needed to up skills), upping skills, and buying Edges in a system where leveling is fairly slow is one of the only irritating parts about the system.

People who disagree with you do not need their "horizons broadened". They just don't agree with you.

[Irontruth]

Alzrius wrote:

Irontruth wrote:

The reward system of D&D isn't new or novel, it's been there since before it was called D&D.

This is a skillful way of confusing the issue, since you've slyly conflated "class abilities" with "advancement." In fact, the idea of "rewards" and "advancement" is entirely separate from the issue of making sure that you get new class abilities each and every time you level up; that's kind of the point that I was making.

Your whole bit about "the reward system of D&D isn't new" purposefully ignores the fact that back then, virtually every level for every class was a dead level, and yet gaining XP and leveling up was still incentivized. That was because levels were simply adding to existing abilities (primarily defensive in nature, such as the ability to receive more damage via increased hp, or avoid damage with better saves).

It was when gaining some new ability in addition to that became expected that the meta-mechanics became a goal unto themselves, instead of being something that would help accomplish a character's goals.

Quote:

You're essentially railing against the evolution and improvements in understanding of a subsystem that has been present for the entirety of gaming.

Not so much, no. The idea that leveling needs to have cookies added to them or they're "dead" isn't an improvement to the game itself. It's just a heightened expectation on some people's part.

Quote:

BTW: there are games that don't use levels and don't include advancement. I can recommend some if this is a huge issue.

I strongly urge you to go and play those games. If you do so, you'll develop a greater understand of why "dead levels" are a canard, and broaden your horizons.

I apologize. I didn't intend for my post to be aggressive or condescending.

If you do want to discuss it, I'm willing. Otherwise I'll drop it.

[Alzrius]

Irontruth wrote:

I apologize. I didn't intend for my post to be aggressive or condescending.

If you do want to discuss it, I'm willing. Otherwise I'll drop it.

Thank you, I appreciate that. Let us speak no more of it.

[Terquem]

I sort of don't like "loot the bodies" because, in my opinion, it implies that the defeated monsters must have "loot" and this term, to me, means "items useful to the player characters"

When I started playing the players would "search the bodies" and most of the time find a few coins (if they were "intelligent monsters") or a key to a locked door, and rarely an unused potion or scroll, and only very, very rarely, a useful weapon or magic item.

Unintelligent monsters never had any loot (there might be shinnies in their lairs)

[Mainer]

The term "noob." Whatever the context, it always seems either derogatory or self-deprecating, and I've never enjoyed seeing it used either way.

[thejeff]

Terquem wrote:

I sort of don't like "loot the bodies" because, in my opinion, it implies that the defeated monsters must have "loot" and this term, to me, means "items useful to the player characters"

When I started playing the players would "search the bodies" and most of the time find a few coins (if they were "intelligent monsters") or a key to a locked door, and rarely an unused potion or scroll, and only very, very rarely, a useful weapon or magic item.

Unintelligent monsters never had any loot (there might be shinnies in their lairs)

OTOH, I remember old school AD&D monsters that were specifically statted up (or described in modules) with gems (sometimes other stuff, but mostly gems) in their stomachs, which you had to specifically cut open to find.

Not a style of play I enjoyed.

[Jiggy]

Terquem wrote:

I sort of don't like "loot the bodies" because, in my opinion, it implies that the defeated monsters must have "loot" and this term, to me, means "items useful to the player characters"

When I started playing the players would "search the bodies" and most of the time find a few coins (if they were "intelligent monsters") or a key to a locked door, and rarely an unused potion or scroll, and only very, very rarely, a useful weapon or magic item.

Unintelligent monsters never had any loot (there might be shinnies in their lairs)

This is part of why I stopped playing Pathfinder.

I like running games where a lot of the enemies are monsters rather than people so that it feels less like a Murder Marathon and so I can do things like spooky undead themes or stalked-by-a-predator stuff.

But monsters like that don't carry money or gear.

But Pathfinder assumes a fairly rapid progression of gear.

So either I have to re-math the game to larger and larger degrees as levels increase, in order to compensate for less-than-designed gear; or I have to come up with all these contrived reasons for relevant magic items (or ludicrous sums of gold) to be lying around, unclaimed and available. Neither option was much fun as a GM.

So I switched to 5E, and now I can put in whatever treasure (or lack thereof) seems appropriate to the story/setting, and everything will be okay without a bunch of hoop-jumping on my part as GM. Magic items feel special, money feels like money without ruining immersion, and nobody has to ask whether they'll be hamstrung if they build a character that needs one of the many "patch" items that's been added to Pathfinder to band-aid a core design flaw.

Hm, maybe I should bring this back around to the topic...

I dislike the term "entitlement" (in the context of gaming) because it's usually coming from someone who doesn't understand how 3.X/PF is structured differently from other iterations of D&D as an accusation against someone who does; because it's easier to assume that this random stranger plays differently from you out of a sense of entitlement than to believe that two games separated by decades of evolving design philosophies might have developed a difference or two without you noticing.

*Note that the "you" in the last paragraph is not the specific person to which this post was originally replying.

[thejeff]

Irontruth wrote:

BTW: there are games that don't use levels and don't include advancement. I can recommend some if this is a huge issue.

I've played plenty of games without levels, but few to no RPGs with no advancement at all. Maybe some that are designed pretty much to be one-shot games.

What were you thinking of?

[Insane KillMaster]

Jiggy wrote:

Terquem wrote:

I sort of don't like "loot the bodies" because, in my opinion, it implies that the defeated monsters must have "loot" and this term, to me, means "items useful to the player characters"

When I started playing the players would "search the bodies" and most of the time find a few coins (if they were "intelligent monsters") or a key to a locked door, and rarely an unused potion or scroll, and only very, very rarely, a useful weapon or magic item.

Unintelligent monsters never had any loot (there might be shinnies in their lairs)

This is part of why I stopped playing Pathfinder.

I like running games where a lot of the enemies are monsters rather than people so that it feels less like a Murder Marathon and so I can do things like spooky undead themes or stalked-by-a-predator stuff.

But monsters like that don't carry money or gear.

But Pathfinder assumes a fairly rapid progression of gear.

So either I have to re-math the game to larger and larger degrees as levels increase, in order to compensate for less-than-designed gear; or I have to come up with all these contrived reasons for relevant magic items (or ludicrous sums of gold) to be lying around, unclaimed and available. Neither option was much fun as a GM.

So I switched to 5E, and now I can put in whatever treasure (or lack thereof) seems appropriate to the story/setting, and everything will be okay without a bunch of hoop-jumping on my part as GM. Magic items feel special, money feels like money without ruining immersion, and nobody has to ask whether they'll be hamstrung if they build a character that needs one of the many "patch" items that's been added to Pathfinder to band-aid a core design flaw.

Hm, maybe I should bring this back around to the topic...

I dislike the term "entitlement" (in the context of gaming) because it's usually coming from someone who doesn't understand how 3.X/PF is structured differently from other iterations of D&D as an accusation against someone who does; because it's easier to assume that this random stranger plays differently from you out of a sense of entitlement than to believe that two games separated by decades of evolving design philosophies might have developed a difference or two without you noticing.

*Note that the "you" in the last paragraph is not the specific person to which this post was originally replying.

Buried treasures; stuff in the monsters lairs, probably with the corpses of whoever it belonged to; body parts, fluids, etc of the slain monsters that can be sold; etc...

[Guy St-Amant]

On topic: "Player" instead of "Player Character" or "PC", especially when someone talk about both in the same post or even the same sentence.

[DrDeth]

SheepishEidolon wrote:

There is only one term which somewhat annoys me - 'thief' for rogue. We are in the 21st century now, and rogues can do more than thieves of ancient editions.

Hey! The ancient edition Thief was a well balanced class and a asset to any dungeon adventuring party.

The rogue- not so much.

[DrDeth]

Jiggy wrote:

This is part of why I stopped playing Pathfinder.

So I switched to 5E, and now I can put in whatever treasure (or lack thereof) seems appropriate to the story/setting, and everything will be okay without a bunch of hoop-jumping on my part as GM. Magic items feel special, money feels like money without ruining immersion, and nobody has to ask whether they'll be hamstrung if they build a character that needs one of the many "patch" items that's been added to Pathfinder to band-aid a core design flaw.

Honest question then- why do you spend so much time posting in the Pathfinder Forums?

And yes, you can, in Pathfinder "put in whatever treasure (or lack thereof) seems appropriate to the story/setting", I do it. And the players have fun and theres no real issues. And so did my last two PF DMs.

[Terquem]

OMG would you please stop going on and on about the OE thief class, I mean come on, it's not like...

Oh, right...

Nevermind

[Kobold Catgirl]

>->

[Kobold Catgirl]

I totally get that joke, but just for the sake of, uh, captain yesterday, maybe someone should clarify.

[captainyesterday]

yeah i dont get it unlike kc who does

[Joana]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

I totally get that joke, but just for the sake of, uh, captain yesterday, maybe someone should clarify.

captainyesterday wrote:

yeah i dont get it unlike kc who does

Check DrDeth's profile, 5th line in particular.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Oh, right. I knew that. Geez, Captain.

[SquirrelyOgre]

Crunch/fluff annoys me, because I made the mistake of mentioning these terms to a friend, who then proceeded to explain what 'fluffing' was in the porn industry.

Cannot. Get. Image out of. Head.

[necromental]

SquirrelyOgre wrote:

Crunch/fluff annoys me, because I made the mistake of mentioning these terms to a friend, who then proceeded to explain what 'fluffing' was in the porn industry.

Cannot. Get. Image out of. Head.

Spoiler:

I read somewhere that since the birth of Viagra and cutting costs since the gold age of pr0n the actors have to do it by themselves mostly.

On related note, I don't use term fluff for campaign settings, histories, geographies and that stuff, but I absolutely use it for flavor descriptors of mechanical abilities since I consider them mostly irrelevant.

[SheepishEidolon]

DrDeth wrote:

Hey! The ancient edition Thief was a well balanced class and a asset to any dungeon adventuring party.

The rogue- not so much.

Hah, I knew someone couldn't resist. ;)