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The only term I'm not a fan of is people using the word 'stealth' as a verb. Like instead of saying "We are sneaking" they say, "We are stealthing." I hate it.
The only term I'm not a fan of is people using the word 'stealth' as a verb. Like instead of saying "We are sneaking" they say, "We are stealthing." I hate it.
OMG yes.
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Its english. You can verb anything.
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Tier.
It's not so much the word I dislike as the concept it has been used to represent. I find the idea of tiers both judgmental and needlessly limiting.
Then again my house rule approach is "Chicago voting" style.
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Its english. You can verb anything.
Doesn't mean I have to like it :p
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Tier.
It's not so much the word I dislike as the concept it has been used to represent. I find the idea of tiers both judgmental and needlessly limiting.
To clarify: do you mean that the thing you find judgmental limiting is (a) the actual meaning of the PF tier system, or (b) what it sounds like the tier system means because of the inaccurate use of the term "tier" to name it?
For me, it's the latter: the term "tier" suggests a hierarchy of superiority where the "best" is at the top and everything that isn't Tier 1 is inferior in some way. This is completely contrary to what's actually being modeled by the thing that is called the "tier system" for D&D/PF, leading to lots of needless arguments.
Thus, I too dislike the gaming term "Tier".
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I also hate using the word 'damage' as a unit of measuring wounds. When someone says "you take 15 damage" it annoys the bejeezus out of me. Damage is an abstract term not a specific unit of measurement. It's "you take 15 hit points of damage." A hit point is a specific unit of measurement.
Using the phrase health when it should be hit points also annoys me. Your character has a certain number of hit points. He doesn't a certain amount of health.
We use "Room for Error".
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Honest question then- why do you spend so much time posting in the Pathfinder Forums?
For starters, a lot of what I post isn't Pathfinder-specific. I've got PbP games I'm running, there are threads about hobby-wide gaming topics (like, say, this very thread), and there are even non-gaming related places to talk.
As for specifically Pathfinder-related posting, there's plenty of reasons. For example, ceasing to play Pathfinder did not cause me to suddenly forget everything I knew about how Pathfinder's rules work, and my proficiency with Pathfinder rules (minus some newer stuff) is decidedly above average. So why not redeem it by helping folks in the Rules Questions forum from time to time? Just last week I helped resolve somebody's issue with cover. Should I have left him to flounder just because I don't have fun with the same ruleset he does?
Similarly, sometimes there are topics where I can leverage my understanding of not only rules but also larger meta-structures of the Pathfinder system and game design in general. I mean, just because I don't have much fun with Pathfinder anymore doesn't mean it can't be a cherished activity for others; so if I'm equipped to offer an opportunity for someone to deepen their understanding of the thing they love, and if I have the time and inclination to do so, then why shouldn't I?
Of course, I peruse Pathfinder threads for my own benefit as well. Even if I don't actively play it now, I'm still familiar with it, and seeing (as well as participating in) discussions about it can help me gain valuable insights about game design, gamer preferences/psychology, and so forth. I find such exposure rewarding and fulfilling, both personally and practically.
So, as you can see, I've got plenty of reasons to be interested in posting here even when I don't actively play Pathfinder anymore.
Tier.
It's not so much the word I dislike as the concept it has been used to represent. I find the idea of tiers both judgmental and needlessly limiting.
To clarify: do you mean that the thing you find judgmental limiting is (a) the actual meaning of the PF tier system, or (b) what it sounds like the tier system means because of the inaccurate use of the term "tier" to name it?
For me, it's the latter: the term "tier" suggests a hierarchy of superiority where the "best" is at the top and everything that isn't Tier 1 is inferior in some way. This is completely contrary to what's actually being modeled by the thing that is called the "tier system" for D&D/PF, leading to lots of needless arguments.
Thus, I too dislike the gaming term "Tier".
Particularly since most folks who advocate for looking at the game through the lens of the tier system advocate for classes to be closer to tier 3. Which is perhaps confusing / not-believed by those who don't like it.
Oh! I despise MMO-talk when it applies to a tabletop RPG.
"Tank, DPS, CC..." Ugh.
+1.
And to add to that, my own pet peeve: "Face-Guy".
Whenever that terms comes up, it is delivered with the presumption that one person at the table has dibs on all social interaction with NPCs, and that everyone else should sit back and wait until the combat happens.
Which frustrates me as a player, and most especially as a GM, because rather than encouraging people to play fleshed out and interesting characters, it pushes for niche (and often two-dimensional) characters and stiffles the enjoyment I get from being in the GM chair.
I don't care if your half-orc barbarian has (somehow) a -5 in Diplomacy - roleplay it!
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Thus, I too dislike the gaming term "Tier".Particularly since most folks who advocate for looking at the game through the lens of the tier system advocate for classes to be closer to tier 3. Which is perhaps confusing / not-believed by those who don't like it.
Yeah, I've got a bone to pick with whoever decided to label the whole thing with numerical "tiers" instead of something less hierarchical. Something like "Functional Class Types" or "Class Design Categories" might have been better. As it is, people see you mention a class being "Tier 2" or whatever and (understandably, but mistakenly) assume you're sorting classes by their worthiness with only the Tier 1 classes earning their place in the game.
Tis a silly way to make a character.
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Oh! I despise MMO-talk when it applies to a tabletop RPG.
"Tank, DPS, CC..." Ugh.
+1.
And to add to that, my own pet peeve: "Face-Guy".
Whenever that terms comes up, it is delivered with the presumption that one person at the table has dibs on all social interaction with NPCs, and that everyone else should sit back and wait until the combat happens.
Which frustrates me as a player, and most especially as a GM, because rather than encouraging people to play fleshed out and interesting characters, it pushes for niche (and often two-dimensional) characters and stiffles the enjoyment I get from being in the GM chair.
I don't care if your half-orc barbarian has (somehow) a -5 in Diplomacy - roleplay it!
Yeah, I always felt like Jayne and Zoe seemed really one-dimensional when they stood behind Mal while he did most/all the talking, just waiting until they were needed for combat. Firefly would have been a much better show if those two had acted like fleshed out and interesting characters by constantly jumping into the negotiations and risking everyone's lives with their insistence on doing equal shares of the talking. As it was, they were instead niche and two-dimensional characters.
;)
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*whispers*
Firefly Cooooorrrrrrrrteeeeeeexxxxxxx-plusssssssssss...
(Cortex+)
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constantly jumping into the negotiations and risking everyone's lives with their insistence on doing equal shares of the talking
In TV, most conversation is between the central characters, and these interactions define them. In my RPG experience, most conversation is between PCs and NPCs, and the party rarely talk to one another - at least, not while staying in character. Is that normal?
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constantly jumping into the negotiations and risking everyone's lives with their insistence on doing equal shares of the talkingIn TV, most conversation is between the central characters, and these interactions define them. In my RPG experience, most conversation is between PCs and NPCs, and the party rarely talk to one another - at least, not while staying in character. Is that normal?
It varies.
I've seen face-to-face tables range from absolutely zero first-person intra-party dialogue, to so much excited chatter between PCs that the store had to tell them to tone it down because they were bothering customers. And that's just within PFS. When you start looking at other mediums, such as Play-by-Post, there's even more possibility of PC-to-PC dialogue.
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constantly jumping into the negotiations and risking everyone's lives with their insistence on doing equal shares of the talkingIn TV, most conversation is between the central characters, and these interactions define them. In my RPG experience, most conversation is between PCs and NPCs, and the party rarely talk to one another - at least, not while staying in character. Is that normal?It varies.
I've seen face-to-face tables range from absolutely zero first-person intra-party dialogue, to so much excited chatter between PCs that the store had to tell them to tone it down because they were bothering customers. And that's just within PFS. When you start looking at other mediums, such as Play-by-Post, there's even more possibility of PC-to-PC dialogue.
When I first read this I thought that "the store," was in-game, in-character. As in the proprietor of Ye-Olde-Majik-Shoppe asked the characters to keep it down. I was very impressed by the dedication to immersive play on the part of the DM.
Reminded me of the time a shopkeep told my character to roll a d12.
I'm actually in a similar boat to Jiggy for once. Aside from the PbP games I'm running/playing in that part of the Paizo forums, I'm not playing Pathfinder much anymore. The gamers in my circle have mostly moved away from Pathfinder due to the complexity of its ruleset and the sheer number of books you need to play. Most of them have switched over to 5E or other modern "rules light" systems.
My in-person group is playing Dungeon World for our fantasy game, and FATE Accelerated for our alternate "hard sci-fi" game (which we run when we don't have a quorum for the DW game.)
I'm also playing in an old friend's homebrewed 5E game on Roll20.
That said, I'm still extremely interested in the Golarion campaign... to the point where I'm trying to wrap my head around how to convert Curse of the Crimson Throne to either Dungeon World or FATE Accelerated. Even if my purchaing of hardcovers tapers off, I'm still planning to subscribe to the AP line for the foreseeable future... even though I now have more adventures than I'll ever be able to run for the rest of my life!
And, back on topic...
The only term I'm not a fan of is people using the word 'stealth' as a verb. Like instead of saying "We are sneaking" they say, "We are stealthing." I hate it.
Oh my God... me too!
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I'm actually in a similar boat to Jiggy for once. Aside from the PbP games I'm running/playing in that part of the Paizo forums, I'm not playing Pathfinder much anymore. The gamers in my circle have mostly moved away from Pathfinder due to the complexity of its ruleset and the sheer number of books you need to play. Most of them have switched over to 5E or other modern "rules light" systems.
Did you try a Core game? It really cuts down on the books you need.
I don't mind the MMO vernacular.
I've played TTRPGs way longer than I've played MMOs, but among the folks I game with (and probably most people on the interwebz by nao), it's a quick and descriptive way to describe what kind of character you want to play. The main 4 has been a TTRPG thing long before it was an MMO deal (Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Wizard), and it similarly applies to most MMOs (Tank, Heals, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS). There are definitely differences, and additions, like "off-tank" or "backup heals", but the overall idea is the same. Tank (Fighter) is the guy who will protect the rest of the group by soaking damage, Healer (Cleric) is the one who will try to keep everyone alive, etc. So when we're all gathered around the table discussing who we want to play, or what role we want to roll characters for, Tank/Heals/DPS/Support suffices to relay an idea of what we want to play quickly, when we don't have a more concrete concept or background idea yet. The goal of language is to be able to convey a thought and have it understood. These terms do that quickly.
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Just thought of another one: it bugs me when someone mentions "rolling up a new character" if they're not using rolled ability scores. Now, if you're rolling for stats (or rolling for other aspects of your character, for that matter), then the phrase doesn't bother me in the slightest. Only when character creation is completely diceless. Then saying "roll a character" really bugs me.
Yes, I'm being picky about that. I'm sorry.
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My primary experience with pre-3.X D&D was playing a licensed D&D video game called Order of the Griffon, based on pre-AD&D rules.
Fighters and dwarves (and exactly one of your halfling options) were good for placing in a choke point and trading blows with enemies.
Clerics were basically required due to the prohibitive cost of potions (both monetarily and in regard to inventory space) and the lack of any sort of natural HP recovery. You had one worthwhile spell (hold person) and the moderately useful Turn Undead ability. The rest of the time you were taking pot-shots with a mace and tapping people with a staff of healing.
Wizards Mages spent low levels basically just spamming sleep. Try to get the whole enemy group, then the other characters chuck darts to insta-kill the sleepers, then the mage is done. Then you level up a little and sleep becomes kind of hit-and-miss, but you have web, so you can run up to anything smaller than a dragon and incapacitate it; then the cleric or whoever could be spared sits there and hacks at it. Finally, you graduate to the fireball levels: nobody falls to sleep anymore, so you've basically just got magic missile (to finish low-HP targets), web (as above), and fireball to nuke the s&$@ out of whole teams of enemies.
Thieves were literally just bad fighters due to this game's lack of non-combat challenges, so no data there.
Anyway, overall that's not THAT far off from the MMO arrangement (at least, as I understand it), but it's pretty different from how Pathfinder works.
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Except that the Fighter doesn't do a great job of protecting people by soaking damage, the thief doesn't do a great job of melee DPS and the Wizard has better things to do than Ranged DPS most of the time.
The classic 4 TTRPG roles don't really map onto the MMO roles. 4E pushed it closer, giving classes explicit roles, (maybe partly why somepeople thought it was the MMO RPG?).
Any given fighter can be built a bunch of different ways, for different functions. If they take intercept feats, or feats that give penalties if other people don't attack them, it can be done.
So in this case, if I said I wanted to play a fighter, and the GM asked what kind of fighter, I'd say a "tank", and he'd understand the goal, whether it's 100% mechanically possible or not, he can still be RP'd as a protector, and act that way in combat. You dig?
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Hm, yeah, so maybe the similarities were mainly with the casters: mages nuke things with fireballs, clerics heal (and maybe smite the undead).
Really bugs me, though, when I run into folks who can't fathom that there might exist a game wearing the same face-paint as AD&D wherein the classes have entirely different strengths.
Oh well. Getting a bit off topic now, I suppose.
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Except that the Fighter doesn't do a great job of protecting people by soaking damage, the thief doesn't do a great job of melee DPS and the Wizard has better things to do than Ranged DPS most of the time.
The classic 4 TTRPG roles don't really map onto the MMO roles. 4E pushed it closer, giving classes explicit roles, (maybe partly why somepeople thought it was the MMO RPG?).
Note that "tank" is not a MMO term, having been used back in OD&D days.
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Note that "tank" is not a MMO term, having been used back in OD&D days.Except that the Fighter doesn't do a great job of protecting people by soaking damage, the thief doesn't do a great job of melee DPS and the Wizard has better things to do than Ranged DPS most of the time.
The classic 4 TTRPG roles don't really map onto the MMO roles. 4E pushed it closer, giving classes explicit roles, (maybe partly why somepeople thought it was the MMO RPG?).
I don't remember it being verbed before, though--we didn't talk about "tanking."
Note that "tank" is not a MMO term, having been used back in OD&D days.Except that the Fighter doesn't do a great job of protecting people by soaking damage, the thief doesn't do a great job of melee DPS and the Wizard has better things to do than Ranged DPS most of the time.
The classic 4 TTRPG roles don't really map onto the MMO roles. 4E pushed it closer, giving classes explicit roles, (maybe partly why somepeople thought it was the MMO RPG?).
Did it play the same role?
I don't remember hearing it, but I wasn't really plugged into the community. And even that was a little later - early AD&D period.
I dont remember "tanking" but I do remember guys in heavy armor being called tanks, in fact a early fighter was named "Sherman" just for that reason.
Yes, they were in front and let the monsters hit them first. This worked very well in dungeon corridors.
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I'd argue, though, that the MMORPG connotation of the tank is distinct from the TTRPG use: the MMORPG tank is a character that probably doesn't dish out a lot of damage, but stands there and takes attacks and protects the high-DPS characters who do the actual killing. By contrast your OD&D tank fighter was probably also the most reliable damage dealer, at least at low levels before the magic-user starting carting around a wand or two (and especially in the pre-Greyhawk days, before thieves and backstabbing).
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To-hit bonus is also clearer. To new players, "attack bonus" could mean anything.
I've thought about it, and "To hit" only applies if they actually hit. "Attack bonus" applies to any attempt to hit.
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Note that "tank" is not a MMO term, having been used back in OD&D days.Except that the Fighter doesn't do a great job of protecting people by soaking damage, the thief doesn't do a great job of melee DPS and the Wizard has better things to do than Ranged DPS most of the time.
The classic 4 TTRPG roles don't really map onto the MMO roles. 4E pushed it closer, giving classes explicit roles, (maybe partly why somepeople thought it was the MMO RPG?).
I thought that was the case. I also remember using "brick" with it interchangeably.
Oh! I despise MMO-talk when it applies to a tabletop RPG.
"Tank, DPS, CC..." Ugh.
+1.
And to add to that, my own pet peeve: "Face-Guy".
Whenever that terms comes up, it is delivered with the presumption that one person at the table has dibs on all social interaction with NPCs, and that everyone else should sit back and wait until the combat happens.
Which frustrates me as a player, and most especially as a GM, because rather than encouraging people to play fleshed out and interesting characters, it pushes for niche (and often two-dimensional) characters and stiffles the enjoyment I get from being in the GM chair.
I don't care if your half-orc barbarian has (somehow) a -5 in Diplomacy - roleplay it!
Yeah, I always felt like Jayne and Zoe seemed really one-dimensional when they stood behind Mal while he did most/all the talking, just waiting until they were needed for combat. Firefly would have been a much better show if those two had acted like fleshed out and interesting characters by constantly jumping into the negotiations and risking everyone's lives with their insistence on doing equal shares of the talking. As it was, they were instead niche and two-dimensional characters.
;)
I appreciate that you're deliberately oversimplifying for the purpose of poking fun... but you are deliberately oversimplifying it, to the point of being... well... wrong.
Not sure how long it's been since you last saw it, but if you try watching it again, you'll notice that all the characters - even Zoe and Jayne, do actually speak and interact with cast members who aren't crew. Because not all beyond-the-crew dialogue is tense life-or-death business negotiation. And if Firefly was a game, not every crew member would be a PC... and yet there is a whole ton of crew-to-crew interaction (it's the norm for TV shows), including the less socially skilled characters. Jayne was violent, crude, and generally had the manners of an ox... but he was by no means silent.
Leaving your quip aside and going back to the actual topic - My experience with "The Face Guy (TM)" is that it comes with the attitude that once the party enters a settlement of any kind, or encounters a group of NPCs, that "The Face Guy" will do all the talking and everyone else will observe. To the point where I often ask "Okay, so what is your character [the cleric] doing?" and have been met with the surprised response of "Uh... I'm not the face guy - that's the rogue."
Now, when trying to negotiate an alliance with a remote elven community (e.g. Red Hand of Doom) and the local city, to bring them in and fight against a rampaging monstrous horde... sure, put the best diplomat forward.
When the party enters a small town to stop and rest for a few days (and hooked into a new plot), having 75% of the party insist on being mute and avoiding any form of social interaction beyond paying for food and board is both ludicrous... and all too common, in my experience, in groups where "The Face Guy" is brought up.
As a GM, I like people talking at the table, and getting to know my PCs. Thus, the pet peeve with the term, and the attitude of "Interacting with NPCs is one person's job" that tends to come with it.
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Sure, Jayne and Zoe "occasionally speak and interact", but they don't negotiate. Your complaint has little to do with the "Face" term, which actually applies perfectly well to Firefly, and more to do with just wanting players to roleplay more in general.