My daughter puts her highest score in intelligence, no matter the class.
She currently has an Android Fighter, with no other aspirations then chopping everything in half with her chainsaw. Also something about killing all humans.
But we don't have any humans so we try not to dwell on that.
Let me guess... she's a Benderphile. :)
I hate the concept of the "Boss Fight"Well, if you prefer a different term, feel free. I was just trying to distinguish serious climactic fights from the more common easier ones. Stipulate for these purposes that not all fights are designed to be equally challenging, so when I'm talking about chance of TPK, it's in the ones that are designed to be more so, not the speedbumps.
More generally, the basic concept of "Boss fight" is pretty hard to avoid. "Climactic battle" is pretty much a staple of adventure fiction going back as far as you please. You can play around with or subvert it, but it's hard to avoid it entirely and have a satisfying resolution.
This is an interesting idea. How would you hold an adventure without a climax? Or would you run adventures with non-combat climaxes? That seems like a concept well-suited for RPGs where combat is less integral to the system, but it would be neat to see it handled in Pathfinder. I'm currently running a game set in a dungeon where most challenges are meant to be handled indirectly or through cunning/imagination, rather than through killing and maiming. Haven't decided how to run the bossfight yet, though.
I guess our game style is "freeway". Open road, fixed destination. I basically let the players do what they want and gently steer them in the direction I want them to go. If I do it right, they think they came up with the idea on their own... lol
Here's two new, linked questions:
1. What do you think is the purpose of optimization?
2. If a party was especially well-optimized, would you scale up encounters accordingly, or would you see that as unfair?
Here's a new question: What is your preferred level of danger in a game? How common is PC death? Do you fudge it, or look for ways around it, or do you run a harsh, cutthroat campaign? Do you hate it when your own characters are at risk of dying?
1. I take "optimization" to mean: Using the rules of a game system to make a character that will be mechanically effective within the bounds of that ruleset.
How this works out really varies by the game system.
In a system like Champions, optimization is everything. The whole system of character creation is predicated upon min/maxing every mecahnical aspect of your character. A poorly-optimized character is a poorly-designed character.
In a rules-light/narrativist game system like Dungeon World or Fate, there really isn't anyting to optimize, at least with regard to game mechaincs. In these games, it's pretty much entirely about your character's concept, your role-playing, and the kind of story your group wants to tell collectively.
It's only in those moderate-to-high crunchiness games like OGL 3.5/PFRPG, or Savage Worlds or GURPS that the level of character optimization seems to matter. Some people consider optimization to be min/maxing; i.e. using the letter of the rules to get unfair advantages for your own character. In these game systems, "character-building" can be its own minigame.
I see problems with mis-matches in players' levels of system mastery or preferred play style. The D&D family of games really centers around combat; the vast majority of the rules covers combat, and that is usually the primary focus of most game sessions. In these games, those players who have designed their characters to be particularly effective in combat tend to outshine the characters who didn't. This can cause inter-player friction, as the "less-effective" PC feels like they never get the spotlight. So, if you have a player who's more interested in narrativist play and designed a character who's great at a lot of non-combat stuff, but then 90% of the game-time is spent in combat, there's going to be an issue.
2. As I GM, I tend toward narrativist play, and I think having a complelling story that engages the players is the most important part. If I have conceived a big battle scene and want to hit particular beats, then I will totally and absolutely make changes on-the-fly to present a challenging and satisfying encoutner for my players. If they're steamrolling the opposition, I beef up the bad guys; if they're getting stomped, the bad guys aren't as tough as they looked, or they take time to gloat, or they suddenly have other problems to deal with that the PCs can take advantage of.
3. PC death is rare in my games, and when it does happen, I want to make it count narratively. I try to write my PCs' stories into the plot of the game, such that an unplanned PC death can have a very negative impact on the story arc I'm trying to pull off. At the same time, I want there to be danger and importance on the PCs' actions. My usual trick is to make the real danger of PCs' failure to fall on others, so that they're not just fighting for themselves.
At the same time, if a PC makes a bunch of dumb mistakes, the consequences can certainly be deadly.
IOW: I kind of hate it if a PC would die simply due to a string of bad dice rolls. I mind it less if the PC brings this upon himself by making some bad decisions. I love a meaningful PC death, such as when a character sacrifices her own life to save others... or save the world.
|
Roleplaying-to-combat ratios
Certainly Roleplaying. It depends a bit on how I handle experience point and leveling up, but especially in campaigns where there are no experience points, combats lose their main function as easy XP generators, so I can concentrate on the encounter's other functions (promoting the narrative, lending the world verisimilitude, and some times even just having fun rolling the dice). In the end, I don't mind combat situations, but they are not exactly the reason why I'm playing RPGs at all.
Rules vs. Flavor
Flavor, but my approach to that depends on the medium. I'm basically convinced that you can solve nearly every problem within the existing rules (as long as you know them well enough), but given the amount of rules material existing for D&D 3.5/PF, It's nearly impossible to follow that conviction at the game table if you're not blessed/cursed with eidetic memory. And as I rather not break the game flow by rules discussions, I'm normally playing fast and loose with the rules. I'm not bending them just for the sake of doing so, but if something comes up and no one at the table knows exactly what the rules say about it, we'll rather make something up for that session and look it up later. In PbPs, I do have the time to look up the rules, and I take the time to do so accordingly.
As far as flavor is concerned, that's something that actually matters very much to me. Begins with character creation, and just as an example, when 4E came out, I experienced several times, that when that process started, people suddenly started with discussing the roles, their character would want to fill instead of discussing the actual character they wanted to play. Not 4E's fault, to be clear, but that ticked me off severely and is one of the reasons I never got into that system.
This is also why I love well-detailed settings over more generic settings drawn in broad strokes.
Powerful and flavorful builds
I'm known for not caring to much about inner-party balance, because no matter what, I still can make sure that every player gets his moment in the spotlight and I rather have the players play what they want instead of constantly having to say no for mechanical reasons. This said (and that goes mainly for PbPs): If you want to get into my game, you better bring a flavorful character to it. And I'm not talking about „build“ at all (I hate that word with a vengeance), but about character and background story (I'll come back to that). No 20 page primer needed, but there should exist something that I can work with during the game.
Evil parties vs. noble parties vs. slightly sketchy parties
I'm not running games for evil characters and I'm not playing evil characters*. This said, if it's about telling a redemption story, I might make an exception in both cases. There's no way I'd allow chaotic evil characters though, This said, sketchy is ok, and I personally think that well-played antiheroes are kinda the best characters anyway.
*in D&D/PF, that is. I've obviously less qualms about playing WoD or Shadowrun characters, though even there, I prefer not to play the villains of the story.
Sandbox vs. Raiload vs. Freeway
Hm, my preferred playstyle is something in between. I'm a big fan of the AP format, obviously, and I'm generally a big adventure afficionado, but I might use them in a slightly different way most other gamers might use them. To me, APs basically serve as the description of the ideal case scenario (what happens if the PCs act in a certain way) and simultaneously as the description of the worst-case scenario (what if no one interferes with the villains' plans). Now what I do is that I try to mesh that plot with the characters stories presented to me during character generation (that's why I'm so keen on background stories). Sometimes those stories fit very well into the overall plot, so there might not be too much of a deviation. But sometimes, the gameplay might start to revolve much more around the characters' stories and it might even happen that at a point we stop playing the given AP because game develops in a totally different direction. Though in this case, that also might mean that in the meantime, the AP's villains go through with their plan and suddenly the PCs have to decide what to do about Karzoug awoken (just as an example).
So I wouldn't call it a sandbox game, as there are restricting parameters that give the game direction, but it's also more than a freeway game in that it has not a firmly set, unchangable destination
Silly vs. Serious
Shouldn't be too silly, because that kills the atmosphere, but on the other hand, RPGs are a social activity and the main reason to do them is to have a good time with friends, and it's not easy to avoid sillyness if you start thinking just for a second about the nonsense happening in the game. Let's say as long as it isn't worse than Guardians of the Galaxy or Deadpool, I'm pretty fine with it. ^^
Genre Choices
Phh, the only genres I'm absolutely not interested in is Superhero games and games with real people in the real world. I prefer fantasy and in an ideal world, Pathfinder would support a much more low-magic, grim and' gritty feel of gameplay, but generally. You can probably get me to play in nearly anything. Running games, not so much, because I'm a lazy guy and don't want to learn other games rules.
What do you think is the purpose of optimization?
There's obviously a part of the gamership that thinks in terms of optimization, but personally I couldn't care less. And I especially don't think that it has a real value for MY style of playing. YMMV, of course.
If a party was especially well-optimized, would you scale up encounters accordingly, or would you see that as unfair?
Only to a degree and it depends on the players' reason for optimization. If they do so to increase their chances in combat, I think I would punish them if I scaled the encounters accordingly. I might do so, if encounters would become so easy as to be boring otherwise. And as I mostly play with more than 4 players, I have to modify the encounters anyway, so I might as well up the challenge a bit.
But I've also seen players optimize and then expect the GM to scale up encounters demanding that they still want to have a challenge. And that's something that rubs me the wrong way as I already have work enough running a standard game.
What is your preferred level of danger in a game? How common is PC death? Do you fudge it, or look for ways around it, or do you run a harsh, cutthroat campaign? Do you hate it when your own characters are at risk of dying?
That's something I actually struggle with. One one hand, I want the risks to be real and I want to evoke the feeling that the characters move around in a real dangerous world. On the other hand, and especially given the style of narrative gameplay I'm going for, I do not want them to actually die, because that put's an abrupt stop to a PC's personal quest, which might have been an important, defining part of the game. So what I try do is probably going for a generally lower degree of challenge, so that when death happens, it's rare and not something that happens every other session, but in meaningful situation where such a death would strengthen the narrative. It's a fine line to walk, especially as I generally don't fudge (I think it's a legitimate tool in the GM's box for various reasons, but I try my hardest not to use it).
As far as my own characters are concerned, if they die, they die. I GM most of the time, so I have this awdul lot of character ideas I might never use in a game. From this perspective character death allows me to try something new, so if it happens, I focus more on this positive aspect instead of harping about the negatives.
I'll do each section separately as I can. May take a while to get through them.
RP vs Combat
I think there is a mistake in thinking of it as RP vs Combat. Rather, the difference is Story vs Game.
All too often I see players treat combat in a different way from the rest of everything else. They stop placing character first and instead focus entirely on the mechanics amd their own solution, then some players might layer story on top of their decisions, creating story excuses for why their characters did something, and most importantly, they don't seem to remember the world-milieu in combat. It is like they get blinders on and can't see past the mechanics.
When was the last time someone played a helpful but cowardly character in combat? When was the last time a party ran from an encounter? Or perhaps drew the enemy into a chase to get them to a battlefield the PCs can make use of? Or to get the enemy close enough to town to signal the local guard for assistance? When was the last time player looked beyond the rules to the game world and it's non-mechanical consequences?
On one occasion for example, I had a cleric who tried to summon her entire energy into a single blast of positive energy to kill a lich. She put all of herself into it without care for her own survival. There were no rules for that, but why shouldn't she try? Because mechanics? Is that really a good reason?
Some would say that the rules are the game and consider them the definition of what can or can't be done. Others would say that the world milieu is too complex and contextual to be entirely encompassed in a set of rules, and thus the rules should be flexible and used as a tool, and bent as required, in order to better express and represent the world milieu, and the world milieu defines what can or can't be done.
I think the standard RP vs Combat thing is actually about this issue. Those who look to rules as the definition of what can or can't be done gravitate towards encounter focused, and structured, gameplay, while those who look to the world milieu primarily are less concerned about the structure of encounters. As encounters are usually about combat, it gives the impression of being combat or rp, falsely in my opinion.