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Long story. Short version, White Wolf decided to do Revised editions of the World of Darkness games, I was instructed to do a revised version of Mage (or find another job) and the former developer was pushed out, some corners of the internet decided they didn't like the direction I took. Among older fans the "Mage edition wars" are internet famous. Also, in certain parts of the 'net if you post anything positive about any of my work (not just Mage) you can expect people to show up and make angry comments within about 15 minutes.
Wow! Sorry to hear it. I was a big fan of Vampire the Masquerade, and did not love my few experiences with Vampire the Requiem, but I couldn't even tell you who wrote it (and never really felt like the writers were behind the decision to burn it all down and reboot the entire system). That must have been a rough time to work there, and pretty thankless sounding.
The main White Wolf kerfluffles I recall are Pimpslap: the Backhanding and 'Divis Mal has arms? WTF!'
Anywho, getting back on topic;
Among my embarrassing gaming confessions, I never got to play Mage the Ascension. I loved the rich world to death (and played tons of Vampire the Masquerade, both tabletop and LARP, every Camarilla clan, at least once), and own all the books, and would have loved to play the hell out of a Son of Ether (in particular) or Euthanatos or Hermetic or Verbena, perhaps, but it just never really hit in this area, and it was kind of all-vampire, all-the-time (which I also loved, so that was no great hardship...). I ended up having to sublimate my Son of Ether fetish in various super-hero RPGs and MMOs, playing retropunk gadgeteers.
[I miss a lot of White Wolf stuff. I could have played the hell out of Trinity, Aberrant and Adventure! as well, and the Scarred Lands setting was my favorite AD&D setting for years.]
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Long story. Short version, White Wolf decided to do Revised editions of the World of Darkness games, I was instructed to do a revised version of Mage (or find another job) and the former developer was pushed out, some corners of the internet decided they didn't like the direction I took. Among older fans the "Mage edition wars" are internet famous. Also, in certain parts of the 'net if you post anything positive about any of my work (not just Mage) you can expect people to show up and make angry comments within about 15 minutes.
Wow.
Now I admit that I loved the old WoD games. But really? Death threats from fans of the old game? Sometimes I hate us gamers. We're real dicks.
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Some of us sure can be. I've walked away from people whining about changes in games before. Just turned and walked away without saying a word.
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The best 'revenge' a person can get on a publisher that is no longer producing the product they desire to purchase is to stop purchasing product and walk away.
If enough people do this, then the financial impact is far greater and rewarding than possibly being incarcerated for threats of physical harm/damage.
It just doesn't *feel* like that would be the result, on a 'gut' level.
There's apparently a whole edition of WoD that is out there I know nothing about as a result, and also D&D.
To pull this away from 'edition wars', though...
Embarrassing Gaming Confession:
Being the player of a character that 'just wants everyone to get along' and derailing a scenario for two and a half hours because the rails won't permit that to happen, even with god-like success.
Apologies to the folks in the group I was in last night, not in top form AND that loss of character agency really rankled.
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I've described some of my 'embarrassing' personal habits before, but here's an update:
A couple of months ago I bought a light-weight drawstring backpack just for carrying my gaming stuff. It's got a Celtic dragon printed on the outside.
Inside said backpack is my character binder for the current campaign; several bags of dice; a Q Workshop dice-rolling cup (the Elvish one, because I'm playing an elf); a case of miniatures with various spell-effect and monster minis; a miniature wooden dice-rolling tray my spouse bought for me (it can only hold really hold one or two dice at a time - he misread the measurements); a pencil case full of pens, highlighters, sticky notes/tabs, index cards, and printed Simply Spells spell cards; and a plush toy white cat to remind me not to forget my wizard's familiar.
The spell cards have become a thing in and of themselves. My wizard is an elementalist, specialty the wood element, so she gets some druid spells added to her spell list. She also gets an extra slot per level which she can only use to prepare specific spells, a bit like a cleric's domain spells. I took an arcane discovery that gives her additional benefits for spells that are on both the druid and wizard lists. I've written those extra bonuses on the spell cards. To identify the spells that are for the extra slot, I've marked them with green highlighter. I keep forgetting to print off the druid spell cards, so when she gets a new druid spell added to her spellbook I just hand-write it on a bright green index card. And now I'm trying to figure out how to identify spells that have been prepared with metamagic feats by attaching small sticky tabs to them.
I think I'm more organized in my gaming than I am in any other facet of my life.
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I found a d10 on my floor last night. I have two major sets of dice; complete sets and random dice and incomplete sets. I have probably 600 individual dice and I knew right away this wasn't one of mine. I had a friend over and she just rolled her eyes.
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Long story. Short version, White Wolf decided to do Revised editions of the World of Darkness games, I was instructed to do a revised version of Mage (or find another job) and the former developer was pushed out, some corners of the internet decided they didn't like the direction I took. Among older fans the "Mage edition wars" are internet famous. Also, in certain parts of the 'net if you post anything positive about any of my work (not just Mage) you can expect people to show up and make angry comments within about 15 minutes.
I don't understand the amount of toxicity and hostility towards designers. Plenty of things in Pathfinder and other games frustrate me to no end, but I would never attack the designer and developers. Recently, a thread was closed because someone described some designers as "malicious." Like designers are some kind of evil gremlins trying to ruin everyone's favorite games. Instead of just men and women who genuinely want to do a good job in an unforgiving industry plagued with tight deadlines.
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I don't understand the amount of toxicity and hostility towards designers. Plenty of things in Pathfinder and other games frustrate me to no end, but I would never attack the designer and developers. Recently, a thread was closed because someone described some designers as "malicious." Like designers are some kind of evil gremlins trying to ruin everyone's favorite games. Instead of just men and women who genuinely want to do a good job in an unforgiving industry plagued with tight deadlines.
At least part of this boils down to a 'dollars=value' sense.
ie, if one pays for a given thing, such given thing should *maintain it's value* indefinitely.
If someone invests several hundred dollars in a game line, and then the game producer proceeds to figuratively piss all that investment into the sewer, then rolls out a wheelbarrow with a steaming excremental 'New Coke', that someone would be understandably upset/disappointed/angry.
Companies live or die on the balance between margin and volume.
But there are only so many ways they can attain that volume once they reach market saturation for a given piece of product.
1. Continue the system, but add addtional splats/hardcovers
2. Reboot the system, start from scratch
3. Go bankrupt
4. Continue to sell the 'bread and butter' only.
There's no real good fix, and these dangers have been confronted in different ways by different gaming companies over the years, and they will continue to have this issue until we reach some level of 'post-scarcity' economy.
It is an exceedingly frustrating concept. Nor can I call it justified. Take someone who buys a, say, car. Do they expect the car to have value forever? A chainsaw? A pair of shoes? A newspaper? A roll of toilet paper? A computer? Should they?
Books can last pretty much forever. With this comes the expectation that what is in them will too. And that just isn't true. Books change with how we interpret them, the world and ourselves. Playing a 2nd edition game today is very far from doing it back in the day.
The important part to this is clearly marking what is compatible.
It is an exceedingly frustrating concept. Nor can I call it justified. Take someone who buys a, say, car. Do they expect the car to have value forever? A chainsaw? A pair of shoes? A newspaper? A roll of toilet paper? A computer? Should they?
The chainsaw stood out to me, both in a "one of these things is not like the other" sense, but also because my dad inherited my great-grandfather's chainsaw, which he still uses. Works pretty good.
I should make a relevant comment. My GM asked for some basic info about my character's immediate relatives. He wanted names and class, but ended up with backgrounds, personality traits, motivations, etc.
Then i told him i had ideas for my characters cousins.
I need school to start again...
Out of the 6 PFS characters, 3 of them are female. Two of them are from Tian Xia. I would have a fourth female that was also from Tian Xia, but then I found out the Teisatsu was banned from organized play. No kunoichis for me...
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When it's time to level up a character, I spend hours looking over options for feats, class abilities, etc. Then, I show up at the gaming table and see my friends (equally skilled at rules and RP) hurriedly level up their PC in the five minutes left before the session starts.
When it's time to level up a character, I spend hours looking over options for feats, class abilities, etc. Then, I show up at the gaming table and see my friends (equally skilled at rules and RP) hurriedly level up their PC in the five minutes left before the session starts.
Or even worse, I have my carefully choreographed 'this is the leveling process' mapped out, and then things get hectic during the space between slots and... I completely forget the list/left it at the hotel(home)/get distracted trying to eat, etc, so it becomes 'hurriedly get some things down to play next slot' and 'audit after convention'.
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It is an exceedingly frustrating concept. Nor can I call it justified. Take someone who buys a, say, car. Do they expect the car to have value forever? A chainsaw? A pair of shoes? A newspaper? A roll of toilet paper? A computer? Should they?
The chainsaw stood out to me, both in a "one of these things is not like the other" sense, but also because my dad inherited my great-grandfather's chainsaw, which he still uses. Works pretty good.
Maybe, but did they get a chance to sell another chainsaw to the 2 generations who followed after your great-grandfather bought it? If the product is too durable, you may run out of market to sell to...
When it's time to level up a character, I spend hours looking over options for feats, class abilities, etc. Then, I show up at the gaming table and see my friends (equally skilled at rules and RP) hurriedly level up their PC in the five minutes left before the session starts.
The only times I ever leveled up at the last minute was when I spent all week debating what new options I want only to have to make a last minute decision when the game starts.
One of my players never levels up until game time. He spends ALL his free time on comic book and Dr. Who forums.
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Most of my ideas for RPG characters come from the soldier units in RTS games like Age of Empires II, Medieval II: Total War and Total War: Warhammer, and me going "Wow, they look really cool! I wanna play a character who fights like that!"
Consequently this meant until I got Total War: Warhammer, I got very few ideas for wizard-style characters.
The best 'revenge' a person can get on a publisher that is no longer producing the product they desire to purchase is to stop purchasing product and walk away.
If enough people do this, then the financial impact is far greater and rewarding than possibly being incarcerated for threats of physical harm/damage.
It just doesn't *feel* like that would be the result, on a 'gut' level.
There's apparently a whole edition of WoD that is out there I know nothing about as a result, and also D&D.
The big problem with these edition wars is when, for whatever reason, you discover that the new edition is drecky AFTER you've been conned into buying it... because then, you can't go to the shop or publisher and demand your money and time back.
Me, I've had the reverse experience, I was shanghaied into a D&D4 campaign by a friend, and discovered that even though it's not D&D, I love that edition... the mechanics are just lovely.
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When it's time to level up a character, I spend hours looking over options for feats, class abilities, etc. Then, I show up at the gaming table and see my friends (equally skilled at rules and RP) hurriedly level up their PC in the five minutes left before the session starts.
I prep leveled-up character sheets with everything picked out in advance, because otherwise I'll never be able to make up my mind. We don't usually do mid-game level up, but if we do I keep copies of my prepared sheets in Dropbox so I can download them if I need them.
My spouse, on the other hand, never remembers to level up until the day of the game and then does it in a rush a few hours before. And we used to play with a guy who actually hated leveling up. He would complain when we gained a new level, and sometimes I think he didn't bother to assign skill points or pick feats. I'm pretty sure he would have been happy to stay at around 3rd level forever.
Most of my ideas for RPG characters come from the soldier units in RTS games like Age of Empires II, Medieval II: Total War and Total War: Warhammer, and me going "Wow, they look really cool! I wanna play a character who fights like that!"
Your method intrigues me. Most guys in Age of empires II are a just a random guy with a sword or a random guy with a crossbow, and it would be hard to do, for example, a scimitar-throwing camel-rider mamluk.
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Your method intrigues me. Most guys in Age of empires II are a just a random guy with a sword or a random guy with a crossbow, and it would be hard to do, for example, a scimitar-throwing camel-rider mamluk.Most of my ideas for RPG characters come from the soldier units in RTS games like Age of Empires II, Medieval II: Total War and Total War: Warhammer, and me going "Wow, they look really cool! I wanna play a character who fights like that!"
In AoE II it's almost exclusively the civilizations' unique units that inspire me, as they're the most...well...unique! Especially since the new expansions like The African Kingdoms and Rise of the Rajas, which have introduced many more non-European civilizations.
Some of my latest inspiration has come from the Ethiopians' Shotel Warrior, the Russians' Boyar, the Malians' Gbeto and the Malay's Karambit Warrior.
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I prep leveled-up character sheets with everything picked out in advance, because otherwise I'll never be able to make up my mind.
I *should* do this, but never do, and inevitably end up grabbing something random (and foolish) when the time comes. "Ooh, I need a feat. Do I have Improved Initiative and Toughness yet? Damn. I have to actually think about it... Additional Traits is just way too much work, maybe Cosmopolitan?"
And we used to play with a guy who actually hated leveling up. He would complain when we gained a new level, and sometimes I think he didn't bother to assign skill points or pick feats. I'm pretty sure he would have been happy to stay at around 3rd level forever.
That also is me. 3rd-7th levels are fun for me. After that, it feels too much like work. :)
Clearly I've played too many super-hero games, or games like GURPS or Vampire, where you start with great power/100-150 'points', and only increase in tiny fiddly bits, a few more 'points' per session. Despite starting with AD&D back in the '70s, the whole level by level 'growth in massive spurts' thing never really hooked me.
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I have a basic idea of where I want to take a character in advance, with the progression planned, but I am open to change my previous plans based on how the character develops during the adventure and what best fits the story once it is being played.
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I have a basic idea of where I want to take a character in advance, with the progression planned, but I am open to change my previous plans based on how the character develops during the adventure and what best fits the story once it is being played.
That's kind of how I work, too, but I like to have a few options pre-selected so I don't have to spend hours poring over rulebooks.
Yeah, that's how I do it, too. I have a few ideas that are pretty set in stone but leave plenty of room for peripheral notions to be considered.
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I'm always excited when a character develops in a way I'd never anticipated. Some of my favorite characters resulted from mid-campaign changes of course.
No matter how hard I try, anything above CN I can not play. LE to CE yes. But it is a struggle to play as a paladin of LG and not murder torture seduce burn to the ground everything around me.
I have never played a druid or a Wizard. Will play rangers rouges sorceers, but never a druid or wizard. I must say wizards confuse me.
Accidentally allowed two players to be driven away from a table because I didn't say anything about a truly obnoxious person wanting to 'play up' with a horrifically ineffective character.
Did not realize the odious nature of the individual until they started harassing behaviour during the slot, and then didn't realize they were stalking me because I politely called them on their crap for the rest of the convention when I was marshalling.
Egads.
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I'm always excited when a character develops in a way I'd never anticipated. Some of my favorite characters resulted from mid-campaign changes of course.
Amen.
My favourite character of all time was a N rogue (bordering on NE) intended to follow a theme and progression of an entrepreneur and politician, building contacts, allies, assets and investments as the campaign progressed. She instead wound up a NG rogue/cleric of Shelyn.
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My favourite character of all time was a N rogue (bordering on NE) intended to follow a theme and progression of an entrepreneur and politician, building contacts, allies, assets and investments as the campaign progressed. She instead wound up a NG rogue/cleric of Shelyn.
This is what happens when you build contacts, allies, assets and investments in Sandpoint right before I run The Skinsaw Murders :)
...Back to the topic of embarrassing confessions.
I have a habit of scripting (and rehearsing out loud) my NPC dialogue ahead of time. Especially if I care about A) time and B) getting the point across. It might be a background conversation between two NPCs that the PCs overhear, or most of an expected conversation between a PC and an NPC (answering potential questions in-character). This doesn't stop me from improvising at the table if I need to... but it certainly has caused some odd looks from my 3-year-old daughter before a game ;P
I'm having my dose of unforeseen character development... I'm currently playing a character that started as a 3.5 ranger (aiming for I don't remember what PrC, likely Stonelord)... then the campaign was turned into 5e and my character turned into a Fighter (Eldritch Knight) so he could forge magic items, and now, at level 6, he's about to go into a newfangled prestige class for 5e that will allow him to play with (Dwarven) rune magic.
I'm always excited when a character develops in a way I'd never anticipated. Some of my favorite characters resulted from mid-campaign changes of course.Amen.
My favourite character of all time was a N rogue (bordering on NE) intended to follow a theme and progression of an entrepreneur and politician, building contacts, allies, assets and investments as the campaign progressed. She instead wound up a NG rogue/cleric of Shelyn.
My favorite example of this is definitely Sar'Tket, who I'd originally planned to be a fairly morally ambiguous character who only gradually made the transition to sort-of good. Instead, he had an experience where he basically decided to turn wholly to good, became a paladin, and dedicated his life to protecting others and guiding them on the path to goodness.
He ended up starting a revolution on his home world that overthrew his people's old evil god... and then he ended up replacing him as more or less his moral opposite, being a god of Light and Good. He's my only character who's ever done that whole become-a-god-after-the-campaign thing. XD
I did have one other character who came close, ending up as basically a powerful celestial. This was in another campaign with the same GM. Hmmmm...
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Maybe, but did they get a chance to sell another chainsaw to the 2 generations who followed after your great-grandfather bought it? If the product is too durable, you may run out of market to sell to...It is an exceedingly frustrating concept. Nor can I call it justified. Take someone who buys a, say, car. Do they expect the car to have value forever? A chainsaw? A pair of shoes? A newspaper? A roll of toilet paper? A computer? Should they?
The chainsaw stood out to me, both in a "one of these things is not like the other" sense, but also because my dad inherited my great-grandfather's chainsaw, which he still uses. Works pretty good.
This fellow is looking to buy a saw to cut down some trees in his back yard. He goes to a chainsaw shop and asks about various chainsaws. The dealer tells him, "Look, I have a lot of models, but why don't you save yourself a lot of time and aggravation and get the top-of-the-line model. This chainsaw will cut a hundred cords of wood for you in one day."
So, the man takes the chainsaw home and begins working on the trees. After cutting for several hours and only cutting two cords, he decides to quit. He thinks there is something wrong with the chainsaw. "How can I cut for hours and only cut two cords?" the man asks himself. "I will begin first thing in the morning and cut all day," the man tells himself. So, the next morning the man gets up at 4 am in the morning and cuts and cuts, and cuts till nightfall, and still he only manages to cut five cords.
The man is convinced this is a bad saw. "The dealer told me it would cut one hundred cords of wood in a day, no problem. I will take this saw back to the dealer," the man says to himself.
The very next day the man brings the saw back to the dealer and explains the problem. The dealer, baffled by the man's claim, removes the chainsaw from the case. The dealer says, "Hmm, it looks fine."
Then the dealer starts the chainsaw, to which the man responds, "What's that noise?
well, the last girl I played dates from about 1984... I'm just a guy who's no god at impersonating girls, there's no shame in it.
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I haven't played a guy since 1991.
My other confession. I rarely play males. Its more fun to try and stretch my gming and rpging skills by trying to play a female. That might be why I have issues with alignment, since on every level I am a dude.
Some of my dirty secrets....
I once ran an entire D&D 2nd edition campaign for 13 months with nothing more than one index card filled with the plot line. All the encounters were made up on the spot. Players loved the campaign and never knew that I winged the whole thing for the entire campaign.
This one, I feel somewhat bad for in hindsight. I hate Kender. Or more correctly, I hated how my players played Kender as disruptive, klepto sociopaths. So in my Dragonlance campaign, it was odd how no Kender character survived more than a few game sessions when I DMed. Odd that. <wink>
When I played face to face, I had a DM screen with the back covered with small skull decals, one for every character I killed. Players called it my 'Kill Board'. Now before everyone gets judgemental, my players liked it. They could tell the story about a particular decal and how that character met his/her fate and it was a constant reminder that dumb and questionable and not well thought out actions had serious consequences.
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As soon as my full-caster characters have created their first demiplane, I can't stop myself from channeling The Transcendent One no matter how out-of-character it would be (or how little sense it would make in-context).
Hey, it looks like we will be fighting a lot of undead for next little bit, mind making some scrolls of death ward?
I HAVE FORGED PLANES WITH MY POWER. I CAN UNMAKE YOU.
Okay, as long as you make those scrolls of death ward first.
I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 individual dice. I can tell by just by looking at it if one of my players has left one of theirs behind that it's not one of mine.
I'm what I would call a hot'n'cold DM. On one hand, I love showering my PCs with shinies like my first name was Monty and love rooting for them when they demolish my encounters.
On the other hand, I really, REALLY love creating the most blantantly munchkined, "technically legal", sadistic, and just plain brutally unfair encounters. If it is not at least APL+2, it ain't an encounter, it's a speed bumb. My boss monsters regularly hit APL+4 or worse...
I have also have terrible addiction to templates and will stack them until it gets scarily close to silly. Does not help with my uber boss monster problem, let me tell ya. For example, Human Apostle Kyton Graveknight Psychic 16/Antipaladin 2 in artifact plate would probably be the end boss of lvl 15 campaign for me. Like, I start statting out the BBEG and it just starts snowballing: "Just... One more level to round out the stats.. Eh, another one to get those nice 8 level spells to make it more epic. Another template to get those juicy +6 stat boosts. Maybe a few stat boosting iteDEAR NUFFLE WHAT HAVE I DONE".
Then I feel bad when my players try and fail to hurt the invincible Munchkin God Monster and extra bad when a player dies. Fortunately, my players are a highly resourceful bunch that have the uncanny knack to home in on that single solitary weak spot in Nuffle's Great Technically Legal One.
For example, a fight between maybe 11-12 level PC team of a Mentalist and a Witch and scry'n'frying level 14 Devilbound Occultist Arcanist. The Arcanist teleports in, casts Emergency Force Sphere and prepares to spam Lightning Elementals until the group is dead. So, Wall of Force effect on all sides, and the BBEG is holding something that makes him immune to all mind-affecting effects (Either an Ioun Stone or just plain Protection from Evil, can't remember). The Witch player ends the fight with Frost Tomb hex in the first round, because the BBEG was not packing Freedom of Movement and had sucky Fort save. That made me feel the weirdest combination of relief,...
So you create creatures like Eglian?
I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 individual dice. I can tell by just by looking at it if one of my players has left one of theirs behind that it's not one of mine.
Havaen't you posted this at least twice before?
Maybe I have. I forget things. If I have, please forgive the multiple postings.
Maybe I have. I forget things. If I have, please forgive the multiple postings.
It's completely fine. I think it's mildly impressive that you have 600+ dice and you can remember them all.
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Maybe I have. I forget things. If I have, please forgive the multiple postings.It's completely fine. I think it's mildly impressive that you have 600+ dice and you can remember them all.
No doubt, makes me want to count my duce now...
