The thing is, the fact that I can generally get the same results as with Point Buy doesn't mean the process of getting there is as clean, directly intuitive, or enjoyable.
"Put 5 points in Strength, put 10 in Dexterity, take 2 points out of Charisma"? That was clean and intuitive. There's plenty of criticism for it, but it was fun if you knew what you were doing, and you didn't get bogged down because it was all just numbers--which are, I think, a lot easier for new players to grasp than we assume.
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Also, to be clear, these are all perfectly good points! I really liked Point Buy. I don't like it when a game tries to force flavor decisions and I have to feel like a minmaxer for ignoring them. I low-key hated the necessity of "numbers traits" for that reason. Bringing that design philosophy into ability score generation feels... almost profane.
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A good friend and excellent poster on these messageboards sent me no small amount of 2e stuff. I am going to be purchasing the main book and the DMs guide(if they have one), as I said I would when the union was recognized. I may play a 2e game one day. However, I do have a problem with 2e in that...well...it's not 1e. A lot of problems with 1e were solved by making another system that is...well, another system. With a whole new set of flaws and good things and bad things about it. I get 4e vibes not from the game itself but from the decision that was made. 2e also seems a looooooot easier than 1e in the same way that 5e is a loooooot easier than earlier editions. In my experience that leads to a lot of silliness, but we will see. I have been called stodgy before with respect to TTG, and this may be true.
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Also, to be clear, these are all perfectly good points! I really liked Point Buy. I don't like it when a game tries to force flavor decisions and I have to feel like a minmaxer for ignoring them. I low-key hated the necessity of "numbers traits" for that reason. Bringing that design philosophy into ability score generation feels... almost profane.
I hate point buy because it results in very similar characters/builds(ugh..still hate that term) and is another step towards a diceless system. I hate diceless systems due to some poor experiences in my early gaming days. Maybe that's unfair, but still.
So, my big beef with Pathfinder 2E, from a glance? Ability score generation.
To me, the idea of having a small number of core abilities that give you a quick, simple run-down of the character's talents is an intrinsic good thing. A lot of tabletop RPGs (and video game RPGs!) do it, because especially if character generation is meant to be a fun element of the game, getting to have a short list of numbers that define your unique knacks and disknacks is, well, handy! And evocative! It immediately gets an idea of the character across. Pathfinder/D&D, Storyteller, Burning Wheel, Paranoia, Fallout: NV--honestly, it's maybe one of the most commonly taken for-granted RPG tropes in the whole medium, right after "you roll dice, high is good" and "each person is responsible for one character except the referee".
So, choosing to break from that mold is fine. Lots of great games do it, especially games where character creation isn't the main point or where the numbers aren't a huge part of things. But... half breaking from the mold? That bugs me.
As far as I can tell--and I'm still new to this system--PF2E makes it so that there is no option for point buy or dice. In theory, this is supposed to address "game balance" problems. But does it? Ability score differences were always a bigger psychological problem than a real game balance issue. A +5% one way or the other doesn't really matter outside of theorycrafting. Sure, playing a barbarian and dumping Con sucks, but aren't there other ways to stop players from doing that? 3.5 had a nice little "ability score" guide for players for each class.
If the point is that players don't need to deal with even a slight learning curve, that's great, only... having a simple sheet of six stats that defined the character was kind of useful for new players. It's one of the few relics of old D&D's system that has stuck around, because it's intuitive. Not least...
There is actually a dice option! They make it hard to find because they don't want people to use it (it's in a separate box on page 20).
You roll the 4d6 as normal dropping the lowest score and then you add your two ability boosts and drawback and drop the free boost and then when you pick your background you also drop the free boost but keep the set boost and don't add your class boost at all. The only catch is you can't raise any ability score above 18 at first level.
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Personally I vehemently hate point buying with a passion.
That said, I've tried Pathfinder 2's point buy system and I don't hate it.
I’m not sure a half page spread with the alternate rule on the same page as the main rule is making it “hard to find”
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I’m not sure a half page spread with the alternate rule on the same page as the main rule is making it “hard to find”
It can be, I had to point it out to my wife and kids. Obviously not everyone will find it hard to find but I know enough people who do that I like to point out where it is.
Edit: But yes, it is an exaggeration, which I'm occasionally prone to do in the interest of flippancy. Point taken!
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That isn’t the same as Paizo “making it hard to find” because they don’t want people to use it though
That isn’t the same as Paizo “making it hard to find” because they don’t want people to use it though
You are correct! I added an edit to my last post to reflect that. Touche!
Thank you!
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You roll the 4d6 as normal dropping the lowest score and then you add your two ability boosts and drawback and drop the free boost and then when you pick your background you also drop the free boost but keep the set boost and don't add your class boost at all. The only catch is you can't raise any ability score above 18 at first level.
...what?
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Oof, bad Dex/Con but good mental scores. I think bard, right? Focus on buffs and skill versatility. A gnome bard could do pretty decent with these stats.
It'd be kind of neat to see a Poker-style game where you try to roll up certain class combos ("parties") as fast as possible. Like, each hand, all players roll 3d6*6, top-down, and they can pick a certain class to add to their hand or discard, and at certain points a player can "call" and display their four-character party and some sort of comparison takes place.
One of those "needlessly complicated" fantasy games for when you want to play out a gambling scene, maybe?
3d6
3d6
3d6
3d6
3d6
3d6Oof, bad Dex/Con but good mental scores. I think bard, right? Focus on buffs and skill versatility. A gnome bard could do pretty decent with these stats.
It'd be kind of neat to see a Poker-style game where you try to roll up certain class combos ("parties") as fast as possible. Like, each hand, all players roll 3d6*6, top-down, and they can pick a certain class to add to their hand or discard, and at certain points a player can "call" and display their four-character party and some sort of comparison takes place.
One of those "needlessly complicated" fantasy games for when you want to play out a gambling scene, maybe?
The dice game from Suikoden II/Cee-lo is a lot of fun and a natural go to.
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A good friend and excellent poster on these messageboards sent me no small amount of 2e stuff. I am going to be purchasing the main book and the DMs guide(if they have one), as I said I would when the union was recognized. I may play a 2e game one day. However, I do have a problem with 2e in that...well...it's not 1e. A lot of problems with 1e were solved by making another system that is...well, another system. With a whole new set of flaws and good things and bad things about it. I get 4e vibes not from the game itself but from the decision that was made. 2e also seems a looooooot easier than 1e in the same way that 5e is a loooooot easier than earlier editions. In my experience that leads to a lot of silliness, but we will see. I have been called stodgy before with respect to TTG, and this may be true.
Hey, that was me!!
And yes, that's a pretty good assessment, though 2nd edition Pathfinder has grown on me considerably, especially after Secrets of Magic and Guns and Gears, which are both amazing expansions on 2nd edition, both in terms of expanding the game and setting.
I wrote this story--four chapters, 20,000 words--in about one day, and now I'm having to edit it. It's, as you might expect, a mess. It's typo-ridden half-assed trashy shlock, and I need to get it to being presentable trashy shlock. Ideally tonight, because as a commission, it's running quite late.
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Sorry for the recent troubles. Reminds me of Don Juan de Doodlebug's stuff with La Principessa... Drama of the finest order!
Bust out that editing, and then get some sleep. Everything is better after a good nights sleep. It's past 1am here, so I'm off to Lady Slumbers gossamer embrace.
Sleep well, I'll see you in the morning!
PS Lady Fergie is a skilled editor of many years! If you ever get in a jam and need help, let me know.
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Oh, this is erotica. Very trashy commissioner-indulgent erotica, too. But I appreciate the intent behind the offer. XD
I'm feeling a lot better. My friend calmed me down to the point that I was able to acknowledge, "Hey, wait, a lot of the stuff my ex said to me was actually itself really abusive." I'm still sad, of course. Me and the ex are being nice to each other today, but I think we're both just silently agreeing to wait for the day she can move out.
Ambrosia, dirtypool, and everyone who reached out after I went to bed, I appreciate you all immensely. Captain Y, thanks for mentioning the Quakers--I've always wanted to check out the SoF, fun fact, but there's never been a church nearby for me to join! It and Judaism are the only two religions I think I might be able to connect with (though I don't know much about non-Abrahamics).
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One of my favorite erotica typoes: swapping "stroked" and "storked".
I'm gonna slack off and finish this in the morning. Just the Spellcheck Run--Step One of the three-step editing process--is taking forever.
Sorry for the recent troubles. Reminds me of Don Juan de Doodlebug's stuff with La Principessa... Drama of the finest order!
I haven't heard that name in a long long time.
Yeah, it's been like, what, two and a half years since the socialist goblin has posted? Wonder what he has been up to.
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Yeah, it's been like, what, two and a half years since the socialist goblin has posted? Wonder what he has been up to.
Working full time, and also heavily involved in Union activities and Trotskyism. Seems to be doing alright, though.
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Good for him!
The annoying thing about bipolar is you never know if a change in medication actually fixed things or if, you know, you've just entered a different phase
That being said, my emotions have been way more stable since I stopped taking Adderall. This could also be related to me being more at peace from knowing the diagnosis or simply divergent evolution (my good mood and improved productivity and change in medication and diagnosis are not necessarily unrelated to one another, but it's a chicken and egg problem). I do still sometimes have those bad depression spells when I stay up too late and get anxious about my productivity, and obviously there was that suicidal hour under unusual special circumstances. Overall, it's useful data, I hope.
The ex and I are in detente right now, probably both waiting for apologies. We're civil and friendly, just, you know, with that huge unresolved "wow we both crossed a lot of lines" aspect to it.
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One of my favorite erotica typoes: swapping "stroked" and "storked".
Something something "kinky is using a feather, perverted is using the whole stork" something.
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From just curiously cursory googling, Adderall + bipolar seems like it has a high probability of the chances of bad interactions. I'm glad things are easing up a bit.
As for the current detente, some of the modern era's staunchest allies were trying hard to kill the heck out of each other decades ago. I hope it works out for the better, or at least becomes a permanent truce/ceasefire.
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I am so tired of editing oh my god
I'm at Step Three, where I go back to all my little "][" notes for later editing and, well, fix them. 141/170 remaining. Some of these notes are literally, "][put-more-in-here" or "][draw-out" or "][write-better".
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133/170
If that seems slow
it is
in fairness I'm very distractable because I am so ready to be done with this story
(we're up to 22k words now)
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*painfully suppressing twenty paragraphs of venting about PF2E still using a d20 because honestly it's off-topic*
[rant] 2d10 would at least have a curve to it, with a higher percentage of 9s, 10s and 11s, and rare 'critical' 2s and 20s, and not a 5% chance of every possible outcome like a d20!
Reminds me of that old Murphy's Rules joke about how, in an army of 400 experienced dwarven axemen, 20 of them will roll a 1 and cut their own heads off every round of combat... [/rant]
2d10 is just an objective improvement, even though it sort of exposes how dumb and arbitrary the whole d20 system is at the core. There's a reason most other games default to d6s, d10s or d8s. 1-20 is just... a weird and messy scale.
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2d10 is just an objective improvement, even though it sort of exposes how dumb and arbitrary the whole d20 system is at the core. There's a reason most other games default to d6s, d10s or d8s. 1-20 is just... a weird and messy scale.
It's like they'd just invented plastic polyhedral dice or something, and those old wargamers had to find a use for them!
(That said, I'm partial to d12s. I have no explanation for my brain, only excuses.)
I wonder if Plato knew this is what would become of his legacy.
"No, we never did do the republic thing with the philosopher-kings, but we've got this brightly colored plastic representations of your platonic solids that we roll around to generate random numbers for games about dragons and wizards. Let me tell you about my paladin..."
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*painfully suppressing twenty paragraphs of venting about PF2E still using a d20 because honestly it's off-topic*[rant] 2d10 would at least have a curve to it, with a higher percentage of 9s, 10s and 11s, and rare 'critical' 2s and 20s, and not a 5% chance of every possible outcome like a d20!
Reminds me of that old Murphy's Rules joke about how, in an army of 400 experienced dwarven axemen, 20 of them will roll a 1 and cut their own heads off every round of combat... [/rant]
We tried that once, albeit in high school, with a friend's system that was painstakingly tested multiple times. I THINK it was a take on the FASERIP system, thinking back.
Combat was more realistic. It also took forever, and crits never happened.
I hate that old joke, if only because noone ever applies it to other systems, just d20. Meanwhile, stupid vis tricks/vampire lawn chairs have to be actively banned by storytellers because they are technically rules friendly and noone says a word...
I love me some d20 gaming! I don't care how many are involved.
No one applies the joke to other games because the d20 system is the only system I know of that tries to tell a story about heroic characters where a dice roll accounts for the majority of successes and failures and the range is so insanely split. It's not even about the fumbles. Twos and threes and fours are often just as bad and just as common.
A skilled first level character has a very high chance of screwing up the same attempt that a non-skilled character excels at, because having a +8 to Stealth is not that great compared to having a +1 but rolling higher. You have a one in four chance of acting like your bonus was between -1 and +3.
There's a reason most RPGs nowadays ditch the "roll one die, get a number between 1 and x, add your bonus, did you hit the DC?" framework. They have you roll more dice and count the number of "successes", or roll more dice and add it all together, or, well, in general, roll more, smaller dice.
It's not actually about the fumbles--the fumbles are just the most obvious example. But it's every bit as absurd that of twenty trained divers, five will struggle to tread water unless they Take Ten. Take Ten, you know, the thing you do when you don't want to take chances and would rather just perform at your normal skill level, because you can't trust the d20 system to let you perform at your normal skill level.
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We can talk about whether or not it's realistic another day, to be clear--D&D and Pathfinder aren't really about realism, they're about consistency of rules and heroic characters doing heroic things. But an unstated tone element of both is the inherent comedy of Cthulhu rising from the ocean and not being able to eat anyone because he can't roll above a 5 for a round or two. It's one of the reasons D&D/Pathfinder always get so goofy, even when you're trying to be serious.
If the dice roll decides the majority of what happens, you better make sure you're rolling the right dice. A flat 1-20 dice roll just isn't it for a character-focused game. This is why I really gave up on 5e--they undervalued specialization so much that there was no difference between a rogue who invested her whole build into stealth and a fighter who rolled lucky.
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I hate to say it, but I am pretty sure D&D is only still using the d20 because while it started as a marketing gimmick, they failed to put it aside in second edition like they should have, and now it's seen as "intrinsic to the system" and it's never going away even though it really should. It's a shibboleth. It hasn't stuck around because it makes the game "better" (we could debate that), it's stuck around mainly because it's seen as synonymous with D&D.
Like, D&D/Pathfinder being the "most popular" RPG family doesn't make it the best, either. It's just super well-marketed, shared between two of the biggest corporations in TTRPGs, and so established at this point it's not going away. I like the D&D family, but its biggest draw has always been name recognition.
Sorry, but "It's hard to argue it's really a detriment, in spite of other systems seeming to be theoretically better" just isn't gonna click with a staunch anticapitalist. :P
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No one applies the joke to other games because the d20 system is the only system I know of that tries to tell a story about heroic characters where a dice roll accounts for the majority of successes and failures and the range is so insanely split.
Well damn. Let me think back now ...
White wolf has issues with botched rolls(although in my experience only it is less about botching and more about failing to get any successes).
Shadowrun is very much the same,, but I think they changed the rules several editions ago, though.
L5R can get bad with things going wrong in some specific combats- iaijutsu I think. It has been a loooooooooooooong time, but the ability to choose what number you are going for can mitigate a lot of dice fickleness- I am speaking with respect to earlier editions not the newest one).
Palladium is...Palladium.
d6 Star Wars can very easily have you killing yourself or someone else because a grenade went off wrong, or you failed a piloting check. I would actually argue Star Wars is the LEAST forgiving system, death lurks around any corner for just about anything, including swimming. I think that may be why the d6 system didn't take off, despite associated good memories on my part.
Interesting! I haven't played any of those. I think I have a weird selection bias, because I've played a scattered variety of dice-based RPGs. Paranoia (the Kickstarter edition), GURPS, a tiny tiny bit of FATE, Grimm RPG, VTM... I haven't played that one manga travelogue game or Ars Magicka, but I have both of them, and I think they're less swingy than the d20 system from what I saw? I can't remember how much they use dice, though.
GURPS...always keep forgetting about that one. There's always one (usually grizzled) veteran who swears by GURPS...but the game itself never gets off the ground.
I played a few sessions of it, and slow as it was (I think we were using the "simplified" version, too), it was honestly a heck of a lot of fun. I love that granular character-building stuff. I designed a swordslady who wove tapestries to gain glimpses of events to come. It was nice to just get to pick and choose every little thing I wanted her to be good at.
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I played a few sessions of it, and slow as it was (I think we were using the "simplified" version, too), it was honestly a heck of a lot of fun. I love that granular character-building stuff. I designed a swordslady who wove tapestries to gain glimpses of events to come. It was nice to just get to pick and choose every little thing I wanted her to be good at.
NOW I remember. Yeah, GURPS took FOREVER to make a character, but it was the PERFECT character...so long as something outside of the situations they were crafted for didn't happen.
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XD
Yeah, it required a lot of clarity from the GM. "Some combat, traveling, social skills and survival skills all useful." I think GURPS is a brilliantly collection of bones that can make the perfect game skeleton as long as you make sure to pick the right bones out for it. :P
Meanwhile, I am making Rysky regret inviting me to their game by frenetically overanalyzing her world's social structures. Look, this is why I usually keep my games rural or make the governments all bad, so I don't have to get self-conscious and start hyperfixating on, "Okay, so how would a good-aligned city run a police force? Would there be a police force at all? What about the constabulary system? Ooh, I wonder, since there's no racism but there's regional intolerance, what about class-based and profession-based resentment? What's the small towns' and villages' relationships with the city-dwellers? Do people leave the city during the bountiful months to live off the commons and escape the pressures of their rents? What happens to the homeless? How are the regions divided based on education levels? Where do people go to get an education? Do they come home after? Who owns the space between the cities? Who claims to? How is that space negotiated by those who live in it?"
This is why nobody invites political geography nerds to parties.
this isn't an "oh look how smart I am" humblebrag, because these are mostly pretty irrelevant or banal questions that I'm sure Rysky already has answers to. I'm just. I go on and on about how "it's okay to just let fantasy be fantasy" but the second it comes to the structures of society and the ownership of space all that goes out the window.
XD
Yeah, it required a lot of clarity from the GM. "Some combat, traveling, social skills and survival skills all useful." I think GURPS is a brilliantly collection of bones that can make the perfect game skeleton as long as you make sure to pick the right bones out for it. :P
Meanwhile, I am making Rysky regret inviting me to their game by frenetically overanalyzing her world's social structures. Look, this is why I usually keep my games rural or make the governments all bad, so I don't have to get self-conscious and start hyperfixating on, "Okay, so how would a good-aligned city run a police force? Would there be a police force at all? What about the constabulary system? Ooh, I wonder, since there's no racism but there's regional intolerance, what about class-based and profession-based resentment? What's the small towns' and villages' relationships with the city-dwellers? Do people leave the city during the bountiful months to live off the commons and escape the pressures of their rents? What happens to the homeless? How are the regions divided based on education levels? Where do people go to get an education? Do they come home after? Who owns the space between the cities? Who claims to? How is that space negotiated by those who live in it?"
This is why nobody invites political geography nerds to parties.
this isn't an "oh look how smart I am" humblebrag, because these are mostly pretty irrelevant or banal questions that I'm sure Rysky already has answers to. I'm just. I go on and on about how "it's okay to just let fantasy be fantasy" but the second it comes to the structures of society and the ownership of space all that goes out the window.
I am pretty sure she doesn't watch this thread and I deleted the rambles in Discord because god can I not for five minutes. XD
I just! I really like using fantasy to examine our society, so I like creating little model power structures to see how things play out. Like, "what if kobolds split power between a few major crews of workers but they also had a confused monarchy/council-of-elders system, and also one of the crews has control over all the babies so hey let's be really nice to that crew". It's neat! It's fun!
But it's a really bad habit to act like every fantasy world is mine to pick at, and it's also pretentious to assume another creator hasn't already either considered these sorts of questions, or decided, "you know, that stuff is neat and all, but it's not what I choose to focus on here".
White wolf has issues with botched rolls(although in my experience only it is less about botching and more about failing to get any successes).
Botches were inconsistent based on the iteration of WoD they were in. Original botching where you accumulated more 1’s than successes was pretty hard to do, revised botching where it was no successes and one 1 was easier.
The switching from OWoD to NWoD (now known as Chronicles of Darkness) jettisoned botches and I don’t think I particularly miss them
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In "cringey video games" news, I joined a RuneScape Iron Clan a few weeks ago and now everyone but me has gotten bored and left. That's such a self-own on so many levels.
I remember playing that like twenty years ago! I got my grubby little eighth grade hands on an adamant square shield before practically anyone.
In 2001 that was top gear.
top. gear.