Quote from: RPGPundit on December 14, 2021, 05:15:55 AM

Quote from: Persimmon on December 12, 2021, 09:53:11 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 11, 2021, 03:12:58 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 11, 2021, 02:09:09 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 11, 2021, 01:41:14 PM
My experience has really been the contrary. Players who have rolled sub-optimal stats end up being surprised that at worse, it doesn't much matter, and at best it lets them think of more character to give their PC.

That's the same argument (i.e., either doesn't matter or let's them think of more character to give them) some players have for putting their characters in wheelchairs. 

There's a difference between random rolls, character concepts (I mean, sometimes a wheelchair-bound character might be appropriate for some types of games), and Diversity Quotas.

The difference between an 11STR fighter and an 18STR fighter is a +3 to hit and damage, that's it. Makes some difference, obviously, at levels 1-3, becomes increasingly less important as you go on.  An 11STR character isn't crippled, he's TYPICAL. An 18STR fighter is meant to be incredibly rare (unless you're being cheap with the character generation).

The biggest difference is that the thing that defines the 18STR fighter is already obvious, he's Strong-Man.  But what defines your 11STR fighter?

Funny; that's why I've come to like the fact that certain iterations of D&D like Swords & Wizardry & White Box give across the board XP bonuses for high Charisma and sometimes Wisdom scores.  So if you want to play that fighter with average strength or thief with a 10 Dex and have a cool concept for it, you're not necessarily shortchanged for the low prime requisite.  Maybe that thief is a conman swindler type, hence the 16 Charisma....

In Lion & Dragon, Charisma modifies your base saving throw, and your results when rolling on Critical hit tables. Because charismatic people tend to be lucky.

Charisma can take one far in life.  I don't like it being called a dump stat, by many.  It has value.

QuoteYou're conflating setting with propaganda. Is vanilla D&D propaganda for polytheism? No, then why would my game be propaganada for Christianity?

Then I guess game when all magical Indians are pure and noble, and all wicked Europeans were wiped out by magical meteor is also just a setting

QuoteYou forget Spain was also conquered by the muslims, I do know I descend from muslims, the last Moorish king of la barca. And the middle east region WAS conquered by the mongols.

Aaaaa... no? Like Moors conquered most of Iberia in 711. Their forces were mostly mixture of Arabs with Berbers and other people they took along way. After Ummayad dynasty lost Middle East to
Abassids - their last prince fled to Cordoba, and estabilished Emirate here, later Caliphate. Later it was part of few subsequent Berber ruled Muslim Empires founded in Morocco, and finally after Reconquista re-took majority of Iberia, by independent Grenada (who of course was too weak to survive long after breaking with Morocco).

History of Iberian Muslims was though connected to West North African Berbers for all time.

Meanwhile Altaic people - Turks and Muslims basically never reached so far, even in times when Ottoman Turks ruled almost all Muslim-Dom their African domains ended in modern Algeria (and both Algier and Tripolis were semi-independent vassals, with Egypt being only province belonging by law to Empire itself . Seljuk Turks first Altaics to really do much mess in Semito-Aryan Muslim East, never conquered anything in Africa (modern Iraq was their central domain, and modern Israel closest place to Africa they conquered), Mongol Empire never reached even Holy Land, not to mention Africa - their Muslim provinces so called Il-Khanate was also centred in Iraq and Iran, and they conquered part of Anatolia.)

So no influx of Mongolian or Turkic DNA to Morocco or Muslim Iberia, no in any statistically visible numbers anyway.

QuoteBeing worse than an 18 STR fighter.

I can deal with the idea of a random roll take what you get game. But I don't find it very fun anymore. There's only so many ways you can dress up an 11 STR fighter until it gets tiresome.

See, that's why as big fan of random rollling, I'm also big on random rolls of background, family, history and so on. There's always something unique to find, if it's more than 3d6 six times in row, invent reason why you are mediocre.

QuoteIf not for things like spellcasting needing certain scores to cast higher level spells I'd think it'd be just as easy to just strip ability scores out entirely and use the base abilities of the classes and their levels.

You can strip this away as well, and assume that if you're good enough to become wizard, you gonna be good enough to cast 9th level spells on level 18.

QuoteIn Lion & Dragon, Charisma modifies your base saving throw, and your results when rolling on Critical hit tables. Because charismatic people tend to be lucky.

Do they? In midst of battle?

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 14, 2021, 05:47:11 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 14, 2021, 05:15:55 AM

Quote from: Persimmon on December 12, 2021, 09:53:11 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 11, 2021, 03:12:58 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 11, 2021, 02:09:09 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 11, 2021, 01:41:14 PM
My experience has really been the contrary. Players who have rolled sub-optimal stats end up being surprised that at worse, it doesn't much matter, and at best it lets them think of more character to give their PC.

That's the same argument (i.e., either doesn't matter or let's them think of more character to give them) some players have for putting their characters in wheelchairs. 

There's a difference between random rolls, character concepts (I mean, sometimes a wheelchair-bound character might be appropriate for some types of games), and Diversity Quotas.

The difference between an 11STR fighter and an 18STR fighter is a +3 to hit and damage, that's it. Makes some difference, obviously, at levels 1-3, becomes increasingly less important as you go on.  An 11STR character isn't crippled, he's TYPICAL. An 18STR fighter is meant to be incredibly rare (unless you're being cheap with the character generation).

The biggest difference is that the thing that defines the 18STR fighter is already obvious, he's Strong-Man.  But what defines your 11STR fighter?

Funny; that's why I've come to like the fact that certain iterations of D&D like Swords & Wizardry & White Box give across the board XP bonuses for high Charisma and sometimes Wisdom scores.  So if you want to play that fighter with average strength or thief with a 10 Dex and have a cool concept for it, you're not necessarily shortchanged for the low prime requisite.  Maybe that thief is a conman swindler type, hence the 16 Charisma....

In Lion & Dragon, Charisma modifies your base saving throw, and your results when rolling on Critical hit tables. Because charismatic people tend to be lucky.

Charisma can take one far in life.  I don't like it being called a dump stat, by many.  It has value.

Exactly, and I think that in Old-school D&D it's underused, which is why I made it a more useful stat.

I've been a huge fan of Mayfair Games' early 90s Demons line of products since I first bought them back when they were published.  I recently decided to revisit the collection and found out there was one published supplement, a boxed set called "To Hell & Back," that I had never seen.  I found a shrink-wrapped copy on ebay & had my wife buy it for me as an early Christmas present. 

On the first page they have this Note on Language: "For the sake of convenience the male gender is used as a neuter term throughout this product. This does not imply any chauvinism on our part, it simply takes up less space and makes for much smoother reading."

That's really all you need.

Quote from: Persimmon on December 19, 2021, 03:24:41 PM
I've been a huge fan of Mayfair Games' early 90s Demons line of products since I first bought them back when they were published.  I recently decided to revisit the collection and found out there was one published supplement, a boxed set called "To Hell & Back," that I had never seen.  I found a shrink-wrapped copy on ebay & had my wife buy it for me as an early Christmas present. 

On the first page they have this Note on Language: "For the sake of convenience the male gender is used as a neuter term throughout this product. This does not imply any chauvinism on our part, it simply takes up less space and makes for much smoother reading."

That's really all you need.

Why does anyone need or want to post a blurb about what pronouns are being used? I never understood the desire to call attention to it.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on December 19, 2021, 04:43:21 PM

Quote from: Persimmon on December 19, 2021, 03:24:41 PM
I've been a huge fan of Mayfair Games' early 90s Demons line of products since I first bought them back when they were published.  I recently decided to revisit the collection and found out there was one published supplement, a boxed set called "To Hell & Back," that I had never seen.  I found a shrink-wrapped copy on ebay & had my wife buy it for me as an early Christmas present. 

On the first page they have this Note on Language: "For the sake of convenience the male gender is used as a neuter term throughout this product. This does not imply any chauvinism on our part, it simply takes up less space and makes for much smoother reading."

That's really all you need.

Why does anyone need or want to post a blurb about what pronouns are being used? I never understood the desire to call attention to it.

Immunization against accusations of sexism.  Granted, it doesn't work, but that doesn't seem to be a requirement for immunizations anymore...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 19, 2021, 08:18:00 PM

Quote from: Jason Coplen on December 19, 2021, 04:43:21 PM

Quote from: Persimmon on December 19, 2021, 03:24:41 PM
I've been a huge fan of Mayfair Games' early 90s Demons line of products since I first bought them back when they were published.  I recently decided to revisit the collection and found out there was one published supplement, a boxed set called "To Hell & Back," that I had never seen.  I found a shrink-wrapped copy on ebay & had my wife buy it for me as an early Christmas present. 

On the first page they have this Note on Language: "For the sake of convenience the male gender is used as a neuter term throughout this product. This does not imply any chauvinism on our part, it simply takes up less space and makes for much smoother reading."

That's really all you need.

Why does anyone need or want to post a blurb about what pronouns are being used? I never understood the desire to call attention to it.

Immunization against accusations of sexism.  Granted, it doesn't work, but that doesn't seem to be a requirement for immunizations anymore...

I can see that. Personally I never paid any attention to it. Maybe that's just me. Although I do see it a helluva lot more nowadays than in the 1980s.

I don't know if Joe Wokeman's new target audience will appreciate the way he describes "menstruating persons" though.