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I have long hated niche protection, and I think I've finally figured out how to express why.  To explain, let me start with a game where, in theory, it kind of works.

So take D&D.  Fighter, cleric, mage, thief.  In combat, the fighter fights, the cleric is a secondary fighter who decides when or whether to heal or turn undead, the thief sneaks around and tries to set himself up for a backstab (or just stands back with a shortbow once he sees his actual chances), and the mage, while he may have the least to do on a turn by turn basis, decides when to bring the artillery in with a Fireball or Sleep spell.  There's some strong niche protection, and not everyone's equally involved every turn, but in principle everyone has a role in combat.

And out of combat (and again, in theory) everyone should have something to do as well.  The fighter is a leader of men, the thief wrangles traps and locks and spy missions, the cleric can heal and preach to villagers, the mage can research spells or scribe scrolls.  I'm aware this part starts to break down in later editions, and especially where the words "face man" or, even worse, "diplomancer" can be uttered with a straight face, but that was the original ideal, especially in games that assumed downtime.

So we've had that concept of class protection from the very start.  But that's been combined with people getting used to stable groups of four or five players (which wasn't the case right at first, though it emerged pretty quickly), and we got stuck with the idea of niche protection.  And now I've seen groups and individuals in everything from Traveller to Savage Worlds to L5R start talking spontaneously about niche protection as if it's either a good thing or just a baseline assumption.

But stop and think about that.  Take Traveller, or sci fi generally.  If your niches shake out as, say, "pilot/ship guy", "combat specialist", "party face", and "ship's doctor/medic" you've just accomplished the opposite of what the original class system did.  Because now there's only one player with something certain to do in combat, one player with something to do in social situations, one player to do in chases or flight scenes, and so on.

That in turn imposes a burden on the GM, to "challenge" each character - except really it works out as name-checking everybody's separate skill sets.  So every session or every adventure ought to have a social test to get past (but not one that lasts a full night of play), every adventure needs a combat (which is somehow going to have to challenge the combat monster without pasting the noncombatants, an added burden), every adventure needs some kind of technical challenge which just so happens to require whatever engineering, repair or computer skill one character has, and so on.

But if involving all the characters is such a good thing, how much better would it be to just have a party full of generalists who can all be involved in multiple types of challenges?  If everyone's got a combat skill of some kind, but no one's head and shoulders above the rest, the GM can involve and challenge the whole party without turning the worst combatant into tomato paste if he stumbles across the combat monster's intended foe.  If the game has different social skills, why not split Diplomacy, Bluff and Seduction across three different characters instead of stacking them all on one with a maxed out Charisma, who's magically always present to talk to NPCs for everyone else in the group?

I think this is one reason I like Traveller's random character creation.  Because you can try for certain things, but out of a group, at least one person's likely to get Mechanic whether they like it or not, you may well see some skill overlap around Pilot or Engineer, and in general you get a mix of skills you may not have expected or desired if you were trying to min-max and match your skills to your attributes and your expected party role.  That's a good thing!  Skill overlap is a good thing for involving more players in challenges.  And, tactically it's good to have some backup if someone gets shot (or the player just misses a session).

Similarly, the last time I ran L5R I just flat out told the group, "hey, try to make well rounded characters.  Everyone should have something to do in combat, everyone should have one of the social offense skills, every samurai should have a courtly skill of some kind, whether it's a Lore or Perform or Artisan skill."  I didn't actually veto anyone making a combat monster or a helpless courtier, but I warned them up front that if they did I wouldn't be tailoring any challenges to them.  So they might well make paste out of any one challenge they came across if it matched their skills, but I wouldn't go out of my way to challenge them or involve them on their highest strength every session.  And that campaign ran better than when I've seen min-maxers go for niche protection in L5R.

So I'll make a claim, though it applies more to point-buy and skill based systems than well designed class systems:  at a meta-game level, niche protection is just plain bad for games.  It's bad GMing if the GM is the one encouraging, and it's bad play if it's players seeking it out.  For games that differentiate them, by all means distinguish characters with different weapon skills or fighting styles, different technical skills, and different social skills, but it's far better to spread those out across the group than stack them on one character.

Anyway...  Am I wrong, and there's a counter-argument I'm not seeing?  Or is this not even news to anyone here, and I've just been unlucky in some of my face to face groups?

"Niche Protection" is more a factor of the table than the game. And it morrors different areas of focus. A wizard is a poor fighter because theyve focused their studies elsewhere. They can still fight. But they dont have all the skill a actual fighter or cleric has. Thieves are the least niche protected. Anyone can climb, pick locks, backstab even. The thief just does it better. And so on.

But at individual tables you can see all sorts of treatments up to and including players with the idea everyone is locked in one role and thats that.

BX is where you get the early wake-up call that there arent any niches really since everyone starts out fighting much the same, its just weapons proficiency and abilities that set one apart.

5e takes that even further. Everyone fights the same, non-casters can pick up a few spells, casters can learn to wear armour, and everyone can learn the thieving skills.

And non class systems are not immune to this either. Ive seen players of Gurps complain about how some other character had skills too simmilar to their own. And its 95% of the time the players that are trying to enforce it. Never seen a DM try to. In fact seen many discourage it.

Its not even limited to RPGs. Some players are more territorial of their function in a game than others and try to either peg others into simmilar holes or at least make sure no one is encroaching on their turf.

Ive seen people just flip out at the mere idea everyone playing the same class. I suspect 3 and 4e D&D edged wording to imply you needed a balanced group and that playing the same as someone else was not balanced? Just a impression got from one glance through and only noted it at the start.

Id lay good odds others have seen the diametric opposite. Sessions where everyone was lock-stepped into one role-one-class-each. Sounds brutally boring.

Currently in 5e the group I am DMing for is comprised of two casters, Sorcerer and Wizard, and one Paladin. The group Im playing with is Two casters as well, Druid and Warlock, and one fighter. Though I've been playing the warlock as more fighter than caster. In both groups one player happened to pick up some thieving skills.

Currently discussing doing an all Fighter group once the current campaign winds down.

I think the problem is more the idea of finding contrived reasons or "bending over backwards" for making tests specifically for each character.
If one ditches that notion, and is prepared to throw a fight against a non-combat character or a social obstacle against an anti-social one if need be, then it makes even more character playing, i'd say.
Also, it makes a world of possibilities emerge.

I think it really depends on the players. Some, probably most, only like certain aspects of RPGs - combat or social encounters or solving puzzles/whatnot by creative skill use. Trying to make everyone a generalist forces them to do things they probably don't want to, while taking away from the fun stuff they like (and giving that to other people who might not like it much).

Original Traveller would often give you the type of character you didn't want to play. Go into the Army wanting to be a gun bunny, but end up being a mechanic.

I think a better solution, although still not ideal since it can force people into playing styles they don't like, is "troupe" play, where everyone has 3-4 characters and they simply use the one appropriate to the given scenario or situation.

Quote from: Dave R;907714Anyway...  Am I wrong, and there's a counter-argument I'm not seeing?  Or is this not even news to anyone here, and I've just been unlucky in some of my face to face groups?

Your "guys, for the upcoming adventure my suggestion for PCs is as follows..." is good approach and it should be applied more often. If followed, it solves the problem of scenario <-> classes mismatch, or, in case of stubborn "my way or no way" players, it makes it his choice to take worse seat in the theater (while the better ones are unoccupied and free to take).

And just a side note: nowadays players often demand far too much control over the game - they mistake GM for an employee of McDonald, who is there to serve them. Unlike the McDonald they aren't willing to pay for that service.

The only reasons that I don't find the "niche protection" concept the most moronic and useless ever to come out of D&D are (a) that Gygax came up with alignment, and (b) as Omega correctly points out, you really can't blame this on TSR, because the concept is something the gaming culture created.  I hate it so strongly that it wound up being #2 on my bucket list of Gaming Geek Fallacies (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/09/gaming-geek-fallacies_13.html) and the impetus for starting a gaming blog.  To wit, this rant:

Gaming Geek Fallacy #2: We Have To Have One Of Everything

No, we really don't.  The concept of "niche protection" is one of the more bizarre tropes the wargaming roots of our hobby's stuck us with.  Let's see if I have this straight: we decree that a questing team needs an artificial balance of certain archetypes (archetypes that, I might add, are not necessarily found in all of the fictional stories which are the underpinnings of the hobby). The players are compelled to make the expected selections, often ensuring that one or more run a character he or she does not wish to play. We then design pre-packaged, commercial "modules" so that a party lacking the proper percentage of these archetypes is punished for their failure to make the "right" choices in rollup.

What are my problems with it, I've been asked?

*  It's not only entirely artificial, the roles are arbitrarily chosen. The Tank / Blaster / Healer / Rogue paradigm presupposes -- farcically -- that these are not only the only roles conceivable, but that they're the only ones desirable.

*  It's a self-justifying paradigm; we need to "protect niches" because some game systems are designed so that you can't succeed without them.

*  Decades of RPGs with freeform or skill-based systems have proven we don't need them ... and never really did.  Heck, this isn't universally the case across genres.  I've heard some of the most rabid defenders of niche protection concede that they don't feel it's necessary for SF or supers games.  Why not?  Is there some reason why "niches" for fantasy is essential, but not for other genres?  Is it that SF novels or comic books lack identifiable archetypes?  Or is this more of a case that the first really big RPGs for SF (Traveller) and supers (Champions) were classless systems lacking easily definable and exclusive niches, so people weren't conditioned to think they had to have them for those genres?

*  It's quite easy -- truly it is -- to write scenarios that don't require (say) a thief or a priest to succeed.  Heck, I've had all-warrior and all-magician groups, and I've had campaigns go for years without characters who were any good at disarming traps or could call upon divine healing.

* It retards creative thinking. I remember quite well a niche protection debate where a poster flung the gauntlet at me: what if a locked door is key to the scenario and you didn't make the party bring a locksmith along? Huh? Huh? Well, says I, the party could bash the door down. Or the wizard could witch their way through somehow. Or they could pull the pins on the hinges. Or they could look for another way into the room. Or they could find out who had the keys and filch/bribe/seduce them from the owner somehow. Or the GM could devote a scrap of brainpower to developing scenarios that didn't revolve around a skill the group lacked. (This, of course, would require that (a) the GM didn't play out of "modules," or (b) exercised his privilege to change them if he did.)

* What's wrong with redundancy?  Characters die.  The player with the key skill can't make the session. There are countless circumstances where multiple characters with the same skill make the task go much faster or much more safely ... never mind that combat redundancy is only ever, well, "redundant" if you never fight more than a single opponent at a time.  (I view the "But I have to be The Best in the party at something!" as the province of whiners channeling stereotypical 1950s Hollywood women who go into hissy fits if another woman shows up to the party wearing the same dress.)

* It reflects fictional sources but poorly. Especially before the late 1970s and the advent of gaming fiction, duplication of skills was rampant. Did JRRT worry that Aragorn and Boromir had much the same skill set? Did Fritz Leiber worry that his dynamic duo were both thieves? For every movie with Only One Of Everything, there was a Seven Samurai.

Beyond that, niche protection is one of the more angst-ridden subjects in gaming.  People get pissed off when they feel their "thunder" is being stolen.  People get pissed off because they think it was their turn to run the mage.  People get pissed off because they're being forced to play the cleric, again.  People get pissed off because it seems THAT guy always gets to play what he wants.  People get pissed off because one niche is (or is perceived to be) poorly balanced against another.  People gets pissed off when playing Niche A because someone in Niche B is doing a perceived aspect of Niche A better.  People get pissed off because the only face time they get is when someone wants a lock picked or a wound healed, and the rest of the time they're relegated to being REMFs.

Much of what drives the ongoing controversy about railroading GMs is related; with the widespread practice of running nothing but commercially-produced "modules" straight out of the shrinkwrap, paired with a deep unwillingness to change a jot of them to suit their groups, GMs and groups require that the niches be filled because the modules (allegedly) demand it of them.

My wife, for example, played in a campaign in high school with her cronies. Around a bunch of testosterone-soaked boys, she was stuck with being the party healer. The concept didn't bug her, per se, and sure, she got to roll dice a couple times a session and do her healing spells. The "niche," however, didn't guarantee her a say in tactical planning or decision making, and in fact she didn't have one. What the rest of the group valued was the ability to put hit points of damage on the enemy, and that she lacked.  She was stuck, however, with the character she had and wasn't allowed to trade out for an archetype which would be better respected ... because they "had to have one of everything."

Even the alleged virtues of the system, as articulated by its defenders, are weak:

* It's good to play characters who aren't good at everything?  Terrific, then design one ... who's stopping you?

* It's good for weak characters to be useful?  Shouldn't this be enforced with group dynamics and by the GM instead?  (Or, well ... in a skill-based system, a character doesn't have to be "weak" just because he's a performer or a scholar.  Better not jeer at Tanri the busker, because she works out at Saragam's dojo and she'll whap you upside your head.)

* Characters in class systems have different "flavors?" What makes restricting the number of available roles more varied and interesting than taking what you want?  (Beyond that, my flavor is oreo, thanks.  If you can't hack any ice cream other than vanilla-chocolate-strawberry, whatever; you stick to those.)

* Characters ought to have defined functions?  Why do I need to have one-word labels for all my characters, and what makes this a virtue?

* "Enforcing the genre expectations?" Please. If the GM can't manage to run the anticipated genre and the players aren't interested in running the anticipated genre, no character class written will compel them to do so. You can never legislate the munchkins out of existence. You can say, bizarrely enough, "Nice try, but no."

* It's too hard to design characters outside of pre-defined niches?  Quite aside from that there are countless gamers out there who don't need training wheels, many a game has optional "templates" based around popular roles, without requiring that players choose one or the other.

Alright, so some game companies would have to do a lot more work to write adventures which could be solved in more ways without niche protection.  (Other game companies, the ones who work with classless systems, seem to manage just fine, of course.)  But how many of us don't work with commercial "modules?"  What's our benefit in buying into this fallacy?

Quote from: Catelf;907721I think the problem is more the idea of finding contrived reasons or "bending over backwards" for making tests specifically for each character.
If one ditches that notion, and is prepared to throw a fight against a non-combat character or a social obstacle against an anti-social one if need be, then it makes even more character playing, i'd say.
Also, it makes a world of possibilities emerge.

That is certainly part of it. The other part comes from the idea of what a "challenge" is. In many cases a challenge simply means making a successful roll of X difficulty. Quite often the gaps in ability between a specialist and someone who is supposedly competent are large enough to drive a truck through. The player, not wanting to "suck" puts all available resources into his or her stupid PC trick and the GM wanting to make sure that the character is properly "challenged" sets the hurdles for success so high that only the specialist has any hope of success.

This ridiculous paradigm is played out again and again all in the name of providing adequate spotlight time for each specialist. This results in all the other players being spectators while the spotlighted player hoots and hollers because of having a bonus that makes rolling a 25 or higher a piece of cake.

Why does this keep happening?  For starters the game systems themselves, some more than others ( d20) encourage it. Also there is mentality involved in the approach to play that I have dubbed the Ricky-Bobby syndrome. IF YOU'RE NOT FIRST YOU'RE LAST!  Players with this philosophy won't contemplate attempting to do ANYTHING in a game unless they have the highest bonus. The whole game is simply throwing the highest bonus at any given situation . Mathematically solid but boring as all hell.

This isn't the players fault alone, not by a long shot. Players wouldn't approach play like this if it wasn't for inflexible GMs who run games in which throwing large bonuses at problems is the only solution that will work. Too much of what is used to resolve challenges comes from system math and not enough fun creative input from participants. So long as we keep expecting the game system to do all of our thinking and judging for us this is what we will have, simple expected responses to system demands.

Quote from: Dave R;907714So I'll make a claim, though it applies more to point-buy and skill based systems than well designed class systems:  at a meta-game level, niche protection is just plain bad for games.  It's bad GMing if the GM is the one encouraging, and it's bad play if it's players seeking it out.  For games that differentiate them, by all means distinguish characters with different weapon skills or fighting styles, different technical skills, and different social skills, but it's far better to spread those out across the group than stack them on one character.

Anyway...  Am I wrong, and there's a counter-argument I'm not seeing?  Or is this not even news to anyone here, and I've just been unlucky in some of my face to face groups?

Totally agree with this. I referee Traveller way different than most, and don't allow meta-gaming that you see in so many Traveller sessions. If you've read Agent of the Imperium, that is how I get players to role-play their characters.

Your points are well-worded and I commend you for it. Here's to more threads like this one.

I do see a couple of counterpoints:

1. Players in skill-based games creating "specialists" probably do so because, like in real life, they are rewarded for doing so. A group of four PCs with Diplomacy-1 is more costly and less effective than one PC with Diplomacy-4. Cross-training (having 1 or 2 PCs with at least Diplomacy-1) may be a plus, but once you've given PCs free reign to generate their characters, IME, some degree of specialization is to be expected.

2. Tailoring challenges is okay, but an easier road might be to allow for scenarios with multiple solutions. I am very much a seat-of-the-pants GM and enjoy introducing NPCs that are just as likely to become patrons or foes. I am often surprised with PCs' solutions, combat and non-combat alike.

Quote from: Dave R;907714But stop and think about that.  Take Traveller, or sci fi generally.  If your niches shake out as, say, "pilot/ship guy", "combat specialist", "party face", and "ship's doctor/medic" you've just accomplished the opposite of what the original class system did.  Because now there's only one player with something certain to do in combat, one player with something to do in social situations, one player to do in chases or flight scenes, and so on.

That in turn imposes a burden on the GM, to "challenge" each character - except really it works out as name-checking everybody's separate skill sets.  So every session or every adventure ought to have a social test to get past (but not one that lasts a full night of play), every adventure needs a combat (which is somehow going to have to challenge the combat monster without pasting the noncombatants, an added burden), every adventure needs some kind of technical challenge which just so happens to require whatever engineering, repair or computer skill one character has, and so on.

Or even worse, you get to the point where everyone has a niche in combat, because that's usually always done through mechanics (where social interactions aren't, depending on table), so now everyone can fight, just in a different way, but the Rogue is also a skill monkey, the Cleric is a mini-fighter with spells, and the Wizard can cover any other role, provided he has the time and spells (and in 3e, for example, where every possible casting restriction every devised was removed, he was) and the Fighter...fights, no longer all that much better than the others.  Moving from classes to niche protection and focusing all mechanics on combat was a mistake of WotC-era D&D.

In other games, look at Firefly, or even Star Wars.  A lot of the characters have some crossover, but there might be specialists among them.  Look at the Episode IV crew, they all can fly ships, they all can fire a blaster, but each has different other talents.  Same thing with Firefly, only Jane and the Doctor are pure specialists.

The problem is, some players have to be "the best" at something, and need to make sure that at some point, the spotlight is fully upon them as they become the center of attention and the focus of the story.

Niche Protection is useless horseshit...although in certain types of games it does make sense to have specialists, or at least a team where each needed competency is handled by *someone*.  An example would be the Heat/Leverage/Shadowrun type of game.  But even then, they work just fine without a team of Hyper-Specialists.  If you don't have a God-Level Samurai, then you need to do things differently, because Rock n' Roll against a platoon of guards isn't an option.

Step 1: Don't play a class based system

Step 2: ????

Step 3: Problem solved

Quote from: CRKrueger;907735Or even worse, you get to the point where everyone has a niche in combat, because that's usually always done through mechanics (where social interactions aren't, depending on table), so now everyone can fight, just in a different way, but the Rogue is also a skill monkey, the Cleric is a mini-fighter with spells, and the Wizard can cover any other role, provided he has the time and spells (and in 3e, for example, where every possible casting restriction every devised was removed, he was) and the Fighter...fights, no longer all that much better than the others.  Moving from classes to niche protection and focusing all mechanics on combat was a mistake of WotC-era D&D.

In other games, look at Firefly, or even Star Wars.  A lot of the characters have some crossover, but there might be specialists among them.  Look at the Episode IV crew, they all can fly ships, they all can fire a blaster, but each has different other talents.  Same thing with Firefly, only Jane and the Doctor are pure specialists.

The problem is, some players have to be "the best" at something, and need to make sure that at some point, the spotlight is fully upon them as they become the center of attention and the focus of the story.

Niche Protection is useless horseshit...although in certain types of games it does make sense to have specialists, or at least a team where each needed competency is handled by *someone*.  An example would be the Heat/Leverage/Shadowrun type of game.  But even then, they work just fine without a team of Hyper-Specialists.

Even in Shadowrun it'd be expected that anyone at least has a few points in Pistols to be able to shoot their way out of the broom closet, if things go down South farther than Sherman.

I strongly support classes, but I don't have much use for niche protection.

I view classes not as "this is how I participate in the game" and more as "this is how I solve problems". So, fighters are the best at breaking things with standard physics. Clerics are the best at resisting or defeating malign magic. Magicians are the best at taking short cuts by changing physics.

Starting from a baseline ur-class, I've designed my classes so that there is a basic level of competency which is then built upon by the specializations that the class offers. Each class has a means to overcome or evade an obsticale, although some classes are more efficient at overcoming certain obsticles than others.

I think it was Kevin Crawford who mentioned "strong" and "weak" niche protection.
I like weak niche protection. I dislike strong niche protection.
CP 2020 springs to mind, where it's skill based, but each "class" gets their one role special ability.

Quote from: Baron Opal;907745I view classes not as "this is how I participate in the game" and more as "this is how I solve problems".

Ditto. Although the line between participation and problem solving is probably a vague one.

Interesting conversation.  'till now, I haven't given it much thought mostly because as a GM it feels like there is little I can do to prevent it without being arbitrary at chargen.  I also know I know that niche protection is annoying as hell from a GM perspective, and that it is a sacred cow to most players who insist on developing "well-balanced" parties with specialists to handle any situation.  It doesn't matter if it's a class or skill based game either, players design their parties as a mufti-fasceted bonus maximizing machine as a matter of course.

I don't tend to worry about niche protection.  Especially not "strong" niche protection/making sure to highlight peoples' abilities.

What I do do is two things, at least for the relevant types of games:

1) I make sure that the characters are relevant to the adventure and vice versa.  If someone makes a pilot character in a space opera game, then, yeah, flying spaceships around is going to be A Thing at least some of the time.

2) I present problems to the players, and let them figure out their own solutions.  Presumably they're smart enough to figure out how to use their own stuff to fix problems.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;907750I think it was Kevin Crawford who mentioned "strong" and "weak" niche protection.
I like weak niche protection. I dislike strong niche protection.
CP 2020 springs to mind, where it's skill based, but each "class" gets their one role special ability.

Yeah - they are like 'archetype templates' - Good example.

I'd love to see D&D re-worked like this. But as the Class System thread indicates, most people would consider it "D&D". I'd still like to see a fantasy game structured like this built on the Interlock chassis with modifications. That would be interesting.

Ravenswing covers most all my thoughts/opinions on it.
It's never been something I've endorsed and I think I generally prefer not to play with folks who do.
But I have seen a good bit of GM advice recommending character creation be done together so the group can be 'balanced'... and I've seen a lot of groups that subscribe to that notion. There's the usual mantra in any D&D game that 'someone has to play a healer!'
There seems to be a sibling notion that goes along with it that the PCs need to operate like a crack team of Navy Seals... at least that's the line I keep hearing from various Pathfinder/D&D players, "We can't play this adventure path unless everyone knows their function in the group!".
I think it comes out of folks playing lots of World of Warcraft, which also shoves the team construct down your throat by trying to force group members into certain roles and having a very narrow path to success (at least in raids).

I have never worried about niche protection in the games I run. I create sandbox for the player characters to explore and interact with, seed it with adventure hooks, and turn them loose. I do try to set out hooks that feature what the characters are most competent at as this is often what the player is most interested in doing during the game.

Not every hook relates to a character skill set though, and I am fine with a party pursuing a hook that they lack the obvious skills to tackle. A group of non-combat focused characters can sign on to be caravan guards if they want to but will likely face a greater challenge than a group of fighters would.

I also like to see player ingenuity and creativity. I don't set one solution puzzles. Instead I set a situation and let teh players come up with their own solution. I have seen groups deal with locked and trapped doors through thieves picking the lock and disarming the trap, burning the door, wizards using Knock spells, even a group that took out pickaxes and tunneled through the wall next to the door. To me niche protection seems a bit like computer games where there is one correct solution to the adventure so you need the set of characters that will provide that solution.

I tend to think of intentional "niche protection" as a sign of design failure in a game.

On the other hand I do like games that allow specialization and to distinguish the abilities of characters who have extraordinary skills in their specialty, and wouldn't want those to be equaled by non-specialists, which is not the same thing as niche protection.

I think the idea of having a group of people with mixed skills to cover various needs is ok as long as it makes sense, but when it's forced and worked into the game design and classes and challenges designed to require those classes, I think that's annoyingly forced. I find it especially annoying when the idea is the players will for a party that must include a wizard, a thief, a cleric, and whatever else, else they will be screwed because the adventures are designed to need those.

I also don't much care for games that require a party to all be PCs. No one wants to be a healer? Get an NPC healer to join, or hire one if need be.

Looking back, a game that I think exemplified the virtues of weak niche protection, at least for me, was MERP.  There were classes, but they were pretty meaningless as everything was skill based. Furthermore, the list of skills was minimal with a strong emphasis on combat. Combat was vicious and deadly so no one ignored those skills.  You had 6 classes, but really you just had different flavors of fighters, fighting rogues, and magic dabblers who depended on their fighting skills to survive.  Magic was weak, especially at low levels, so even mages and animists took fighting skills so they would have a function in-between warming blankets and talking to trees.  There were no soft skills either, so character interaction depended on story, background and actual role-playing.  MERP was basically a combat engine (By today's standards people might say it was a flawed and  incomplete game) which funneled everyone into a fighting role of one flavor or another, because mechanically, that's what there was to do.  Players had to spend valuable points on the few non-combat skills, or invent stories and roleplay to create differentiation and "niches" within the setting.  None of this, I think, was intended by ICE, but it made for endlessly interesting characters, parties, combats, and stories.

I've never had a problem with "niche protection" and I am not even sure if everyone is using it the same way. Giving the PC's somewhere to shine is not a bad thing. I've never GM'd an adventure around a spotlight. Give them a problem and let them determine the best way to solve it. A locked door. The thief has the best chance of picking it. The Fighter can get through quicker but everyone will know, etc.. I like best the skilled templates like Chivalry and Sorcery where everyone can buy any skill as but the skills related to your class were at a discount. Everyone had a specialty but everyone broadened out as you became more experienced.

Rule-mandated nice protection is a way of propping up a lack of player interest. If I am playing a thief, and I am sitting at the table waiting for the spotlight moments when I get to pick a lock or sneak around, it suggests I have no motivation or engagement with the story. I'm just sitting there waiting for my turn for the GM to let me do my thing. Without niche protection and a specified role, how would I ever know when I was supposed to act?

I remember the issue of niche protection came up a lot back when Savage Worlds was new. Many people complained that without niche protection, all PCs would end up the same. I never had an issue with it. First of all, players just tended make their own unique character builds simply because they had different tastes. Even when players did make something that was similar on paper, like one party that had two swordsman, the characters never seemed similar in play. The players brought those characters to life in entirely different ways. Their stats could have been identical, and they still would have been different characters because they were different people. It also helped that SW has a wide variety of combat tactics. They had very different fighting styles, not because of the numbers on their sheets, but because of the tactical choices they made.

D&D gets a lot of blame for niche protection, but I got some good lessons from it. I started with B/X and characters are so mechanically simply that your character identity has to involve a lot more than what is on your sheet. While I like a lot of the complexity of character design that evolved in the '80s, it did encourage some players to think of their characters as purely what is on their sheet. If your character sheet isn't different than the guy next to you, then its the exact same character. That helps to fuel an obsession with niche protection. You need a game with a 1000 crunchy bits just to make sure that your character has bits that are distinct from everyone else.

Getting away from mechanics, there will always be people who are protective of their role. It's like in real life, how some people in the work place jealously guard a duty that anyone could probably do. That's an interpersonal issue though, and no rule is really going to help with that.

Quote from: Dave R;907714Anyway...  Am I wrong, and there's a counter-argument I'm not seeing?

You're not wrong, but there is a counter-argument.  Several, actually:  Mission: Impossible, The A-Team, Leverage, Ocean's Eleven, etc., etc.  Heck, for that matter, any combined arms tactical wargame.

There's nothing wrong with niche protection.  There's also nothing wrong with not having it.  But a game that mechanically enforces it is going to produce situations that reward it.

Quote from: Baulderstone;907792Rule-mandated nice protection is a way of propping up a lack of player interest. If I am playing a thief, and I am sitting at the table waiting for the spotlight moments when I get to pick a lock or sneak around, it suggests I have no motivation or engagement with the story. I'm just sitting there waiting for my turn for the GM to let me do my thing. Without niche protection and a specified role, how would I ever know when I was supposed to act?

Agreed.  And on a positive note, niche protection works well for new players who are getting comfortable with what they should do in the game, and with casual players who like to define their characters in a single word or short phrase.

QuoteI remember the issue of niche protection came up a lot back when Savage Worlds was new. Many people complained that without niche protection, all PCs would end up the same. I never had an issue with it. First of all, players just tended make their own unique character builds simply because they had different tastes. Even when players did make something that was similar on paper, like one party that had two swordsman, the characters never seemed similar in play. The players brought those characters to life in entirely different ways. Their stats could have been identical, and they still would have been different characters because they were different people. It also helped that SW has a wide variety of combat tactics. They had very different fighting styles, not because of the numbers on their sheets, but because of the tactical choices they made.

SW still has a reputation (I think undeserved) for producing "same-y" characters.  I hazard to guess this might come people with class-based assumptions.

Do I hate niche protection? Oh, boy, do I ever. I've ranted about it a couple times on my blog.

And bear in mind I prefer D&D and don't really care for the classless games anymore. I specifically gravitate towards OD&D because there's no real niche protection, especially if you approach it with the right attitude. You see, the classes aren't meant to exclude non-class abilities in OD&D. Being a fighter doesn't mean you can't try to open a lock or sneak up behind someone, and fighters can even cast spells by the book, with a Ring of Spell-Storing. Classes are meant to be extras, an indication of what that player wants to see more of. "I want to be able to use a lot more magic, so I will play a magic-user." vs. "I just want to hit stuff, so I'll be a fighter." By the book, 1st level characters all have the same chances of hitting an opponent, and they all do 1d6 damage, regardless of weapon type. Clerics don't even get spells until 2nd level, so you can't even use the "we need a healer" argument. There's just no real niche protection, and I prefer to accentuate those features.

I am convinced that niche protection led to many of the great evils of RPGs, including the proliferation of classes. Niche protection sucks.

I suppose I can be said to not like 'niche protection' because when I'm playing a class-based game, I'm usually playing as a multi-classed character.

D&D, and other class based games, I think of as an attempt to artificially generate niches. And it doesn't always work.
Lots of skill-based games still give characters that are quite distinct. A lot of it boils down to the game mechanic, I think, though the cost of a +1 also factors into it. If one character is rolling 5d6 and adding the pips to fight and the other is rolling 10 dice to fight, then you have a niche, whether or not there's a class in there somewhere. Meanwhile, a roll of d20 or d100 is likely to let whoever do whatever.

Quote from: Madprofessor;907814Agreed.  And on a positive note, niche protection works well for new players who are getting comfortable with what they should do in the game, and with casual players who like to define their characters in a single word or short phrase.

Sure. I don't object to classes or prepared templates. They are also a great way to get a handle on the kind of characters that exist in a setting. They become a problem when you mandatory classes needed for a party.

Someone mentioned Kevin Crawford earlier. I think Stars Without Number gets classes right. You have the class that is extra good at combat, you have the class that is great with skills and you have the psychic class. Each class has a lot of variety in it and can take any skill they want. Also, there is no skill required for a party. You can play a party with all warriors, all experts or all psychics, or any possible combination.

QuoteSW still has a reputation (I think undeserved) for producing "same-y" characters.  I hazard to guess this might come people with class-based assumptions.

I'm not surprised. While I still play SW off and on, I don't really participate in online discussion of it anymore. The Pinnacle boards were a friendly place, but I reached a point where I knew the system well enough that I wasn't getting anything out of talking about anymore. I'm just interested in playing it.

Quote from: daniel_ream;907795You're not wrong, but there is a counter-argument.  Several, actually:  Mission: Impossible, The A-Team, Leverage, Ocean's Eleven, etc., etc.  Heck, for that matter, any combined arms tactical wargame.

There's nothing wrong with niche protection.  There's also nothing wrong with not having it.  But a game that mechanically enforces it is going to produce situations that reward it.

Not just entertainment, but real life as well, most jobs have a niche they want their employees to fill.  Military/commando teams, civil engineering, construction work, I could go on.

The big problem with D&D's niche protection is that they present and then, from the first day, mucks it up by making Magic more useful and reliable than a sword to the face.  Early editions it wasn't noticed so much, because everyone was wowed by the new shiny!  But as they iterated and changed it, especially when certain magic loving designers touched it, destroyed any sense it had of players being specialists in their field, because magic could easily fill it for a little while.

What I generally want to avoid is when you have two characters who are basically trying to do the same thing, but one of them is just strictly shittier at it than the other character and will always be stuck in that beta position. There are a number of ways to work around this:

- Make gameplay broad, giving people more things to make their specialty. (But this needs to he coupled with a broad, universal competency so that you don't end up with the "and now it's Bob's scene" problem.)
- Include resources that can equalize unequal characters. (D&D does this through magic items, although the effect can be blunted by groups who follow certain types of treasure distribution.)
- Use a class system or similar mechanical measure to enforce (or somewhat enforce) these divisions.

And so forth.

One of the games which does a rather nice job with this is GUMSHOE: Character creation parcels the investigation abilities out amongst the PCs so that everyone has their unique angle on things, but everybody is broadly competent and if you're the one who gets the right idea then you're in good shape.

I also find that niche protection tends to be less important in groups which place more importance on where a particular idea comes than in groups where only the act of actually doing something is valued. For example, at my primary tables if Sue says, "George, you're the archaeologist. Can you tell how old the sarcophagus is?" and that pans out into an important lead, then Sue feels good about having come up with the idea and is supported by the rest of the table who share in that belief. This tends to be ideal, because George's contribution in such situations isn't devalued, either. The communal sense of contribution and participation is a rising tide that lifts all ships.

But I've also seen tables where Sue won't feel good unless she's the one who actually determines the age of the sarcophagus. Or tables where the others don't recognize Sue's contribution, so that over time she stops making those suggestions. (I'm not saying this is a verbal thing like, "Good job, Sue!", although it can be. It's a subtler social fabric than that.) These also tend to be the groups where players can't enjoy being audience members: If their character isn't actively doing something, they tune out. These groups are, IMO, strictly inferior to the groups that can take joy and entertainment from everything that happens at the table. (But I digress.)

Quote from: Ravenswing;907725* "Enforcing the genre expectations?" Please. If the GM can't manage to run the anticipated genre and the players aren't interested in running the anticipated genre, no character class written will compel them to do so. You can never legislate the munchkins out of existence. You can say, bizarrely enough, "Nice try, but no."

I wanted to comment on this one point: wanting to play a specific genre and understanding the genre conventions are two different things.  I often have players that want to play a specific strong genre game (Indiana Jones-style pulp adventure, Modern Age superheroes, Conan-esque sword & sorcery) but don't consciously understand the genre conventions and so tend to fall back on D&Disms because that's what they're familiar with.

Mechanics that enforce genre conventions, up to and including "character classes", are a convenient way of channeling the players into behaviour that gives them the experience they want.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907837Not just entertainment, but real life as well, most jobs have a niche they want their employees to fill.  Military/commando teams, civil engineering, construction work, I could go on.

The big problem with D&D's niche protection is that they present and then, from the first day, mucks it up by making Magic more useful and reliable than a sword to the face.  Early editions it wasn't noticed so much, because everyone was wowed by the new shiny!  But as they iterated and changed it, especially when certain magic loving designers touched it, destroyed any sense it had of players being specialists in their field, because magic could easily fill it for a little while.

Actually At least pre 3e D&D showed you that the Fighter had niche protection as the combat specialist and if the Magic User wanted to get in on the act they had to A: Live long enough and B: luck out and get all the spells, and C: Not get whacked while trying to cast. D&D is all about niche overlap in the end. Niche un-protection?

But players keep trying to enforce each niche. bah.

Im looking forward to this upcomming 5e session where we are all Fighters.

Quote from: Omega;907845Actually At least pre 3e D&D showed you that the Fighter had niche protection as the combat specialist and if the Magic User wanted to get in on the act they had to A: Live long enough and B: luck out and get all the spells, and C: Not get whacked while trying to cast. D&D is all about niche overlap in the end. Niche un-protection?

I dunno.  Every where I've read (which I admit is purely anecdotally) there's always been this 'gentleman's agreement' to not attack the magic user until the meat shields were dead/removed.

Quote from: Omega;907845But players keep trying to enforce each niche. bah.

Im looking forward to this upcomming 5e session where we are all Fighters.

Well, you all have a lot more healing available to you, unlike the previous renditions.

Quote from: daniel_ream;907842I wanted to comment on this one point: wanting to play a specific genre and understanding the genre conventions are two different things.  I often have players that want to play a specific strong genre game (Indiana Jones-style pulp adventure, Modern Age superheroes, Conan-esque sword & sorcery) but don't consciously understand the genre conventions and so tend to fall back on D&Disms because that's what they're familiar with.

Mechanics that enforce genre conventions, up to and including "character classes", are a convenient way of channeling the players into behaviour that gives them the experience they want.

My one attempt at running The One Ring with my local group failed for this reason. My players didn't real grok the Tolkien style, they were playing D&D in Middle Earth. The TOR rules mechanically enforce Tolkienesque play. It was not a good fit.

Now I am running Metamorphosis Alpha, a game which does have character niches, but adventuring success does not depend on a party having all the niches filled. Pure Strain Humans are natural leaders and have greater recognition from computers and robots, mutants get mutant powers and special abilities. Because mutations can vary widely from one mutant to another, sometimes randomly, it does not break down neatly into a Leader-Fighter-Healer-Defender-Rogue paradigm.

I think early D&D had less niche protection than it does now. In the early days the assumption was that everyone could try to do anything but some character classes were much better at doing certain things.  The Fighter and the Magic User could both try to climb the Cliffs of Insanity, search for secret doors, force open a stuck portal, swim a river, or disarm a trap. Their chances of success were generally left to the DM to decide.

I think players are more niche protective than game designers in general. Players are the ones who even when given a free form point based character generation system will divide up the roles and duties. "You be the Face. I'll be the Bruiser."

I completely ignore niche protection. If everyone in the group wants to play a thief, then I come up with some heist for them. If they all want to be rangers (which is awesome) then I come up with a forest adventure. All fighters or monks? Well that's easy enough. Sure it would be nice to have a complete skill set among the group but you can't expect it to work that way. Maybe if I was running Leverage where niches are built in, but the odds of my running Leverage are astronomically low when I can hack Marvel Heroic into something more versatile.

It's definitely an aggravated problem by video game training. Class or skill based system has zero-bearing as both can produce (hyper-)specialists. The big issue is adventure design, namely mission-based adventures.

Now, Mission-based adventure design is not a culprit inherently, but it does one thing very well compared to other adventure designs -- it allows spotlight time. Missions are fun in narratives (as daniel_ream noted: A-Team, Oceans Eleven, etc.) because, you guessed it, you can create elaborate Rube Goldberg scenarios where everyone has a chance to be a discreet star of the show -- their own moment to shine as a solo -- yet contribute to a larger, more spectacular whole. RPGs have a real challenge in emulating such narrative tricks however without somehow funneling player choice.

Missions can, and often are!, played where they are not so tenuously balanced upon such "Mouse Trap"-like board game intricacy.

However, what other medium thrives on funneled character choice? Video games. In giving the CRPG illusion of needing every character in the roster, even if for just that special dungeon (I won't lie, I love Edward from FFIV,) you get to pander to every beloved character in the CRPG narrative.

Late this converges with party optimization in case of "trick bosses." Eventually you hit a critical mass of "trick combats" that players build parties to handle as many contingencies as possible. Then comes the rise of the hyper-specialist.

With the hyper-specialist you get to the point where you should be able to "solo" "trick combats," thus minimizing party expenditure and maximizing party throughput. Those who do not excel in their niche weigh down parties in the face of the unexpected, and thus are sidelined as matter of course. Then you start getting into MMORPG-level stratospheres of efficiency micromanaging.

These issues are not new. You saw them develop in miniatures as people waited on bated breath for their "next codex to make their armies more viable." But video game training (and CCG training; MtG has done immense things for hyper-efficiency ganming calculations) has ramped this to its event horizon and it bleeds out everywhere now.

If you're not first in at least something, you're last. If your something doesn't come up often enough, you too are also "last," by your situational mastery being too situational: a.k.a. "cornercase." (This term derives from CCGs for rare cards that were not useful enough as mainstays, but still solid for those rare situational match-ups. And thus these somewhat valuable due to rarity, yet not all that useful, cards ended up in the "corner of the glass display case" for trade. Hoser cards, that which penalizes a particular faction or trait, are notorious "cornercase cards.")

And Mission-based adventure structures tend to be the most salient of RPG analogs to this hyper-efficiency mindset. Given it is also the easiest way to write structured adventures -- and slip frustrated novelization within the packaging -- it is an obvious progression of past dots connecting to a current image.

Quote from: Omega;907845Actually At least pre 3e D&D showed you that the Fighter had niche protection as the combat specialist and if the Magic User wanted to get in on the act they had to A: Live long enough and B: luck out and get all the spells, and C: Not get whacked while trying to cast. D&D is all about niche overlap in the end. Niche un-protection?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907850I dunno.  Every where I've read (which I admit is purely anecdotally) there's always been this 'gentleman's agreement' to not attack the magic user until the meat shields were dead/removed.

O_o "Gentleman's agreement" to lay off the 'squishies'? Wholly and utterly the very opposite of what I experienced and heard about in TSR D&D.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907850I dunno.  Every where I've read (which I admit is purely anecdotally) there's always been this 'gentleman's agreement' to not attack the magic user until the meat shields were dead/removed.

Interesting. And I'll bet I've played that way in the past. Didn't realize that.

Of late, though -- and can only speak for myself -- when the enemy notices someone is throwing spells, they immediately yell, "Wizard!" and go for the caster (especially if they have savvy leaders). I'm also guessing there might be some situations where seeing a spell cast also causes the bad guys to beat feet outta there. To take it one step further -- and, only IME -- an enemy intimately familiar with the party would make plans to shut down spell casters right off the bat. Capstone event I never got to in one campaign had the party being spied on for weeks while the ultimate enemies plotted a "foolproof" ambush. Never got to it, though.

Of course, the thing about ALL that is, you have to actually get to them in some way for any plan to work.:-)

I'm going to take some ideas in OpaOpaJr's post (that I agree with) and approach them in a different way: The badness that is niche protection is being encouraged by bad adventure design. Adventures are being designed as a series of puzzles or challenges aimed at a single solution. This is your set-piece battle, this is your diplomacy challenge, this is where the thief gets to pick some locks and disable some traps, and this is your magic challenge. And GMs, taking those cues, try to force players to solve the problem the way it's supposed to be solved, shooting down other proposed solutions.

But your typical orc-with-pie encounter is not necessarily a one-solution problem. You don't have to fight the orc. You could negotiate, you could use a Charm spell, you could keep him busy while the thief sneaks behind and steals the pie, you can trick the orc into chasing you while colleagues go back for the pie, and many other solutions. The statue puzzle that opens a door could be solved by figuring out the puzzle... or the strong guy could smash his way through the door, or the thief could try to trigger the mechanism directly, or the M-U could try a Knock spell or turn ethereal, or if the door is in use, the party could hide and wait to see how someone else uses the door...

Sure, you could be pig-headed about creative solutions to problems. Computer adventure games tend to have just one solution for each challenge. But that is because it's easier to program just one solution than it is to allow for multiple solutions. The whole point of playing a game with a live referee instead of a computer program is so that the referee can figure out whether Unforeseen Solution X will work. And once you allow that kind of play, niche protection becomes unneeded. You can have parties that don't have a thief or healer, or parties that are all fighters with just a few personality differences, but all the same skills. It's actually more fun that way.

Quote from: Opaopajr;907871RPGs have a real challenge in emulating such narrative tricks however without somehow funneling player choice.

I'm not entirely certain what that means, but the Leverage RPG is easily the best RPG treatment of the heist genre I've ever seen.  Admittedly, it's largely a narrative game.

Quote from: talysman;907885I'm going to take some ideas in OpaOpaJr's post (that I agree with) and approach them in a different way: The badness that is niche protection is being encouraged by bad adventure design. Adventures are being designed as a series of puzzles or challenges aimed at a single solution. This is your set-piece battle, this is your diplomacy challenge, this is where the thief gets to pick some locks and disable some traps, and this is your magic challenge. And GMs, taking those cues, try to force players to solve the problem the way it's supposed to be solved, shooting down other proposed solutions.

This is a great argument for open design, or scenario-based adventures. If there is not set reaction, then both player and GM can be more innovative.

I'll dredge up our latest here: Had what was basically a set piece raid on a festival the PCs had been planning to attend after the last adventure (the Druid PC was to perform a blessing ceremony, while the others had their own agendas to fulfill over the course of 5 [planned] days there. Lots of clues as to what was about to happen, which would all come together during and after the raid. I was looking forward to bringing back an old nemesis, eventually.

However...

...the PCs hit the road post-haste, pick up a trail from a clue-hook I'd thrown in there, previously, followed their noses and found the raiders' base by, ultimately, getting captured, then escaping (in what had to be the most ridiculous bit of poor decision-making-and-execution-plus-lucky-dice-rolls that I've ever seen).

BUT...

...they never found out what the raiders' plans were, because of the poorly planned (yet, ultimately successful) escape (2 of the three PCs died, but it's Dungeon World, and those crazy bastards managed to cheat death).  

SO...

...when the PCs finally DID attend said festival, penniless and clueless, they didn't bother to stay long enough to even BE there during the raid. Their imprisonment lost them all their fancy ass gear, and they had beaten feet after discharging their ceremonial duties, and raced off to find a cheaper place to regroup and get new gear (and since the blessing occurred on day #2, well, no reason to stay, right? [maybe that was poor GMing on my part, but maybe not--I didn't force them to stay--I just pointed out that stuff was expensive there, with the captive festival audience and all [like a Ren Faire, I figured]).

Nutshell: the aforementioned raid was a success, but the PCs don't know about that (yet). They also do not know they are now more or less in a race to get back to the lair where they were imprisoned to get their stuff back (including an item on loan to the Druid, who needs it to return to the loaner to get back the magical staff he exchanged it for) before the raiders decamp and hide somewhere else.

PHEW!

Anyway, the obvious point:

That's the prime advantage of a basic scenario and a couple maps, plus, basically lazy-GM'ing the adventure (which is the way the system we're using [Dungeon World] is written actually). We ended up with a better session, mainly because the players directed the action, and used their abilities in ways they saw fit, rather than waiting for a pre-planned challenge to pop up. I know that type of play isn't for everybody, but it seemed to me (as it has over the course of our early campaign) that me reacting to them (within the confines of the basic scenario, its actors and their motivations, plus world gears turning all the time, etc.), it seems to me to be a great way to run things. It helps, too, that the party is small, and that skills are more or less non-existent. The players protect their own "niches" by proceeding on the basis of their motivations, both individually and group-wise. Of course, there is absolutely class niche protection built into the system (no multi-classing, and minor crossover between classes). But, on the whole, their choices are being driven by their capabilities and experiences. So far, anyway. On the whole, everyone seems to like it. Well, so far...

I guess the question, then, is, whether a designer would be criticized for producing less-detailed adventures? We get into the habit of designing challenges. Some of those challenges are mechanical, depending on the system. Some characters are better at said mechanics. I assume, then, that designers of such adventures are just using what the system gives them. I might also assume that many players prefer it this way? (I really don't know, but D&D 5E/PF, in all that mechanical splendor, is such a behemoth in my area that I assume this is what the majority wants).

Quote from: Opaopajr;907876O_o "Gentleman's agreement" to lay off the 'squishies'? Wholly and utterly the very opposite of what I experienced and heard about in TSR D&D.

Really?  Then there must not have been a lot of wizard/magic user players then back in your day.  I've found that if you target the magic user first, you tend to turn off players from ever playing one ever again.  After all, what's the point if on a bad initiative, you're down because everything targets you.  ANd back in TSR and 3e D&D there was no mechanism to prevent the usually higher numbered enemies from mobbing the PCs quickly, even with hirelings and henchmen.  When you have monsters numbering between 20-200 or 40-400, that's a lot of potential damage spreading around.  And First Level Wizards, clad in their light clothes/robes would obviously be the first target to savvy goblins and kobolds.

In my travels (I moved a lot when I was a kid, and which again, I will stress, is purely anecdotal) the few games that used to be run with the bad guys being smart enough to target the squishies, tended not to have any in their gaming group, so after a while, a silent 'gentleman's agreement' came up where you took out the fighter types first.

Very MMO like, now that I think about it.

Not targeting the MUs is the tactical equivalent of having the opponents use only front charges sans missile support or flanking movements. It certainly simplifies the tactical situation for the PCs if all the opponents are stupid like that, but it isn't something I ever saw a lot of. But then your experience of D&D always seems to be 180-degrees from anything I've ever seen or wanted to see. I wonder how much of that difference was due to the acquisition of D&D by Wizards of the Coast and the CCG influence on 3E and later games.

Also if no one you played with ever targeted the MUs, it's no wonder you think they are overpowered compared to fighters.

Quote from: Opaopajr;907876O_o "Gentleman's agreement" to lay off the 'squishies'? Wholly and utterly the very opposite of what I experienced and heard about in TSR D&D.

Seriously.  The correct answer to " the magic users keep dying" is "so learn to protect them, shit-for-brains."

Never played with a 'gentleman' before. Heh not target kill the MU's? That's crazytalk.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;907911Seriously.  The correct answer to " the magic users keep dying" is "so learn to protect them, shit-for-brains."

HOW?  There are NO tools to keep them alive.  All goblins and koblods (and that's all that needs to be, the small pathetic monsters) can simply lob objects at the Wizard, like arrows, sling stones, and there's nothing any other classes can do.

You go ON YOUR TURN, the Monsters go on THEIR TURN.  That's how the game is built.  You should know, you were there, right?

You'd need to be able to move as an interrupt, but that would break the action and resource economy, leading to every single fight being so draining that most parties will not want to continue until the recovery.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907926HOW?  There are NO tools to keep them alive.  All goblins and koblods (and that's all that needs to be, the small pathetic monsters) can simply lob objects at the Wizard, like arrows, sling stones, and there's nothing any other classes can do.

It's a pity D&D doesn't have shields, or marching order. Somebody should add that to the game. Then people could move their fighters to the front line and have them raise their shields to defend the magic-user.

Why didn't anyone think of that?

Quote from: talysman;907927It's a pity D&D doesn't have shields, or marching order. Somebody should add that to the game. Then people could move their fighters to the front line and have them raise their shields to defend the magic-user.

Why didn't anyone think of that?

Uh, and HOW, mechanically does that actually help when they target the wizard?  A shield ONLY protects the user.  AND it doesn't actually prevent damage, it's a dodge modifier.  You are hit or not.  Marching order?  And how does that stop things like fire bombs, like bottles of oil lit on fire?  And you think Goblins or Kobolds wouldn't use those types of tools? In fact, clustering together is a GREAT way to hit the entire party.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907929Uh, and HOW, mechanically does that actually help when they target the wizard?  A shield ONLY protects the user.  AND it doesn't actually prevent damage, it's a dodge modifier.  You are hit or not.  Marching order?  And how does that stop things like fire bombs, like bottles of oil lit on fire?  And you think Goblins or Kobolds wouldn't use those types of tools? In fact, clustering together is a GREAT way to hit the entire party.

Lots of ways, let's start with AC bonus for cover. They CAN'T target the magician since they don't have line of sight. The fighters will have to suck up some damage when the vials shatter against their shields. Then, on the party's turn, the spear line goes down on one knee and sleep solves the problem. Because, if facing a howling horde of charging gobbos, we're going with spears and shields. Yes, if the party is ambushed by 80 goblins in a field, you're screwed. Other than that, you figure out how to live. Evolve or die, man.

I ALWAYS played the wizard, and the only "gentleman's agreement" was that the DM didn't have to chip in for the pizza.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907929

Quote from: talysman;907927It's a pity D&D doesn't have shields, or marching order. Somebody should add that to the game. Then people could move their fighters to the front line and have them raise their shields to defend the magic-user.

Why didn't anyone think of that?

Uh, and HOW, mechanically does that actually help when they target the wizard?

LOS. Jeebus H. Chris, this is why some people think they need 400 fucking pages of rules.

• And in a dungeon the bad guys (and you of course) often cannot lob shit over the heads of the front rank because it bounces or breaks when it hits the ceiling before it gets to the target. Trajectory. Parabolas aren't just something mathematicians invented because we were out of other toys to play with.
• And if the goblins are close enough to hit you with a thrown oil flask, then they are close enough for your missile troops to hit them. So maybe do that. Target of opportunity anyone?
• And if you are in a big white room with no walls, no cover, and a ceiling higher than you can throw shit and you are enormously outnumbered, and you are too stupid or slow to run away, then for you, today better be a good day to die, because that's probably what you will be doing.
  
• Maybe you should have tried to avoid or negotiate with those 4-400 goblins you saw hundreds of yards away in that big white room instead of metaphorically or literally circling the wagons and waiting for their attack.

Quote from: talysman;907927It's a pity D&D doesn't have shields, or marching order. Somebody should add that to the game. Then people could move their fighters to the front line and have them raise their shields to defend the magic-user.

Why didn't anyone think of that?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907929Uh, and HOW, mechanically does that actually help when they target the wizard?  A shield ONLY protects the user.  AND it doesn't actually prevent damage, it's a dodge modifier.  You are hit or not.  Marching order?  And how does that stop things like fire bombs, like bottles of oil lit on fire?  And you think Goblins or Kobolds wouldn't use those types of tools? In fact, clustering together is a GREAT way to hit the entire party.

Quote from: Baron Opal;907930Lots of ways, let's start with AC bonus for cover. They CAN'T target the magician since they don't have line of sight. The fighters will have to suck up some damage when the vials shatter against their shields. Then, on the party's turn, the spear line goes down on one knee and sleep solves the problem. Because, if facing a howling horde of charging gobbos, we're going with spears and shields. Yes, if the party is ambushed by 80 goblins in a field, you're screwed. Other than that, you figure out how to live. Evolve or die, man.

I ALWAYS played the wizard, and the only "gentleman's agreement" was that the DM didn't have to chip in for the pizza.

Quote from: Bren;907936LOS. Jeebus H. Chris, this is why some people think they need 400 fucking pages of rules.

• And in a dungeon the bad guys (and you of course) often cannot lob shit over the heads of the front rank because it bounces or breaks when it hits the ceiling before it gets to the target. Trajectory. Parabolas aren't just something mathematicians invented because we were out of other toys to play with.
• And if the goblins are close enough to hit you with a thrown oil flask, then they are close enough for your missile troops to hit them. So maybe do that. Target of opportunity anyone?
• And if you are in a big white room with no walls, no cover, and a ceiling higher than you can throw shit and you are enormously outnumbered, and you are too stupid or slow to run away, then for you, today better be a good day to die, because that's probably what you will be doing.
  
• Maybe you should have tried to avoid or negotiate with those 4-400 goblins you saw hundreds of yards away in that big white room instead of metaphorically or literally circling the wagons and waiting for their attack.

It's scary how people need hand-holding, or in some cases, can't even see the hand they could hold.

In OD&D, the assumption is that natural language and common sense applies. You can't hit what you can't see, and you can't move through a solid obstacle. If you don't believe that... why, OD&D has no rule that says you can't walk right through a stone wall or a closed door, so you must be able to, right? And if the goblins are in a locked room, they can just lob those fire bombs right through the walls!

So, three warriors standing side by side fill a 10-foot corridor. Goblins can't move past them unless they kill them first. The shields are to block the line of sight further. If you really need a ruling for the chance that a warrior can use a shield to deflect a fire-bomb that the goblins are trying to lob over the warrior's head, use a Dex check. If you don't have three warriors to form a line between the M-U and the goblins, retreat to a doorway and have one guy block the path. If you find a wide open space, don't go in until you have some idea what's in there and what your escape route is.

But if you absolutely positively need a written rule for this, play AD&D and use the cover rules. I don't care if a shield is a dodge modifier or not (although I doubt it is.) A wizard behind a shield wall has at least 50% cover, more likely 90 to 100% cover. There's your mechanical hand-holding right there. (For OD&D, I actually just halve the AC for 50% cover, halve again for 75%, and so on. Simple.)

I'd really like to know if Christopher Brady plays with a GM who runs combats with infinite line of sight and no consideration for obstacles, so goblins can target M-Us hiding behind pillars 120 feet away. With those kinds of rules, I could see why a "gentleman's agreement" would be necessary.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907850I dunno.  Every where I've read (which I admit is purely anecdotally) there's always been this 'gentleman's agreement' to not attack the magic user until the meat shields were dead/removed.

Well, you all have a lot more healing available to you, unlike the previous renditions.

1: Where? With any given session I've been in everyone and their brother twice removed focuses fire on the cleric and magic user/wizard. If they can get to them. No ranged ability or masses to bypass a fighter and yeah the fighter you have to get through to get to the wizard. Its not gentlemans agreement. Its just tactics at work.

Ive lost track of the times groups of kobolds or packs of rats have gotten around the fighter due to sheer numbers to come over and poke the wizard. Who was usually me. But lower number foes the fighters could hold off buying me time to cast or chuck darts.

2: We all adventure under the express assumption that short rests are not going to happen in any adventure. We'll take them if we can. But we never go in assuming we will. We did discuss us all taking the skills to make those cheap basic healing potions if they arent for sale anywhere. Especially if we are going with the harsher healing rules from the DMG.

In the last dungeon crawl I ran standard marching order was two combat-capable PCs up front, three henchmen with spears in the second rank, then the squishies then more henchmen in the rear. The way that the fighters guarded the squishies is being in the fucking way. You're not getting easy attacks on squishies past two ranks of guys with at least one rank having shields in a thin corridor. The PCs went to great lengths to ensure that as many fights as possible happened in corridors. Their mini-phalanx did great work against gnolls with two-handed swords who took up the whole corridor with their big-ass swords. In the open things were much messier but they could still do things like have the squishies get their backs to a tree and put some henchmen in front of them.

A gentleman's agreement not to target magic-users or clerics is just metagaming that flies in the face of what roleplaying ought to be about. So what if hardball turns off new players? After about their third or fourth dead PC they'll start to grasp what intelligent play means - and that's a good thing. If they don't, you can have an out of game discussion about what the word 'tactics' means and how it can (and will) be applied. Also...you are aware that 40-400 goblins means spread out over an entire lair, right?

Quote from: Bren;907936LOS. Jeebus H. Chris, this is why some people think they need 400 fucking pages of rules.

Yeah, that's why the books became bigger.  Because people wanted clarifications, also, very few people realize that because it's not in the book, it's OK to try it.  Most human beings, having a relatively cautious nature in general, will assume that unless it's dictated or clear, it's NOT available.

Outside of TSR and WoTC, bigger books means bigger costs and less profit, so saying bigger books make more profit is sadly untrue.  But really, that's just a strawman used by grognards (a French term meaning grumpy old man) to deflect the point.

And you're using physics and realism in D&D?  Ooo!  Ooo!  I can play this game!

Quote from: Bren;907936And in a dungeon the bad guys (and you of course) often cannot lob shit over the heads of the front rank because it bounces or breaks when it hits the ceiling before it gets to the target. Trajectory. Parabolas aren't just something mathematicians invented because we were out of other toys to play with.

OK, so obviously you don't play D&D because you'd know that's exactly what a 'to hit' roll signifies.  It's an attempt to hit the target in some manner.  And given that most AD&D 2e dungeons were built in 10x10 cubes stacked along a line or in a room like structure...  Splash damage is a thing.

Have you ever heard the expression 'Almost counts only in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades'?  If you don't then, here's the reason why certain attacks like Fireball has a blast radius listed.

So, let's use this argument of physics, given that the average hero is nearly 6 feet (Americans and their fascinations with amazons, I tell ya), in a base 10 foot cube, so they're going to be reasonably clustered and if you underhand throw, which will have an arc, you actually have a minimum 4 foot clearance.  If you're a trained lobber, that's not that much of an issue.  But the cool thing about 'grenades' is that you don't actually have to HIT the target, reasonably close is actually good enough.  Because in this case, oil being a flammable liquid has a tendency to spray and splash in a set pattern given the strength and angle the object being thrown.  Which is why there's a blast radius chart in AD&D.

Here's the short version rub:  You just have to hit close to them.  Smash it off the Fighter's leg, hit the ceiling and let the burning liquid drip down, hit the floor in between them all, all these cases, you now have Burning PC Syndrome, and oil fires don't work well with "Stop, Drop and Roll!"

Now, if we were REALLY using realism in D&D, then the PC's AC given to them by whatever armour they are wearing wouldn't actually matter, leaving them to have an Armour Class based on their Dex bonus alone.  Which, because it never actually scales, means that a grenade like object, the aforementioned oil, would be ever more effective, because it doesn't matter what level of magic armour you're wearing wouldn't ever help, whether level 1 or 31.

But thankfully, D&D being a game, and abstracting things like turning armour into a dodge bonus, rather than actually simulating what it does in real life, it's actually much gentler to the player experience.

Quote from: Bren;907936And if the goblins are close enough to hit you with a thrown oil flask, then they are close enough for your missile troops to hit them. So maybe do that. Target of opportunity anyone?

Not sure how realism works here, so I'm going to roll the dice for both sides and see who goes first.

Initiative says...  Oh look it's the GOBLINS!  Good luck!  At least all they have is bows and arrows today!

Oh, and remember, the Wizard's lower AC, with attendant penalties to hit in a group of people, here's hoping (and I'm being very, very generous here) that the 20 goblins (Because you'd have to roll 2d10x10 to get the size of the group, and that works out to about 100 goblins per encounter.  And I don't know of ANY level one party able to hire that many porters and henchmen to counter that number...) can hit!  Actually the odds of just their archers, not grenadiers, nailing your party wizard to the wall by the balls is pretty good.

So good in fact, that most of the D&D groups I interacted in the past 30 some years with subconsciously created the 'Gentleman's Agreement' of hitting Fighters first.  But, that's just an anecdote, not fact.

Quote from: Bren;907936And if you are in a big white room with no walls, no cover, and a ceiling higher than you can throw shit and you are enormously outnumbered, and you are too stupid or slow to run away, then for you, today better be a good day to die, because that's probably what you will be doing.

Grenades, or more accurately, Molotov Cocktails don't care about your stinking cover.  It burns just as well as you do!  Enjoy!  And that's assuming that the players had time to scramble into a defensive position, and even THAT is making a massive presumption that there's decent, non-flammable cover near by!

Remember, the Goblins have a chance of surprising the PC's.  Especially if the PC's are INVADING THE DUNGEON THAT THE GOBLINS HAVE TURNED INTO THEIR HOME!

Which realistically (there's that damn word again!) they probably would have, meaning they've got home ground advantage.

Also, cover makes it hard for the Wizard to SEE out, as hard as it is for the goblins to see IN.  Almost all spells are limited by being able to see the target.

But if the goblins have a couple of guys with a Molotov, they don't need to see the Wizard.  Who by the virtue of ALWAYS being able to hit with most of their spells are always the first thing they will target.  Because Goblins may not be smart, they ARE cunning.

Quote from: Bren;907936Maybe you should have tried to avoid or negotiate with those 4-400 goblins you saw hundreds of yards away in that big white room instead of metaphorically or literally circling the wagons and waiting for their attack.

Right, you haven't negotiated much have you?  Negotiations happen when BOTH sides, not just one, looks as strong as the other, and just taking what you want would cost more than bartering for it.  Which is why very few countries got to war, they'd rather make treaties and trade agreements to pass needed supplies through each other.

But here?  Assuming that the Goblins even want to talk, which given the numbers is a massive, if unrealistic assumption, they will be doing so from a position of strength.  Oh, and another key point of negotiation is that both parties need to have something that the other side wants.

PC party of 4+ maybe...  6 total porters that they can afford on the meager first level gold pile they still have after they've spent their allowance on gear, weapons and armour, vs. 20 to 200 goblins...

10 member PC party wants to live.

20+ Goblins want the party's stuff, and don't care how they get it.

Doesn't look too good does it?  I don't see exactly what the PC party can offer the Goblins to convince the little blighters to leave them alone.  In fact, it's more likely that the Goblins would be willing to give the PC's a head start on running, but only AFTER they give over all their stuff.  Otherwise it's Murder Time, Fun Time!  YAY!

Hell, that's what bullying is.  One side, the Bully, seeing themselves as more powerful than their victim and proving by taking whatever it is they want from the victim.


I love destroying white room assumptions!  Give me more!

What the hell dungeons have people been playing in that they are encountering tens of goblins at once in a single room or corridor?

200 goblins spread through out a multi-room lair is a much different proposition than 200 goblins all at once.

And I never heard of a gentleman's agreement not to target MUs, thieves, et al. You went in the dungeon you took your chances like everyone else.  Tactics like putting lower armoured characters out of the melee do a lot to improve survivability.

OK, now that's just idiotic. If 1st level PCs are fighting 100 goblins at once they're going to lose no matter what gentleman agreement is in place.

Quote from: Kellri;907947A gentleman's agreement not to target magic-users or clerics is just metagaming that flies in the face of what roleplaying ought to be about.

You mean like building a giant bonfire in front of the main entrance to the dungeon to asphyxiate all the goblins because dungeons are never designed with air shafts?

Or maybe spotting the secret entrance to the dungeon by looking for the constant stream of food bearers on their way in and porters carrying buckets of night soil out, because for some reason no one ever eats or shits in a dungeon.

There's rather a lot of "gentleman's agreements" inherent in D&D, not least of which that we are Not at Home to Mr. Science.

No, those would be design considerations. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with players doing any of those things you mentioned - I'd probably reward it. Wouldn't you? Generally, working out a clever solution is the point, not adhering to some kind of fantasy trope 'just because'.

On the other hand, if someone complained because having a group of monsters target their spellcaster wasn't 'playing fair' I would have a deep, long laugh at their expense and then carry on.

Quote from: daniel_ream;907952You mean like building a giant bonfire in front of the main entrance to the dungeon to asphyxiate all the goblins because dungeons are never designed with air shafts?

Or maybe spotting the secret entrance to the dungeon by looking for the constant stream of food bearers on their way in and porters carrying buckets of night soil out, because for some reason no one ever eats or shits in a dungeon.

There's rather a lot of "gentleman's agreements" inherent in D&D, not least of which that we are Not at Home to Mr. Science.

Don't really see the issue with that. I've had players do that sort of thing which just ended up with big pitched battles at the entrance of the dungeon as the party completely surrendered any element of surprise. Was fun, would do it again.

Quote from: Omega;9079421: Where? With any given session I've been in everyone and their brother twice removed focuses fire on the cleric and magic user/wizard. If they can get to them. No ranged ability or masses to bypass a fighter and yeah the fighter you have to get through to get to the wizard. Its not gentlemans agreement. Its just tactics at work.

Ive lost track of the times groups of kobolds or packs of rats have gotten around the fighter due to sheer numbers to come over and poke the wizard. Who was usually me. But lower number foes the fighters could hold off buying me time to cast or chuck darts.

2: We all adventure under the express assumption that short rests are not going to happen in any adventure. We'll take them if we can. But we never go in assuming we will. We did discuss us all taking the skills to make those cheap basic healing potions if they arent for sale anywhere. Especially if we are going with the harsher healing rules from the DMG.

But, you see, YOU are smart enough to shit unassisted.  Those who are not, complain about the rules.

Quote from: talysman;907941So, three warriors standing side by side fill a 10-foot corridor.

Yes.  That is specifically mentioned, and CHAINMAIL explicitly states that a figure controls a space on either side to prevent infiltration.

But once again, YOU are smart enough to shit unassisted.

Quote from: Bren;907936LOS. Jeebus H. Chris, this is why some people think they need 400 fucking pages of rules.

• And in a dungeon the bad guys (and you of course) often cannot lob shit over the heads of the front rank because it bounces or breaks when it hits the ceiling before it gets to the target. Trajectory. Parabolas aren't just something mathematicians invented because we were out of other toys to play with.
• And if the goblins are close enough to hit you with a thrown oil flask, then they are close enough for your missile troops to hit them. So maybe do that. Target of opportunity anyone?
• And if you are in a big white room with no walls, no cover, and a ceiling higher than you can throw shit and you are enormously outnumbered, and you are too stupid or slow to run away, then for you, today better be a good day to die, because that's probably what you will be doing.
  
• Maybe you should have tried to avoid or negotiate with those 4-400 goblins you saw hundreds of yards away in that big white room instead of metaphorically or literally circling the wagons and waiting for their attack.

Or maybe you should only play with people smart enough to shit unassisted.

Quote from: DavetheLost;907949What the hell dungeons have people been playing in that they are encountering tens of goblins at once in a single room or corridor?

200 goblins spread through out a multi-room lair is a much different proposition than 200 goblins all at once.

And I never heard of a gentleman's agreement not to target MUs, thieves, et al. You went in the dungeon you took your chances like everyone else.  Tactics like putting lower armoured characters out of the melee do a lot to improve survivability.

But...but... that requires that you are smart enough to shit unassisted!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907948And you're using physics and realism in D&D?  Ooo!  Ooo!  I can play this game!

I'm guessing you probably can't play with realistic tactics, but let's see, shall we.

Quote… and if you underhand throw, which will have an arc, you actually have a minimum 4 foot clearance.  If you're a trained lobber, that's not that much of an issue.

I was assuming an overhand throw. The normal throwing style for both Molotov cocktails and grenades is overhand. I suppose underhand is possible--especially for the girl-goblins softball team. But yeah, sure skirmishing, underhanded throwing goblins might not hit the ceiling. But they can’t throw over the front rank of PCs without some risk of hitting the ceiling well before they hit any PCs. So we’re back to first hitting the less squishy guys in front not the MUs.

By the same token, if the PCs get the initiative on this spread out rank of skirmishers then if the distance is long enough, some of the skirmishers get dead from PC missile fire (which may cause them to drop their lit oil bombs turning them and their other pals into char) or if the distance is short, all the skirmishers get dead as the PCs close and melee the guys who have no sharp weapons in their little gobliny mits.

QuoteOh, and remember, the Wizard's lower AC, with attendant penalties to hit in a group of people, here's hoping (and I'm being very, very generous here) that the 20 goblins (Because you'd have to roll 2d10x10 to get the size of the group, and that works out to about 100 goblins per encounter.  And I don't know of ANY level one party able to hire that many porters and henchmen to counter that number...) can hit!  Actually the odds of just their archers, not grenadiers, nailing your party wizard to the wall by the balls is pretty good.

So you think that somehow 100 goblins (or even 20 goblins) are all lined up and shooting their bows at the PCs down a 10’x10’ hall. Can you provide some drawings of how that works without hitting (a) the goblins in front of the back three or more rows or (b) hitting the ceiling? Also, Line of Sight…again. Goblin arrows don’t pass through the first two ranks of shield bearing fighters to hit the MU. The arrows hit the first two ranks of fighters and most of the arrows bounce off their heavy armor. Also, what Daztur said.

Quote from: Daztur;907951OK, now that's just idiotic. If 1st level PCs are fighting 100 goblins at once they're going to lose no matter what gentleman agreement is in place.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907948Grenades, or more accurately, Molotov Cocktails don't care about your stinking cover.

1) You do realize that you’ve moved from tossing a lit lantern, or a clay flask of lantern oil and a torch, or a clay flask of lantern oil with a lit rag stuffed in one end to Molotov cocktails (alcohol & gasoline), Greek Fire, and/or napalm and you do realize those specialty and difficult to produce inflammables burn completely differently than does simple lamp oil, right? And that specialty items are even more expensive than lantern oil.?

Now if it is just lantern oil, then just because lantern oil that hits the shield of the guy in the front rank it is not going to turn half a dozen people into human torches. And it is questionable if is going to splash 6 feet past his shield, him, and the two guys behind him to hit the MU in the third rank. I seem to recall lantern oil doing something like 1d6 damage per round, not the 6d6+ of the average fireball.

2) And if it isn’t lantern oil but some specialty inflammable like Greek fire, then given your assumptions about the deadliness and area of affect (gasoline, Greek fire, napalm, etc.) you must have had not only had a gentleman’s agreement not to target the MUs but another agreement that the goblins didn’t target anyone with Molotov cocktails else the entire party would be rolling around on the ground in flames while the goblins butchered their undefended asses?

QuoteRemember, the Goblins have a chance of surprising the PC's.  Especially if the PC's are INVADING THE DUNGEON THAT THE GOBLINS HAVE TURNED INTO THEIR HOME!

They have a chance for surprise if surprise is possible. But they probably don’t surprise the PCs from far away if the goblins are carrying lit Moltov cocktails. Because in the middle of a huge empty space or a long, straight tunnel the PCs who probably have their eyes open, will see the flames of the goblins who are holding the lit oil flasks. Just like the goblins would see the party’s torches and lanterns at a distance if they had line of sight. You don’t roll for surprise if surprise isn’t a reasonable outcome.

QuoteBut if the goblins have a couple of guys with a Molotov, they don't need to see the Wizard.  Who by the virtue of ALWAYS being able to hit with most of their spells are always the first thing they will target.  Because Goblins may not be smart, they ARE cunning.

And they have x-ray vision…oh wait a minute they don’t have X-ray vision. So how again, do the goblins clearly target the MU when their line of sight is blocked by two ranks of armored shield carrying fighters? Or perhaps you didn’t mean they were targeting the MU but that they were randomly tossing lit oil bombs in the general direction of anyone who approaches their lair. Which, by your rules, turns anyone on the other end into a flaming pile of long pig – including all the armor wearing fighters and clerics. (Also as an aside, those goblins must have their treasure in the form of jars of oil.)

QuoteBut here?  Assuming that the Goblins even want to talk, which given the numbers is a massive, if unrealistic assumption, they will be doing so from a position of strength.  Oh, and another key point of negotiation is that both parties need to have something that the other side wants.

PC party of 4+ maybe...  6 total porters that they can afford on the meager first level gold pile they still have after they've spent their allowance on gear, weapons and armour, vs. 20 to 200 goblins...

How do you fit those 200 goblins in the 20’x20’ room the PCs just entered?

And the tactics people are talking about isn’t done with 4 PCs and a jackass to haul loot. Well it might be done by the jackass. The tactics are done with at least 5-6 fighters in front, at least 2-4 in back, and the MUs behind two ranks of shield bearers.

QuoteI love destroying white room assumptions!  Give me more!

The only thing you are destroying is your credibility.

Quote from: Bren;907968The only thing you are destroying is your credibility.

You cannot destroy what never existed.

Quote from: DavetheLost;907949What the hell dungeons have people been playing in that they are encountering tens of goblins at once in a single room or corridor?

AD&D 1e in their monster manual, does not say that it's for the WHOLE dungeon, just gives a no. encountered.

Quote from: DavetheLost;907949200 goblins spread through out a multi-room lair is a much different proposition than 200 goblins all at once.

It would, if the game bothered to clarify.  But the issue is that people read differently than you apparently.  Unfortunately, not always to the benefit of the game.

Quote from: DavetheLost;907949And I never heard of a gentleman's agreement not to target MUs, thieves, et al. You went in the dungeon you took your chances like everyone else.  Tactics like putting lower armoured characters out of the melee do a lot to improve survivability.

Of course you've never heard of it, no one has EVER mentioned it, it's just happened.  And you just proved it, 'tactics like...', which is useless against those who use ranged weapons by the by, and goblins would love those, as it keeps them out of danger and does wonders against the real threat.  And even with cover, and penalties, the lower AC but bigger threat Magic User would die often, more often than most players would put up with, if there wasn't this BS tactics masquerading as the gentleman's agreement to target the heavies, even if the magic user is actually more damaging than the fighter is.

The point is that no one plays D&D without niche protection, and one of those protections is not focus firing on the party wizard off the word go.  Which is the smart thing to do, because of the fact that magic is god in D&D.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;907969You cannot destroy what never existed.

You should know.  Weren't you writing a book about some pointless shit?  Or are you just happy that you can swing your 'My way is the right way, because I was there, UHN!' e-peen all over the thread again?

Jesus Christ indeed.

A material factor in me deciding I wanted no part of D&D, 37+ years ago, were the masses of Cheez-Whiz snorting morons whining "But the rules say you can't DO that!"  One of the two specific crystallizing incidents was in my magic-user attempting to physically grab a broadsword and take a two-handed baseball swing at the unprotected back of the Big Bad, and being fed the preceding line.  Repeatedly.  At least until I packed up my dice, muttered, "Eff this," and walked.

But, gosh.  That was a generation ago.  I don't nowadays expect to see posts from anyone, with an IQ higher than room temperature, asserting that you can't use a shield to block thrown things coming through your position towards someone behind you.  IT'S A BIG FUCKING SHEET OF METAL.  Of course it can block those things.  You can't find a rule to cover it?  MAKE ONE THE FUCK UP.  On the spot even.  What's that you say?  But shields can't block Molotovs?  Want me to pull up Youtube clips of riot police doing just that, against Molotovs a great deal more volatile and dangerous than medieval tech crap?

I have sympathy for Bren and others attempting to deconstruct your nonsense, but it's completely rhetorical on their parts, because you'll unquestionably come up with some other reason why common sense is suspended at your table.  And if your players are down with you running a stylized wargame, where no tactic not explicitly mentioned in the rules or preapproved by you will work, charming, whatever.

Quote from: Daztur;907951OK, now that's just idiotic. If 1st level PCs are fighting 100 goblins at once they're going to lose no matter what gentleman agreement is in place.

Okay, party of six, Fighter, Magic User, Cleric, Thief, Dwarf, Elf.  Let's assume a standard open entrance, with 10 x 10 stone corridor going straight into the hill side.  Don't give me a staircase or chasm to work with the goblins can't afford the occupational health and safety insurance on those things.  Two guards up front.   Two guard rooms with 20 goblins in bunks or at tables down the hall 50' on either side.  Assorted goblins further down but readily alerted right?

So, first the elf and the thief scout the hill for chimneys and back doors.  If there's one wait for a fire to be lit and plug the chimney.  Give it a day, you bought two weeks rations right.  You stashed most of them up in the trees where bears can't get them so you don't have to lug all that food around when there's gold to be had right?  Anyhow, ambush any goblins that come out to check the chimney.  Surprise thins their numbers out a bit.  Pick off the guards with the elf's long bow and the fighter and dwarf's crossbows.  If one is getting away the magic user uses magic missile to make sure they don't.  The cleric and thief need to be watching for returning goblin raiders and foragers, if any show up, ambush them.  Wait for the watch to be relieved, pick them off too.  It's good to watch until you know how often the watches change so the magic user can rememorize magic missile.

Okay, chances are you won't get more than two sets of the watch before the goblins figure out something's happening.  Set a smoky camp fire about a mile away to give them a direction to go chasing after.  Then you set the big fire in the entrance and start fanning the smoke into the dungeon.  Lie in wait, snipe opportunity targets, disengage before they can figure you out and get organized.  Circle back and snipe the guards.  Look for an opportunity to sleep a large group in one place and cut their throats.  (No, it says "Lawful Good" right here on my character sheet!)  At this point the goblins are probably well aware that you're whittling away at their numbers with wolf pack tactics so it's time to get inside to greet them properly when they get home.  If you've got enough of them out there looking for you, fight your way in, pick an ambush location, grab any treasure you can.  Secure the back door and put a scout, probably the thief out there.  Turn wooden doors in to portable manlets.  Reduce lines of attack with caltrops and prespilled oil flasks.  At this point you hope to get time for the elf and wizard to memorize light and sleep.  Two sleep spells might be better but being able to instantly light up an ambush and not mess around with tinderboxes is worth the time.  When the goblins withdraw from your first ambush it's time to hit the back door.  If they have the back door heavily guarded it might be better to fight your way out the front.  Just make the most of your sleep spells and take the early stages slowly, maximizing kills to losses and keep things moving.  If they can pin you down and bring their numbers to bear, they can kill you.

Anyhow, there's other ways to work it.  Sure,  100 goblins in an open space will get the dwarf, the rest of the party can out run them.  If they know where a dragon or an army is they can run in that direction and hope the goblins suffer the worst of it.  And a smart party in an open space will flee before the enemy is in bow shot range.

If the DM tells you you're surrounded by 100 goblins in an open space it's time to mutiny.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907899Really?  Then there must not have been a lot of wizard/magic user players then back in your day.  I've found that if you target the magic user first, you tend to turn off players from ever playing one ever again. After all, what's the point if on a bad initiative, you're down because everything targets you.

Ignoring your well-established and abject lack of knowledge when it comes to mechanics, I'm also struck by the bizarre excluded middle fallacy here: There's a vast expanse between "gentleman's agreement that nothing will ever attack you" and "everything will attack you and only you".

Quote from: Christopher Brady;90794810 member PC party wants to live.

20+ Goblins want the party's stuff, and don't care how they get it.

Doesn't look too good does it?  I don't see exactly what the PC party can offer the Goblins to convince the little blighters to leave them alone.  In fact, it's more likely that the Goblins would be willing to give the PC's a head start on running, but only AFTER they give over all their stuff.  Otherwise it's Murder Time, Fun Time!  YAY!

Hell, that's what bullying is.  One side, the Bully, seeing themselves as more powerful than their victim and proving by taking whatever it is they want from the victim.


I love destroying white room assumptions!  Give me more!

A PC, who is able to speak goblin-ese, the one with decent CHA score, supported by Bluff/Diplomacy/Threaten (or similar mechanical, edition-dependent solutions) might address Goblins, or whoever leads them and say they are carrying a bomb which is gonna make big KABOOM if dropped. Big enough for this whole dungeon to become eradicated of all life, including Goblins themselves. Or that they are sent by Ugruk-Ha-McGoblinBoss, who sends them to negotiate an union and joint operation against man-tribes. Or that they are traveling shopkeepers selling leather jackets. Or something like that - players are usually resourceful enough to develop a convincing lie pretty quick.

In short: you're right when you say have to look as strong as the other. It's not the whole truth, because there are many ways to approach negotiations, but just for the sake of discussion let's say it's about "from the position of strength" scenario only.
So, you're right, but you're also wrong when you assume it's about pure, physical strength that might be judged by simply looking at the other guy(s).


--------------------

Side note: guys, do wizards and similar spellcasters in your games are ALWAYS easy to recognize, because they wear some fancy clothes, pointy hats, long beards and make the general impression their shit doesn't stink? I mean, I didn't read whole thread but the idea that the other party always knows what class are adventurers seems a bit weird to me.

Quote from: DavetheLost;907949What the hell dungeons have people been playing in that they are encountering tens of goblins at once in a single room or corridor?

(http://img-nex.theonering.net/images/scrapbook/orig/7557_orig.jpg)


:cool:

Quote from: daniel_ream;907892I'm not entirely certain what that means, but the Leverage RPG is easily the best RPG treatment of the heist genre I've ever seen.  Admittedly, it's largely a narrative game.

Never seen Leverage, but of the methodologies I've seen by other games trying to shape play to emulate it's idealized parent literature more I wholly stand by my statement. They end up more restrictive wishful thinking than truly productive mechanics reflecting the source material on the whole.

I stopped using smart tactics for my monsters when I got to the point where I could destroy parties with a balanced combat encounter pretty easily. Focus fire. Target the casters first. Hell, the game it crystalized for me is when I had a bunch of giant beetles gang up on a half-giant fighter, and dropped him in one turn. I now call it the "Beetle problem" Simply having the monsters use focus fire can be pretty devastating.
Now, I use semi-random tactics. I justify this approach as the confusion of combat, that a foe might choose to make a risky charge, or choose to play it safe, and I haven't got the time to delve into every orc's psychology every turn when making decisions for them. I just assign a tactic to a die roll chance (2 in 6 chance this goblin is gonna try to chuck a spear at the wizard in the back row this turn!) Not every monster is a tactical genius with a GM's eye view of the battlefield.

I think I kicked a hornet's nest and may have derailed the topic. Sorry, everybody! :o

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908000I stopped using smart tactics for my monsters when I got to the point where I could destroy parties with a balanced combat encounter pretty easily. Focus fire. Target the casters first. Hell, the game it crystalized for me is when I had a bunch of giant beetles gang up on a half-giant fighter, and dropped him in one turn. I now call it the "Beetle problem" Simply having the monsters use focus fire can be pretty devastating.
Now, I use semi-random tactics. I justify this approach as the confusion of combat, that a foe might choose to make a risky charge, or choose to play it safe, and I haven't got the time to delve into every orc's psychology every turn when making decisions for them. I just assign a tactic to a die roll chance (2 in 6 chance this goblin is gonna try to chuck a spear at the wizard in the back row this turn!) Not every monster is a tactical genius with a GM's eye view of the battlefield.

Shifting tactics through interpreting monster psychology/instinct is actually a topic worthy of its own. I would personally prefer a "How To" topic so people can share useful advice. (I prefer "plot/declare first, then initiative rolls" for Fog of War myself.)

"Make it so, number one!" /Picard voice

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;907911Seriously.  The correct answer to " the magic users keep dying" is "so learn to protect them.

I took to hiding around corners of the dungeon and just popping out to toss a dart or flask of oil now and then. Helped that in BX (And OD&D) at the early levels everyone fought on the same level. The only difference was usually HP and AC since weapons all did 1d6 at first.

All hell usually broke loose whenever we met either A: ranged opponents or B: more opponents than the frontlines could keep busy. Wilderness encounters were hell as half the time wed get caught out in the open. Much preferred the dungeon environs where we could bottleneck or at least narrow the avenues of attack. If all else fails. Run. We ran alot.

Quote from: Bren;907968I was assuming an overhand throw. The normal throwing style for both Molotov cocktails and grenades is overhand. I suppose underhand is possible--especially for the girl-goblins softball team. But yeah, sure skirmishing, underhanded throwing goblins might not hit the ceiling. But they can't throw over the front rank of PCs without some risk of hitting the ceiling well before they hit any PCs. So we're back to first hitting the less squishy guys in front not the MUs.

Chris is kinda right. Many dungeons are stated to have around a 10ft high ceiling. Even assuming a 6ft tall fighter thats still 4ft of clearance to throw flasks over the front lines. Bowmen and slingers still need LOS as you cant effectively arch close range at that low a ceiling without losing penetration power.

Might be usefull for disrupting spellcasting though.

Back on topic.

Something alot of people forget is that at least in O and BX D&D at the early levels everyone fights much the same. As noted above aside from AC and HP there was nothing differentiating a fighter from a magic user. Same to-hit, same damage (since weapons all did 1d6).

Quote from: Omega;908009All hell usually broke loose whenever we met either A: ranged opponents or B: more opponents than the frontlines could keep busy. Wilderness encounters were hell as half the time wed get caught out in the open. Much preferred the dungeon environs where we could bottleneck or at least narrow the avenues of attack. If all else fails. Run. We ran alot.

My wife's wizard has her personal bodyguard: a sword-and-board guy tasked to just about nothing else in battle than to keep unfriendly people from pestering her.

Also, my groups use tactics.  They are firmly dedicated to the principles of outmatching the enemy, that frontal attacks are for suckers, that getting holed up without a line of retreat is for the birds, that surprise is a virtue, that fighting to the last man just means that you'll indeed have to fight until the last one drops, and that the proper way to handle failure to ensure that the preceding principles work to the party's advantage is to run like hell.

In so doing, the aforementioned wizard has been damaged, by enemy forces in combat, the eyepopping total of four times in thirteen years of play.

To play devil's advocate a bit some of what Christopher Brady is saying makes sense although he's doing a horrible job of arguing it.

There's a big difference between a culture of play and a set of rules. For example I remember reading (on Story Games of course) someone talking about how they played Diplomacy. He said he played with a club where pretty it was almost unheard of to break agreements and people lost games rather than betray an ally as if they did that people would never ally with them in future games. Although they used the same rules I did the way the game worked out in actual play sounded completely different from how I've always played that game, and I'm a pretty squishy carebear as far as Diplomacy players go.

Similar things happen with D&D. The rules are only a small part of how a D&D game is played and the rules often didn't do a very good job of explaining the way the authors played D&D or explaining WHY the rules were written as they are. Thief skills are probably the best example of this. If you use them as they were intended to be used they work fine, but it's really hard to communicate that and the books don't do a very good job of doing that. It's got to the point that when I play D&D with my students I don't teach them anything about thief skills but just roll a d100 as needed and narrate what happens as they're so easy to misinterpret.

Same all down the line. A lot of people who had no one to teach them how to play and just read the books approached them like board games rules in which everything not explicitly permitted is forbidden which lead to all kinds of weird shit. A lot of people with only the rules to work with ended up with cultures of play that were pretty different from what was intended and which often didn't match the rules to well and then developed hacks and work-arounds to make the rules match how they played them.

A big part of what has made the OSR as successful as it is is people finally getting to hear how rules a lot of the rules were originally supposed to be used. Reading a lot of Gronan's posts years ago was a real eye-opener for me since a lot of things about old school D&D were just not things I understood as a kid by reading the rules.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908000I stopped using smart tactics for my monsters when I got to the point where I could destroy parties with a balanced combat encounter pretty easily. Focus fire. Target the casters first. Hell, the game it crystalized for me is when I had a bunch of giant beetles gang up on a half-giant fighter, and dropped him in one turn. I now call it the "Beetle problem" Simply having the monsters use focus fire can be pretty devastating.
Now, I use semi-random tactics. I justify this approach as the confusion of combat, that a foe might choose to make a risky charge, or choose to play it safe, and I haven't got the time to delve into every orc's psychology every turn when making decisions for them. I just assign a tactic to a die roll chance (2 in 6 chance this goblin is gonna try to chuck a spear at the wizard in the back row this turn!) Not every monster is a tactical genius with a GM's eye view of the battlefield.

A good solution to the beetle problem is to declare actions then roll initiative (for the GM just deciding what to do before the players decide and/or scribbling down some notes). If you do that focus fire is not necessarily a good tactic. For example if you have 10 guys shooting at one guy and the first arrow kills him then the other 9 are a complete waste. Also unless the NPCs have a clear idea of how tough the PCs are, it makes tactical sense (based on their limited information) to spread out their attacks a bit to avoid overkill and wasted attacks. Now if the NPCs DO know how tough the PCs are then in a lot of cases it'd make sense for them not to engage the PCs in the first place unless they're fairly suicidal.

Also simple dungeon geography helps a lot as it often makes it really hard to focus your fire.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907970AD&D 1e in their monster manual, does not say that it's for the WHOLE dungeon, just gives a no. encountered.

They assumed (foolishly in your case) that the reader would be able to figure out on their own that 200 goblins can't fit in a 20'x20' room so that there must be (a) far fewer goblins, (b) a much bigger cavern or room, or (c) the goblins are spread out over multiple rooms.

QuoteIt would, if the game bothered to clarify.  But the issue is that people read differently than you apparently.  Unfortunately, not always to the benefit of the game.

The game assumed a reader with enough intelligence and common sense to figure out some things on their own, like choices (a) - (c) above or, as Gronan so picturesquely phrases it, to shit unassisted.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908000Not every monster is a tactical genius with a GM's eye view of the battlefield.

I totally agree. Just like not every monster will fight to the death like a berserker trying to kill or even just damage the PCs.

Quote from: Omega;908011Chris is kinda right.

Even a stopped clock is right once or twice a day.*




* Mine is digital and set to 24-hr time.

20'x20'x10' room... if 3 humans to the 10' corridor, and goblins are half a human at smallest... and each ground goblin had two other goblins riding atop their shoulders like the Flying Zambino Brothers...

Oh wait, this is all unnecessary. Never mind. :p

Quote from: Opaopajr;90803120'x20'x10' room... if 3 humans to the 10' corridor, and goblins are half a human at smallest... and each ground goblin had two other goblins riding atop their shoulders like the Flying Zambino Brothers...

Oh wait, this is all unnecessary. Never mind. :p

There's a teleport on the opposite wall leading to goblin spawning area...

...ummm... Oh well, it was fun, wasn't it? :cool:

Quote from: Omega;908011Chris is kinda right. Many dungeons are stated to have around a 10ft high ceiling. Even assuming a 6ft tall fighter thats still 4ft of clearance to throw flasks over the front lines. Bowmen and slingers still need LOS as you cant effectively arch close range at that low a ceiling without losing penetration power.

Right. You can in theory lob something over the heads of the guys with shields ... which is why I suggested early on that the guys with shields wouldn't just stand there like lumps of clay, but would actively use their shields to block. But more to the point, why are they lobbing things over these guys' heads? Do they know there's an M-U back there? Did they see him?

I specifically mentioned "marching order" because I was thinking of a party moving through the dungeon and either meeting a wandering monster or seeing monsters in an open space ahead. Monsters generally target M-Us once they've spotted someone who looks like an M-U. But if they see some guys marching towards them through a corridor, will they necessarily see who's behind the front line? Will they just guess? Why are they running up to the 10-foot range needed to lob a flask of oil? Why aren't archers in the party firing their longer-range weapons before the goblins get close enough to lob?

The scenario is like loads of others I've seen, especially in arguments about "this class is overpowered": someone sets up a battle where it's assumed one side made all the worst choices and the other made all the best choices, and of course the side with the deck stacked in its favor wins. In this case, we're assuming that the goblins, a monster normally described as less intelligent than humans, has figured out exactly who the M-U is beforehand, is using fully intelligent tactics, and invented gasoline just so they could make molotovs. We're also assuming that the smarter humans are too dumb to raise their shields and don't use missile weapons before the goblins get close enough to use their short-range thrown weapons. Oh, and hundreds of goblins attack at once in this corridor. Presumably, only the first couple ranks are lobbing explosives, and the others are just waiting in case the front ranks are killed by the humans who woke up and realized "Hey, we have weapons, too." And the goblins aren't going to break morale when their front ranks are killed.

That proves that there's absolutely nothing any other character can do to protect the M-U, so you need a gentleman's agreement not to target M-Us.

A good GM plays the world, not an Omniscient, Omnipotent narrator.  If the Goblins see a Cleric or M-U they may be able to recognize them, they have their own Witch Doctors and Shamans as well.  They may even target them specifically because of religious fervor rather than tactical brilliance.

The idea that all monsters automatically know the weaknesses of the party and will automatically always do things that make perfect sense tactically is the kind of 100% white room metagaming horseshit that the people of TGD thrive on and naturally is one of the signs of a complete and total shit GM.  It's not GM 101 that you don't misuse your Omniscience, it's more like GM Kindergarten.

As far as the whole Gentleman's Agreement goes, that's the most idiotic thing I never heard of in 35+ years of gaming.  Someone needs to adjust their meds...whether legal or illegal...quickly.  Or maybe, once, just once, shut their goddamn piehole about something they have no actual knowledge of or experience with.  Whichever.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908002I think I kicked a hornet's nest and may have derailed the topic. Sorry, everybody! :o

I don't think the topic is derailed.  To the contrary, I think niche protection, and the types of parties that it generates, does impact party tactics and by extension, monster/npc tactics and scenario design.  Then, discussions about tactics leads to rules interpretations, questions about game balance, play style, the nature of a shield, and blah, blah, blah. It's a natural enough progression.

For me, the tactical implications of niche protection are not inherently good or bad - I'm just bored running games for the same swiss army knife parties who have a specialist for every occasion and expect me to come up with scenarios with mufti-fasceted challenges that allow each unique flower of the same perfect pot, a day in the Sun. I am ranting against my players here I guess because somehow it is intrenched in them that they need niche protection to "win" or something.  This is probably my fault somehow.  Nevertheless, my problem with niche protection I think is that I simply bored with trying to challenge the same old niche protected party over and over again.

Quote from: Madprofessor;908057I don't think the topic is derailed.  To the contrary, I think niche protection, and the types of parties that it generates, does impact party tactics and by extension, monster/npc tactics and scenario design.  Then, discussions about tactics leads to rules interpretations, questions about game balance, play style, the nature of a shield, and blah, blah, blah. It's a natural enough progression.

For me, the tactical implications of niche protection are not inherently good or bad - I'm just bored running games for the same swiss army knife parties who have a specialist for every occasion and expect me to come up with scenarios with mufti-fasceted challenges that allow each unique flower of the same perfect pot, a day in the Sun. I am ranting against my players here I guess because somehow it is intrenched in them that they need niche protection to "win" or something.  This is probably my fault somehow.  Nevertheless, my problem with niche protection I think is that I simply bored with trying to challenge the same old niche protected party over and over again.

That's a toughie. You don't want to punish the players for making an effective group.
My first thought is to try to sprinkle in a few encounters that don't address niche abilities at all. Like moral dilemmas.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908067That's a toughie. You don't want to punish the players for making an effective group.
My first thought is to try to sprinkle in a few encounters that don't address niche abilities at all. Like moral dilemmas.

That's pretty much my go-to solution. There's no specialist niche for those. I also enjoy kicking back and letting the players have a lively debate for an hour or two, while I just field an occasional question.

My players love it. They sub-titled one of my SF games "Arguments in Space."

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;907963Yes.  That is specifically mentioned, and CHAINMAIL explicitly states that a figure controls a space on either side to prevent infiltration.

But once again, YOU are smart enough to shit unassisted.

That space on either side part is key. We've often run into the problem that the corridors were much wider than 10' across (or we were in a room, and not a corridor), and thus we did not have enough to truly block off advancement. I'm not sure that that rule is in all the versions of TSR D&D and AD&D. I know AD&D has a free attack if people turn their back on you, which we used against people who tried to run past you to get to the back line. Still, in some versions (I think), there aren't rules to keep people from just moving through the unoccupied squares past the fighter line and chop up the wizards. We always considered that an artifact of the 'everyone take their turn in order and then freeze while the next person does' nature of initiative and ruled that if your movement intercepted a square touching one a fighter was in, they could make you engage them rather than move past (which I think is the same as what you are mentioning). However, in those editions where that isn't spelled out, that was a house rule. And I'm not sure that I could defend the assertion that that isn't a gentleman's agreement.
 

Quote from: Omega;908009All hell usually broke loose whenever we met either A: ranged opponents or B: more opponents than the frontlines could keep busy. Wilderness encounters were hell as half the time wed get caught out in the open. Much preferred the dungeon environs where we could bottleneck or at least narrow the avenues of attack. If all else fails. Run. We ran alot.

Yes, this. If you can't form a front line that the enemy can't get around, then the wizard really is going to get people on their tail.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908067That's a toughie. You don't want to punish the players for making an effective group.
My first thought is to try to sprinkle in a few encounters that don't address niche abilities at all. Like moral dilemmas.

That's good advice. I'll think on it. Thanks.

Quote from: Kellri;907947Also...you are aware that 40-400 goblins means spread out over an entire lair, right?

It was a very interesting moment when I realized that rolling for "random encounters" in Dungeon gameplay (10 minute turn) uses the Dungeon's Random Encounter chart(s), and is a totally different thing than "random encounters/wandering monsters" in Overland gameplay (1 day turn, hex based travel) where you place the encounter rolled encounter on a hex as a procedural generated 'adventure location' - and this is what the "# Encountered" entry in the statblock is used for. Dungeon RE charts use smaller random groups based on dungeon level, and you are supposed to use the example dungeons & charts (based on "dungeon level").

I don't think a lot of people realize that these "Random Encounter" checks are in 2 totally different gameplay cycles.

Quote from: Telarus;908086I don't think a lot of people realize that these "Random Encounter" checks are in 2 totally different gameplay cycles.

There's a reason why my gaming style never actually used those rules.  The two girls that were my first DMs (I'm pretty sure everyone is sick of me mentioning this...) believed that it wasn't 'realistic' (well, when you're twelve years old...) and did their own thing, based on the fantasy books they loved, using AD&D as their vehicle of choice.  And seeing that we (the whole group of us) spent a lot of time together, for admittedly a short length of a school year, I was impressed on early.

However, I've seen other tables do it in a much more cutthroat fashion.

A lot of the whining about wizards being squishy for example, that I had heard about was because of antagonistic DMs would target the wizard from the word go, and maybe not ALL the Gobbies would target them, enough did that very few would survive for very long.  And so a lot of other tables I was at, would (again, this was unspoken, no one has ever said 'Thou Shalt Not Target the Magic-User to Death!') focus on the fighters and other heavies, because they didn't want to have to deal with another jerk that loved to mash players into a paste.

And people use terms like 'tactics' and 'strategy', party order and all that to show that they weren't using this 'gentleman's agreement' when in reality they totally are.

Going to back the older games, where a round was a full minute, it was supposed to be assumed that the characters spent that minute, blocking, dodging and avoiding or otherwise getting out of the way of damage, and that one roll was the players seeing if the opening they found got to do damage.  So in reality, the players didn't need to say anything about lifting the shield to block the arrows or molotovs, it was supposed to be assumed that they already had, and if the Goblin's roll to hit was successful, it meant that the gobbies found a hole to shoot, lob, stab or otherwise make a PC miserable.

There's a reason that people wanted the time span of a round shortened.  Because a lot of people couldn't wrap their minds around the fact that you were NOT just standing around for a minute doing nothing, then you attacked.  Very few DM's in my personal, and fully anecdotal, experience went out of their way to actually describe what went on for the minute.  Roll?  Hit?  Yes/No?  Resolve, move on.  Cognitive dissonance between what people did, and what was meant to happen.  And from what can I tell, it may have been much more common than just the small sample size I got to see.

And even then, 6 seconds isn't all that much better, given what you can actually do in a fight, but it IS an improvement for mental visualization.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908087Because a lot of people couldn't wrap their minds around the fact that you were NOT just standing around for a minute doing nothing, then you attacked.

I wouldn't say that that many people couldn't wrap their minds around that fact, just that they didn't like it or think that it was realistic.

QuoteAnd even then, 6 seconds isn't all that much better, given what you can actually do in a fight, but it IS an improvement for mental visualization.

It depends on the kind of fighting and when in the fight. Sure, 6 seconds is an eternity in (say) boxing when they are right on top of each other and throwing mad jabs. While they are circling, dancing, looking for opening, it can be 12-15 seconds between any meaningful actual attempts at hitting the other. If you average the whole fight, one exchange per 6 seconds might be accurate, or close to it.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908092I wouldn't say that that many people couldn't wrap their minds around that fact, just that they didn't like it or think that it was realistic.

Not being snarky, but really that's more of a po-tae-to, po-tah-to.  In the end, it doesn't matter what the personal reason is, it didn't 'feel' right to most of these players.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908092It depends on the kind of fighting and when in the fight. Sure, 6 seconds is an eternity in (say) boxing when they are right on top of each other and throwing mad jabs. While they are circling, dancing, looking for opening, it can be 12-15 seconds between any meaningful actual attempts at hitting the other. If you average the whole fight, one exchange per 6 seconds might be accurate, or close to it.

Again, though, it's running into the same issue that the 1 minute round has, but on a smaller scale.  Some people may not be able to understand that.  It's admittedly BETTER for mental gymnastics than a full on 60 seconds though.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908087There's a reason why my gaming style never actually used those rules.

Sure there’s a reason. Reading incomprehension.

The gulf between an antagonistic DM who just loves to mash player characters into paste and a wussy DM who won't target MUs for fear his players will throw tear-filled tantrums is vast and unplumbed...by some.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907948Yeah, that's why the books became bigger.  Because people wanted clarifications, also, very few people realize that because it's not in the book, it's OK to try it.  Most human beings, having a relatively cautious nature in general, will assume that unless it's dictated or clear, it's NOT available.

No. Most human beings that are capable of understanding language know that when playing a fantasy role playing game of the IMAGINATION that its probably a good idea to use theirs while playing such a game.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908087And people use terms like 'tactics' and 'strategy', party order and all that to show that they weren't using this 'gentleman's agreement' when in reality they totally are.

Or they don't live in Bizarro Brady World and haven't played in "Fake Anecdotes Made Up For Bullshit Online Arguments Land" and actually did and still do use tactics and strategy without the fucking quotes and roleplay someone who, for lack of a better term, can shit unassisted and use tactics people have been using for thousands of years to keep from getting stuck on the bad guy's pointy end.

You know, like practically everyone except you and TGD.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907970AD&D 1e in their monster manual, does not say that it's for the WHOLE dungeon, just gives a no. encountered.

Um... AD&D Monster Manual page 5. NUMBER APPEARING. It states clearly that the number is just a guideline and should be adjusted up or down. It also clarifies.

QuoteIt is not generally recommended for use in establishing the population of dungeon levels.

In a past thread Im pretty sure I pointed out specifically to you where in the DMG it also says that the number appearing is for a whole level/lairs population. Not per encounter. And the part in the DMG where it shows the number appearing for a wandering encounter?

Lets look up that hoard of goblins then.
Encounter with goblins on level 1 of a dungeon = 6-15.
Youd double that on level 2, and so on.

Quote from: Ravenswing;908022My wife's wizard has her personal bodyguard: a sword-and-board guy tasked to just about nothing else in battle than to keep unfriendly people from pestering her.

Not as much an option at the start where funds can be short. Great if you can afford it though. I usually ended up with some bodyguards at some point whos job was to run interference while I twiddled my fingers menacingly.

Speaking of. I actually exploited the enemy tendency to try and focus ranged fire on me by prepping defensive spells and then making a big show of casting something I wasnt really casting to draw their fire. This bought the guys and gals at the front more time.

Tactics.

Quote from: CRKrueger;908107Or they don't live in Bizarro Brady World and haven't played in "Fake Anecdotes Made Up For Bullshit Online Arguments Land" and actually did and still do use tactics and strategy without the fucking quotes and roleplay someone who, for lack of a better term, can shit unassisted and use tactics people have been using for thousands of years to keep from getting stuck on the bad guy's pointy end.

You know, like practically everyone except you and TGD.

There's a lot of people who live in my bizzaro world then.  Which would explain a lot of the response of this forum...  DO you live there to?  Would explain a few things.

But of course, you have nothing constructive to add, so personal attacks it is!  Yay!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908087And people use terms like 'tactics' and 'strategy', party order and all that to show that they weren't using this 'gentleman's agreement' when in reality they totally are.

No. We weren't.

When I GM, I have always used this rule: monsters attack the closest opponent in range, or if several are in range, randomly select a target. If they haven't closed for melee and spot someone who looks like he's casting a spell, intelligent monsters may target that person. After melee begins, no one can cast spells, so there's no point in targeting M-Us then, anyways.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908087Going to back the older games, where a round was a full minute, it was supposed to be assumed that the characters spent that minute, blocking, dodging and avoiding or otherwise getting out of the way of damage, and that one roll was the players seeing if the opening they found got to do damage.  So in reality, the players didn't need to say anything about lifting the shield to block the arrows or molotovs, it was supposed to be assumed that they already had, and if the Goblin's roll to hit was successful, it meant that the gobbies found a hole to shoot, lob, stab or otherwise make a PC miserable.

That's in melee. The scenario you proposed was thrown weapons or missiles.

In melee, your shield works automatically.

In ranged combat, your shield works automatically for you. If you are trying to block an object being thrown over your head, that's a special action. You have to say that's what you are doing, and you treat it as either attacking the thrown object (pick a reasonable AC and roll to hit,) or as a Dex roll, or as a penalty to the attacker's roll based on cover.

Why you are nitpicking whether players can say "I raise my shield", I dunno. You said it was impossible for any character of any class to defend a magic-user being targeted by the enemy. "No tools exist," you said. And now, you are flailing around desperately to "prove" it is impossible.

Yeah. Right.

Quote from: talysman;908122That's in melee. The scenario you proposed was thrown weapons or missiles.

In melee, your shield works automatically.

In ranged combat, your shield works automatically for you. If you are trying to block an object being thrown over your head, that's a special action. You have to say that's what you are doing, and you treat it as either attacking the thrown object (pick a reasonable AC and roll to hit,) or as a Dex roll, or as a penalty to the attacker's roll based on cover.

Why you are nitpicking whether players can say "I raise my shield", I dunno. You said it was impossible for any character of any class to defend a magic-user being targeted by the enemy. "No tools exist," you said. And now, you are flailing around desperately to "prove" it is impossible.

Yeah. Right.

The game system doesn't specify the difference in the older editions.  I said it was 'impossible' because by the base system back in AD&D, it didn't differentiate past the size of your shield, so bucklers didn't count for some ranged attacks.

It might be different in your games, but base AD&D system, that full minute is supposed to cover all the situations to prevent the wizard from being targeted, and that roll to hit means that the ranged fighters (the goblins) found an opening, and if the roll hits, the Wizard is hit.

And in a lot of games I've heard of and seen, most people don't target the wizard, they go after the big beefy fighter first, because reasons.

When NOBODY shares your opinion, it is possible that you are Galileo.

However, it is far more likely that you are Harold Camping.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908003Shifting tactics through interpreting monster psychology/instinct is actually a topic worthy of its own. I would personally prefer a "How To" topic so people can share useful advice. (I prefer "plot/declare first, then initiative rolls" for Fog of War myself.)

"Make it so, number one!" /Picard voice

Agreed.  I simply play unintelligent monsters by random roll.  A giant lizard, if it attacks, will arbitrarily choose one target in front of it.  It will only attack if hungry or if attacked.  Otherwise, if torpid it will just sit their, if neither torpid nor hungry it will withdraw unless cornered.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908118There's a lot of people who live in my bizzaro world then.  Which would explain a lot of the response of this forum...

Which responses by who...all the people in this thread who are saying you're completely full of shit?   I guess one way to win in life is to simply have no L column, right? ;)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908118But of course, you have nothing constructive to add, so personal attacks it is!  Yay!

Calling the jackass out for being a jackass is constructively adding to a thread.  Engaging the premise pretending it's something other than a monkey flinging shit is what is detrimental to useful discussion.

This whole "I know the way people really played back in the old AD&D days, despite me demonstrably having no experience or knowledge of it " schtick you have going on is incredibly tiring.  Not only are you the umpteenth in a long string of jackasses who have tried that shit to bolster their own idiotic arguments, but you're terrible at it.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908128I simply play unintelligent monsters by random roll.

Animals don't attack randomly.  That may be fine if you're playing some tabletop version of Final Fantasy, but "unintelligent animals" still fight smart.  They wouldn't be apex predators if they didn't.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908141Animals don't attack randomly.  That may be fine if you're playing some tabletop version of Final Fantasy, but "unintelligent animals" still fight smart.  They wouldn't be apex predators if they didn't.

But an animal doesn't know a magic user from a fighter.  They don't understand what armor or lack of it means.  Animals attack for food or defense.  If not hungry and not feeling threatened, most animals will decline to attack.  And how does one determine if an animal is hungry or not?  I choose to determine it randomly.

I only roll randomly if the enemies are truly mindless like golems or some undead.  Predatory animals have hunting strategies that they use.  They don't know a fighter from a wizard but they do know that wounded prey is easier to take down and that a straggler is an easier target than prey in a group.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908141Animals don't attack randomly.  That may be fine if you're playing some tabletop version of Final Fantasy, but "unintelligent animals" still fight smart.  

Animals might attack randomly TOO, or based on factors that - in the eyes of a human - make the result look like total chaos.

Take Honey Badger which doesn't seem to give much damn about attacking a rhino. Look at abominations (counted mistakenly among the dog species), that see nothing wrong in chasing a car and barking at it.

It wouldn't be uncommon for a pack of hyenas to attack armorerd dwarf (because he is the shortest and therefore "obviously" least threatening) rather than way weaker (in terms of raw power), but taller PCs. It wouldn't be unreasonable to see animals attack in waves and being slaughtered like a cattle, when simple tactics would immediately change the tide of a battle.

QuoteThey wouldn't be apex predators if they didn't.

Peaceful herbivore might make very dangerous enemy too. ;)

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908092It depends on the kind of fighting and when in the fight. Sure, 6 seconds is an eternity in (say) boxing when they are right on top of each other and throwing mad jabs. While they are circling, dancing, looking for opening, it can be 12-15 seconds between any meaningful actual attempts at hitting the other. If you average the whole fight, one exchange per 6 seconds might be accurate, or close to it.

It's partly why I declared as a fiat that I was running 3 second rounds, not the standard 1 second GURPS round, which just suggests an insane rate of tinkerhammering.

Even so, trying to mimic a real combat, with its frequent rest pauses and evaluations, is tough.  I've seen several fixes, but nothing at all playable.

Quote from: CRKrueger;908133This whole "I know the way people really played back in the old AD&D days, despite me demonstrably having no experience or knowledge of it " schtick you have going on is incredibly tiring.  Not only are you the umpteenth in a long string of jackasses who have tried that shit to bolster their own idiotic arguments, but you're terrible at it.

Yeah, but it's the explanation, isn't it?  He demonstrably came of age in the One True Way era of the supremacy of RAW, where nothing that wasn't in the black-letter rules was permitted, and everything that wasn't was forbidden.  There's a sharp divide from the 1970s, when house ruling and homebrews weren't merely endemic, but you were considered a moron if you didn't come up with something to plug any holes you figured were there.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908142But an animal doesn't know a magic user from a fighter.  They don't understand what armor or lack of it means.  Animals attack for food or defense.  If not hungry and not feeling threatened, most animals will decline to attack.  And how does one determine if an animal is hungry or not?  I choose to determine it randomly.

No, but they go for the closest available target, or if they can ambush they go for the weakest looking target.  Which means Thief/Rogue and Wizard, if they know what the smell of metal means, or the fighter and cleric, if they don't and will attack them because those would be slower.

But some of us DMs actually like to think about what the monsters would do based on their stats.  It's how we play.  You may not, but that doesn't make either way right or wrong.  Just different.

Quote from: Madprofessor;908057I don't think the topic is derailed.  To the contrary, I think niche protection, and the types of parties that it generates, does impact party tactics and by extension, monster/npc tactics and scenario design.  Then, discussions about tactics leads to rules interpretations, questions about game balance, play style, the nature of a shield, and blah, blah, blah. It's a natural enough progression.

For me, the tactical implications of niche protection are not inherently good or bad - I'm just bored running games for the same swiss army knife parties who have a specialist for every occasion and expect me to come up with scenarios with mufti-fasceted challenges that allow each unique flower of the same perfect pot, a day in the Sun. I am ranting against my players here I guess because somehow it is intrenched in them that they need niche protection to "win" or something.  This is probably my fault somehow.  Nevertheless, my problem with niche protection I think is that I simply bored with trying to challenge the same old niche protected party over and over again.

Well, thank you, you're kind. I'll bring the calamine lotion once everyone's done.

Easiest way to challenge them is volume & distance. Can't be two places at once, can't have everyone be a hyper-specialist in everything. Eventually once the party splits up the generalists shine because "good enough right now" beats "perfect but unavailable."

The biggest challenge about that is getting your players to trust travelling your campaigns unglued from each other's hip.

Continuous Mission-based adventures don't help that. They tend to be high pressure, high stakes challenges that don't leave too much in the way of unclenching one's sphincters. If everything is in a pressure cooker, you're going to get "boiler room" solutions. (Go, go, mixed metaphors!)

So, Chris Brady, did your first level characters routinely encounter 200 goblins in a single encounter in a dungeon? What party size and what tactics were successfully employed in actual play for a party to defeat 200 goblins in one encounter? How many characters were in the party? Same question applied to wilderness encounters? What rules were you playing? Actual play, not theoretical?


The tactics we used to protect the MU were not based on "gentleman's agreement". They were tactics that evolved out of teh monsters doing their best to kill the MU, forcing the party to take preventative measures.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908152Animals might attack randomly TOO, or based on factors that - in the eyes of a human - make the result look like total chaos.

It wouldn't be uncommon for a pack of hyenas to attack armorerd dwarf (because he is the shortest and therefore "obviously" least threatening) rather than way weaker (in terms of raw power), but taller PCs. It wouldn't be unreasonable to see animals attack in waves and being slaughtered like a cattle, when simple tactics would immediately change the tide of a battle.

Peaceful herbivore might make very dangerous enemy too. ;)

1: Totally off topic but some insights.
Given enough encounters that are lived through an animal will pick up on things like guns/weapons being pointed at them, or that armour = I need a can opener to eat this thing.

2: Predator types will go after the weakest looking member as, well, thats that they do. So the wizard might get pounced from the bushes because hes A: at the back of the group, thus a straggler, and B: usually isnt as physically imposing as the fighter or cleric. A slow dwarf or halfling would also indeed be a good target as size-wise they look like weaker young of the adults. Especially halflings.

3: Just about any large herbivores can be appallingly dangerous due to size and some of the natural weaponry some sport. Alot more unpredictable too. Females can be very violent if they think their young are threatened.

Quote from: Omega;9081791: Totally off topic but some insights.
Given enough encounters that are lived through an animal will pick up on things like guns/weapons being pointed at them, or that armour = I need a can opener to eat this thing.

2: Predator types will go after the weakest looking member as, well, thats that they do. So the wizard might get pounced from the bushes because hes A: at the back of the group, thus a straggler, and B: usually isnt as physically imposing as the fighter or cleric. A slow dwarf or halfling would also indeed be a good target as size-wise they look like weaker young of the adults. Especially halflings.

3: Just about any large herbivores can be appallingly dangerous due to size and some of the natural weaponry some sport. Alot more unpredictable too. Females can be very violent if they think their young are threatened.

...in addition:

I think people forget about how diverse the animal kingdom is.

A feline enemy might be as efficient as the alien from "Predator" movie - attacking by night, killing one by one, avoiding traps, moving like a ghost. A monkey might throw rocks, coconuts, use sticks or bones of some large animal as a weapon. A pack of wild dogs or an army of insects might pursue the enemy relentlessly, never give up and avoid traps and by that surpass in danger a band of cutthroats and burglars.

But that's not how all animals act.

A rhino, a bull, or a horde of some bison-like creatures might (and should) prefer a simple solution over some elaborate tactics. Just "run in the direction of the enemy" will do. That they break legs on the way, or get shot multiple times? That there are some obstacles on the way?

(http://i.imgur.com/bNNCUIx.jpg)

Berserk, bullrush, complete lack of fear, or the stupidity of massive proportions are among completely acceptable behavior for certain animals. Heck, given correct circumstances it's acceptable behavior for way more intelligent creatures. ;)

Quote from: Ravenswing;908155It's partly why I declared as a fiat that I was running 3 second rounds, not the standard 1 second GURPS round, which just suggests an insane rate of tinkerhammering.

Even so, trying to mimic a real combat, with its frequent rest pauses and evaluations, is tough.  I've seen several fixes, but nothing at all playable.

I've always felt that the 'standard combat round' should be left relatively undefined (the combat is supposed to be abstracted anyways), only really analyzable after-the-fact, and unless there is a ticking bomb, it usually doesn't matter.

Wow. I can almost still see the original thread topic from here out in the weeds. I'll try to formulate my thoughts on that in a bit.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908182I've always felt that the 'standard combat round' should be left relatively undefined (the combat is supposed to be abstracted anyways), only really analyzable after-the-fact, and unless there is a ticking bomb, it usually doesn't matter.

It affects the rate of fire of missile weapons. I'm honestly not sure what to make of firing a bow vs. a crossbow in a D&D 1 minute round. Whereas a 3 second round means that a blackpowder musket will take at least 5 rounds to reload - longer for a matchlock - so combat is likely to be over before the shooter can ever reload. (Obviously this would change if most melee rounds are spent evaluating, resting, sidestepping, or whiffing.)

Chris, one thing that might inform your opinion is to watch some SWAT training videos.

One of the things that the English SWAT teams are trained with are molotovs. They stand there with their large shields while the trainer throws a real, lit flask of gas at them. There are a couple of guys in the background with fire extinguishers, just in case. While it was a training exercise, it was certainly powerful to see a guy holding up his shield and protecting himself against burning gasoline.

Now, it was a training exercise and riot shields are pretty big. But, they are the same size as a Roman legionnaire shield, at the spatter was, all in all, pretty small. There was certainly nothing behind him.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908181I think people forget about how diverse the animal kingdom is.

I think this topic is long overdue for its own thread, as personally I'd love a codex of "how things behave in stressful situations".  Although admittedly I have no interest in "how things behave in dungeon corridors" because I don't play dungeon fantasy any more.

One thing that might inform people's opinions is to not blather on concerning things they know nothing about.  The only way someone could say "You can't block a Molotov with a shield" with a straight face is to have no idea how a Molotov works.  It wouldn't surprise me if the misperception is of an airburst fireball with a 10' wide blast radius.

I realize that pontificating based on That Gamebook You Read or That Movie You Saw Once is endemic in the gaming world, but sheesh.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908210I think this topic is long overdue for its own thread, as personally I'd love a codex of "how things behave in stressful situations".  Although admittedly I have no interest in "how things behave in dungeon corridors" because I don't play dungeon fantasy any more.

Fantasy, modern urban, SF... Dungeons are omnipresent and everlasting. ;)

(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/de/e3/f0/dee3f0819caaaa4d0bada482271a6b49.jpg)

Quote from: Ravenswing;908213One thing that might inform people's opinions is to not blather on concerning things they know nothing about.  The only way someone could say "You can't block a Molotov with a shield" with a straight face is to have no idea how a Molotov works.  It wouldn't surprise me if the misperception is of an airburst fireball with a 10' wide blast radius.

Well, one can only work with the information one has, after all. But, then, I'm a forgiving sort.

Quote from: Ravenswing;908213One thing that might inform people's opinions is to not blather on concerning things they know nothing about.  The only way someone could say "You can't block a Molotov with a shield" with a straight face is to have no idea how a Molotov works.  It wouldn't surprise me if the misperception is of an airburst fireball with a 10' wide blast radius.

I realize that pontificating based on That Gamebook You Read or That Movie You Saw Once is endemic in the gaming world, but sheesh.

Amusingly I had a problem somewhat related to this. I was going to run a Star Trek game. Two of the players had previous experience in the navy. I have no military background. It took me about five seconds flat to realize that I could not provide enough verisimilitude to make the experience what the players wanted and as such had to shut the game down. That was the first time I could not run a game due to lack of real life knowledge. Won't be trying Trek ever again.

Quote from: Krimson;908227Amusingly I had a problem somewhat related to this. I was going to run a Star Trek game. Two of the players had previous experience in the navy. I have no military background. It took me about five seconds flat to realize that I could not provide enough verisimilitude to make the experience what the players wanted and as such had to shut the game down. That was the first time I could not run a game due to lack of real life knowledge. Won't be trying Trek ever again.

This reminds me the time when I had an actual economist at my table. Turns out I know shit about money (can actually confirm).

Quote from: Krimson;908227Amusingly I had a problem somewhat related to this. I was going to run a Star Trek game. Two of the players had previous experience in the navy. I have no military background. It took me about five seconds flat to realize that I could not provide enough verisimilitude to make the experience what the players wanted and as such had to shut the game down. That was the first time I could not run a game due to lack of real life knowledge. Won't be trying Trek ever again.

That's a bit of a disappointing story. I mean, I would hope that players with real world expertise could understand that it's fiction that we're playing at. Trek itself is pretty freaking far from real world navies. Not just from being set in space, but from being a fictional universe where writers of most episodes probably know less about navy experience than you do.

Apparently there are just some things that are going to drive someone crazy. A friend and I are designing a Mad Max: Fury Road style game for our group, and we have two gear heads in our groups. Balancing making it acceptably playable and also not break their verisimilitude threshold has been a nightmare of a challenge.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908164Easiest way to challenge them is volume & distance. Can't be two places at once, can't have everyone be a hyper-specialist in everything. Eventually once the party splits up the generalists shine because "good enough right now" beats "perfect but unavailable."

The biggest challenge about that is getting your players to trust travelling your campaigns unglued from each other's hip.

Yeah, that make's good sense.  However, this particular group (that I am a little annoyed with) flat out refuses to "scooby doo."  The realization of which brings me to the conclusion that niche protection is only a symptom or a tool of this group's insistence on metagaming to overcome any challenge that I might throw at them.  I generally put my foot down on rules-lawyering and munchkinism  so I think they have tuned to ooc cooperative metagaming as a response.  It's a natural enough response I guess to overcome challenging situations so I can't really blame them.  We still have a lot of fun.  It's not a bad group, but these tactics are a little immersion breaking for me (sorry about that buzz word) and probably for them as well, and they lead me to design the same old mission-based scenarios because that's what fits their play-style and that's what I figured they want. It gets old. I didn't realize till now that I was reacting, and feeding in, to their metagaming impulses.

QuoteContinuous Mission-based adventures don't help that. They tend to be high pressure, high stakes challenges that don't leave too much in the way of unclenching one's sphincters. If everything is in a pressure cooker, you're going to get "boiler room" solutions. (Go, go, mixed metaphors!)

Right.  This is exactly what I am doing, and it's driving them further into cooperative metagame land.  Maybe next campaign I'll run Pendragon (vastly different pace, basically one niche with lots of weaknesses, lots of roleplaying, emphasis on individual characters, passions personalities, etc.) - but for now I'm stuck in mid-steam of a D&D campaign with a fairly heavy mission based plot.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908234That's a bit of a disappointing story. I mean, I would hope that players with real world expertise could understand that it's fiction that we're playing at. Trek itself is pretty freaking far from real world navies. Not just from being set in space, but from being a fictional universe where writers of most episodes probably know less about navy experience than you do.

Well it certainly makes me think twice before getting involved in a game. I do tend to ask now what real world knowledge I need to run the game and if lack of it will ruin it for the players.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908164Well, thank you, you're kind. I'll bring the calamine lotion once everyone's done.

Easiest way to challenge them is volume & distance. Can't be two places at once, can't have everyone be a hyper-specialist in everything. Eventually once the party splits up the generalists shine because "good enough right now" beats "perfect but unavailable."

The biggest challenge about that is getting your players to trust travelling your campaigns unglued from each other's hip.

Continuous Mission-based adventures don't help that. They tend to be high pressure, high stakes challenges that don't leave too much in the way of unclenching one's sphincters. If everything is in a pressure cooker, you're going to get "boiler room" solutions. (Go, go, mixed metaphors!)

Isn't splitting the party generally a bad idea as DM though? You end up with people twiddling their thumbs or wasting half the night.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;908244Isn't splitting the party generally a bad idea as DM though? You end up with people twiddling their thumbs or wasting half the night.

Just play with adults without personality disorders.

Quote from: DavetheLost;908172So, Chris Brady, did your first level characters routinely encounter 200 goblins in a single encounter in a dungeon? What party size and what tactics were successfully employed in actual play for a party to defeat 200 goblins in one encounter? How many characters were in the party? Same question applied to wilderness encounters? What rules were you playing? Actual play, not theoretical?

No, the tables I ran did not.  But the tables I played at?  Yes.  I was typically the party thief or mage.  More Thieves though. Well, given that I played at about 30+ tables, most of them being 'second generation' meaning that most of us didn't actually do the wargame thing.  I can only really remember two major instances.  Most of the rest of the mage deaths was anecdotal stores from various BBS and internet stories as well as local players not using the 'rules' to not have the Magic User die all the time like their 'other games'.

The few that played Warhammer were very cutthroat, we once had a twenty man 'party' (15 retainers, they died in the first pass) against an entire 200 Goblin tribe in a forest (we had just gotten the Wilderness Survival Guide, so we started having outdoor adventures) and cave complex.  We actually stumbled on that, and it was OUR fault for just wandering into it  We played the rules as written, which mean 'tactics' was assumed by the rules.  So we rolled and we hit and it was very dull, but that is technically how the game is supposed to be run, at least to us.

We once did the Keep on The Borderlands, that had a huge amount of Goblins per encounter, and then there's the Ogre in one of the caves, we got past that one a couple of times.  Otherwise ouch.  But that was for a lark, so we expected to die a lot and often.  I remember swapping a lot of characters for that one, I went through most of the party wizards as I died a lot, even hiding behind the big burly fighter and cleric.  Flaming oil did a lot of damage to the Goblins mind you.  Ranged was king in that game.

Quote from: DavetheLost;908172The tactics we used to protect the MU were not based on "gentleman's agreement". They were tactics that evolved out of teh monsters doing their best to kill the MU, forcing the party to take preventative measures.

The 'Tactics' that the DM allows is part of this agreement, because the base rules assumes that you ARE using tactics to keep the magic user safe, that roll to hit back in the AD&D's 1 minute round was a lucky shot, an opening, or otherwise a chance to hit, despite the player's best plans.  But if the DM allows you to prevent the monsters from attacking the wizard, they're agreeing to allow you to keep the wizards/casters safe above and beyond what the system allows.

Quote from: Krimson;908227Amusingly I had a problem somewhat related to this. I was going to run a Star Trek game. Two of the players had previous experience in the navy. I have no military background. It took me about five seconds flat to realize that I could not provide enough verisimilitude to make the experience what the players wanted and as such had to shut the game down. That was the first time I could not run a game due to lack of real life knowledge. Won't be trying Trek ever again.

But...there's a very minimal, entirely superficial connection between our modern Navy and Star Trek in any version of the show. Weird.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908234That's a bit of a disappointing story. I mean, I would hope that players with real world expertise could understand that it's fiction that we're playing at. Trek itself is pretty freaking far from real world navies. Not just from being set in space, but from being a fictional universe where writers of most episodes probably know less about navy experience than you do.

While Star Trek doesn't operate much like a real military, there are some minimal similarities. Even the TV shows expect you to obey orders most of the time and treat the exceptions as unusual. Some roleplayers don't enjoy, and are not any good at, operating a command hierarchy. Which is not to say that's what happened here as some roleplayers are also very intolerant of anything that violates or contradicts their own area of expertise.

I would certainly have a conversation with players before a Star Trek game to make sure we are at least somewhat on the same page, e.g.

• You know Star Fleet has ranks like a real military and 99% of the time you will need to follow orders and if you don't follow orders you better be able to cite some really compelling reason for the violation either before or after the fact. Stuff like, "Well Admiral, I knew that Captain Smirk was under the control of an alien intelligence at the time he gave the order for every crew member to beam down to the planet leaving no one on board the Defiant.
  

• You know Star Trek is based on a TV show and there is a presumption that main characters (i.e. the player characters) are the heroes and that they get to act like heroes.

• Sometimes being heroes means they have to face moral challenges that occasionally may call for them to violate prime directive or the orders of their superiors and even though in the real military that would be a career limiting, if not career ending, action what we are going to play is a lot like the TV show so if your characters did the right thing and they can at least halfway justify why they did the right thing, they continue in their career. Depending on the cirumstances and the outcome they may be reprimanded (which probably means they remain in their current position onboard the Defiant), their violation may be ignored, or they may even be complemented or even get a medal.

I've certainly known players/GMs who would have difficulty with the first point or with the third one.

Quote from: camazotz;908256But...there's a very minimal, entirely superficial connection between our modern Navy and Star Trek in any version of the show. Weird.

I suspect that this may have been more of a case where the players' habits overrode the assumed premise.  Trek isn't anything close to a real-world Navy (it's Wagon Train) but it uses some of the superficial tropes and I can see how the players would have latched on to that and fallen into familiar patterns.

It's a danger with any premise that relies heavily on genre conventions that exist for story purposes.  A lot of stuff that happens on Trek happens because it looks cool or it supports the morality play A-plot.  Someone playing in an "immersive" style isn't going to necessarily do the things a Trek character would because they're nonsensical.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908249We actually stumbled on that, and it was OUR fault for just wandering into it  We played the rules as written, which mean 'tactics' was assumed by the rules.  So we rolled and we hit and it was very dull, but that is technically how the game is supposed to be run, at least to us.

QuoteThe 'Tactics' that the DM allows is part of this agreement, because the base rules assumes that you ARE using tactics to keep the magic user safe, that roll to hit back in the AD&D's 1 minute round was a lucky shot, an opening, or otherwise a chance to hit, despite the player's best plans.  But if the DM allows you to prevent the monsters from attacking the wizard, they're agreeing to allow you to keep the wizards/casters safe above and beyond what the system allows.

The base rules were written by people who played wargames. The original rules were written by and for people who played wargames. The designers assumed that the players would use tactics to the best of their abilities in the circumstances they were confronted with. The rules to OD&D and AD&D did not assume that all tactics were baked into your PC's To Hit roll. (I won't speak to 3E, 4E, or 5E, but I'd be really shocked if all tactics were baked into to hit rolls and various class abilities. I've certainly never read anything that would lead me to believe the rules assume that nor that they prevent using actual tactics of some kind.)

And your misunderstanding of what tactics are and how they get used is why you don't get to have nice things or play with the big kids.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908267Someone playing in an "immersive" style isn't going to necessarily do the things a Trek character would because they're nonsensical.

We found it helpful to lampshade some of those things, e.g. "You know if I were the captain or the leader of the away team that was beaming over to an alien ship I'd have them all wear some kind of environmental suit just in case. But on TV they seldom do that because it makes it hard to see the actors faces and it would nullify the potential for drama when the air, heat, or light disappear on the alien ship. So we'll just beam on over and tell the Science or Tactical officer to monitor the away team and the Transporter room to (a) keep a lock on them and/or (b) be ready to beam them back the minute they seem to be in trouble."

Treating most things like the TV show short-circuited a lot of potentially annoying debates and allowed the GM to set the situation for whatever that night's [strike]episode[/strike] adventure was supposed to be about.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908152Peaceful herbivore might make very dangerous enemy too. ;)

There are some very dangerous herbivorous species.  I wouldn't call a hippopotamus peaceful though.  They're territorial and very aggressive.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908249The 'Tactics' that the DM allows is part of this agreement, because the base rules assumes that you ARE using tactics to keep the magic user safe, that roll to hit back in the AD&D's 1 minute round was a lucky shot, an opening, or otherwise a chance to hit, despite the player's best plans.  But if the DM allows you to prevent the monsters from attacking the wizard, they're agreeing to allow you to keep the wizards/casters safe above and beyond what the system allows.

You keep saying that D&D -- presumably, late AD&D 1e, from what you've said -- doesn't allow tactics according to the rule books, because "tactics" are considered included in the abstract "to hit" roll. And yet, the 1e DMG is full of details on tactics that could be used. Of particular note are the cover and concealment rules on page 64, the rules that you seem to be unfamiliar with when it comes to targeting someone on the other side of a shield wall. By those rules, I'd judge that M-U as the equivalent of AC 0. There's also charging, which the goblins could also try, and setting weapons for a charge, and the likely follow-up result of the goblins breaking off and fleeing. Charging and setting weapons for a charge are on page 66, breaking off is on page 70, alongside the rules on flank and rear attacks. There's a section on the physical size of combatants and how this will affect combat, such as how many opponents can engage one fighter. Lots of tactics possible, and nowhere does it say that the "to hit" roll includes tactics. It does say that the roll represents multiple attacks, feints, blocks and parries, but all the book is telling you is that it doesn't break combat down into step-by-step, maneuver by maneuver detail. It is not telling you that you can't set up a line of warriors with shields to block line of sight to another target, especially since, as already mentioned, the cover rules would handle that quite nicely.

There's also a section that talks about targeting individual characters. It begins "As with missile fire, it is generally not possible to select a specific opponent in a mass melee. If this is the case, simply use some random number generation to find out which attacks are upon which opponents, remembering that only a certain number of attacks can usually be made upon one opponent." There are exceptions, but for some reason, the rules suggest that you need to use your judgement and make a ruling based on the situation.

It's almost like Gygax was expecting you to be a referee or something.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908210I think this topic is long overdue for its own thread, as personally I'd love a codex of "how things behave in stressful situations".  Although admittedly I have no interest in "how things behave in dungeon corridors" because I don't play dungeon fantasy any more.

You wouldnt need a codex. Most animals large enough to be a threat to a human will react much the same. If hungry they'll size up the chances and attack if favourable. If cornered they'll size up the chances and attack if favourable, if protecting young they'll size up chances and attack if favourable. If startled or surprised the'll run then size up chances and attack if favourable. If territorial they'll size up the chances and attack if favourable. If in mating season flip a coin and they attack. Increase the chance they'll think its favourable if they outnumber you or are larger than you.

EG: Just like a human will. Theres not alot of reaction difference between a pack of wolves and a band of brigands. The difference is they often come at those reactions or tactics from different thought processes and sensory data than a human might. Some tactics are more primitive to be sure. But can still be very effective.

We did one mini D&D campaign that revolved exclusively around natural threats with no magical backup at all. Just fighters, thieves, and non-magic rangers.

Quote from: Omega;908288You wouldnt need a codex. Most animals large enough to be a threat to a human will react much the same.

...they'll size up the chances and attack if favourable.

What seems less clear is what an animal perceives favorable to mean in the various circumstances. Predators like wolves or lions eagerly attack much larger herbivores despite overwhelmingly larger numbers of herbivores in the herd. They stalk to get closer or panic the herd and try to pick off the slow and weak. But there are also records of lone humans frightening off a predator by acting intimidating. Not being a biologist, hunter, or expert on wild animals a few pages with some rules of thumb done with the sort of research one gets in a good GURPS supplement would be kind of handy for me.

Quote from: Ravenswing;908213One thing that might inform people's opinions is to not blather on concerning things they know nothing about.  The only way someone could say "You can't block a Molotov with a shield" with a straight face is to have no idea how a Molotov works.  It wouldn't surprise me if the misperception is of an airburst fireball with a 10' wide blast radius.

I thought Chris was on about throwing flasks over the shield wall. Not at. Which was what I was later pointing out. Most fantasy dungeons have high enough ceilings that you sure as heck can try to lob flasks over the front ranks. Theres even videos up of protestors doing exactly that to riot police.

I think AD&Ds grenade bounce rule can even cover abstracting attempts to intercept as it causes the flask to go sometimes wildly off mark without needing an extra roll/s just to declare "Im trying to stop/deflect that.".

Back on topic, like that ever lasts...

Oddly I cant think of any RPG that actually forces and enforces niches on the players. Im sure there must be one or two out there. But none come to mind. And I do not mean RPGs where players potentially can try to do that. That covers every RPG. I mean an RPG where its stated flat out in the rules theres only one fighter, one wizard, one cleric, one thief, etc. Board games do it frequently. But they are not RPGs. Some parlour LARPs do. But thats more like having a module with pre-gens only. And there certainly are a few modules for RPGs where the players all play a pre-gen character. Not their own. But again also not an actual RPG that enforces it in the rules and gameplay itself.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908235Apparently there are just some things that are going to drive someone crazy. A friend and I are designing a Mad Max: Fury Road style game for our group, and we have two gear heads in our groups. Balancing making it acceptably playable and also not break their verisimilitude threshold has been a nightmare of a challenge.

Gurps Autoduel?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;908244Isn't splitting the party generally a bad idea as DM though? You end up with people twiddling their thumbs or wasting half the night.

Shadowrun. You end up with lots of complaints of the runners idle while the decker is in the system.

Quote from: Omega;908294I thought Chris was on about throwing flasks over the shield wall. Not at.

He mentioned both possibilities. His view of what the splash would be (his word) doesn't align with your description of police drills but seems much more like a small diameter fireball.

QuoteWhich was what I was later pointing out. Most fantasy dungeons have high enough ceilings that you sure as heck can try to lob flasks over the front ranks.

And in that case, the MU should be crouching behind and beneath the shield bearer. Kind of like what archer and shield teams did in the real world.

QuoteOddly I cant think of any RPG that actually forces and enforces niches on the players.

It seems a feature of play styles and expectations not of rules. So some GMs and players expect and reinforce niches and covering certain bases (e.g. must have a Fighter, MU, Cleric, Thief, Elf, Dwarf, and maybe a Bard, Paladin, or other high CHA type) basically it's the kind of party that you see in the Order of the Stick. I think where people see a rules element it is in certain published adventures where there seems a clear expectation that the party is a Swiss Army knife that will include the right tool for the designed problem.

Quote from: Bren;908289What seems less clear is what an animal perceives favorable to mean in the various circumstances. Predators like wolves or lions eagerly attack much larger herbivores despite overwhelmingly larger numbers of herbivores in the herd. They stalk to get closer or panic the herd and try to pick off the slow and weak. But there are also records of lone humans frightening off a predator by acting intimidating. Not being a biologist, hunter, or expert on wild animals a few pages with some rules of thumb done with the sort of research one gets in a good GURPS supplement would be kind of handy for me.

I agree. But in the long run an animals reactions are still overall much like a persons. Based on the situation and personal experience. Surprise a bear thats never seen a human and act scary and the bear will likely run. Try that with a bear thats had some experience with people and it may just exterminate you. Some preds will run if spooked. Then stop and wonder what that was and sneak back to investigate. Or run just to make you run too to tire you out if they have friends that can keep you doing that. If the bear is allready irked at something when you confront it it may just take its ire out on you. Same with some herbivores. A deer is prone to running. But again with experience they may just decide to teach you a lesson. Even freaking sheep will become aggressive and gang up on you if they think they can.

Which is why I treat animal reactions just like NPCs since theres such a broad situational range that its pointless to try and catalogue every single monsters quirks. Roll on the NPC reaction table works fine if you havent figured out ahead of time why its there and what it might do.

Back on topic.

Having a better handle on animal reactions was something that at least D&D rangers and druids oddly tend to lack. Though 5e adds in two skills that can cover that now.

Quote from: Omega;908298Shadowrun. You end up with lots of complaints of the runners idle while the decker is in the system.

Later editions changed the way decking works specifically to deal with this problem.  In 4th edition, decking has to be done on site and uses an augmented reality interface.  Deckers aren't off in their own world while everyone else twiddles their thumbs any more.

Quote from: Krimson;908227Amusingly I had a problem somewhat related to this. I was going to run a Star Trek game. Two of the players had previous experience in the navy. I have no military background. It took me about five seconds flat to realize that I could not provide enough verisimilitude to make the experience what the players wanted and as such had to shut the game down. That was the first time I could not run a game due to lack of real life knowledge. Won't be trying Trek ever again.

You need to play with people who aren't such fucking killjoys.  It's not the Navy, it's Star Trek.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908267I suspect that this may have been more of a case where the players' habits overrode the assumed premise.  Trek isn't anything close to a real-world Navy (it's Wagon Train) but it uses some of the superficial tropes and I can see how the players would have latched on to that and fallen into familiar patterns.

Only if they'd lived under a rock all their lives and never actually SEEN Star Trek.

Quote from: Omega;908294Oddly I cant think of any RPG that actually forces and enforces niches on the players. Im sure there must be one or two out there. But none come to mind. And I do not mean RPGs where players potentially can try to do that. That covers every RPG. I mean an RPG where its stated flat out in the rules theres only one fighter, one wizard, one cleric, one thief, etc.

Old School Hack, I believe, unless it has changed since I last looked at it.

Outside of D&D-a-likes, there's octaNe. There's also a rule in InSpectres that restricts teams to exactly one special character at a time (one vampire with a team of humans, for example,) although the franchise can have several special characters on the payroll.

Quote from: Bren;908300And in that case, the MU should be crouching behind and beneath the shield bearer. Kind of like what archer and shield teams did in the real world.

Except then the MU is in the possible splash range of the flask if its just thrown at the fighters feet.

Quote from: Bren;908269The base rules were written by people who played wargames. The original rules were written by and for people who played wargames. The designers assumed that the players would use tactics to the best of their abilities in the circumstances they were confronted with. The rules to OD&D and AD&D did not assume that all tactics were baked into your PC's To Hit roll. (I won't speak to 3E, 4E, or 5E, but I'd be really shocked if all tactics were baked into to hit rolls and various class abilities. I've certainly never read anything that would lead me to believe the rules assume that nor that they prevent using actual tactics of some kind.)

And your misunderstanding of what tactics are and how they get used is why you don't get to have nice things or play with the big kids.

To be fair it does help to make sure that the referee and players have congruent ideas of what constitutes "tactics."  For anybody over the age of 15, this means a ten minute conversation.

Is it time for the "show us on the doll where the goblin touched your magic user in a bad way" joke yet?

Quote from: Omega;908316Except then the MU is in the possible splash range of the flask if its just thrown at the fighters feet.

Yes, but what's burning is not-very-pure fish oil or something similar, not napalm.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908318Yes, but what's burning is not-very-pure fish oil or something similar, not napalm.

I allways wondered about that.

As described in the rules the stuff seems to be something more flammable than fish oil, (or olive oil which was a common lamp oil?) since you can light it off with just a touch of a torch?
Could not find anywhere in OD&D info on using oil other than that it stops pursuit.
In BX a flask poured out makes a 3ft puddle and can be lit by a torch, burning for 10 rounds/minutes thus, or only 2 rounds if thrown on someone.
In AD&D it splashes anyone in 3ft of the impact point.

Still have to light the stuff after.

Quote from: Omega;908316Except then the MU is in the possible splash range of the flask if its just thrown at the fighters feet.

Well, you pays your money and you takes your chances. If the bad guys are playing bowling for MUs and you thought they were tossing the oil over the front two ranks then you are screwed. Assuming that is that the flask doesn't break well in front of the MU and that the front rank didn't kneel with shields while the second rank raised shields over their heads in a semi-testudo. In any event, I find the notion that Chris seemed to be putting forth that the splash from a flask of oil will splash beyond the shields to ignite the 3+ people it would need to affect to actually get to the MU who is sheltered in the third rank rather far fetched.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908317To be fair it does help to make sure that the referee and players have congruent ideas of what constitutes "tactics."  For anybody over the age of 15, this means a ten minute conversation.

Is it time for the "show us on the doll where the goblin touched your magic user in a bad way" joke yet?

Probably.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908318Yes, but what's burning is not-very-pure fish oil or something similar, not napalm.

I suggested earlier that lamp oil was not that flammable. Or we could suppose they are Greek Goblins tossing flasks of Greek fire. But at that point, it would seem a hell of a lot cooler to just give the goblins fire siphons and call it a day.

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GURPS Fantasy and I think TFT speculated that it was Greek Fire or some form of Naptha.

Really, I'm thinking late 19th century Kerosene.  D&D tends to mix up its technology levels, much like Lord of the Rings.

Think about Shire Hobbit society and how much more advanced it must be than the rest of Middle Earth just based on the descriptions of things in Bilbo's house.  Kettles, lamps, clocks and all.  Of course, The Shire is intended to be the familiar pre-war England from which the story progresses into the world of myth and legend and the Brandywine Bridge is no less transitional than Lewis's Wardrobe.

Hmmm...Middle Earth has fireworks, and the text seems to indicate that Gandalf isn't alone in producing them as his are particularly wonderful.  Even in the books, Saruman's blasting fire even seems to be gunpowder. That puts the Shire in a good position to develop guns.  The Imperial Shire, a very different fourth age.

Quote from: David Johansen;908336That puts the Shire in a good position to develop guns.  The Imperial Shire, a very different fourth age.

The sun never sets on the Shireish Empire.

Quote from: Bren;908334Well, you pays your money and you takes your chances. If the bad guys are playing bowling for MUs and you thought they were tossing the oil over the front two ranks then you are screwed. Assuming that is that the flask doesn't break well in front of the MU and that the front rank didn't kneel with shields while the second rank raised shields over their heads in a semi-testudo. In any event, I find the notion that Chris seemed to be putting forth that the splash from a flask of oil will splash beyond the shields to ignite the 3+ people it would need to affect to actually get to the MU who is sheltered in the third rank rather far fetched.

I suggested earlier that lamp oil was not that flammable. Or we could suppose they are Greek Goblins tossing flasks of Greek fire. But at that point, it would seem a hell of a lot cooler to just give the goblins fire siphons and call it a day.

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1: Keep in mind that D&D flasks of oil arent molotovs. All tossing the flask does is coat the target, or those in the splash range, in some sort of oil thats sufficiently flammabe a torch can set off but a candle apparently cant.

One of the very first things I learned as a player in BX when using oil.
"Congratulations. You have now created an oil covered goblin."
And thus the Slippery Twit Goblin Tribe was born... errrrr... :o

2: We assumed lamp oil and flasks of oil were two seperate things.

It would be a proper constitutional monarchy I suppose.

Aragorn sighed deeply and looked Peregrin Took in the eye, "And this document means what?"

Not to worry it will just take some of the book keeping and management details out of your hands and put 20000 Hobbit Musketeers on the walls of Minas Tirith.  Don't worry about the Goblin resurgence in Dol Guldur. The eagles assure us that the new petard loads are light enough to allow bombing runs from The Misty Mountains to arrive before sunset.  We're actively recruiting Goblin sepoy units to do local peace keeping in Mordor and up north.  They're actually quite clever with mechanical things.  There's been some experimentation with steam engines and rails that will revolutionize troop deployment in out time, I'm told.

The king sighed and watched his son play with the toy the Hobbits had brought as a gift.  The wheels rolling lightly on the little wooden tracks.  He had a feeling Arwen wouldn't be pleased with this latest development at all.  When had it come to this?  After he signed the moot act giving the Hobbit parliament increased power to govern and enforce laws in the north.  Or was it before that?  The ring falling into the lava.  Maybe Sauron hadn't been so far off the mark.  But it was too late now, far too late, Hobbit musketry outranged elven arrows.  Hobbit breeding, who knew they were so prolific?  Sauruman's downfall had opened the doors to social change and the stodgy old Shire had gotten down right lascivious thereafter, what with the raging popularity of The Travellers.  It was when Bilbo and Frodo left of course.  That's when the last of the old stodginess and prudishness went out the door and down the road.  He'd heard rumours that Peregrin had more lovers than the old Took himself.  But what with the post war Hobbit baby boom and the casualties from his own disastrous eastern Adventures, they needed troops to replace their losses and the hobbits were spreading at an alarming rate.  When they started trading with the Goblins of The Misty Mountains was about when they came up with their infernal muskets and cannons.  With Goblin industry and hobbit persistence, the world was changing far faster than anyone had imagined.

If you lack soap and water, oil's also good for making stairs nigh impassible.

Quote from: Omega;908294I thought Chris was on about throwing flasks over the shield wall. Not at. Which was what I was later pointing out. Most fantasy dungeons have high enough ceilings that you sure as heck can try to lob flasks over the front ranks. Theres even videos up of protestors doing exactly that to riot police.

I'd argue the contrary: most fantasy dungeons nowhere near have ceilings high enough to lob flasks over the front ranks.  Take a good close look at those videos.  For anyone NOT in a front-rank position trying to toss something just over the head of the guy right in front of him, the arcs are fifteen, twenty feet high.  If they're fighting in a cathedral or a ballroom, sure, but seriously, outside of an atrium, theatre, shopping mall or enclosed performance space, where do you see a ceiling that high?

If I was a sword-and-board guy standing within arm's reach of a goblin with a firebomb, my reaction wouldn't be like your average riot police and a "You first, sir."  I'd do my level best to gut the sonuvabitch.

Quote from: David Johansen;908336Really, I'm thinking late 19th century Kerosene.  D&D tends to mix up its technology levels, much like Lord of the Rings.

That wouldn't work either; it's not nearly as volatile as people imagine.  A standard trick is to get a pot of kerosene and toss lit matches into it.  It won't light.  Soak that goblin with kerosene, he'll burn just dandy.  Pour kerosene onto a stone floor, and you'll have just as much luck setting it on fire as if you'd poured water instead.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908234That's a bit of a disappointing story. I mean, I would hope that players with real world expertise could understand that it's fiction that we're playing at. Trek itself is pretty freaking far from real world navies. Not just from being set in space, but from being a fictional universe where writers of most episodes probably know less about navy experience than you do.

It depends how much verisimilitude matters to you.  To me, it matters a good deal, and I don't want my reasonable presumptions trampled, or to do so myself as a GM.

I was in a one-shot once where the group was outside a US nuclear power plant, and the GM had a shipment of high-level radioactive waste ‡ leaving the plant ... in the back of a rental Ryder truck.

And I went apeshit: what were the plant authorities thinking?  I could scarcely imagine how many laws and NRC procedures they were breaking.  What the pluperfect hell?

See ... I'd worked at a nuke plant for a year, and during a refueling outage.  That was when (and only when) spent fuel was shipped out, once every few years.  High-level transport containers are about the size of your living room, about 8-9' tall, are over a foot thick with concrete and reinforced steel, and you load them onto a giant-ass flatbed -- reeeeally slowly -- with giant-ass cranes.  That flatbed holds two of them, and goes reeeeeeally slowly, under police escort.  Putting the waste instead into a Ryder rental is, on the NPC Competency Scale, something on a par with the arresting officers asking the perps to hold their service guns, pretty please, before handcuffs were applied.

Obviously, the GM hadn't given a moment's thought as to how nuclear waste was transported, which was ironic, given that the gaming session was taking place less than ten miles away from the only site in the US then accepting such waste.  Ooof.


‡ - For those of you who might not know the difference, "high-level" radioactive waste = spent uranium fuel.  "Low-level" is just about everything else ... including all trash generated and discarded at a nuke plant.  The sandwich wrapper you threw away at lunch?  The crumpled up paper in the secretary's wastebasket? That's legally "low-level radioactive waste."

Quote from: yosemitemike;908278There are some very dangerous herbivorous species.  I wouldn't call a hippopotamus peaceful though.  They're territorial and very aggressive.

Certainly.

Still, I was thinking about bison-like species, which usually aren't that aggressive if left alone. Hippos, rhinos - those are figuratively and literally heavy weight examples. ;)

Quote from: Ravenswing;908348I'd argue the contrary: most fantasy dungeons nowhere near have ceilings high enough to lob flasks over the front ranks.

Most?

Quote from: Omega;908297Gurps Autoduel?

Ah, if only. We are creating our own system. Sadly, because of our car fanatics, the car building system is beginning to look like GURPS 3E Vehicles.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908352Most?

Well, therein lies the problem. What does the typical fantasy dungeon look like? If we are using realism (which the 'is D&D oil like kerosene or like fish/olive-oil?' tangent indicates, there is some call for), then those underground stone corridors should have vaulted ceilings, or else they'd collapse. I'm sure others really like a straightforward 10 or 15 foot tall flat ceiling.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908361What does the typical fantasy dungeon look like?

I wouldn't even be sure whether the majority of players would agree on what fantasy dungeon is and what it is not. I mean, sure, you look at some crypt filled with skeletons and say "it's a dungeon, alright", but heck - Tolkien's (or rather "Jackson's") Moria or caverns big enough to contain whole palaces (and some indeed containing such pieces of an architecture) are dungeons too. Or are they?

That's the problem with plenty of RPG discussions - people often assume things are universally defined and everyone follows same definition. 2-3 comments later they start to argue over some details, throw insults at each other, because it turns out at least one didn't think that a building without walls might still be a functional building, or something like that. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908249The 'Tactics' that the DM allows is part of this agreement, because the base rules assumes that you ARE using tactics to keep the magic user safe, that roll to hit back in the AD&D's 1 minute round was a lucky shot, an opening, or otherwise a chance to hit, despite the player's best plans.  But if the DM allows you to prevent the monsters from attacking the wizard, they're agreeing to allow you to keep the wizards/casters safe above and beyond what the system allows.

So, the game does not allow players to think and exercise their imaginations and creativity? Any attempt at combat positioning is beyond what the rules allow?  Just roll to hit and that's it for combat?  You must have had a different copy of the rules than we did.  The version we had included rules for how many opponents of various sizes could attack each other, notes on tactics and strategy, etc. Notes on tactics have been part of the game from the beginning.

If your group chose to ignore them, well, you have only yourselves to blame for that. The rules not only support, but reward using proper tactics, and assume that players will do so.

Quote from: Dave R;907714So I'll make a claim, though it applies more to point-buy and skill based systems than well designed class systems:  at a meta-game level, niche protection is just plain bad for games.  It's bad GMing if the GM is the one encouraging, and it's bad play if it's players seeking it out.  For games that differentiate them, by all means distinguish characters with different weapon skills or fighting styles, different technical skills, and different social skills, but it's far better to spread those out across the group than stack them on one character.

Anyway...  Am I wrong, and there's a counter-argument I'm not seeing?  Or is this not even news to anyone here, and I've just been unlucky in some of my face to face groups?

I don't think you're entirely wrong. I feel this is yet another thing that should be obvious but is obscured by the piss-poor accepted lexicon of game theory. Allow me to suggest, there is no such thing as niche protection. There is archetype enforcement--which I guess is similar to what you term niche protection on the meta level. And then there is niche specialization.

The reason there's no such thing as niche protection is because a niche isn't something that's necessarily well-defined. In real life, a niche is something you kind of fall into. And it's the same way in the game, because even as you're playing a game of decision-making and choice, real world concepts like opportunity cost are present. Regardless of your group. Regardless of the RPG. Rigidly defined classes? Now those are examples of Archetype Enforcement. Niche specialization is something different. An example I like to use, however dated, is effective at illustrating the point. Examine the old-school D&D Joe the fighter vs Fred the fighter problem. I use an extreme example that magnifies the problem, Joe and Fred have exact identical stats, only Joe the fighter rolled 10 hit points for first level while Fred rolled 1.

Here's the thing. With Joe's 10 hit points, he's kind of too valuable as a "meat shield" to use as anything other than a front-line fighter. Even though Fred is no better at ranged fighting than Joe, Fred does thus have a comparative advantage over Joe when it comes to archery. Because the opportunity cost of forgoing the alternative of Fred as a front-line fighter is no great loss. Whereas the opportunity cost of Joe being a back-line archer is a much bigger loss. So I would anticipate in actual play, Fred would fall into the niche of archer, even though the game system hasn't provided an archer archetype.

So that's falling into a niche. It happens organically. Now where niche specialization comes in is if you use the AD&D weapon proficiency system to then allow Fred to specialize in the niche he's acquired, whereas Joe specializes in the niche he's acquired. As long as the game system has a way you can do this, it supports niche specialization. And whereas initially Fred was inferior to Joe in every way and only had a comparative advantage over Joe, through niche specialization, over time, the two fighters become like apples and oranges. You can't say in an objective sense which is superior to another.

Quote from: DavetheLost;908363You must have had a different copy of the rules than we did.

He didn't have a copy of the rules, didn't read them, and didn't play them.  Which of course doesn't stop him from telling everyone else how they were really playing.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908361If we are using realism [...] then those underground stone corridors should have vaulted ceilings, or else they'd collapse.

I pointed out the breathable air and sanitation logistics issues earlier.  I find it amusing that people are niggling over arcs and parabolas and the viscosity and flammability of the totally anachronistic, maaaan lamp oil yet the notion that there are all these dungeons with perfectly dressed rectilinear 10' dressed flagstone corridors with no air or sump pumps passes without comment.

Pace Ravenswing's nuclear waste example, everybody has blind spots.  We are Not at Home to Mr. Mining Engineering today.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908375I pointed out the breathable air and sanitation logistics issues earlier.  I find it amusing that people are niggling over arcs and parabolas and the viscosity and flammability of the totally anachronistic, maaaan lamp oil yet the notion that there are all these dungeons with perfectly dressed rectilinear 10' dressed flagstone corridors with no air or sump pumps passes without comment.

Pace Ravenswing's nuclear waste example, everybody has blind spots.  We are Not at Home to Mr. Mining Engineering today.

Some of us told Mr. Mining Engineering to clear off years ago.  Mr. What Makes The Game Play The Way I Like is quite at home, thank you.

By the bye, my pot of flaming oil does 1d6 damage, just like any other weapon.

Quote from: DavetheLost;908363If your group chose to ignore them, well, you have only yourselves to blame for that.

99 44/100 % of ALL the bitching I've ever seen or heard about OD&D comes from people ignoring rules and then bitching about the game.  Another of my personal favorites is people who ignore morale and then complain combat is a bloodbath, especially when combined with people who throw out the "XP for gold" rule because it's "unrealistic", fail to adjust XP for monsters to compensate, and then bitch about how long it takes to level up.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908361If we are using realism (which the 'is D&D oil like kerosene or like fish/olive-oil?' tangent indicates, there is some call for).

Not so much "realism" as "not overexaggerating."  Many people treat the D&D "flask of oil" like a gas tank explosion in an action movie (which, by the way, is NOT what a gas tank on a real car exploding looks like, and yes, I've seen it).

Quote from: DavetheLost;908363So, the game does not allow players to think and exercise their imaginations and creativity? Any attempt at combat positioning is beyond what the rules allow?  Just roll to hit and that's it for combat?  You must have had a different copy of the rules than we did.  The version we had included rules for how many opponents of various sizes could attack each other, notes on tactics and strategy, etc. Notes on tactics have been part of the game from the beginning.

If your group chose to ignore them, well, you have only yourselves to blame for that. The rules not only support, but reward using proper tactics, and assume that players will do so.

Quote from: CRKrueger;908372He didn't have a copy of the rules, didn't read them, and didn't play them.  Which of course doesn't stop him from telling everyone else how they were really playing.

Hey, hey, now. He said he played late 1e, or at least used the Wilderness Survival Guide. He just didn't have the DMG.

Quote from: Omega;9083421: Keep in mind that D&D flasks of oil arent molotovs. All tossing the flask does is coat the target, or those in the splash range, in some sort of oil thats sufficiently flammabe a torch can set off but a candle apparently cant.

And "splash range" assumes you are splashing those in a rough circle around the target. At no point in any version of the rules does it say that a flask of oil holds infinite amounts of ethereal oil that drenches those in the immediate vicinity, then passes through them as if they weren't an obstacle to thoroughly drench those standing behind them.

Quote from: Omega;9083422: We assumed lamp oil and flasks of oil were two seperate things.

When I first started playing, we didn't treat them as separate, especially since what we knew about flammable oil came from '70s TV and movies. Much later, I learned not only that oil wasn't as easy to light as Hollywood portrays it, but most of the lanterns in medieval times wouldn't even be oil lanterns. They're candle lanterns. At least some versions of the rules distinguish between the bullseye lantern, which uses oil, and the cheaper lantern, which uses candles.

And interestingly, as the rules got more specific about how throwing flasks of oil works, they also reduced the damage done. Even The Fantasy Trip, which has literal molotovs, has them doing much less damage than a fireball. This, combined with Chris's marvelous rules which become more specific or more abstract depending on which is more beneficial, reminds me that there's maybe another kind of niche protection: protecting the GM's niche as the embodiment of the world. There's an attitude, not only among some GMs, but also some versions of the rules, which treat players and player creativity as a hostile attack on the GM's pristine world. The rules get more realistic and more precise in order to protect the precious goblins from being overwhelmed by smart players. And when the idea of GM as keeper of the plot shows up, you get rules fretting about players using magic to short circuit the plot.

Quote from: Omega;9083421: Keep in mind that D&D flasks of oil arent molotovs.

Oh sure, twas one of my points way back. The assumption we made was that a flask of oil was not a huge amount, say a pint or so and not a gallon. Usually we used them to create a barrier to pursuit (pour or smash 2-3 on the floor, toss torch, and run away) or as a movement obstacle (slippery when oiled).

Quote2: We assumed lamp oil and flasks of oil were two seperate things.

I always assumed they were the same thing. In part based on medieval tech either not including kerosene and naptha or considering it some rare, foreign, and expensive thing a la Greek Fire, in part based on there being only one entry in the equipment list and lanterns needing refills on long dungeon explorations we assumed it was a refill not a special military item.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908249. . . above and beyond what the system allows.

The system allows a lot, but it also expects you to know what the fuck you're doing (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/03/grumbler.html).

By wargamers, for wargamers.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908376By the bye, my pot of flaming oil does 1d6 damage, just like any other weapon.

I mostly do the same, although I think I'll make it half that damage is immediate, the rest is done 1 point per round thereafter. Maybe roll another d6 if the victim is wearing something flammable, but again, the additional d6 is done at a rate of 1 point per round. So, immediate steps to put out the fire might save you a lot of damage.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;90837999 44/100 % of ALL the bitching I've ever seen or heard about OD&D comes from people ignoring rules and then bitching about the game.  Another of my personal favorites is people who ignore morale and then complain combat is a bloodbath, especially when combined with people who throw out the "XP for gold" rule because it's "unrealistic", fail to adjust XP for monsters to compensate, and then bitch about how long it takes to level up.

I wrote a rant once about how you can change the rules, but then you are not allowed to complain about the way the game works afterwards. You get what you paid for.

Quote from: David Johansen;908344...the world was changing far faster than anyone had imagined.

That's actually clever. It would make a fun satire of LotR. Perhaps a new book...

Back Again, Gone Again, and What Me and Merry Did After, by P. Took.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;908389The system allows a lot, but it also expects you to know what the fuck you're doing (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/03/grumbler.html).

Nice to see you posting, but it's a bit of a tease to link to your blog without providing us with a new blog update.

Hint. Hint.

Quote from: Omega;908179Given enough encounters that are lived through an animal will pick up on things like guns/weapons being pointed at them, or that armour = I need a can opener to eat this thing.

Backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada, Cottonwood Lakes trailhead to Siberian Outpost. Spent the first night at Chicken Springs Lake, a pretty heavily visited site. Not someplace I would normally camp due to crowds, but it was very late in the season so only two other people there - easy to find some privacy.

Like most smart Sierra packers, I carry a bear canister for my food. As I'm setting up camp for the night, a golden-mantled ground squirrel appears and starts making a fucking nuisance of itself. A couple of times I catch him gnawing on top of the bear can - I still have tooth marks on it today from that little shit. I keep shooing him away but he just won't give up. Finally it's time for me to make dinner so I sit down on a rock and prepare to open the can - and this little fucker literally jumps on my back. I can feel his gawddamn little rodent claws through my shirt. I chased him off again, got my food going, and for the most part he stayed away after that.

Thinking about it during dinner, I understood this was learned behavior. That rat-sonofabitch had figured out, from scores of careless, clueless packers before me, that containers would be left open and by surprising someone as they opened the container he might get them to spill the contents.

A fucking rat, with a little fucking rat-brain, figured this out.

Where getting to food is concerned, tree rats are smart. Very smart.

Quote from: Bren;908398Where getting to food is concerned, tree rats are smart. Very smart.

That's very good observation. ;)

(https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1128/8794/products/s_9668_6bpJwjS3fteCz3UejsVh5LWWrgYrxhBlack_large.png?v=1466444770)

Quote from: daniel_ream;908375... yet the notion that there are all these dungeons with perfectly dressed rectilinear 10' dressed flagstone corridors with no air or sump pumps passes without comment.

Well, of course not.  Arguing about the utter inanity of the standard D&D "dungeon" was something I did once back in the APA days.

... 35+ years ago, when I was much younger and much dumber, and honestly believed that I could get through to people if I were only eloquent enough.

If there was ever the Mother of Lost Causes in terms of RPG discussions, I think that one would have to top the list.

Quote from: Ravenswing;908406If there was ever the Mother of Lost Causes in terms of RPG discussions, I think that one would have to top the list.

And yet we're still dickering about parabolic arcs and the viscosity of lamp oil.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;908396Like most smart Sierra packers, I carry a bear canister for my food. As I'm setting up camp for the night, a golden-mantled ground squirrel appears and starts making a fucking nuisance of itself. A couple of times I catch him gnawing on top of the bear can - I still have tooth marks on it today from that little shit. I keep shooing him away but he just won't give up. Finally it's time for me to make dinner so I sit down on a rock and prepare to open the can - and this little fucker literally jumps on my back. I can feel his gawddamn little rodent claws through my shirt. I chased him off again, got my food going, and for the most part he stayed away after that.

Thinking about it during dinner, I understood this was learned behavior. That rat-sonofabitch had figured out, from scores of careless, clueless packers before me, that containers would be left open and by surprising someone as they opened the container he might get them to spill the contents.

A fucking rat, with a little fucking rat-brain, figured this out.

This has all the makings of a good encounter.

Quote from: tenbones;908418This has all the makings of a good encounter.

Results may well rival the legendary Gazebo encounter.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908362I wouldn't even be sure whether the majority of players would agree on what fantasy dungeon is and what it is not. I mean, sure, you look at some crypt filled with skeletons and say "it's a dungeon, alright", but heck - Tolkien's (or rather "Jackson's") Moria or caverns big enough to contain whole palaces (and some indeed containing such pieces of an architecture) are dungeons too. Or are they?

because it turns out at least one didn't think that a building without walls might still be a functional building, or something like that. :rolleyes:

1: D&D abstracted the term, and monster. Dungeon was a catchall for any underground structure, sometimes extended to cover castles and whatever. But over time it narrowed down to mostly refer to any underground structure that wasnt a cave complex or underground city. Monster was anything not part of the player party. Though over time too thats narrowed down to Monsters and NPCs. And NPC is pretty broad too. Other games either dont define it at all or have some variations on D&Ds use.

2: Wait? You mean its not a ruin or a corral? :confused:
aheh. For me what I see way too much is a borderline insane insistence on broadening some definition to the point it is effectively "everything on earth"

Quote from: Bren;908184It affects the rate of fire of missile weapons. I'm honestly not sure what to make of firing a bow vs. a crossbow in a D&D 1 minute round. Whereas a 3 second round means that a blackpowder musket will take at least 5 rounds to reload - longer for a matchlock - so combat is likely to be over before the shooter can ever reload. (Obviously this would change if most melee rounds are spent evaluating, resting, sidestepping, or whiffing.)

More like 3-4 ish minimum if you know what you are doing its surprising how fast you can shoot them.
To be fair thats more line tactics shoot at this line of guys as fast as you can sort of shooting.

Quote from: Krimson;908240Well it certainly makes me think twice before getting involved in a game. I do tend to ask now what real world knowledge I need to run the game and if lack of it will ruin it for the players.

I feel bad for you its star trek not the us navy.
Theres really no reason that it should have ended the campaign.

Quote from: yosemitemike;908278There are some very dangerous herbivorous species.  I wouldn't call a hippopotamus peaceful though.  They're territorial and very aggressive.

Or even the commen domestic cow.
Any animal can be dangerous.
The question is how dangerous and how hard is it to make them that way.

Quote from: Omega;908288You wouldnt need a codex. Most animals large enough to be a threat to a human will react much the same. If hungry they'll size up the chances and attack if favourable. If cornered they'll size up the chances and attack if favourable, if protecting young they'll size up chances and attack if favourable. If startled or surprised the'll run then size up chances and attack if favourable. If territorial they'll size up the chances and attack if favourable. If in mating season flip a coin and they attack. Increase the chance they'll think its favourable if they outnumber you or are larger than you.

EG: Just like a human will. Theres not alot of reaction difference between a pack of wolves and a band of brigands. The difference is they often come at those reactions or tactics from different thought processes and sensory data than a human might. Some tactics are more primitive to be sure. But can still be very effective.

We did one mini D&D campaign that revolved exclusively around natural threats with no magical backup at all. Just fighters, thieves, and non-magic rangers.

Well its not quite that simple.
But it would probably work as a good rule of thumb.
The big thing is that animals dont really reason about favorable vs non favorable quite the same way people do.
Also adding one about protecting young.

Quote from: Ravenswing;908348I'd argue the contrary: most fantasy dungeons nowhere near have ceilings high enough to lob flasks over the front ranks.  Take a good close look at those videos.  For anyone NOT in a front-rank position trying to toss something just over the head of the guy right in front of him, the arcs are fifteen, twenty feet high.  If they're fighting in a cathedral or a ballroom, sure, but seriously, outside of an atrium, theatre, shopping mall or enclosed performance space, where do you see a ceiling that high?

If I was a sword-and-board guy standing within arm's reach of a goblin with a firebomb, my reaction wouldn't be like your average riot police and a "You first, sir."  I'd do my level best to gut the sonuvabitch.

That wouldn't work either; it's not nearly as volatile as people imagine.  A standard trick is to get a pot of kerosene and toss lit matches into it.  It won't light.  Soak that goblin with kerosene, he'll burn just dandy.  Pour kerosene onto a stone floor, and you'll have just as much luck setting it on fire as if you'd poured water instead.

Yeah most oils arnt quite that volatile.
Hell heres one for you the lamps with the glass globe that holly wood loves to tip over and start fires.
Those are called ether hot or cold blast lanterns (there are 2 types) and they cant do that.
The way they are put together they will smother the fire if they tip over.

Quote from: Lunamancer;908369I don't think you're entirely wrong. I feel this is yet another thing that should be obvious but is obscured by the piss-poor accepted lexicon of game theory. Allow me to suggest, there is no such thing as niche protection. There is archetype enforcement--which I guess is similar to what you term niche protection on the meta level. And then there is niche specialization.

The reason there's no such thing as niche protection is because a niche isn't something that's necessarily well-defined. In real life, a niche is something you kind of fall into. And it's the same way in the game, because even as you're playing a game of decision-making and choice, real world concepts like opportunity cost are present. Regardless of your group. Regardless of the RPG. Rigidly defined classes? Now those are examples of Archetype Enforcement. Niche specialization is something different. An example I like to use, however dated, is effective at illustrating the point. Examine the old-school D&D Joe the fighter vs Fred the fighter problem. I use an extreme example that magnifies the problem, Joe and Fred have exact identical stats, only Joe the fighter rolled 10 hit points for first level while Fred rolled 1.

Here's the thing. With Joe's 10 hit points, he's kind of too valuable as a "meat shield" to use as anything other than a front-line fighter. Even though Fred is no better at ranged fighting than Joe, Fred does thus have a comparative advantage over Joe when it comes to archery. Because the opportunity cost of forgoing the alternative of Fred as a front-line fighter is no great loss. Whereas the opportunity cost of Joe being a back-line archer is a much bigger loss. So I would anticipate in actual play, Fred would fall into the niche of archer, even though the game system hasn't provided an archer archetype.

So that's falling into a niche. It happens organically. Now where niche specialization comes in is if you use the AD&D weapon proficiency system to then allow Fred to specialize in the niche he's acquired, whereas Joe specializes in the niche he's acquired. As long as the game system has a way you can do this, it supports niche specialization. And whereas initially Fred was inferior to Joe in every way and only had a comparative advantage over Joe, through niche specialization, over time, the two fighters become like apples and oranges. You can't say in an objective sense which is superior to another.

This is my experience.
And a solid post.,

Quote from: Ravenswing;908406Well, of course not.  Arguing about the utter inanity of the standard D&D "dungeon" was something I did once back in the APA days.

... 35+ years ago, when I was much younger and much dumber, and honestly believed that I could get through to people if I were only eloquent enough.

If there was ever the Mother of Lost Causes in terms of RPG discussions, I think that one would have to top the list.

From what iv seen out of most peaple iv met in real life its less that they dont know its wrong and more that they dont give a shit about making there elf game "realistic".

Quote from: tenbones;908418This has all the makings of a good encounter.

These might help.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Fox-Squirrel_(3.5e_Creature)
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dire_Flying_Squirrel_(3.5e_Creature)
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Squirrel,_Flying_(3.5e_Creature)
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Squirrel_(3.5e_Creature)

Quote from: talysman;908386When I first started playing, we didn't treat them as separate, especially since what we knew about flammable oil came from '70s TV and movies. Much later, I learned not only that oil wasn't as easy to light as Hollywood portrays it, but most of the lanterns in medieval times wouldn't even be oil lanterns. They're candle lanterns. At least some versions of the rules distinguish between the bullseye lantern, which uses oil, and the cheaper lantern, which uses candles.

My great grandparents were still alive when I was young and we'd go out to visit them once a year. They lived way out in the middle of no-where straight out of a Lovecraft story complete with ancient house overlooking a cliff and mysterious caves below. The place was lit with oil lamps so I was familliar with them even if I didnt understand them at the time other that "Dont touch! Hot!" ow.

And very correct. Candle lanterns were far as I can tell fairly common after a certain point.

Quote from: Ravenswing;908406Well, of course not.  Arguing about the utter inanity of the standard D&D "dungeon" was something I did once back in the APA days.

Why assume they arent ventilated? Do you assume all real world mines arent ventilated? (Ok. Some arent ventilated well.) People work and live down in those fantasy dungeons so obviously they are ventilated and everything else.

Quote from: Omega;908434Why assume they arent ventilated? Do you assume all real world mines arent ventilated? (Ok. Some arent ventilated well.) People work and live down in those fantasy dungeons so obviously they are ventilated and everything else.

Or maybe "Tell me why you care about how it's ventilated.  If it's an interesting plan that will make a fun situation in game, I'll think about it.  If you're just being a pill, fuck it."

See also the McDonald's on the 7th level.

So, I'm going outside and I'm going to find the vents and pour bleach and ammonia (baking soda works too) into a glass jug.  Seal it.  Shake it.  And throw it down the vent, if it doesn't break I'll throw some rocks down after it.

My Call of Cthulhu GM grew to hate me :D

Quote from: David Johansen;908460So, I'm going outside and I'm going to find the vents and pour bleach and ammonia (baking soda works too) into a glass jug.  Seal it.  Shake it.  And throw it down the vent, if it doesn't break I'll throw some rocks down after it.

My Call of Cthulhu GM grew to hate me :D

Hopefully you found a real vent, cunningly concealed in a rock face, and not one of the false vents we drilled out just to tempt "clever" adventurers, while our kobold vent guards lob glass jars full of angry bees, scorpions, dung and green slime at you, meanwhile the runner goes for reinforcements.

You think you're the first adventurer to try mucking with our vents?

Well, clearly goblins are cleverer than Cthulhu cultists.  :D

You bang a sock full of talcum powder or chalk over a vent and watch for the draft, of course.

For goblins though it's 200 lb test fishing line and a Rolex that gets them every time.

Vent fishing like grandpa used to do it.

Quote from: kosmos1214;908428More like 3-4 ish minimum if you know what you are doing its surprising how fast you can shoot them.
To be fair thats more line tactics shoot at this line of guys as fast as you can sort of shooting.

I don't know what you are using for a bench mark, but 4 rounds a minute (in any weather) for a flintlock smooth-bore musket is, as I understand it, the prescribed speed for British Line Infantry circa 1800. That works out to 15 seconds per shot, which is 5 x 3-second rounds. A matchlock is a bit slower, unless you are willing to risk serious misfires.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908465Hopefully you found a real vent, cunningly concealed in a rock face, and not one of the false vents we drilled out just to tempt "clever" adventurers, while our kobold vent guards lob glass jars full of angry bees, scorpions, dung and green slime at you, meanwhile the runner goes for reinforcements.

You think you're the first adventurer to try mucking with our vents?

How did the tribegroup of goblins who died to the first time suddenly pass on the knowledge to the other tribes?  That's a high level of metagaming there, bub.  And also, who says they'd be willing to talk to other tribes, last I checked Goblins weren't well known for cooperating with each other without a strong leader killing a few to get them motivated...

Quote from: Omega;908425For me what I see way too much is a borderline insane insistence on broadening some definition to the point it is effectively "everything on earth"

Precisely.

Just because you can sit on it, doesn't mean it's "a chair". And just because it's "a chair", doesn't mean it applies to all scenarios where people are about to sit down.

Side note: Vents? See this lichen growing pretty much everywhere? It generates air. Done. ;)

Quote from: Omega;908434Why assume they arent ventilated? Do you assume all real world mines arent ventilated? (Ok. Some arent ventilated well.) People work and live down in those fantasy dungeons so obviously they are ventilated and everything else.

I assume they're not ventilated because they don't have ventilation shafts or ventilation equipment.

If they DID, then parties would notice them, and immediately start checking them out.  "Fuck going down in there and fighting all the way down.  Let's plug the shafts from the top, wait a week until all the monsters suffocate, collect XP for killing each and every last one of them, then unplug the shafts, go down in there, and scoop all the loot unmolested.  Who's with me?"

Tell me you can't see that happening.

Quote from: David Johansen;908460So, I'm going outside and I'm going to find the vents and pour bleach and ammonia (baking soda works too) into a glass jug.  Seal it.  Shake it.  And throw it down the vent, if it doesn't break I'll throw some rocks down after it.

My Call of Cthulhu GM grew to hate me :D

... with this post as Exhibit A.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908474Side note: Vents? See this lichen growing pretty much everywhere? It generates air. Done. ;)

Oh, then fuck battling all those monsters for their spare change.

I'm going to scoop me samples of that lichen instead, if it produces such a vast quantity of air.  I'm gonna hire me some druids to grow as much of it as I can, and I'm going to set up a limited liability company to market the stuff.  Sealed helmets for adventuring in low- or toxic-atmosphere environments.  Viable low-tech submarines.  And, yeah, deep bore mines without the need for ventilation shafts and expensive pumping equipment.  Get stuffed, Swede Momsen, I'm gonna beat your record by half a thousand years.  I'll die fat, happy and rich.

Quote from: Ravenswing;908477Oh, then fuck battling all those monsters for their spare change.

I'm going to scoop me samples of that lichen instead, if it produces such a vast quantity of air.  I'm gonna hire me some druids to grow as much of it as I can, and I'm going to set up a limited liability company to market the stuff.  Sealed helmets for adventuring in low- or toxic-atmosphere environments.  Viable low-tech submarines.  And, yeah, deep bore mines without the need for ventilation shafts and expensive pumping equipment.  Get stuffed, Swede Momsen, I'm gonna beat your record by half a thousand years.  I'll die fat, happy and rich.

I'm gonna call Poe's Law and treat it seriously. :cool:

- Yes, it produces vast quantities of breathable air, because it's everywhere. You're looking at layers upon layers of air-producing living organism. It lives inside of walls, it's underneath of floor, it's above the ceiling. It spills through numerous cracks, it's covering pretty much every surface. And it's here since the dawn of time. Which bring us to next problem...

- ...Feel free to try and grow it, but it might turn out that it needs certain conditions, like underground, darkness, temperature, micro-climate, etc. As your GM I'm gonna determine what are said conditions and whether your PC is gonna ultimately succeed or not.

- Helmet might be not enough to produce the correct amount of air, but you might want to try and use it to produce something along the lines of "diving suit" equipped with lichen filled backpack containers - enough to breathe for limited amount of time in no-atmosphere/poisonous conditions. However, be warned that as your GM I might demand that you spend helluva time researching the stuff, learning how to achieve perfect conditions so that it produces expected results and organize R&D laboratory tasked with inventing "Lichen-suit" light enough and not that cumbersome.

- Same goes for submarines. Expect even bigger challenge and longer periods of time spent on R&D.

- Mines? Why not? If you want to try it, I see no problem in that, however don't mistake "one problem out of mind" with "no problems at all". As your GM it's my task to keep you (and myself, mwahahahahaa) entertained, after all.

In the end... If that's what you're willing to do, rather than descend into the deeper dungeons and uncover what's waiting for you there, then have it your way. ;)

Quote from: Ravenswing;908476I assume they're not ventilated because they don't have ventilation shafts or ventilation equipment.

If they DID, then parties would notice them, and immediately start checking them out.  "Fuck going down in there and fighting all the way down.  Let's plug the shafts from the top, wait a week until all the monsters suffocate, collect XP for killing each and every last one of them, then unplug the shafts, go down in there, and scoop all the loot unmolested.  Who's with me?"

Tell me you can't see that happening.

1: How do you know they dont? Or that they even need them?

2: How are the PCs going to notice them? They might look like animal burrows. There might be alot of them. There might be dummy vents to fuck with exactly those sorts of scenarios. The vents might be watched/guarded/trapped/all-of-the-above.

And best of all. They might not need vents. Magic, underground air producing/cleaning flora, portals to the plane of air, catalytic converters, etc all not requiring above ground vents. And so on.

Not to mention plugging up vents might well alert the residents some jokers topside.

3: Ive had it happen at least twice. First time the Players have their characters looking for air vents with intent to try exactly the scenario you mentioned to deal with some orcs. I allowed it. After a time the PCs go in to reap the rewards. And all promptly suffocate because they forgot to open up the vents before going in. They did get a level up though before croaking.

Second time a different group tried that. All the inhabitants rose as rather irked undead. PCs didnt have a cleric. Survivours got double exp for re-killing the inhabitants.

X: Keep on the borderlands mentions chimneys in at least two areas. AD&D has as one type of dungeon feature pockets of bad air. Dungeoneers Survival Guide elabourates on that.

Ummm...   What the hell happened to this thread? :confused:

Quote from: Exploderwizard;908491Ummm...   What the hell happened to this thread? :confused:

It got better. :cool:

Quote from: Exploderwizard;908491Ummm...   What the hell happened to this thread? :confused:

The 200 goblins stacked atop each other's shoulders like The Flying Zamboni Brothers trying to fit into a 20'x20'x10' need air logistics for their flintlocks and their extra virgin greek fire olive oil.

I suggest backing away slowly. I myself am apartment hunting here before the topic post prices get too high from the speculation. Wanna sub-let? Granite countertops!

The point I was originally making was that the whole "D&D" tropefest is held together by the thinnest of we're-all-just-going-to-agree-to-ignore-this threads[1], and tugging on any of them too hard causes the whole thing to fall apart.  Once you start arguing realism or physics to explain why someone's tactics are stupid, you've already lost the argument.



[1] Dare I say "gentlemen's agreements"

Got to say I completely disagree. As a GM I love niche protection. People like to be special and distinctive even if they don't think they are. Niche protection enables this well. There are ways to enable this without niche protection, but this makes it one less thing I need to worry about as a GM.

Quote from: Bren;908398Where getting to food is concerned, tree rats are smart. Very smart.

When it comes to getting food, every animal is smart, or it's dead.

The point of the anecdote is that this rodent was able to identify repeated behaviors by backpackers and formulate multiple strategies to exploit them. Habituation makes for complex relationships between animals and humans. Every ranger who works in the Sierra has stories of black bears stealing food caches which rival that annoying cartoon animal and picnic baskets. The birds who congregate at the top of Mt Whitney are tame enough to eat out of your hand, but some will also dive-bomb hikers when they open trail mix but not other kinds of trail food.

Quote from: tenbones;908418This has all the makings of a good encounter.

It beats the shit out of half the stuff churned out by fat-ass game designers who spent their formative years in their moms' basements.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908500Once you start arguing realism or physics to explain why someone's tactics are stupid, you've already lost the argument.

That would depend on whom you are arguing or more to the point, on how convinced that person is of the universal applicability and supremacy of argumentum ad fireballum in every RPG discussion.

Quote from: Omega;908434Why assume they arent ventilated? Do you assume all real world mines arent ventilated? (Ok. Some arent ventilated well.) People work and live down in those fantasy dungeons so obviously they are ventilated and everything else.

The thing that gets me about the ventilation tangent is that the discussion seems to be focused on modern underground construction (one person even mentioned ventilation equipment.) Only problem is: there's lots of pre-Industrial Revolution underground construction, some of it quite extensive. There's tons of underground cities in Cappadocia in Turkey. There's catacombs under several European cities. People were able to handle ventilation, sometimes with multiple shafts, but probably more often by building partially into natural living caverns that already have ventilation.

Trying to drop a gas bomb down a ventilation shaft would probably be futile, since the gas is only going to fill a small area at the bottom of the shaft. Also... well, it's a ventilation shaft. Without machinery, ventilation generally works by temperature differences around two shafts causing air to drop down one, flow through, and rise out the other. Any gas from a bomb is going to be dissipated. If it doesn't... well, now how are you going to get the treasure?

And then there's the fact that there's probably lots of ventilation shafts, not just one. Or, again, a cavern system. This is why blocking off all the ventilation is probably not going to work. Sure, it could be done, if you've located all the shafts or cave entrances (and can reach them.) But you're basically talking about a large construction process. Assuming no one from down below comes up topside to find out why there are a hundred laborers hauling stone to block off every opening, you might be able to suffocate every living thing... and then you have to pay the laborers more money to haul everything away again to get the ventilation going again, so you can go down and get the treasure, which probably won't pay for all the laborers you had to hire for your massive public works project.

All of this is pretty much why you don't see much of those tactics in history. But we're talking fantasy, here. We haven't even touched on the fact that some of your opposition doesn't need to breath. The undead will be real amused at your attempts to suffocate them. Hell, you have to figure that at least a few of those goblins you suffocated will rise as undead, too.

And that's not even getting into my theory that those horrific fantastic beasts in the lower dungeon levels must be theoretically immortal, able to live without food or water or air for ages. Suffocating a chimera isn't going to kill it. It's just going to piss it off. Time to go get your treasure!

Semi-related anecdote about real-world physics, etc., harming our imaginative play: had a friend of mine relate an incident with a group he is in the process of quitting. His 20-STR character wanted to cart  a barrel of wine or ale or some such beverage to another character's abode for a birthday party or some such celebration. DM nixed it outright, which led to a long discussion of whether the character could actually haul it. Worse yet, when the player proposed alternatives to get the barrel moved (borrow a horse, rent a cart, what have you), the DM wouldn't just hand-wave the thing and move on (as hauling the barrel wasn't really a significant thing, one would think). My bud said they spent half the session arguing about what could be hauled and what couldn't. But this sounds part and parcel with this DM, who, evidently, sucks huge balls in almost every way.  By the way, the player really could give a shit whether his PC could actually do it. He just wanted the barrel delivered. The other players and the GM started getting into it, so he just sat there on his phone till they finally stfu.

(P.S. I'm typically a DM-defender, because it's not an easy job, and we all do stupid stuff--but this type of stuff is massive forest for innumerable trees--unless [I guess] he was worried the player would start throwing barrels of wine at his monsters? (in which case, allow the seller to help with delivery or something--sheesh))

You'd be surprised how many monsters can be defeated with a cart load of liquor.  :D

I always buy a cart full of rutabegas because the liquor won't reach the monsters if the rest of the party knows about it.

Ammonia and Bleach aren't available in the average fantasy cleaning supply cabinet.  It's the kind of chemistry that's hard to argue with.  That's one of my modern game tricks.  That and the ubiquitous propane cylinder bomb.  Never mind the gas lines.

Attempts to smoke out the monsters tend to be futile due to back doors and said ventilation shafts, but the real goal is to draw them out into an ambush anyhow.  Or to get them to give chase so the stealth squad can slip in and grab the treasure from a reduced garrison.

Never underestimate the usefulness of black powder explosives that do little more than make a bang. Excellent for distractions.

Quote from: cranebump;908517Semi-related anecdote about [strike]real-world physics, etc.[/strike] a bad GM, harming our imaginative play: had a friend of mine relate an incident with a group he is in the process of quitting. His 20-STR character wanted to cart  a barrel of wine or ale or some such beverage to another character's abode for a birthday party or some such celebration. DM nixed it outright, which led to a long discussion of whether the character could actually haul it. Worse yet, when the player proposed alternatives to get the barrel moved (borrow a horse, rent a cart, what have you), the DM wouldn't just hand-wave the thing and move on (as hauling the barrel wasn't really a significant thing, one would think). My bud said they spent half the session arguing about what could be hauled and what couldn't. But this sounds part and parcel with this DM, who, evidently, sucks huge balls in almost every way.  By the way, the player really could give a shit whether his PC could actually do it. He just wanted the barrel delivered. The other players and the GM started getting into it, so he just sat there on his phone till they finally stfu.

(P.S. I'm typically a DM-defender, because it's not an easy job, and we all do stupid stuff--but this type of stuff is massive forest for innumerable trees--unless [I guess] he was worried the player would start throwing barrels of wine at his monsters? (in which case, allow the seller to help with delivery or something--sheesh))

Fixed that for you. ;)

Quote from: Black Vulmea;908510When it comes to getting food, every animal is smart, or it's dead.

Actually, no.

Plenty of animals are damn stupid - to the point they attempt to eat just about anything they find (https://www.visualnews.com/2014/09/17/14-startling-pet-x-rays-reveal-the-weird-things-animals-eat/), no matter whether it's good for them, or whether it's actually edible, sharks (http://www.bustle.com/articles/35742-16-weirdest-things-ever-found-inside-a-sharks-stomach), one of oldest species being probably the best possible example of that behavior.

That some species are quite clever (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocWF6d0nelY) doesn't justify the needles glorification of animal kingdom.

Quote from: talysman;908516There's tons of underground cities in Cappadocia in Turkey. There's catacombs under several European cities. (...) Trying to drop a gas bomb down a ventilation shaft would probably be futile, since the gas is only going to fill a small area at the bottom of the shaft. (...)

I visited Cappadocia a few times (no Giovannis whatsoever), I went to canals underneath of Paris, descended to tombs in Egypt and happened to "explore" a handful of other, less known underground, labyrinthine complexes. I'm no master builder and I know next to nothing about firefighting, but the size of some among these places and their "floor planes" (that makes it impossible to tell where that friggin' air comes from") would render any "gas" based attacks impractical.

Quote from: Bren;908522Fixed that for you. ;)

As the saying goes, "the rules can't fix stupid, and the rules can't fix asshole".

Quote from: talysman;908516The thing that gets me about the ventilation tangent is that the discussion seems to be focused on modern underground construction (one person even mentioned ventilation equipment.) Only problem is: there's lots of pre-Industrial Revolution underground construction, some of it quite extensive. There's tons of underground cities in Cappadocia in Turkey. There's catacombs under several European cities. People were able to handle ventilation, sometimes with multiple shafts, but probably more often by building partially into natural living caverns that already have ventilation.

And if the average dungeon looked anything like those, great.  No problems.  I'd love to see a D&D dungeon that actually looked like a structure built by intelligent beings that used it for something other than a monster zoo.

This seems interesting: http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/457/how-can-i-estimate-how-far-into-a-cave-network-breathing-is-possible

Quote from: Bren;908522Fixed that for you. ;)

Ha! Thanks.:-)

Quote from: David Johansen;908518You'd be surprised how many monsters can be defeated with a cart load of liquor.  :D

I wouldn't doubt it! :-)  

I think the thing that drives him crazy is how arbitrary the whole thing is. They're playing 5E, and not doing anything remotely resembling old school play, so no need for unusual tactics because they're, of course, non-squishy badasses. Still, I'll have to pass on the information about the rutabagas. That could prove key in the future.:-)

Quote from: Krimson;908520Never underestimate the usefulness of black powder explosives that do little more than make a bang. Excellent for distractions.

They also generate large quantities of acrid smoke. Even burning powder in the open, no bang just a sort of hiss, will make a good smoke cloud.

Quote from: Omega;9084891: How do you know they dont? Or that they even need them? ...

Eeesh, man.  YOU were the one who tossed out the "How do you know they're not ventilated??" bit.  Either it was a serious question, or you're playing "Haha, no matter what he says, I'm gonna come right back at him" games.  I don't mind the first, and I don't play the second.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;908491Ummm...   What the hell happened to this thread? :confused:

What happens to every thread.

Quote from: talysman;908516Trying to drop a gas bomb down a ventilation shaft would probably be futile, since the gas is only going to fill a small area at the bottom of the shaft. Also... well, it's a ventilation shaft. Without machinery, ventilation generally works by temperature differences around two shafts causing air to drop down one, flow through, and rise out the other. Any gas from a bomb is going to be dissipated. If it doesn't... well, now how are you going to get the treasure?

Right. Some vents are going to be intakes and others outtakes if its a large complex. I was actually hoping some player would try that as Id have plotted out which were which and oh hey the party just offed themselves.

Back on topic.

Someone upthread mentioned that skill based classless games dont have niche protection.

Sorry. Hate to burst your bubble but theres also skill protection. As noted earlier, some players can be pretty territorial about their skills and wont let anyone else overlap with them. Im not very fond of these types either.

On the other hand I have had players wanting to fill percieved holes in the group. Not because of niche protection but simple tactics and logistics as they saw it. I am ok with this as long as its their own call and they arent trying to force that on the other players. But I allways tell players to "Create a character. Not a stat block or party puzzle piece."

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908524Actually, no.

Plenty of animals are damn stupid - to the point they attempt to eat just about anything they find (https://www.visualnews.com/2014/09/17/14-startling-pet-x-rays-reveal-the-weird-things-animals-eat/), no matter whether it's good for them, or whether it's actually edible, sharks (http://www.bustle.com/articles/35742-16-weirdest-things-ever-found-inside-a-sharks-stomach), one of oldest species being probably the best possible example of that behavior.

That some species are quite clever (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocWF6d0nelY) doesn't justify the needles glorification of animal kingdom.

Actually yes.

Animals will try to eat anything because they are experimenting or the item is giving false cues. IS this stuff edible? A bird does not know certain bugs are bad for it untill it tries one. As for the shark. Sharks eat odd objects for ballast apparently. And some sharks senses are thrown off by metal objects. They can learn. But not alot.

We arent glorifying animals. We are pointing out that any given critter can over time come up with some tactics or behavior traits. And some just do things naturally that is still darn effective. In the right circumstances.

Quote from: Ravenswing;908532Eeesh, man.  YOU were the one who tossed out the "How do you know they're not ventilated??" bit.  Either it was a serious question, or you're playing "Haha, no matter what he says, I'm gonna come right back at him" games.  I don't mind the first, and I don't play the second.

Nah. Im more asking. "Why are you assuming there isnt this thing because no one stated it is there or alternatives?" It comes across as wanting your hand to be held for every little detail else it cant possibly exist. Which can lead to arguments like. "Swords have no handles because no one mentioned handles. So that means everyone cuts themselves when they swing a sword. Take 1d6 damage each round you hold the sword."

Isnt it better to assume that if Z exists then there must be some sort of Y and X to support it? Even if it is as simple as "A wizard did it!"?

Quote from: Omega;908539Actually yes.

Animals will try to eat anything because they are experimenting or the item is giving false cues. IS this stuff edible? A bird does not know certain bugs are bad for it untill it tries one. As for the shark. Sharks eat odd objects for ballast apparently. And some sharks senses are thrown off by metal objects. They can learn. But not alot.

We arent glorifying animals. We are pointing out that any given critter can over time come up with some tactics or behavior traits. And some just do things naturally that is still darn effective. In the right circumstances.

Heck, no. :)

It was postulated, that when it comes to getting food, every animal is smart, or it's dead. While there's nothing wrong in the claim that "certain" animals might be smarter than other, the assumption that EVERY animal is either smart, or dead is nothing short of glorification. And a false one - plenty of animals are dumb as a brick.

As for sharks - don't mistake them for ostriches. Some simply eat whatever they find, including things like nails or electronics (http://www.sharkinfo.ch/SI4_99e/gcuvier.html), not because it supplements their digestive process, or makes a good "ballast", but simply because it's within their reach and they are too stupid to tell the difference between "food" and "not food".

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908471How did the tribegroup of goblins who died to the first time suddenly pass on the knowledge to the other tribes?  That's a high level of metagaming there, bub.  And also, who says they'd be willing to talk to other tribes, last I checked Goblins weren't well known for cooperating with each other without a strong leader killing a few to get them motivated...

Indeed. And I dislike turning a campaign into an arms race of tactics between the GM and the players. I find that usually player tactics will be clever enough without being too disruptive to the scenario. And coming up with clever plans is part of the fun.
But if the player's tactics are seriously disruptive, then the most devious monsters are going to be the ones who survive. Getting organized and "metagaming" will be required for them to survive.

Quote from: Omega;908540Isnt it better to assume that if Z exists then there must be some sort of Y and X to support it? Even if it is as simple as "A wizard did it!"?

If the object were to be reasonable and play the game, yes.  But the object of the vast majority of online discussions anywhere on any subject is to bitch.

And really, we wouldn't have it any other way would we.

Good grief, let's all gather round and sing "I Love You You Love Me."

Gronan is right that the rules cannot fix stupid or asshole but they can create a standardized consensus as to what is reasonable or, indeed possible.  In reality very few of us have the PHDs in History, Physics, and Chemistry (let alone Philosophy and Theology though I expect those would only lead to more arguments) to claim that our understanding of the world is accurate or true.  It does help if the GM describes how they see the game and setting.  I think one of the biggest places things go off the rail is unfulfilled expectations.

At times I think the best system would be a dead simple core and a complete encyclopedia.  If you ever read Roleplaying Mastery and Master of the Game, you know that Gary Gygax felt that a Dungeon Master should have a pretty broad library and familiarity with many historical and mythical topics.  I think it's nice that we live in the age of Wikipedia where it's quick and easy to settle many disputes.  But I'm old fashioned and if a game has a book on just about every topic imaginable and discussion on how to handle that in the game, it's a plus not a minus.  Because, I'm not an expert on much beyond printing tee shirts and failing to run a gaming store profitably (I expect I'd be embarrassed if I ever succeeded).  I listen to a lot of news and talk radio at work.  I'd read the World Book Encyclopedia from end to end by the time I was fifteen or so.  But there's no depth to any of it.

I expect that most of us have some depth in our fields and our interests (Traveller Cannon has never gotten me a job, what's wrong with this world?) but none of us are experts in every field.

That's niche protection if you like.  There's just more to know than anyone has the time to learn.

Quote from: Bren;908470I don't know what you are using for a bench mark, but 4 rounds a minute (in any weather) for a flintlock smooth-bore musket is, as I understand it, the prescribed speed for British Line Infantry circa 1800. That works out to 15 seconds per shot, which is 5 x 3-second rounds. A matchlock is a bit slower, unless you are willing to risk serious misfires.

Im speaking form  personal experience and what iv seen in real life.
I dont know what British military standards regulations where.
But a minuet man had to shoot 3 shots in a minute now yes faster is beater.
Now i have seen 5 shots a minute in real life and 6 is achievable.
now i am talking with all the aid you can get cartridge and safely.

Bad weather probably less.
Same with a rifled bore as it tends to slow loading down.
And with other things that might cause issues.
I once met a guy who claimed 7 but iv never seen it and i find it a bit dubious.  
As to a match lock yes its going to be less like with any weapon is more complex to load then a musket and lacking a multi shot magazine.

Quote from: Bren;908515That would depend on whom you are arguing or more to the point, on how convinced that person is of the universal applicability and supremacy of argumentum ad fireballum in every RPG discussion.

Not to mention, what is your idea of "tactics" and "fun" and "cool"?  For instance, in Peter Jackson's movie "The Two Towers," where Legolam goes skateboarding down the stairs on a shield while shooting arrows?  I thought that was pants-shittingly stupid.  One of the stupidest things I've ever seen in my life.  I literally groaned out loud.  But I'm sure there are people who thought that was oh-so-cool and want to do that in a game and that's their idea of "good tactics".

Those people and I will never have a fun game together, which is why I try to make my expectations explicit as early as possible.

Yeah, people's expectations are often based on movies and anime rather than any real research.  In a world where reason follows the rule of cool all you can do is wave your sword from the turret hatch on your ridiculous looking steam tank and shout, "Drive closer, I want to hit them with my sword!"

Incidentally the 2d20 system from Modiphus is built to model that kind of silliness.  I had a PC cut down an attack helicopter with a sword in one session.

Quote from: Omega;908536Right. Some vents are going to be intakes and others outtakes if its a large complex. I was actually hoping some player would try that as Id have plotted out which were which and oh hey the party just offed themselves.

Back on topic.

Someone upthread mentioned that skill based classless games dont have niche protection.

Sorry. Hate to burst your bubble but theres also skill protection. As noted earlier, some players can be pretty territorial about their skills and wont let anyone else overlap with them. Im not very fond of these types either.

On the other hand I have had players wanting to fill percieved holes in the group. Not because of niche protection but simple tactics and logistics as they saw it. I am ok with this as long as its their own call and they arent trying to force that on the other players. But I allways tell players to "Create a character. Not a stat block or party puzzle piece."

Which pretty much enforces my belief that 'Classes' exist in just about every game, intentionally or not.  Most of the time, players make it themselves, if there's no obvious set of archetypes to build from.

It's the result of specialization in the face of the pressures to exploit a repeatedly encountered niche. If your "adventures" make the adventurous everyday (every session), then life adapts to its new normal, even if it is just a niche of the greater whole. Diversity of pressures, often greater than one's cooperative capacity, encourages generalists.

Thus no system can ever truly be spared of the rise of hyper-specialization — and its subsequent demands for niche protection — if you habitually fall into a narrow channel of play.

Quote from: Omega;908536On the other hand I have had players wanting to fill percieved holes in the group. Not because of niche protection but simple tactics and logistics as they saw it. I am ok with this as long as its their own call and they arent trying to force that on the other players. But I allways tell players to "Create a character. Not a stat block or party puzzle piece."

The thing is, that's not metagaming.  If you have a project team or a mission team - and a dungeon crawl party certainly falls into that sphere - then a bunch of individual experts each cross-trained in another team member's specialization is orders of magnitude better than a team full of generalists.  This is why the special forces do it this way, why all the systems engineering teams I've been part of do it this way, why Toyota did it this way, why Danny Ocean did it this way.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908579- and a dungeon crawl party certainly falls into that sphere -

Possibly.  Not certainly.

We do a lot of dungeon crawls, but we do a lot that is NOT dungeon crawls.  And not everybody plays every session.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908541As for sharks - don't mistake them for ostriches. Some simply eat whatever they find, including things like nails or electronics (http://www.sharkinfo.ch/SI4_99e/gcuvier.html), not because it supplements their digestive process, or makes a good "ballast", but simply because it's within their reach and they are too stupid to tell the difference between "food" and "not food".

I dont see anyone here saying every animal is smart. What we noted was that through experience animals can and will learn if said experience diesnt kill them.

Apparently you missed the part about false sensory input.

Crayfish I rate up there as abysmally stupid. But there was one at a fishing spot that had figured out that if it anchored itself and grabbed a hook it could get the worm. And the SOB did this fairly consistently. Rats, and Rabbits, will electrocute themselves because they were gnawing through insulation on cables.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908579The thing is, that's not metagaming.  If you have a project team or a mission team - and a dungeon crawl party certainly falls into that sphere - then a bunch of individual experts each cross-trained in another team member's specialization is orders of magnitude better than a team full of generalists.

Gaps in group loadout can usually be worked around one way or another. Items, tactics, hiring henchmen and retainers, finding NPCs willing to tag along, etc.

The players in my groups know that if theres a gap then I as the DM will provide some workarounds if no one want to play XYZ class.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908566For instance, in Peter Jackson's movie "The Two Towers," where Legolam goes skateboarding down the stairs on a shield while shooting arrows?  I thought that was pants-shittingly stupid.  One of the stupidest things I've ever seen in my life.  I literally groaned out loud.  But I'm sure there are people who thought that was oh-so-cool and want to do that in a game and that's their idea of "good tactics".

You forgot the charge of the Rohirrim at the siege of Gondor. The one where Jackson had them ride their horses straight into and through the prepared polearms of the orcs. Tolkien didn't write it that stupid. And then we have Legolas and the Mumak.  :eek: :rolleyes: :mad:

Quote from: Omega;908582I dont see anyone here saying every animal is smart.

Neither do I and I'm not claiming someone said that.

However what I see is this:

Spoiler

(https://s32.postimg.org/uy8k5pnol/Screenshot_1.png)

And while I'm acknowledging that...

Spoiler

(https://s31.postimg.org/g1fr2pmrf/Screenshot_2.png)

...I don't agree with "EVERY" part. Hell, no. When it comes down to food, truckloads of animals are dumb as a box of rusty nails. Which is "very".

Feel free to take links provided in my early commentaries at face value, or simply follow them and gain additional insight into the matter. :cool:

Quote from: Omega;908540Isnt it better to assume that if Z exists then there must be some sort of Y and X to support it? Even if it is as simple as "A wizard did it!"?

I disagree, actually.

A staple of geek culture discussions (it sure as hell isn't limited to RPGdom) is to come up with some explanation, ANY explanation -- no matter how bizarre, implausible or unrealistic -- to avoid having to admit that a certain element just doesn't make any sense.  

I once gaped with amazement at a multi-hundred post thread on the Serenity RPG board in which people hotly and avidly debated how the astrographics of the 'Verse were possible.  It didn't occur to the debaters to listen to the genuine astrophysicist from JPL who said it couldn't be done.  It didn't occur to them to listen to Joss Whedon's own explanation for it, which was "Science makes my head hurt."  The concept of "Of course it's absurd, but it's just a setting fiat Whedon did because he thought it'd be cool" provoked sneers.

So, really, I'd rather start from the basis of "Let's put in what's plausible and go from there" than "Oh, who the hell cares, we'll come up with some cockamamie explanation to justify it if anyone asks."  It makes my head hurt less.

Quote from: Bren;908584You forgot the charge of the Rohirrim at the siege of Gondor. The one where Jackson had them ride their horses straight into and through the prepared polearms of the orcs. Tolkien didn't write it that stupid. And then we have Legolas and the Mumak.  :eek: :rolleyes: :mad:

Now now, Bren, that wasn't even the stupidest depiction of a cavalry charge in the movies.  I'll see your Pellenor Fields and raise you Helm's Deep.  No cavalry charge in the history of mortalkind could possibly negotiate a FORTY-FIVE FUCKING DEGREE downward slope without disaster.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908595Neither do I and I'm not claiming someone said that.

However what I see is this:

...I don't agree with "EVERY" part. Hell, no. When it comes down to food, truckloads of animals are dumb as a box of rusty nails. Which is "very".

Which again is not the "learning from experience" part that was pointed out. A bear, or a human being for that matter, with no prior experience with people or their weapons has a pretty good chance of doing something possibly life ending if its gut reaction isnt "run away." But with experience its likely going to figure something out. That could be anything from "Dont attack those." to "Dont attack those with the pointy things." to "Dont attack those with the pointy things unless you can ambush it." and so on.

The smaller and/or more primitive the animal the less its likely to learn or react in more than the most basic manner. Which is why I started off with limiting the example to things big enough to pose a threat.

Which comes back to the initial niche point that Rangers and Druids did not have any inherint skills with animals past tracking for the Ranger. Even in 5e you can end up with a Druid or Ranger who knows effectively nothing about animals. And these are the two classes youd think would have some niche protection as "nature savvy person". Pre-3e we just assumed they "knew stuff" even if it wasnt stated as it seemed inherint to the class. Dont know about 3 or 4e but 5e doesnt really back that up now. Though you can just say even a Druid without Nature proficiency still knows alot of basics. They just may not be as clued in as someone who has actually hit the books (or forest). Or know things very differently. Lots of leeway for interpretation or embellishing.

Quote from: Ravenswing;908599I disagree, actually.

A staple of geek culture discussions (it sure as hell isn't limited to RPGdom) is to come up with some explanation, ANY explanation -- no matter how bizarre, implausible or unrealistic -- to avoid having to admit that a certain element just doesn't make any sense.  

Except this isnt coming up with an explanation. It just assuming that since Z is there then some sort of Y and X must be there to support that and just moving on rather than bogging down in whats often needless details.

EG: The PCs encounter a pirate ship. For there to be a pirate ship someone had to build it (or conjure it) and all the support infrastructure needed to build it.

EG: You encounter a dungeon. There are people living in it. For that to happen there must be some ventilation mechanism going on. Depending on its nature there must be some other support infrastructure too. The inhabitants are getting food and gear from somewhere.

This rather than going "The pirate ship doesnt make any sense!"

Quote from: Omega;908603Which again is not the "learning from experience" part that was pointed out. (...)

The keyword is "EVERY". It's still not applicable, since animal kingdom in its diversity features plenty of species that are hardly any trainable, or can't evolve its intelligence past certain level, no matter how many times you're gonna repeat same experience.

QuoteBut with experience its likely going to figure something out.

But you yourself use fluid "likely" rather than hard "most definitely", "all", "always", or "every". Because that's exactly how it is. Some animals might be naturally good at doing some stuff, some might learn and get better, and some are lost cases that are never gonna learn it, no matter what. Just like sharks who repeatedly swallow inedible things, as presented by plenty of examples.

That's the gist of it - just because someone was awed by some rodent's skill at stealing food (which is, frankly, weird, since simple, plain domesticated kitten might prove to be ingenious when it comes to getting food) doesn't mean that suddenly every animal is (or will be) "smart" at getting their food.

This is unreasonable.

Side note: In context of RPG?

One should never, never-ever produce animal-based encounters along certain patterns, based on his own experience only. It's equally stupid to assume animals must be always dumb, or always smart. In the animal kingdom there's enough room for every type of behavior, every tactics, every twist of events one could think about, and there's high probability for finding real-world examples supporting it.

So:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]254[/ATTACH]

In most of our dungeon adventures we never cared about how the air circulated, what the monsters ate when they couldn't get adventurer, where things went to the bathroom, what they did for dinking water, etc. It just wasn't important to us.

It can be a fun exercise to design a dungeon with full logistical support, but I don't think that level of realism is demanded for every dungeon crawl. Sometimes you just want to kick in doors and loot treasure.

Dungeons are a genre convention. The same as physics defying dragons, multiple humanoid species all occupying the same ecological niche, and societies that function like medieval Europe despite the presence of world altering magic.

When it comes to the ventilation and animal discussion, at this point should we consider the "rocks fall, everybody dies" solution?:-) (kidding! kidding! argue away [heads to kitchen for snacks]).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908566Not to mention, what is your idea of "tactics" and "fun" and "cool"?  For instance, in Peter Jackson's movie "The Two Towers," where Legolam goes skateboarding down the stairs on a shield while shooting arrows?  I thought that was pants-shittingly stupid.  One of the stupidest things I've ever seen in my life.  I literally groaned out loud.  But I'm sure there are people who thought that was oh-so-cool and want to do that in a game and that's their idea of "good tactics".

Those people and I will never have a fun game together, which is why I try to make my expectations explicit as early as possible.

What is particularly funny is that game designers will take stunts like these and shape combat rules around them thus turning them into legitimate good tactics for a particular system that promotes the rule of cool over common sense. I have nothing against people playing games that tickle their own fancy but when these jackholes start playing at tables using rules that still value actual tactics and common sense, they get all butthurt because the "good tactics" they learned aren't working.

Quote from: cranebump;908613When it comes to the ventilation and animal discussion, at this point should we consider the "rocks fall, everybody dies" solution?:-) (kidding! kidding! argue away [heads to kitchen for snacks]).

I prefer something along the lines of "funny that you mention that, [player's name]. I recall a lengthy discussion covering exactly this topic. Last time I checked it was

• [/B] pages long and people were still far from ultimate conclusion satisfying all sides. You're free to join them, while we're gonna continue with the game.[/I]". :D

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908617I prefer something along the lines of "funny that you mention that, [player's name]. I recall a lengthy discussion covering exactly this topic. Last time I checked it was

• [/B] pages long and people were still far from ultimate conclusion satisfying all sides. You're free to join them, while we're gonna continue with the game.[/I]". :D

But...what about my snacks?:-)

Quote from: cranebump;908619But...what about my snacks?:-)

No snacks, Sir. In this establishment we serve only pic related:

Spoiler

(https://s32.postimg.org/frplujqw5/komes.jpg)

:cool:

Quote from: Ravenswing;908602Now now, Bren, that wasn't even the stupidest depiction of a cavalry charge in the movies.  I'll see your Pellenor Fields and raise you Helm's Deep.  No cavalry charge in the history of mortalkind could possibly negotiate a FORTY-FIVE FUCKING DEGREE downward slope without disaster.

I was going to mentioned that one, but I have seen non-CGI riders go down slopes nearly that steep in a number of old Westerns. Of course they were slipping and sliding, not charging....

Quote from: Exploderwizard;908614What is particularly funny is that game designers will take stunts like these and shape combat rules around them thus turning them into legitimate good tactics for a particular system that promotes the rule of cool over common sense. I have nothing against people playing games that tickle their own fancy but when these jackholes start playing at tables using rules that still value actual tactics and common sense, they get all butthurt because the "good tactics" they learned aren't working.

I was trying to find a way to say something similar, but couldn't. While I understand that in a narrow sense, run-climbing up the side of the enormously huge creature, bow in hand, so you can shoot it in the head and, at the same time, do extra damage by shooting multiple arrows with one draw, is a "tactical" move if the systems says and supports it being at least a remotely possible (much less an optimal) move, something in me rebels at actually calling shit like that "tactics."

I think it's because it is a private push-button solution being passed off as, (and hence replacing,) y'know, generally available "context/cooperation-powered" solutions.

Who needs the world or others when widgets provide all the permission you'll ever need? :cool:

I'm torn when it comes to Legolas and the Mumak.  It did set up one of the best lines in the movie.

But the reality is that Hollywood always goes for the over the top stuff now that they have CGI.

The hard part is explaining to people why the stunts seen on youtube are unrealistic.

How many takes?  How much preparation?  How much location and single move training in advance?

The Hobbit log flume ride will forever take this cake.

Quote from: David Johansen;908552Gronan is right that the rules cannot fix stupid or asshole but they can create a standardized consensus as to what is reasonable or, indeed possible.

The phrase "standardized consensus" gives me the heebie-jeebies. This sounds to me like the individual player being dictated to by the rest of the group. I feel it's probably the case that most players have at least one area in which they differ from the consensus. Sure. I suppose it's possible to create a standardized consensus. But how does it help? What problem does it solve? How does it make the game more fun?

QuoteIn reality very few of us have the PHDs in History, Physics, and Chemistry (let alone Philosophy and Theology though I expect those would only lead to more arguments) to claim that our understanding of the world is accurate or true.

If PhDs are such a high benchmark, why is it the most successful people in the world generally don't have one? Doesn't the survival of the human race for thousands and thousands of years in a state of relatively ignorance suggest that just a little understanding is all it takes to get by? And if that's enough to solve real world problems of life and death, why assume we would need a whole lot more information, knowledge, and/or expertise to play a game of make-believe?

QuoteIt does help if the GM describes how they see the game and setting.  I think one of the biggest places things go off the rail is unfulfilled expectations.

If unfulfilled expectations is such a drag, why is the answer always "set expectations"? Doesn't that guarantee there be strongly-held expectations that might go unfulfilled? Why can't we instead recognize and emphasize that the very nature of the game is full of mystery and unknowns such that it is premature for any player to hold any expectation strongly enough that it makes or breaks fun? Or if they do form expectations, that they should be taken with a grain of salt?

You can say "rules cannot fix stupid," but what exactly does "stupid" mean? Is it not also foolish to hanging your hat on expectations? What if we parsed the sentiment that "you can't fix stupid but you can set expectations" with the understanding of "stupid" that includes strongly-held expectations? Would it not comes out as "You can't do anything about those people who hang their hats on expectations. It's a problem, and we just can't fix it. But what you can do for all the more reasonable people out there is give them expectations to hang their hats on"? Does that even make sense? Does the conclusion and solution depend entirely upon what one considers to be "stupid" to begin with?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908566Not to mention, what is your idea of "tactics" and "fun" and "cool"?  For instance, in Peter Jackson's movie "The Two Towers," where Legolam goes skateboarding down the stairs on a shield while shooting arrows?  I thought that was pants-shittingly stupid.  One of the stupidest things I've ever seen in my life.  I literally groaned out loud.  But I'm sure there are people who thought that was oh-so-cool and want to do that in a game and that's their idea of "good tactics".

Those people and I will never have a fun game together, which is why I try to make my expectations explicit as early as possible.

I guess I have a pretty middle-of-the-road approach when it comes to these things. On the one hand, I do want to see creative and original approaches to specific situations in the game. On the other hand, I don't want to see cool done to death or goofy shit being commonplace. To wit, sliding down the stairs on a shield while firing arrows is possible in my game. There's going to be a to-hit penalty associated with it. And some kind of ability check to keep from falling on your ass. Neither of which makes it appealing as a good battle tactic. However, who knows. There may be a character sufficiently skilled where these drawbacks aren't too crippling, and there may even be specific situations where for some reason you do want to slide down stairs on a shield while firing arrows. But those are the two catches. "Stunts" are only ever good ideas in a very specific and narrow range of circumstances. And they're only ever done competently by someone highly skilled. They can thus be easily adjusted like a volume knob simply by changing whether I play a "high level" or "low level" game. I do usually run low-mid level games. So a stunt like this is possible, but mainly only in theory. I don't feel it violates anyone's expectations. If you really want to do that, now you have something to strive for.

Quote from: Lunamancer;908639I suppose it's possible to create a standardized consensus. But how does it help? What problem does it solve? How does it make the game more fun?

Some degree of consensus is required to make the game possible. How much consensus is desirable differs among participants.

QuoteIf PhDs are such a high benchmark, why is it the most successful people in the world generally don't have one?

It was an exemplar benchmark for deep knowledge of an aspect of the world. Don't make more of it than was intended or than is needed to understand the point.

And if you really and truly don't understand why lots of wealthy, powerful, and famous people don't have PhDs or why academic success does not equal wealth, power, and general fame...well I doubt anything we say will enlighten you on that.

Quote...why assume we would need a whole lot more information, knowledge, and/or expertise to play a game of make-believe?

He was somewhat stating the opposite. That because no one person has deep and thorough knowledge about every aspect of the world that expecting a game to feature deep, thorough knowledge about every aspect of reality is unreasonable.

QuoteIf unfulfilled expectations is such a drag, why is the answer always "set expectations"?

Because some common understanding is necessary. Its why we write our posts in English and not in 100 different, indecipherable collections of squiggles, dashes, pictures, and dots while holding in abeyance any attempt at shared understanding of language so as not to "set expectations."  

QuoteWhy can't we instead recognize and emphasize that the very nature of the game is full of mystery and unknowns such that it is premature for any player to hold any expectation strongly enough that it makes or breaks fun?

You certainly can. And some people certainly will find that sort of play to not be fun. All you are doing by avoiding any attempt at prior consensus is shuffling around which people aren't going to have fun or shuffling about what they aren't going to have fun about.

QuoteYou can say "rules cannot fix stupid," but what exactly does "stupid" mean?

If you don't know, then there's a really good chance that Bill Engvall has your sign.

Quote from: Omega;908539Actually . . .

With all due respect, Omega, this was the point at which some variation of the phrase, 'I'm replying to JesterRain? What the fuck am I thinking?' probably should've crossed your mind.

Quote from: David Johansen;908552If you ever read Roleplaying Mastery and Master of the Game, you know that Gary Gygax felt that a Dungeon Master should have a pretty broad library and familiarity with many historical and mythical topics.

Mr Gygax was right, but I would add to that, get the fuck out of the house, early and often. Mouth-breathing basement-dwellers make shit referees.

It doesn't take a gawddamned PhD, but it sure as hell doesn't hurt to have some Lazarus Long in you.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;908649With all due respect, Omega, this was the point at which some variation of the phrase, 'I'm replying to JesterRain? What the fuck am I thinking?' probably should've crossed your mind.

Hush, stranger. No need for drama. Let adults solve things adult way. :cool:

(https://electricdidact.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/tjta6nhj3oggs.gif?w=300&h=190)

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908541It was postulated, that when it comes to getting food, every animal is smart, or it's dead. While there's nothing wrong in the claim that "certain" animals might be smarter than other, the assumption that EVERY animal is either smart, or dead is nothing short of glorification. And a false one - plenty of animals are dumb as a brick.

No one said that in the first place.  What animals have is a set of instinctive and learned behaviors that have evolved over time to be effective.  A behavior doesn't have to be complex to be effective.  Plenty of animals are quite dumb but they are mostly herbivores.  They are dangerous simply because of their mass and power.  Predators often have to be cannier or they starve.    

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908541As for sharks - don't mistake them for ostriches. Some simply eat whatever they find, including things like nails or electronics (http://www.sharkinfo.ch/SI4_99e/gcuvier.html), not because it supplements their digestive process, or makes a good "ballast", but simply because it's within their reach and they are too stupid to tell the difference between "food" and "not food".

That's not actually true.  Shark species often display distinct prey preferences.  They only feed opportunistically when they have to.
http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v398/p221-234/
Diet and prey preference of juvenile lemon sharks Negaprion brevirostris

ABSTRACT: Sharks are often regarded as opportunistic asynchronous predators that feed on the most abundant prey. In the present study, 2 populations of juvenile lemon sharks Negaprion brevirostris were investigated from Bimini, Bahamas, with well-defined home ranges facilitating the estimation of prey preference. Stomach contents were quantitatively analysed from 396 lemon sharks with data on prey species and abundance obtained from quantitative sampling of mangrove and seagrass faunal communities to elucidate preferences with respect to prey type, prey size and location. Yellowfin mojarra Gerres cinereus dominated the diet of juvenile lemon sharks (>50% by weight and percentage index of relative importance, %IRI), even when present in lower abundances in the environment. Preference was determined and compared using abundance, %IRI values and original weight of prey, with the latter preferred due to their close relationship with energetic intake. Juvenile lemon sharks do not feed indiscriminately, but exhibit prey preference and size selection. Juvenile lemon sharks at Bimini demonstrated a hierarchy of prey preference: parrotfish (Scaridae) > mojarra (Gerreidae) > toadfish (Batrachoididae) > filefish (Balistidae) > grunts (Haemulidae) > barracuda (Sphyraenidae). High overlap between shark diet and mangrove communities revealed the importance of mangroves to lemon sharks and their prey. Lemon sharks fed disproportionately on intermediate sized teleosts and crustaceans, with maximum prey size of nursery-bound sharks primarily limited by availability in the environment. We conclude that sharks can be highly plastic foragers, capable of selective feeding, but will switch to more opportunistic foraging when environmental conditions deteriorate

Quote from: yosemitemike;908651No one said that in the first place. (...)

We're past that stage, Mike.

QuoteThat's not actually true

My link:
- Fact Sheet:Tiger Sharks

Your link:
- Diet and prey preference of juvenile lemon sharks Negaprion brevirostris

They aren't one and the same species.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908656We're past that stage, Mike.

The comment is still there.  It can still be responded to.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908656They aren't one and the same species.

There are 400 shark species.  Every one has not been studied this way.  Lemon sharks are not an atypical species though.  The studies available suggests that sharks are not the indiscriminate predators they were once thought to be.  This is supported by studies on shark attacks that suggest that attacks on people by Great Whites are usually caused by misidentification.
http://saveourseas.com/why-do-white-sharks-bite-people/
That picture of sharks just eating anything and everything is just dated.  It's more true of tiger sharks than other species.  As for why they swallow metallic objects and electronics
http://www.pelagic.org/overview/articles/sixsense.html
Their reputation may hinge on their jaws, but when it comes to setting records in the animal world, it's not their relative jaw strength that tops the charts - it's their ability to detect electric fields. In fact, sharks are almost as precise as the best physics laboratories in the country when it comes to sensing tiny electric effects. They can use this "sixth sense" to find food and even mates, since all living animals create their own electric fields. When a fish swims, or even moves its gills, it creates a change in the surrounding electric field that sharks can detect with the hundreds of electrically sensitive, gel-filled canals around their heads.
--------------
The metal fools their senses.  They think it's prey.

Quote from: yosemitemike;908660The comment is still there.  It can still be responded to.

Of course and Omega already addressed that. And I responded to it, by pointing which part of the original statement I have trouble with.

QuoteThere are 400 shark species. (...)

Mike, I agree with that.

It's just that it's neither mutually exclusive with my tiger sharks example, nor disproves my counter-claim. And even if it did, there are still animal species outside of shark-kind, and outside of water environment, that aren't very bright when it comes to food choice/acquisition, which contradicts the original statement and which is what I'm talking about here.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908663Of course and Omega already addressed that.

So?  I did as well.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908663It's just that it's neither mutually exclusive with my tiger sharks example, nor disproves my counter-claim. And even if it did, there are still animal species outside of shark-kind, and outside of water environment, that aren't very bright when it comes to food choice/acquisition, which contradicts the original statement and which is what I'm talking about here.

Tiger sharks are a very atypical species with an unusually broad prey range.  Claims don't need to be disproven.  They need to be proven.  That's now burden of proof works.  The evidence we have suggest that sharks are selective unless the environment deteriorates so that they can't be.  Is it absolute proof?  Of course not.  You aren't going to get that in behavioral studies.  However, it is the best evidence available.  that's what we have in the real world.  We make the best theory we can based on the best evidence we have,  

Most large predators are.  All of the ones that have been studied have been.  It's not an intellectual exercise but they have prey selection algorithms based on things like risk vs reward.  Large predators use quite developed prey selection models.  If they failed in the hunt because they chose prey poorly, they died.  They survivors were the ones who had good prey selection strategies.  They survive and pass these on.  However, even very simple predators like gastropods exhibit differential prey selection based on prey selection models.  It's purely simple instinctive behavior but it doesn't take a lot of brain power to hunt based on a simple algorithm.  The ones with effective prey selection models survive and pass on their instincts.  The others don't.

Quote from: yosemitemike;908672So?  I did as well.

The only answer I can give is the same I gave to him.

QuoteTiger sharks are a very atypical species with an unusually broad prey range. (...)

I don't disagree.

Still, there's no contradiction. All I need is one species, one example that proves that not EVERY animal (etc, etc). I find tiger sharks a good example of what I have in mind - an animal that's not very "smart" in its dietary choice. You might say that it doesn't have to be smart, that it's an effect of evolution, specialization, or that external elements influence its behavior, and you're gonna be right about that... But it's not the same discussion.

The point is that tiger sharks are beasts known of being "garbage eaters", willing to swallow just about anything ranging from tires to metal buckets. Which is relatively dumb. And this proves the claim I made.

Then again, tiger sharks are merely first example that came to my mind. I'm sure, given enough time, I could find a better one. :cool:

Quote from: yosemitemike;908672Tiger sharks are a very atypical species with an unusually broad prey range.

So you are saying that their prey range is what gives them niche protection?

Ironically wht is often considered one of, if not the, most intelligent species is also one of the dumbest when it comes to eating.  I refer, of course, to H. sapiens. Humans will eat all sorts of dumb stuff. Just ask poison control or ER workers. Consider that poison warning lables are on products because without them someone might try to eat the stuff. People routinely poison themselves with toxic wild mushrooms, spoiled food, etc. Then there is the ingestion of alcohol in lethal quantities.  And the widespread instances of dietary and nutritional diseases that plague modern society.

Rat poison works because the clever rodents are dumb enough to eat it.

But if a species overall is dumb enough in food selection it will die out.

I am not sure that tiger sharks consuming non-food items is neccesarilly "dumb". It doesn't seem to harm the sharks.

Quote from: Bren;908584You forgot the charge of the Rohirrim at the siege of Gondor. The one where Jackson had them ride their horses straight into and through the prepared polearms of the orcs. Tolkien didn't write it that stupid. And then we have Legolas and the Mumak.  :eek: :rolleyes: :mad:

Oh, there's plenty of examples, I just named one.  Like at Helm's Deep, I was sitting there muttering "Why the hell have you let a hostile army get within twenty yards of your curtain wall?" during the ritual grimicing scene before the battle.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908637The Hobbit log flume ride will forever take this cake.

Am I glad I've never seen any of the "Boggie" movies?

* stations archers to cover the exits *
* fills thread with water *
* releases the tiger sharks *

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908689Am I glad I've never seen any of the "Boggie" movies?

Well, they're significantly worse than The Lord of the Rings movies but they have some moments.

The Unexpected Party was done well anyhow.

Just remember this about animals and you'll be fine.

Take any animal.  For any given animal, the following is true:
1. It's 2-5 times more intelligent (in the human sense) than you give it credit for.
2. In what it does best, it's brain is better at than yours is.

Human rule the world because we can adapt to anything, not because we're particularly good at any one thing (except destroying other species).  Humans basically are Batman.  Teleport him into a ring to fight any other superhero, he's in trouble.  Give him time to prepare, he'll find a way to curbstomp the Beyonder. :D

I'll end this threadjack and return you to your previous threadjack.

Those responsible for threadjacking the threadjack, have been threadjacked.

I'm Batman.

I am Spartacus!

Quote from: Bren;908701I'm Batman.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908702I am Spartacus!

You both misspelled "a lumberjack".

So how about those encumbrance rules?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908705So how about those encumbrance rules?

Still don't know why more games don't have CRPG-style slot-based initiative. Even LotFP/ACKS stone system isn't quite all the way there.

Quote from: Daztur;908707Still don't know why more games don't have CRPG-style slot-based initiative. Even LotFP/ACKS stone system isn't quite all the way there.

Ratman's super easy encumbrance rules.

Most adventurers are not going to have problems with encumbrance unless/until their bag and backpack are full of treasure.
Characters with high strength are going to have to worry about where they carry all their junk before being encumbered.

If you have a low strength, (< 10) you'll likely have to start worrying about encumbrance right away.
If you are worried about encumbrance (IE the DM is looking at your gear list funny), then add that shit up and check.
As a DM, call for an encumbrance check probably once during an adventure, near the 3/4 mark, or whenever it seems like the party has accumulated a ton of stuff.

I ran the numbers one day, for various classes, their typical gear loadouts, and typical str stats, and found that these rules of thumb will usually apply.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;908649With all due respect, Omega, this was the point at which some variation of the phrase, 'I'm replying to JesterRain? What the fuck am I thinking?' probably should've crossed your mind.

But he paints himself into the most beautiful of corners? :rolleyes:

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908689Am I glad I've never seen any of the "Boggie" movies?

I would pay for each movie in the "trilogy" (/spit, /flashes the horns, wards off evil) to have you watch it in a TheRPGSite gathering where we may peanut gallery and drink ourselves blind.

I anticipate rage induced infarctions, so someone's going to have to rent a defibrilator and know how to use it.

(It's not inexcusably bad. Just a goofy rollercoaster drawn out over a Western US state or three. Enjoy a mountain pass worth of mad tumbling action, then wait 50 miles on the plains for the next gas station & piss stop.)

Okay, this talk about taking conversational hyperbole about the word "every" into specious literalism at 'mathematical proof levels' is just irredeemably stupid.

Either this is 'English as a Second Language' issue, or 'Can't Grasp Human Talk' pixelbitching. Or someone's obviously so sad and boring they think they are tugging everyone's 'chain' and looking really clever in the process.

Sponges are an animal, and they are now officially smarter than this trollbait bullshit. And they at least house a species of fish in their anus, so they are twice as useful. Quit being a blistered chode and sit your ass down for a spell.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908735Okay, this talk about taking conversational hyperbole aboiut the word "every" into specious literalism at 'mathematical proof levels' is just irredeemably stupid. (...)

You're free to not participate and/or pretend it doesn't exist.

Unless, of course, you've suddenly became a mod and you feel such a simple conversation is - for some reason - threatening the stability of whole forum. In which case, we can talk about your feelings.

If not, buy some popcorn, sit back, enjoy, or simply move away, start another thread and don't be an ass. :cool:

Ahh, that was a nice weekend! Got to get in some good grilling and enjoy the lakes before the hot weather kicks back in. Ah, time to check on therpgsite and see what's been happeni...


...slowly backs out the door.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908767...slowly backs out the door.

Be careful, Gronan probably has the exits covered by archers...

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908740You're free to not participate and/or pretend it doesn't exist.

Unless, of course, you've suddenly became a mod and you feel such a simple conversation is - for some reason - threatening the stability of whole forum. In which case, we can talk about your feelings.

If not, buy some popcorn, sit back, enjoy, or simply move away, start another thread and don't be an ass. :cool:

It's been going on for like 5 fucking pages and over a week now! The horse's remains have gooefied and been reabsorbed by the earth, and now you're just beating the clover shoots! Are you aiming for hyper-specialized, niche protection yourself?: "dead horse atomizer."

Quote from: Opaopajr;908735Okay, this talk about taking conversational hyperbole about the word "every" into specious literalism at 'mathematical proof levels' is just irredeemably stupid.

Words have meaning.

I know, I suppose expecting people to not use specious universals like "every" and "all" when they really mean "most" or "some" would be asking too much.

All I know is when the sharks start jumping out of the water to lob flaming oil at the intelligent squirrel collective, it is time to stop camping by the lake and retreat with a squad of archers.

Just sayin'.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908705So how about those encumbrance rules?

Quote from: Daztur;908707Still don't know why more games don't have CRPG-style slot-based initiative. Even LotFP/ACKS stone system isn't quite all the way there.

I don't know what "slot-based initiative" is, but pretty much anything adapted from CRPGs to real RPGs is crap.

In the encumbrance system I use, yo don't worry much about individual weight. You worry about bags. You can carry 5 full bags of stuff before you drop to half move, 10 full bags max. A few small items not in bags can be ignored, like a dagger in your boot. Clothes can be ignored.

Six small items can fit in a small bag, six average-sized items or six full small bags can fit in a large bag. You can use lined index cards to represent bags and write one item per line. To figure out if you are encumbered, count your cards. If you have to drop something to run faster, the GM grabs some cards at random.

You need to know how many coins can fit in a bag, and the weight of large items in bag equivalents, but other than that, don't worry about it. I use a 5-pound bag of sugar and a 30-pound bag of potatoes as my size comparisons.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908777Words have meaning.

I know, I suppose expecting people to not use specious universals like "every" and "all" when they really mean "most" or "some" would be asking too much.

Frankly, yes. People use colloquial or inexact phrasing all the time. See what I did there? Would anyone seriously believe that I meant that people did so 100% of the time, and therefore finding a single instance where people didn't use colloquial or inexact phrasing would prove me utterly wrong? No, because my contextual meaning was obvious.

The only real problem is when people start changing the rules of the conversation mid-stream.

"When it comes to getting food, every animal is smart, or it's dead" is an interesting premise, and could lead into an interesting discussion about non-human thinking, the opportunity cost of intelligence from an evolutionary perspective, or all sorts of interesting things. Instead we're watching an argument about whether finding a counter-argument disproves the premise.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908775It's been going on for like 5 fucking pages and over a week now! The horse's remains have gooefied and been reabsorbed by the earth, and now you're just beating the clover shoots! Are you aiming for hyper-specialized, niche protection yourself?: "dead horse atomizer."

Yes, I'm aware that the Mankind goes through its "Mars" period now, but heck... Control yourself, man. :cool:

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908785"When it comes to getting food, every animal is smart, or it's dead" is an interesting premise, and could lead into an interesting discussion about non-human thinking, the opportunity cost of intelligence from an evolutionary perspective, or all sorts of interesting things. Instead we're watching an argument about whether finding a counter-argument disproves the premise.

Please bear with me:

- We're on RPG-related forum.

- On top of that, it's not "beginner level" forum. Manners aside, it is an undisputed fact that at least a few users frequenting these parts are in the business pretty much since its early days. Which is "long" and what translates to "experience".

- This leads to the assumption that people should be capable of shitting dozens of quality threads per hour.

Instead we're watching them complain about how a thread they are visiting out of their own free will (let me stress that out: free will) is ruining... I'm not sure what. Silence?

(http://i.imgur.com/ZK682Aq.gif)

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908789Please bear with me:

- We're on RPG-related forum.

- On top of that, it's not "beginner level" forum. Manners aside it is an undisputed fact that at least a few users frequenting these parts are in the business pretty much since its early days. Which is "long" and what translates to "experience".

- This leads to the assumption that people should be capable of shitting dozens of quality threads per hour.

Instead we're watching them complain about how a thread they are visiting out of their own free will (let me stress that out: free will) is ruining... I'm not sure what. Silence?

Yes, people are visiting this thread of their own free will. I'm not sure why you think that that is a boldness-worthy concept. We can all always participate or not as we see fit. That is not an inoculation from critique.

As to the current avenue of discussion ruining the silence or something more: I listed, and you quoted, two potential avenues of inquiry we are not exploring because instead we are watching this argumentation endless loop. I'm not sure if there's any appetite left out there for it, or if people were just throwing popcorn into the fire. I'll ask everyone, not just JesterRaiin--is this (animal intelligence) and interesting tangent we should keep going on, or should we steer back towards niche protection.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908791I'll ask everyone,

Why?

Words I get, the meaning of your message I can't comprehend.

This ain't no wizard council. People come here - once again - out of their own free will. You don't need their acceptation to discuss things. If they are willing to discuss, they are gonna do that - it's not they are not gonna ignore you if they find you and your words lacking any interest. You're free to produce additional branches within the boundaries of any single thread - it's not that linear experience only. As long as it's relevant, you're free to discuss whatever you want, and skip comments you don't find interesting - it's not that the pace makes it impossible or any hard to find yourself in that "clutter".

And if you feel you can't, you're free to abandon the thread and start a new one titled "niche protection redux", or something.

This is Internet basics. We did that in times of Hayes 9600 modems.

Point is: there's no need for "everyone, thread -> this way" announcements. Especially if derailment seems to be the only thing keeping the thread alive.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908785Instead we're watching an argument about whether finding a counter-argument disproves the premise.

Which is certainly pointless, yes, because a single counter-example is, in fact, enough to disprove a universal statement.

People said "nobody said every animal" and then JesterRaiin highlighted the posts where people said exactly that, and then pointed to a couple of atypical species.

Rather than digging foxholes and holding the Humpty Dumpty Ridge against all comers, the sensible thing to do was just say "well, all right, 'every' was an exaggeration, but it's mostly true".

I'd still like to see a thread that breaks down different animal behaviours by type and ecological niche with an eye towards how to represent them in an RPG encounter.  One of the most fun encounters I ever ran was a non-Glorantha RQ ranger slipping down a ravine while out foraging and realizing he'd landed right between a black bear cub and momma bear.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908798I'd still like to see a thread that breaks down different animal behaviours by type and ecological niche with an eye towards how to represent them in an RPG encounter.  One of the most fun encounters I ever ran was a non-Glorantha RQ ranger slipping down a ravine while out foraging and realizing he'd landed right between a black bear cub and momma bear.

I too would like useful guidelines categorized either by real world species or by generic ecological niche. Personally, I'd like ecological niches with real earth examples as illustrations because I could use that anywhere from 1624 France to Star Trek, Star Wars, or Glorantha.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908798People said "nobody said every animal" and then JesterRaiin highlighted the posts where people said exactly that, and then pointed to a couple of atypical species.

So we're OK with getting on pedantic arguments where apparently hyperbole doesn't exist, despite people using exaggerations in a fair amount of statements on and off the internet?

It's attitudes like this that promote some of the silliest character optimization creations in a lot of games, because people can't seem to understand the 'spirit' versus the 'letter' of 'the law' (which in this case is the word, EVERY!)

Quote from: daniel_ream;908798Which is certainly pointless, yes, because a single counter-example is, in fact, enough to disprove a universal statement.

I'd still like to see a thread that breaks down different animal behaviours by type and ecological niche with an eye towards how to represent them in an RPG encounter.  One of the most fun encounters I ever ran was a non-Glorantha RQ ranger slipping down a ravine while out foraging and realizing he'd landed right between a black bear cub and momma bear.

"In my day, I've seen bears do things that even a bear wouldn't do" - Ranger Brad.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908798People said "nobody said every animal" and then JesterRaiin highlighted the posts where people said exactly that, and then pointed to a couple of atypical species.

Fine. Fuck it. Yeah sure Every animal can learn. Yes even an amoeba can learn.

My point was that not every animal lives to learn. Or even learns something useful. Kinda like RPG players. Some of which cling tenaciously to their niche protection of being stupid.

There. We are back on topic.

Y'know, I was gonna respond to a couple posts, but screw it: this threadjacking has been threadjacked by threadjacked threaders all out of any shape or sense.

Help, some old geezer is forcing me to read this thread and post on it against my will!

NOBODY likes a pissant little douchecanoe who quibbles about the meaning of phrases used in casual conversation.

(In the words of Master Yoda, "What I did there, do you see>")

Please stop repeating the lie that everyone here is on this thread of their own free will. I am a brain in a jar and input jacks have been slaved to this thread. Make it stop! (or else post some pictures of cute actresses playing D&D)

Quote from: DavetheLost;908832Please stop repeating the lie that everyone here is on this thread of their own free will. I am a brain in a jar and input jacks have been slaved to this thread. Make it stop! (or else post some pictures of cute actresses playing D&D)

That's the "D&D With Porn Stars" blog next door in 3B.  It's getting hit on the head lessons here.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908795This ain't no wizard council.

I blame the furry footed burrowers!

Speaking of.

What about race protection. Some groups and even designers seem to want to typecast X race as allways this or that. Dwarves get hit hardest with that one. Followed by Halflings.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908777Words have meaning.

I know, I suppose expecting people to not use specious universals like "every" and "all" when they really mean "most" or "some" would be asking too much.

It is literally (autoantonym) too much to expect from living language usage, and hence (comedically antiquated; also, "consequence" definition, not "future time" one) not a useful paradigm (comedic buzzword) for vernacular (pedantic vocabulary) speech, making one seem totally (exaggerated hyperbole) not cool (slang metaphor).

Do we really need to 'tard up this place like pedantic nerds? Or shall we evolve to the higher heavens of semiotics and write strictly in emojis?
:rolleyes:

Quote from: Omega;908838Speaking of.

What about race protection. Some groups and even designers seem to want to typecast X race as allways this or that. Dwarves get hit hardest with that one. Followed by Halflings.

That's why I tend to feel that "race as class" was the better model for D&D. You can always have more than one class within a race, but you avoid the issue of races that are clearly geared just to be used with a particular class. If you make whole new classes to represent different aspects of a race, you can get something distinct and interesting, as opposed to doing what AD&D did, where they opened up a lot of classes to dwarves and halflings, but there was still only one obvious, optimal choice.

Quote from: Baulderstone;908850as opposed to doing what AD&D did, where they opened up a lot of classes to dwarves and halflings, but there was still only one obvious, optimal choice.

Optimal is not necessarily interesting. And due to random stat rolls oft not even possible as all your dwarf may qualify for is a thief in AD&D. No so much a factor later but stats can nudge this way or that. But the overall depiction has been fairly niche with notable exceptions.

I think 3e and on shook things up a little with dwarves as you see alot of dwarven priests as represrntative of a cleric for example. Halflings seem to be perpetually stuck as thieves though. But seems more branching out into bards over time.

I've seen my fair share of halfling wizards. Then by late 3.5 there's halfling shiars, erudites, and other things I never quite figured out what they were.

Quote from: Baulderstone;908850That's why I tend to feel that "race as class" was the better model for D&D. You can always have more than one class within a race, but you avoid the issue of races that are clearly geared just to be used with a particular class. If you make whole new classes to represent different aspects of a race, you can get something distinct and interesting, as opposed to doing what AD&D did, where they opened up a lot of classes to dwarves and halflings, but there was still only one obvious, optimal choice.

For 1ed dwarves make fine thieves and fighter/thieves mechanically. They have the same net racial modifiers to thief skills as halflings (+25%) and if your DM isn't being a douche you can still deal with traps and locks with your armor on and just mostly give up on sneaking and be mostly as good at fighting as a pure fighter and get a sneak attack every now and then when the party gets surprise.

Quote from: Omega;908838Speaking of.

What about race protection. Some groups and even designers seem to want to typecast X race as allways this or that. Dwarves get hit hardest with that one. Followed by Halflings.

You meant things that some fantastic races have always had based on mythological sources back in our history?

Cue Rant

Quote from: Opaopajr;908849Do we really need to 'tard up this place like pedantic nerds?

Apparently we do.

Since some (not all) of us can't seem to just admit that saying

   "When it comes to getting food, every animal is smart, or it's dead."

as if it were the well thought out and pithy conclusion of a logical syllogism is either

   (i) a rather silly exaggeration that adds zero useful information to deciding how to depict different animals differently in an RPG

or

(ii) an even more than usually sloppy use of the English language.

Instead we have page after page of people providing counter examples and other people arguing that the statement is true and meaningful when it obviously is neither true in any general sense nor meaningful in figuring out what strategy and animal might successfully use.

Now originally this statement was directed in response to something I said. At the time, I noted that it was fallacious and I briefly thought of posting a contradiction, but then I thought, hey Black Vulmea is a reasonable guy who hasn't posted here in quite a while and in the past when he has posted here and elsewhere he posts some well thought out and useful stuff that I like. And I thought, the statement was so patently silly or else poorly considered that surely everyone would realize without needing it to be pointed out that it was, at best, an ill considered thing to say...but for some reason people seem to want to double down on the stupid.

For the love of Gygax, Stafford, Costikyan, or whoever the fuck your favorite game designer is can we just move the fuck on to talking about something else?

Here's the thing.

I believe the actual statement that us supposed to imply is:  "Every SURVIVING animal is technically 'smart' because any that would do something dumb is dead."  

Nature does tend to self-correct when a mutation gets a little out of hand.

But, hey, let's get hung up on pedantic language and technically literal readings.  Works so well for D&D, after all.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908810So we're OK with getting on pedantic arguments where apparently hyperbole doesn't exist, despite people using exaggerations in a fair amount of statements on and off the internet?

It's attitudes like this that promote some of the silliest character optimization creations in a lot of games, because people can't seem to understand the 'spirit' versus the 'letter' of 'the law' (which in this case is the word, EVERY!)

People were free to say "just a hyperbole, man" and that would be it - I'm far from being THAT unreasonable. They didn't. Why? I can only begin to guess, since it's not particularly complicated solution.

Still, here we are - people opted to defend the claim as it was, present contra-arguments (I like this approach), pretend nobody said what was said (seriously, low tier trolling alert), twist words (just no) and finally resort to the "tactical retreat" while still throwing shit from the safe distance ("We did it, team! High fives, manly hugs").

All that drama aside, I find such a discussion an acceptable challenge. It keeps my problem-solving and conflict-management skills in shape, and therefore I see nothing wrong in engaging in such an experience, even if discussants can't keep calm, or come up with simpler way out of this conflict.

So, in the end, blame them for their inefficiency, rather than me just because I didn't find it in me to renounce facts. :cool:

Side note: to paraphrase yourself (I hope I'm doing it well): It's attitudes like this that give RPGamers bad reputation, because people can't seem to understand the 'lighthearted discussion' versus the 'YOU DARE TO CHALLENGE MY AUTHORITY' (which seems to be the case).

Quote from: Omega;908821Fine. Fuck it. Yeah sure Every animal can learn. (...)

You're making it look like it costs you a lot to say such a thing and that it left you exhausted, broken and whatnot. One of those "hard" weeks?

Side note: "Every"? I think I can be persuaded to spare some time and seek relevant study, or find some other examples proving this, yet another "EVERY"-based claim wrong. Interested? ;)

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908830NOBODY likes

People feels don't matter.

Quote from: Spinachcat;908835I blame the furry footed burrowers!

Kenders. Kender mobsters, I tell you.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908849It is literally (autoantonym) too much to expect from living language usage,

Beautiful words don't make people right. Facts make people right. If you choose to argue rather than accept facts... (sigh emoji). ;)

Quote from: Bren;908861For the love of Gygax, Stafford, Costikyan, or whoever the fuck your favorite game designer is can we just move the fuck on to talking about something else?

I'm 100% ok with that. :)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;908859You meant things that some fantastic races have always had based on mythological sources back in our history?

Depending on the tales. Dwarves have been everything from super craftsmen to wizards, to thieves for example.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908868You're making it look like it costs you a lot to say such a thing and that it left you exhausted, broken and whatnot. One of those "hard" weeks?

Side note: "Every"? I think I can be persuaded to spare some time and seek relevant study, or find some other examples proving this, yet another "EVERY"-based claim wrong. Interested? ;)

1: Opa's right. You are a rather pathetic troll when you try. Which this last week has been alot.

2: I think youd fail too. Even an amoeba can learn to avoid something. Apparently you failed biology class forever. This used to be a class project in schools. And Opa was also right here. You apparently failed reading comprehension forever too.

Try again please.

Quote from: Omega;908879Depending on the tales. Dwarves have been everything from super craftsmen to wizards, to thieves for example.

Yes, but they have a set series of abilities and racial attitudes already set.  Same with Elves.

Here's the problem I have with traditional 'Racial' stereo types in say, D&D is how many variants of the same 'race', like 3 Dwarven, Halfling, Gnome types and at least 5 Elven.  And yet, humans are somehow considered even more 'diverse'.  In fact, there are quite a few settings in which has real human phenotypes, Caucasian, Mongloid and Negroid, which occurs in several different climates, all in the same areas/cities.

Meanwhile, we have each fantasy race are limited to certain areas, Dwarves are Mountains and Hills, Elves are Underground, Trees and Sorta-Cities so on and so forth.

So which races are the 'mono-culture'?

Quote from: Omega;9088851: Opa's right. You are a rather pathetic troll when you try. Which this last week has been alot.

2: I think youd fail too. Even an amoeba can learn to avoid something. Apparently you failed biology class forever. This used to be a class project in schools. And Opa was also right here. You apparently failed reading comprehension forever too.

Try again please.

Trolling? Trust me. If I would want to push buttons, you'd feel that. :D

And no, I wouldn't fail. Seeing that you resort to such weak tactics as to deny that the original claim has been made and then run away while avoiding any further direct confrontation, I know I'd have no problem crushing your line of argumentation, even with that crappy English of mine. See, even now you're treating a simple, irrelevant discussion as a duel. And instead of dealing it in a more adult fashion, say, throwing simple "ah, kiddo, let's forget about the stuff and move on", accompanied by a relevant smile, you're adhering to the overplayed tactics of "calling for reinforcements", expressing how you sympathize with Opa's claim in hope he is gonna support you. That's desperation, bro.

Anyway. Since at this point it's obvious there's hardly any way to form an agreement between the two of us, how about you git off my lawn while I'll stay away from yours?

Quote from: Baulderstone;908850That's why I tend to feel that "race as class" was the better model for D&D. You can always have more than one class within a race, but you avoid the issue of races that are clearly geared just to be used with a particular class. If you make whole new classes to represent different aspects of a race, you can get something distinct and interesting, as opposed to doing what AD&D did, where they opened up a lot of classes to dwarves and halflings, but there was still only one obvious, optimal choice.

One thing you can count on. No matter how many race/class combinations a game offers there will be players who insist on playing a particular race/class for the sole reason that it ISN'T one of the options available. It doesn't matter how powerful or effective the combination is, and quite often it is laughably ineffective. All that matters is that it is an "off menu" choice.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908868People were free to say "just a hyperbole, man" and that would be it - I'm far from being THAT unreasonable.

I would agree with that. That could have ended it then and there

Quote from: Exploderwizard;908896One thing you can count on. No matter how many race/class combinations a game offers there will be players who insist on playing a particular race/class for the sole reason that it ISN'T one of the options available. It doesn't matter how powerful or effective the combination is, and quite often it is laughably ineffective. All that matters is that it is an "off menu" choice.

I'm strongly of the opinion that it isn't the game designer's job to set up rules for every conceivable role unless the game is one of those 'how to make anything' systems like GURPS or HEROES. That's what homebrew is for, and I believe the OD&D set actually mentions that such things are part of the game, even if it didn't include rules for it (am I off base here, Gronan? I recall reading about someone playing a dragon or something in an early era game). Of course, then we still can critique the role choices that they did make. The dwarves mentioned above always kinda threw me for a loop. Dwarves in folklore have often had magical abilities or knowledge. I never did know where the dwarves are inherently anti-magical came from. I'm running a The Chronicles of Prydain-inspired game for the neighboring kids, and I've never had a good explanation for them for why I had to homebrew a way to make Dori the invisible Dwarf work. But again I don't mind doing so. It could well be niche protection for the elf as the magic-using demihuman.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908903I never did know where the dwarves are inherently anti-magical came from. I'm running a The Chronicles of Prydain-inspired game for the neighboring kids, and I've never had a good explanation for them for why I had to homebrew a way to make Dori the invisible Dwarf work. But again I don't mind doing so. It could well be niche protection for the elf as the magic-using demihuman.

Maybe it came out of dwarves being craftsmen, combined with the idea that was popular in the '70s of magic and technology being opposing forces. Given that magic got a whole lot more mechanical support that making things in D&D, dwarves got the short end of the stick.

Quote from: Baulderstone;908908Maybe it came out of dwarves being craftsmen, combined with the idea that was popular in the '70s of magic and technology being opposing forces. Given that magic got a whole lot more mechanical support that making things in D&D, dwarves got the short end of the stick.

GIMLI: (pause; slow turn)"...Tell me you did not just say that..." :-)

Can't speak from experience about 5E, but I was told there was some Dwarf/X that's an OP combo?  I guess I'm asking if that stick is still dwarf-sized.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908903I would agree with that. That could have ended it then and there

And I assure you I wouldn't continue with it any further. ;)

QuoteDwarves in folklore have often had magical abilities or knowledge. I never did know where the dwarves are inherently anti-magical came from.

Probably someone thought that:

soil + stone -> isolator -> anti-magic capabilities

At least nobody thought about dwarven-kind eating rocks or similar crap. Sheeesh.

Yo, Gimli, do that trick with a granite. C'mon, man.

(http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln6ffgOAbk1qjb2cw.jpg)

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908903I'm strongly of the opinion that it isn't the game designer's job to set up rules for every conceivable role unless the game is one of those 'how to make anything' systems like GURPS or HEROES. That's what homebrew is for, and I believe the OD&D set actually mentions that such things are part of the game, even if it didn't include rules for it (am I off base here, Gronan? I recall reading about someone playing a dragon or something in an early era game).

In OD&D, dragons came with a progression in ability based on age, but what I think you are referring to is the tale of the Balrog PC, and yes OD&D at the time had an expectation that the DM (and players) would invent something for any additional creatures or characters that they wanted to add to their game. As an example, in the mid 1970s I statted up Huntsman for my home OD&D game and stuck them in a creepy forest that I called the Forest of Idris. And even before the Dragon started publishing new character classes, early fanzines like Alarums & Excursions were publishing new character classes by the dozens.

QuoteThe dwarves mentioned above always kinda threw me for a loop. Dwarves in folklore have often had magical abilities or knowledge. I never did know where the dwarves are inherently anti-magical came from.

Norse dwarves crafted all the magical goodies used by the gods, so those guys were clearly able to create magic and in Tolkien, "The dwarves of yore made mighty spells", so it is an interesting question. Gronan, please enlighten us.

Quote from: Baulderstone;908908Maybe it came out of dwarves being craftsmen, combined with the idea that was popular in the '70s of magic and technology being opposing forces.

Not intended as a contradiction of your notion, but as semi-support -- in Glorantha, dwarves are quite technically adept, are a source of higher tech items like black powder guns, and have a mechanistic view of the universe, being in sense technical constructs themselves, but they still have spells of some kind just like everybody else.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908912At least nobody thought about dwarven-kind eating rocks or similar crap.

That's Uz, not Mostali. (Trolls and dwarves to the Gloranthignorant.)

Quote from: Omega;908854Optimal is not necessarily interesting. And due to random stat rolls oft not even possible as all your dwarf may qualify for is a thief in AD&D. No so much a factor later but stats can nudge this way or that. But the overall depiction has been fairly niche with notable exceptions.

I personally agree on optimal not equally interesting. I went through a phase about 20 years ago where I tended to make terrible suboptimal choices with my character and see how I could got by. A friend of mine ran a Babylon 5 game during that time, and I made a Psi Corp character with the absolute weakest possible psi ability. I had all the social restrictions of being in Psi Corp and close to no ability. None of the other players knew this, so I held a lot of power in the party just through bullshitting.

QuoteI think 3e and on shook things up a little with dwarves as you see alot of dwarven priests as represrntative of a cleric for example.

It's true that 3E opened up some new class/race combinations, with dwarven clerics being a popular one. As a fan of "class as race", I just feel that you get could something more distinctive with a new class for divinely-inspired dwarves.

Granted, 3E had prestige classes to add that kind of additional flavor, but it was flavor that only got tapped into later in a characters career. I didn't really like prestige classes much either. 3E was supposed to be built on opening up choice, giving you all these moving parts to pick from, but prestige classes had these long lists of prerequisites. It meant that players tended to decide on a prestige class during character generation, then have to be bound by the prerequisite list in all their skill and feat choices. All the busy work that 3E added to leveling became just a hassle if the players didn't really get a choice anyway.

It seemed to me that it would be more honest to just make these prestige classes as actual classes. That would allow players to play what they wanted to play and still have free choices when choices were presented to them upon leveling.

I guess "race as class" might be a lot more mechanical work, but during the 3E era, I would have been fine with anything that slowed the creation of new crunch. We might have only gotten about three new classes a month, as opposed to 15 new prestige classes every month.

As an aside, the worst thing about the ridiculous bloat of player options in 3E wasn't the actual rule complexity and balance issues. It was that it always had the players in my group in a state of perpetual buyer's remorse. If only this new prestige class had been available months ago, they would have aimed for it, but now they had made too many choices that lead away from it.

It's not a new idea to suggest they tried to apply the CCG mentality to RPGs. The problem was that a M:tG player can make a new deck every day, while an RPG character can last for years. Bombarding them with options they can't ever use just creates dissatisfaction with the game.

 

QuoteHalflings seem to be perpetually stuck as thieves though. But seems more branching out into bards over time.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908855I've seen my fair share of halfling wizards. Then by late 3.5 there's halfling shiars, erudites, and other things I never quite figured out what they were.

Yeah, I do remember halfling wizards being a big thing in 3E. They didn't have any drawbacks at being a wizard, and their small size and high DEX gave them a nice bonus to AC.

It's actually a good example of an issue I have with Race and Class as separate choices. "Halflings make really good wizards" isn't a thing in fantasy, and until this point, wasn't a thing in D&D. Yet the mechanics of 3E inadvertently created this weird combination.

Quote from: Bren;908913Norse dwarves crafted all the magical goodies used by the gods, so those guys were clearly able to create magic and in Tolkien, "The dwarves of yore made mighty spells", so it is an interesting question.

It's worth remembering that The Ring of the Nibelung was an influence on The Lord of the Rings. In that story, the titular, cursed ring that that grants the power to rule the world and fuels most of the drama and bloodshed was forged by the dwarf Alberich.

QuoteNot intended as a contradiction of your notion, but as semi-support -- in Glorantha, dwarves are quite technically adept, are a source of higher tech items like black powder guns, and have a mechanistic view of the universe, being in sense technical constructs themselves, but they still have spells of some kind just like everybody else.

Yes, Glorantha does a good job of making dwarves both impressive crafters and magical in nature at the same time.

Quote from: Baron Opal;908779All I know is when the sharks start jumping out of the water to lob flaming oil at the intelligent squirrel collective, it is time to stop camping by the lake and retreat with a squad of archers.

NO! This violates the beschmeckles out of the niche of acrobatic hobgoblin pyramids hurling flaming oil flasks from different elevations to defeat players who say they raise their shields to nullify the explosions, which everyone knows is the cornerstone of D&D monster balance intentional design. Besides, how realistic are shark fins adapted to throw oil flasks, let alone light them underwater in high-pH medieval seawater?

Quote from: Omega;908838Speaking of.

What about race protection. Some groups and even designers seem to want to typecast X race as allways this or that. Dwarves get hit hardest with that one. Followed by Halflings.

I don't know that I'd call it "race protection", unless you are thinking of protecting the human race. Humans can be anything, because we're drawing our inspiration from real life. Fantasy races are basically hyperspecialized humans, with a few unusual abilities and a lot more limitations. Often, they are designed for a specific niche. Even when they aren't, they tend to be an exaggeration of a particular human type. "Like humans, but burly and hairy and superaggressive. They like fighting." If you don't do it that way, they are just humans wearing a costume, in which case why even have races? Just tell players they can look however they want.

This, of course, is ignoring the idea of racial bonuses to primary abilities, which wasn't in OD&D and was a really bad idea.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908903The dwarves mentioned above always kinda threw me for a loop. Dwarves in folklore have often had magical abilities or knowledge. I never did know where the dwarves are inherently anti-magical came from.

It had to come from Tolkien, although I can't think of a specific quote where he said "dwarves are anti-magical in nature". But he generally portrayed dwarves as very practical-minded and materialistic. There's some of that in C. S. Lewis's Narnia books, too. In contrast, the elves are naturally magical.

35 years ago or so, I started reading a fantasy series called The Circle of Light. It was very much a LotR knock-off. I was a little annoyed because the dwarf in the series used magic, when I "knew" dwarves couldn't use magic. I had to have gotten that idea from Tolkien, because although I had started playing D&D, I hadn't seen a rulebook yet, just lots of mimeographed reference sheets, and there was nothing about dwarves being anti-magical.

Quote from: Skarg;908942Besides, how realistic are shark fins adapted to throw oil flasks, let alone light them underwater in high-pH medieval seawater?

(https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/s640x640/sh0.08/e35/12965090_1016730441756092_1812658840_n.jpg?ig_cache_key=MTIyNjk5NTgzMTcyMTc2NDk4Mw%3D%3D.2)

Jesus wept :cool:

Anti-Magic Dwarves seems to be a common wargaming trope. Maybe it came from there?

Both Dwarfs and Elves in RPGs tend to for the most part to have little to do with their folkloric counterparts. Tolkien casts a very long shadow, as does Gygax. Likewise clockpunk Gnomes which are an entirely modern invention.

Quote from: talysman;908948...
It had to come from Tolkien, although I can't think of a specific quote where he said "dwarves are anti-magical in nature". But he generally portrayed dwarves as very practical-minded and materialistic. There's some of that in C. S. Lewis's Narnia books, too. In contrast, the elves are naturally magical.

35 years ago or so, I started reading a fantasy series called The Circle of Light. It was very much a LotR knock-off. I was a little annoyed because the dwarf in the series used magic, when I "knew" dwarves couldn't use magic. I had to have gotten that idea from Tolkien, because although I had started playing D&D, I hadn't seen a rulebook yet, just lots of mimeographed reference sheets, and there was nothing about dwarves being anti-magical.

Some likely points might have been that Tolkien's stories feature many dwarves but no dwarven wizards, and the bit about them being able to resist being completely corrupted by the magic rings Sauron arranged for them, and the attention on Gimli like when he faces the at-first-unknown white wizard. Of course even in Tolkien, the real background does have dwarves able to craft some magic, but it just takes more attention to find. Tolkien's wizards seem human even though they aren't really, etc.

Since we played TFT where the racial definitions are much more loose, we had rather different traits for the races in our games. I had quite a few dwarf wizards right from the start, a friend had a game with powerful reptile man wizards, we had relatively civilized human-like orcs, and things got further and further from D&D/Tolkien the more we created new stuff. Eventually we started coming up with quite bizarre and original cultures.

Dwarves in Tolkien use magic. Mostly by making things, because like the dwarves of Norse myth, Tolkien's dwarves are primarily makers.

• The sword Narsil that Elendil carried was forged during the First Age by the famed Dwarven-smith Telchar.

• The Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin that Turin wore was said to bear an enchantment that protected its wearer from wounds and struck fear into the hearts of enemies. It too was forged by Telchar.

• And "The dwarves of yore made mighty spells," quote I gave earlier is from the Hobbit. The rest of the song lists various magical things the dwarves made.

Spoiler

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells. Is a quote from the Hobbit.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.
For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gloaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.
On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.
Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.
The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches biased with light,
The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.
The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying -fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.
Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To find our long-forgotten gold.

Quote from: Skarg;908956Some likely points might have been that Tolkien's stories feature many dwarves but no dwarven wizards, and the bit about them being able to resist being completely corrupted by the magic rings Sauron arranged for them...

The dwarves were able to resist Sauron's direct control, but were still tainted by the rings. They used their power to acquire vast wealth, but became greedy in the process.

The Elves managed to resist the control of the rings completely.

The Elves made the Three and the hand of Sauron never touched them, thus they remained uncorrupted. If he were to regain the One, however, all their works would be laid bare.

"Made mighty spells", is pretty vague. Especially for a world where woses make animated stone statues, but otherwise don't seem to cast spells.

"And you?" she said, turning to Sam. "For this is what you folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word for the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?"

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908997"Made mighty spells", is pretty vague. Especially for a world where woses make animated stone statues, but otherwise don't seem to cast spells.

They are the lyrics to a song. Of course it's vague.

But lines 9-16 refer to capturing light, dragon-fire, moonlight, and sunlight and placing it in gems and gold wire. Sounds to me like a description of a permanent light spell written by someone more interested in poetry and language than in RPG design. And light spell aside, if you don't consider enchanting magic swords and dragon helms of fear to be casting spells, how is it that some elf bint lending Frodo and Sam her magic skrying bowl for five minutes any more casting a spell.

You have to remember that secrets of the dwarves mostly stayed secret to Hobbits, Men, and Elves and that The Hobbit and its sequel, the LotR were written by elf-loving Hobbits. And those two collaborators had Elvish supervision during the writing. The elves gave Bilbo free room and board for years while he was doing some writing for them. Why those books are Elvish propaganda and puff pieces in the guise of travelers tales. ;)

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908903I never did know where the dwarves are inherently anti-magical came from.

Not positive. But theres a few legends of dwarves and/or little people shrugging off/ignoring magic. Maybee it ties into the Vancian magic?

Quote from: cranebump;908910GIMLI: (pause; slow turn)"...Tell me you did not just say that..." :-)

Can't speak from experience about 5E, but I was told there was some Dwarf/X that's an OP combo?  I guess I'm asking if that stick is still dwarf-sized.

Mountain Dwarf wizard. Can wear light and medium armour. Its not OP. But it sure ups their survivability and is one feat away from heavy armour. Got one on the group Im DMing for. The player was previously in a classic "killer DM" group and was hellbent on making his character as death proof as possible. Armouring up was about as far as it went though and overall wasnt disruptive.

Quote from: Omega;909025Maybee it ties into the Vancian magic?

I doubt it. I certainly don't recall any dwarves in the Dying Earth stories.

Quote from: JeremyR;907722I think it really depends on the players. Some, probably most, only like certain aspects of RPGs - combat or social encounters or solving puzzles/whatnot by creative skill use. Trying to make everyone a generalist forces them to do things they probably don't want to, while taking away from the fun stuff they like (and giving that to other people who might not like it much).

Original Traveller would often give you the type of character you didn't want to play. Go into the Army wanting to be a gun bunny, but end up being a mechanic.

I think a better solution, although still not ideal since it can force people into playing styles they don't like, is "troupe" play, where everyone has 3-4 characters and they simply use the one appropriate to the given scenario or situation.

We've always done that, but for other reasons. Sometimes a player just wants to play something else for a session or two.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907899Really?  Then there must not have been a lot of wizard/magic user players then back in your day.  I've found that if you target the magic user first, you tend to turn off players from ever playing one ever again.  After all, what's the point if on a bad initiative, you're down because everything targets you.  ANd back in TSR and 3e D&D there was no mechanism to prevent the usually higher numbered enemies from mobbing the PCs quickly, even with hirelings and henchmen.  When you have monsters numbering between 20-200 or 40-400, that's a lot of potential damage spreading around.  And First Level Wizards, clad in their light clothes/robes would obviously be the first target to savvy goblins and kobolds.

In my travels (I moved a lot when I was a kid, and which again, I will stress, is purely anecdotal) the few games that used to be run with the bad guys being smart enough to target the squishies, tended not to have any in their gaming group, so after a while, a silent 'gentleman's agreement' came up where you took out the fighter types first.

Very MMO like, now that I think about it.

I've never done the "gentleman's agreement" thing, but I have gone easy on first-time players. After that, the gloves come off and stay off.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;907911Seriously.  The correct answer to " the magic users keep dying" is "so learn to protect them, shit-for-brains."

My answer to the problem of mages, illusionists and similar classes being targeted by missile weapons was to make sure my mage wasn't readily identifiable as one: no staff, pointy hat, or robes at low level. He wore a quilted tunic (not padded armor, but something that looked like it) and a helmet (which any class can wear). He looked like a lowly hireling and was seldom the first choice for attackers.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908142But an animal doesn't know a magic user from a fighter.  They don't understand what armor or lack of it means.  Animals attack for food or defense.  If not hungry and not feeling threatened, most animals will decline to attack.  And how does one determine if an animal is hungry or not?  I choose to determine it randomly.

I'm sure most predators (tigers, crocodiles) would go for meat that's not in a can.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908702I am Spartacus!

I'm Brian and so is my wife!

As far as "niche protection" is concerned, I leave it up to individual players to decide what they're going to play. It's nice to have PCs of different kinds capable of all sorts of skills, but as a DM or player I'm NOT going to browbeat a player into playing something they don't want to play. If the party has no cleric, they have no cleric. If one of the players thinks a cleric is a must, he or she can either roll up one of their own, recruit one as a henchman/hireling, or shut the fuck up.

On the flip side, if my bard is doing a better job with spells than your mage, or is fighting better than your fighter, tough titty. Just as in team sports, if a player is put out of action or is just plain shitting the bed, they can and should make way for someone else, even if the person taking over is "playing out of position". This is true if the one being replaced is doing badly through no fault of their own or if they're being a dumbass. I remember a Twilight:2000 campaign where one of the PCs had maxed out stealth and recon scores. Naturally, this PC was sent to scout ahead. But after the fourth time in a row he completely whiffed on his skill roll and gave away the element of surprise, the group decided to have someone else try it, even though they weren't as skilled. By the way, this anecdote shows why "niche protection" has Jack and Shit to do with class-based game systems.

Quote from: Elfdart;909052My answer to the problem of mages, illusionists and similar classes being targeted by missile weapons was to make sure my mage wasn't readily identifiable as one: no staff, pointy hat, or robes at low level. He wore a quilted tunic (not padded armor, but something that looked like it) and a helmet (which any class can wear). He looked like a lowly hireling and was seldom the first choice for attackers.

I thought the new take on Arthurian legend in the show Merlin was rather clever in embedding Merlin as a lowly servant to Arthur.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908735Okay, this talk about taking conversational hyperbole about the word "every" into specious literalism at 'mathematical proof levels' is just irredeemably stupid.

Either this is 'English as a Second Language' issue, or 'Can't Grasp Human Talk' pixelbitching. Or someone's obviously so sad and boring they think they are tugging everyone's 'chain' and looking really clever in the process.

Sponges are an animal, and they are now officially smarter than this trollbait bullshit.

When anyone wonders why I posted once in a year-and-a-half, re-read this post - Opa nails it.

Over the past three years the level of abject stupid on this site broke whatever gawddamned meter you use to measure abject stupid. Then it rebuilt the meter with chewing gum and packing tape and broke it again, only harder the second time, like dropping a cargo [strike]container[/strike] ship on it, and then nuking the meter and the ship from orbit, 'cause it's the only way to be sure.

See you in the funny pages.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;909133See you in the funny pages.

I'll treasure the memory of the short time we spent together. I'm gonna send a few good, warm thoughts in your direction while watching NSFW sites featuring naked, black-skinned girls, Black Vulva. :cool:

(http://www.unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/RossKING.jpg)

Quote from: Black Vulmea;909133See you in the funny pages.

Don't forget to change your tampon.

Quote from: Elfdart;909052My answer to the problem of mages, illusionists and similar classes being targeted by missile weapons was to make sure my mage wasn't readily identifiable as one: no staff, pointy hat, or robes at low level. He wore a quilted tunic (not padded armor, but something that looked like it) and a helmet (which any class can wear). He looked like a lowly hireling and was seldom the first choice for attackers.

For a while we had our local DM convinced that the prohibition for Mages against armour only applied to casting spells in it. This led to a lot of first and second level wizards walking around in full plate and just taking it off to cast their one spell a day. It doesn't take any training to walk around in a metal suit if that is all you are doing and have someone to help you on and off with it.

Quote from: DavetheLost;909161It doesn't take any training to walk around in a metal suit if that is all you are doing and have someone to help you on and off with it.

I like the out-of-the-box thinking. Though I suspect training (mostly in the form of practice) is needed to be able to walk around in a metal suit without exhaustion.

I've seen PCs use a similar tactic, only with a mail shirt that be put on/taken off quickly.

Bob Ross and his happy little trees is actually cool, mmmkay? And he already had niche protection for mountain vistas down cold.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;909133When anyone wonders why I posted once in a year-and-a-half, re-read this post - Opa nails it.

Over the past three years the level of abject stupid on this site broke whatever gawddamned meter you use to measure abject stupid. Then it rebuilt the meter with chewing gum and packing tape and broke it again, only harder the second time, like dropping a cargo [strike]container[/strike] ship on it, and then nuking the meter and the ship from orbit, 'cause it's the only way to be sure.

See you in the funny pages.

No shit.  Between "pedantic use of language to so many decimal places it's indistinguishable from stupidity" and "all the fucking sense of humor of a ruptured testicle," it's no wonder I spend most of my time in Chirine's little corner.

Quote from: Elfdart;909052I'm sure most predators (tigers, crocodiles) would go for meat that's not in a can.

My point (and I do have one) is that unless they're in an area frequented by adventurers, how would they recognize "a can" until they tried to bite it?

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908677Still, there's no contradiction. All I need is one species, one example that proves that not EVERY animal (etc, etc). I find tiger sharks a good example of what I have in mind - an animal that's not very "smart" in its dietary choice. You might say that it doesn't have to be smart, that it's an effect of evolution, specialization, or that external elements influence its behavior, and you're gonna be right about that... But it's not the same discussion.

You are conflating several different things.  Having a developed prey selection or hunting model doesn't involve having lots of "smarts" in the human sense.  The great majority of predators are, essentially, mindless.  By the numbers, most of them are predatory insects.  They are driven by simple, instinctive behaviors.

For every species, there is a theoretical optimal hunting strategy out there that gives that species the most return for the least effort and risk.  That includes avoiding competition for prey with other species.  We will make that optimal strategy the dot in a center of a map representing various strategies.  Individuals start out all over the map.  They pursue a random assortment of strategies,  That's not really how it is but this is just for visualization.  Individuals with strategies that are closer to the optimal will do better and produce more offspring.  The next generation will vary from their parents and be clustered around where their parents were.  Some will be closer to optimal and some will be further away.  The ones closer will have an advantage and there off spring will be clustered even closer.  Repeat this for many generations and you will get strong clustering around the optimal strategy.  No "smarts" are involved but the result is the same.  of course this is very simplified.  It assumes the optimal strategy remains stationary and it probably wouldn't in real life but the principle still holds.

However, these are small predators that have short life spans and produce large numbers of offspring.  The sort of predators that would be a threat to something the size of a human are quite different.  They are large, sophisticated, have long lifespans and produce small numbers of offspring in each generation relative to something like a predatory insect.  They have sophisticated, learned hunting behaviors that they pass on to their offspring.  They are a small minority of predatory species but they are also the only relevant ones if we are talking about predators that would prey on something the size of a humanoid.  Any large predator that has lived alongside humanoids for any length of time will likely avoid them though.  The ones that don't are likely to be hunted to extinction quickly.  We used to have Grizzly Bears in California.  They made a habit of breaking into human dwellings and eating people.  California became part of the US in 1848.  The last California Grizzly sighting was in 1924.  Contrast this with the California Black Bear which avoids humans and has a population of 10,000-15,000 statewide,.

You keep saying "animals" but I am talking specifically about predators.  Herbivorous species can be very dangerous because of their size and power or aggressiveness but they do not hunt.

Of course a lot of this goes out the window when we are talking about a fantasy world where you have things like spiders the size of small horses (or bigger) and weird things like gibbering mouthers.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908677The point is that tiger sharks are beasts known of being "garbage eaters", willing to swallow just about anything ranging from tires to metal buckets. Which is relatively dumb. And this proves the claim I made.

Then again, tiger sharks are merely first example that came to my mind. I'm sure, given enough time, I could find a better one. :cool:

That's a misnomer.  It's one of those things that is widely repeated but not really true.  Sometimes they misidentify such items as prey

The dead horse has been beaten to the point that it is nothing but a stinking pool of rotting sludge.

Why should a wizard wear armor when they can carry a manlet?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;909189My point (and I do have one) is that unless they're in an area frequented by adventurers, how would they recognize "a can" until they tried to bite it?

Given the sheer crushing power their jaws have, most 'cans' pop relatively easily.  Also, they have other available weapons, like mass and natural ability to leverage it, for example the Bengali Tiger gets between 6-12ft long (Head to tail tip) and weighs in at about 3 to 500lbs, and that's not including their claws, which although may not rip through plate, but can shred chain armour reasonably well.

Thing is, predators stalk their prey looking for weakness.  If they don't find any, they don't attack and look for easier prey.  They plan, if crudely, and wait until they are at an advantage, or what they consider an advantage (because animals can fall for feints and tricks too.)  This is what we call cunning.  If you treat animals like bags of XP, that's your table, not real life.  Watch a nature show, get educated.

Quote from: Bren;909168I like the out-of-the-box thinking. Though I suspect training (mostly in the form of practice) is needed to be able to walk around in a metal suit without exhaustion.

Quote from: Elfdart;909169I've seen PCs use a similar tactic, only with a mail shirt that be put on/taken off quickly.

Last week one of my players finished repair work on a chain mail shirt for a costume shop that had seen some use in some sort of combat game or LARP. We dont know what the hell happened but the armour had taken a beating and required a fair amount of repair. I got to try it on once it was done so he could check for missed spots and so I could get to see for real what it is like to wear chain mail and move around in it.

The whole thing, shirt and coif weighed I believe around 30lb or more of galvanized steel. On me its more like a chain-mail coat as it came down to my knees. Interesting experience. Definitely slows movement from the added weight. But its also very different from say wearing a 30lb backpack. I think it would be tiring to a person with a lower STR and/or CON score. Like alot of wizards are. But with practice its not too bad. And here is where 5e shines as PCs can with practice pick up proficiency via normal feat or via training.

As for just taking it off when trouble starts. Having tried to get out of the stuff now on my own I can say it might take more than a 6 second round to get out without proficiency/practice. Its not like pulling off a sweater. A full suit of Chain Mail though? Not going to happen in 6sec as you have to shuck not only the shirt but the padding under it, gauntlets, coif and whatnot. more like 2 rounds total? hmmm. Something to test later if the chance arises again.

Quote from: David Johansen;909204Why should a wizard wear armor when they can carry a manlet?

Even a 5'5" manlet (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=manlet) is going to be too heavy for the average MU to carry very far.

Quote from: yosemitemike;909190You are conflating several different things.

I agree with you.

Quote from: Opaopajr;909177Bob Ross and his happy little trees is actually cool, mmmkay? And he already had niche protection for mountain vistas down cold.

That's why he has been chosen for the task of soothing the pain originating from Black Vulva's existential crisis. Bob Ross heals.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;909187it's no wonder I spend most of my time in Chirine's little corner

It's no wonder you spend time in the suburbs, if all you've got are grotesque attempts at being edgy at all cost.

Don't squeeze your buttocks that hard all the time. Allow yourself to fart every now and then. Make a fun of yourself - nobody is too old for that and it certainly doesn't hurt. In the end it's what you deliver matters, not what you know and own but decide to keep for yourself.

Quote from: Omega;909212As for just taking it off when trouble starts. Having tried to get out of the stuff now on my own I can say it might take more than a 6 second round to get out without proficiency/practice. Its not like pulling off a sweater. A full suit of Chain Mail though? Not going to happen in 6sec as you have to shuck not only the shirt but the padding under it, gauntlets, coif and whatnot. more like 2 rounds total? hmmm. Something to test later if the chance arises again.

But probably not too bad for a 60 second round I'm guessing. What are the 5e rules on donning and doffing armor?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;909189My point (and I do have one) is that unless they're in an area frequented by adventurers, how would they recognize "a can" until they tried to bite it?

Old Dragon cartoon:  One dragon, holding an armored knight, gestures to another dragon:  "I love these things, crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside!"  (A parody of an ad for a particular brand of candy, IIRC).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;909203The dead horse has been beaten to the point that it is nothing but a stinking pool of rotting sludge.

Welcome to the internet.  Here's your standard issue crash helmet.
(http://i432.photobucket.com/albums/qq45/oldhat321/invisible-bike-helmet-video-GIF_zpskw5q9prq.gif) (http://s432.photobucket.com/user/oldhat321/media/invisible-bike-helmet-video-GIF_zpskw5q9prq.gif.html)
Enjoy your stay.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;909275But probably not too bad for a 60 second round I'm guessing. What are the 5e rules on donning and doffing armor?

aaaaand I totally botched my statement of the time above. doh!

It takes 10 rounds to don or doff light armour (1minute). 30 rounds to don and 10 to doff medium armour (5/1 minute). 60 rounds to don and 30 to doff heavy armour (10/5 minute). And one action to don/doff a shield.

Quote from: yosemitemike;909359Welcome to the internet.  Here's your standard issue crash helmet.

Actually, that's pretty cool. Hate to use it, but cool none the less.

Quote from: Baron Opal;909434Actually, that's pretty cool. Hate to use it, but cool none the less.

It's a clever invention but I would still rather drive a car.

Quote from: Omega;909432aaaaand I totally botched my statement of the time above. doh!

It takes 10 rounds to don or doff light armour (1minute). 30 rounds to don and 10 to doff medium armour (5/1 minute). 60 rounds to don and 30 to doff heavy armour (10/5 minute). And one action to don/doff a shield.

Those seem... without any actual research or knowledge on my part completely reasonable.

Quote from: Baulderstone;908908Maybe it came out of dwarves being craftsmen, combined with the idea that was popular in the '70s of magic and technology being opposing forces. Given that magic got a whole lot more mechanical support that making things in D&D, dwarves got the short end of the stick.

I think you might be on to some thing with this.

Quote from: Baulderstone;908917I personally agree on optimal not equally interesting. I went through a phase about 20 years ago where I tended to make terrible suboptimal choices with my character and see how I could got by. A friend of mine ran a Babylon 5 game during that time, and I made a Psi Corp character with the absolute weakest possible psi ability. I had all the social restrictions of being in Psi Corp and close to no ability. None of the other players knew this, so I held a lot of power in the party just through bullshitting.



It's true that 3E opened up some new class/race combinations, with dwarven clerics being a popular one. As a fan of "class as race", I just feel that you get could something more distinctive with a new class for divinely-inspired dwarves.

Granted, 3E had prestige classes to add that kind of additional flavor, but it was flavor that only got tapped into later in a characters career. I didn't really like prestige classes much either. 3E was supposed to be built on opening up choice, giving you all these moving parts to pick from, but prestige classes had these long lists of prerequisites. It meant that players tended to decide on a prestige class during character generation, then have to be bound by the prerequisite list in all their skill and feat choices. All the busy work that 3E added to leveling became just a hassle if the players didn't really get a choice anyway.

It seemed to me that it would be more honest to just make these prestige classes as actual classes. That would allow players to play what they wanted to play and still have free choices when choices were presented to them upon leveling.

I guess "race as class" might be a lot more mechanical work, but during the 3E era, I would have been fine with anything that slowed the creation of new crunch. We might have only gotten about three new classes a month, as opposed to 15 new prestige classes every month.

As an aside, the worst thing about the ridiculous bloat of player options in 3E wasn't the actual rule complexity and balance issues. It was that it always had the players in my group in a state of perpetual buyer's remorse. If only this new prestige class had been available months ago, they would have aimed for it, but now they had made too many choices that lead away from it.

It's not a new idea to suggest they tried to apply the CCG mentality to RPGs. The problem was that a M:tG player can make a new deck every day, while an RPG character can last for years. Bombarding them with options they can't ever use just creates dissatisfaction with the game.

 



Yeah, I do remember halfling wizards being a big thing in 3E. They didn't have any drawbacks at being a wizard, and their small size and high DEX gave them a nice bonus to AC.

It's actually a good example of an issue I have with Race and Class as separate choices. "Halflings make really good wizards" isn't a thing in fantasy, and until this point, wasn't a thing in D&D. Yet the mechanics of 3E inadvertently created this weird combination.

I agree with you about presitge classes being badly handeld.
It actually is an influence on the game where all the classes are in the base books.
This is als a bit of an issue though as i have a bad habit of coming up with what in my mind is a reasonable class split and ended up with a ton of them.

Quote from: Opaopajr;909056I thought the new take on Arthurian legend in the show Merlin was rather clever in embedding Merlin as a lowly servant to Arthur.

My sister loved that show its nice to see a fresh idea come out of such an old legend.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;909133When anyone wonders why I posted once in a year-and-a-half, re-read this post - Opa nails it.

Over the past three years the level of abject stupid on this site broke whatever gawddamned meter you use to measure abject stupid. Then it rebuilt the meter with chewing gum and packing tape and broke it again, only harder the second time, like dropping a cargo [strike]container[/strike] ship on it, and then nuking the meter and the ship from orbit, 'cause it's the only way to be sure.

See you in the funny pages.

*wathes Black Vulmea leave the rpg site*

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
You where nice too have around you will be missed...............

Quote from: Omega;909212Last week one of my players finished repair work on a chain mail shirt for a costume shop that had seen some use in some sort of combat game or LARP. We dont know what the hell happened but the armour had taken a beating and required a fair amount of repair. I got to try it on once it was done so he could check for missed spots and so I could get to see for real what it is like to wear chain mail and move around in it.

The whole thing, shirt and coif weighed I believe around 30lb or more of galvanized steel. On me its more like a chain-mail coat as it came down to my knees. Interesting experience. Definitely slows movement from the added weight. But its also very different from say wearing a 30lb backpack. I think it would be tiring to a person with a lower STR and/or CON score. Like alot of wizards are. But with practice its not too bad. And here is where 5e shines as PCs can with practice pick up proficiency via normal feat or via training.

As for just taking it off when trouble starts. Having tried to get out of the stuff now on my own I can say it might take more than a 6 second round to get out without proficiency/practice. Its not like pulling off a sweater. A full suit of Chain Mail though? Not going to happen in 6sec as you have to shuck not only the shirt but the padding under it, gauntlets, coif and whatnot. more like 2 rounds total? hmmm. Something to test later if the chance arises again.

What kind of mail was it?
Not butt mail i hope.

Quote from: kosmos1214;910334What kind of mail was it?
Not butt mail i hope.

Least it isnt the dickmail your wearing.

Ahem.

Butted, Welded, Riveted.

However, I seldom recognize sarcasm unless I trip over it.

Quote from: Omega;910346Least it isnt the dickmail your wearing.

Ahem there are several ways of making mail armor.
You can use butted wire witch is junk.
You can rivet it together which was pretty common historically.
You can weld or sadder it as well not all mail in made equal.
Im honestly asking what kind.
On a side note armor for the dick was called a cod piece and actually didn't really provide any real protection.

Quote from: Baron Opal;910370Ahem.

Butted, Welded, Riveted.

However, I seldom recognize sarcasm unless I trip over it.

No you under stood me just fine.

Quote from: kosmos1214;910512On a side note armor for the dick was called a cod piece and actually didn't really provide any real protection.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]274[/ATTACH]

Iunno, man, this looks solid enough to protect the family jewels.

Quote from: kosmos1214;910512On a side note armor for the dick was called a cod piece and actually didn't really provide any real protection.

Having taken a few cup shots, I can say from experience that that it does make a difference.

The big, stuffed fabric codpieces worn as part of fancy dress with doublet and hose might not, but the armoured kind certainly do.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;910515[ATTACH=CONFIG]274[/ATTACH]

Iunno, man, this looks solid enough to protect the family jewels.

Quote from: DavetheLost;910663Having taken a few cup shots, I can say from experience that that it does make a difference.

The big, stuffed fabric codpieces worn as part of fancy dress with doublet and hose might not, but the armoured kind certainly do.

Interesting what i had read sounded like most cod pieces where not an integral part of the armor.
Do you know some good reading on the subject?

As a possible point of reference, my suit of armor weighs 38 pounds all up with weapons, and take me about ten minutes to get on if I'm doing it by myself. With an assistant who knows the suit, it's about three to five minutes. The suit consists of a linen under-tunic, padded cotton tunic, leather over-tunic (protects the tunic from), steel mail 4-on-1 hauberk, steel 6-on-1 mail neck guard, steel breast- and back-plates, metal shoulder defenses, metal greaves, metal helmet, steel buckler, mace, short sword, two daggers, belt pouch. Leather bracers on wrists.

Back when I used to help Gronan into his coat of plates, arm- and leg- harness, and barrel helm, it used to take about the same amount of time.

As for butted mail being crap, I can only quote Vesy Norman, formerly Master of the Armories at the Tower of London, who looked at my 16 gauge / 1/4" mandrel hauberk and pronounced it "Fine stuff!". Gronan was sitting next to me, in the courtyard of the Minneapolis Institute of Art; we were there at an exhibition of medieval arms and armor to show how it was made and used.

Don't know of reading about codpieces off hand, but try fighting with and without a cup.. An armoured skirt or apron will serve the same function.

There is a reason why "Hit Location 12" is one of the first places to be armoured.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;910978As for butted mail being crap, I can only quote Vesy Norman, formerly Master of the Armories at the Tower of London, who looked at my 16 gauge / 1/4" mandrel hauberk and pronounced it "Fine stuff!". Gronan was sitting next to me, in the courtyard of the Minneapolis Institute of Art; we were there at an exhibition of medieval arms and armor to show how it was made and used.

That sounds familiar (the exhibition at the MIA). When would it have been?

1981 or 1982

Quote from: DavetheLost;910992Don't know of reading about codpieces off hand, but try fighting with and without a cup.. An armoured skirt or apron will serve the same function.

There is a reason why "Hit Location 12" is one of the first places to be armoured.

Even in LARPs and boffer combat thats true. Especially since you are oft playing with untrained participants who may forget or just swing badly at the right wrong moment.

Protect your niche!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;9110151981 or 1982

Cool. I very well might have been there. Or I'm conflating stuff I saw at RenFest. Either way, nice to hear the local landmarks referenced. :-)

Quote from: Omega;911040Protect your niche!

Hah!

Quote from: Madprofessor;907754Interesting conversation.  'till now, I haven't given it much thought mostly because as a GM it feels like there is little I can do to prevent it without being arbitrary at chargen.  I also know I know that niche protection is annoying as hell from a GM perspective, and that it is a sacred cow to most players who insist on developing "well-balanced" parties with specialists to handle any situation.  It doesn't matter if it's a class or skill based game either, players design their parties as a mufti-fasceted bonus maximizing machine as a matter of course.

Players want to be effective.  If you don't want your players to be min maxed, which is what strong niche protection is, you need to make fuzzy non-dice based solutions work.      Allow ambushes to work so well with proper planning that the PCs wipe the opposition with out a sctratvh.  If they have to roll dice they will become effective at rolling dice which means min maxing.

Quote from: Headless;911084Players want to be effective.  If you don't want your players to be min maxed, which is what strong niche protection is, you need to make fuzzy non-dice based solutions work.      Allow ambushes to work so well with proper planning that the PCs wipe the opposition with out a sctratvh.  If they have to roll dice they will become effective at rolling dice which means min maxing.

Exactly. It no wonder that most parties have a screwdriver, a hammer, a saw, and a tape measure. Many RPG scenarios require one or more of these basic tools to resolve. The group as a whole will generally do better as a group of specialists rather than a group of generalists.

Giving players in game rewards for playing generalists is difficult unless you split the party or give them multiple instances of the same problem that need to be solved simultaneously. "You have to pick locks on three different doors at the same time on different walls" rewards the group for having more than one character with lock-picking skills. It will begin to feel contrived if evry adventure has this sort of challenge though.

From a game play perspective it is more fun to be really good at a focused thing than to kind of suck at a lot of things. I want my character to succeed, in many systems generalists just don't succeed enough to be fun. Some games even require a character to have the skill before any action can even be attempted.

Quote from: Headless;911084Players want to be effective.  If you don't want your players to be min maxed, which is what strong niche protection is, you need to make fuzzy non-dice based solutions work.      Allow ambushes to work so well with proper planning that the PCs wipe the opposition with out a sctratvh.  If they have to roll dice they will become effective at rolling dice which means min maxing.

Some players require this. But in my experience a lot of players require quite a bit less than this. They don't need their characters to be equally effective or even survivable as a maximized character. What they do require is some degree of comfort that not maxing their character won't immediately, inevitably, and/or repeatedly lead to character death and other serious loss. How much comfort, does vary from player by player.

It also helps if breadth of skills and abilities is sometimes useful. If a group can always choose to have the very best character attempt any given task there isn't any advantage in cross specialization or breadth of abilities. Obviously this is easier to do if the group is sometimes split up. Groups that are permanently joined at the hips get less advantage out of breadth of skills.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;910978As a possible point of reference, my suit of armor weighs 38 pounds all up with weapons, and take me about ten minutes to get on if I'm doing it by myself. With an assistant who knows the suit, it's about three to five minutes. The suit consists of a linen under-tunic, padded cotton tunic, leather over-tunic (protects the tunic from), steel mail 4-on-1 hauberk, steel 6-on-1 mail neck guard, steel breast- and back-plates, metal shoulder defenses, metal greaves, metal helmet, steel buckler, mace, short sword, two daggers, belt pouch. Leather bracers on wrists.

Back when I used to help Gronan into his coat of plates, arm- and leg- harness, and barrel helm, it used to take about the same amount of time.

As for butted mail being crap, I can only quote Vesy Norman, formerly Master of the Armories at the Tower of London, who looked at my 16 gauge / 1/4" mandrel hauberk and pronounced it "Fine stuff!". Gronan was sitting next to me, in the courtyard of the Minneapolis Institute of Art; we were there at an exhibition of medieval arms and armor to show how it was made and used.

Thank you for the reference
As to the butted mail i can actually back this up.
You see the problem with butted mail is that theirs nothing to hold the wire together so it simply comes apart at the ends where the wire meets.
It come apart quite easily in fact people in the middle ages weren't stupid They didn't where armor that didn't work.
This video is a compilation of all the testing these two have done over 6 years with reasonable facsimile of historical armor
with weapons to match and at time the odd ball stand in.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw3lcgIAwLk

Butted mail is definitely higher maintenance. It works, but rivited or welded is better. As a sometime blacksmith I am impressed by the fine rivets in mail. As for forge welding mail rings, that would be quite a feat of skill.

Quote from: DavetheLost;911127Butted mail is definitely higher maintenance. It works, but rivited or welded is better. As a sometime blacksmith I am impressed by the fine rivets in mail. As for forge welding mail rings, that would be quite a feat of skill.

interestingly we have proof of forge welded rings in some higher quality suits.
Not every ring mind usually when you see it its like every other ring or the like.

Quote from: DavetheLost;911127Butted mail is definitely higher maintenance. It works, but rivited or welded is better. As a sometime blacksmith I am impressed by the fine rivets in mail. As for forge welding mail rings, that would be quite a feat of skill.

I was once shown a suit of mail and it was all rivited rings. Very impressive. Lindybeige has two videos up showing a suit of real plated mail and all the little details and how the rivited rings change from the torso to the arms for example.

"Plated mail" is a made up term.  You're not the one that made it up, but it is a made up internet/gamer term.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911203"Plated mail" is a made up term.  You're not the one that made it up, but it is a made up internet/gamer term.

The correct terms, if I remember correctly, although it's been years is:  Plate and Maille or Plate Harness.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911203"Plated mail" is a made up term.  You're not the one that made it up, but it is a made up internet/gamer term.

Isn't that what you call silver or gold-washed mail when you use electroplating to do the wash? ;)

What did you think the ancients did with their galvanic cell batteries?

The suit that Lindybeige shows is an evolution of indo-persian "four mirror armor", which was worn over chain. The later evolutions have rings on the edges of the plate, which are integral to the mail (no chain behind them).

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/71/88/a1/7188a113be418b1034d6360a94e953c0.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gPrBbXykwM

Quote from: Telarus;911254The suit that Lindybeige shows is an evolution of indo-persian "four mirror armor", which was worn over chain. The later evolutions have rings on the edges of the plate, which are integral to the mail (no chain behind them).

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/71/88/a1/7188a113be418b1034d6360a94e953c0.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gPrBbXykwM

Right. In the video he says the proper name is something like zirah baktar. Though didnt explain what that translates to. (Closest I got was "armoured coat of mail")

Quote from: kosmos1214;911124Thank you for the reference
As to the butted mail i can actually back this up.
You see the problem with butted mail is that theirs nothing to hold the wire together so it simply comes apart at the ends where the wire meets.
It come apart quite easily in fact people in the middle ages weren't stupid They didn't where armor that didn't work.
This video is a compilation of all the testing these two have done over 6 years with reasonable facsimile of historical armor
with weapons to match and at time the odd ball stand in.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw3lcgIAwLk

Quite good points! I've made and repaired butted, riveted, and welded mail over the years, and handled quite a few historical examples from all over the world. Phil Barker had some very fine stuff that looked like it had come from off one of the Whiting and Davis mail-making machines, and which was al almighty pain to repair.

Agreed that our ancestors were not stupid, although some of them must have been; quite a few of the corpses found in the mass graves at Visby were wearing butted mail coifs and mittens. (It had been a hot couple of days after the battle, and apparently the scavengers didn't want to pull the mail off the swollen and bloated bodies.) Is butted mail as effective as riveted and welded? No, of course not, and it is higher maintenance. On the other hand , it is a lot cheaper to make and buy, which is why lower-status and poorer people might choose to get it and then move up to a better type of mail when they could afford it or get it off the bodies of slain opponents.

I should also note that Gronan has whacked me a few times with various objects (sharp and blunt), just to see how well the stuff really works. There wasn't all that much damage to the mail, but I did get some very picturesque bruises.

Game-wise, I think that it would be likely that your average poor people might very well be desperate enough to wear butted mail, and which is why they look at the usual fully-armored player-character as so much money on the hoof / a walking armor shop.

Quote from: DavetheLost;911127Butted mail is definitely higher maintenance. It works, but rivited or welded is better. As a sometime blacksmith I am impressed by the fine rivets in mail. As for forge welding mail rings, that would be quite a feat of skill.

Agreed! Riveted is a howling pain in the butt; I had to make special jigs to overlap the links and hold them while I drilled them through, and then a tiny specialist anvil to peen over the rivet. Welded, the couple of times I tried it, was actually easier but much more time-consuming.

Quote from: kosmos1214;911129interestingly we have proof of forge welded rings in some higher quality suits.
Not every ring mind usually when you see it its like every other ring or the like.

On, yes, very much so; one method used alternating rows of solid / stamped / welded rings linked by the riveted ones. You pay for what you get, I think... :)

Quote from: Telarus;911254The suit that Lindybeige shows is an evolution of indo-persian "four mirror armor", which was worn over chain. The later evolutions have rings on the edges of the plate, which are integral to the mail (no chain behind them).

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/71/88/a1/7188a113be418b1034d6360a94e953c0.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gPrBbXykwM

Prof. Barker had a couple of (presumably) cavalry arm guards that were made this way; very fine mail linking etched steel plates. Very impressive; how practical, I don't know. Very different fighting styles at work, I think.

I personally think, in a class based game, niche protection is essential for balance. It is fundamental to how the classes are balanced against each other, for better or worse.

So, for example, only the Fighter gets the heaviest armour. Only the magic user gets spells. Only the thief gets backstab. These become the fundamental points of differentiation between the classes. You can certainly allow a bit of cross over - but it cant be wholesale - there must be some "niche protection" - or you will end up with minmax cherry picked abilities that break the balance of the game.

I should say however that I greatly dislike enforced roles. If a fighter wants to be stealthy, pick locks, etc - I want that possibility. But I don't want the Fighter doing backstabs, because that is the unique Thief ability. Similarly, a magic user might train to use light/medium armour - but not heavy armour, because that is the Fighter's thing (in my example). I very much disliked the hard-baked roles of 4e (striker/support/tank etc). Especially the "striker" role, that was a big mistake imo - all players like to do decent damage, in my experience.

So to be a bit clearer -  I think a degree of "class ability" niche protection is required. But not "role" protection. I prefer a game where any class can have depth in any "role", depending on the choices made as they level up.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;911261Quite good points! I've made and repaired butted, riveted, and welded mail over the years, and handled quite a few historical examples from all over the world. Phil Barker had some very fine stuff that looked like it had come from off one of the Whiting and Davis mail-making machines, and which was al almighty pain to repair.

Agreed that our ancestors were not stupid, although some of them must have been; quite a few of the corpses found in the mass graves at Visby were wearing butted mail coifs and mittens. (It had been a hot couple of days after the battle, and apparently the scavengers didn't want to pull the mail off the swollen and bloated bodies.) Is butted mail as effective as riveted and welded? No, of course not, and it is higher maintenance. On the other hand , it is a lot cheaper to make and buy, which is why lower-status and poorer people might choose to get it and then move up to a better type of mail when they could afford it or get it off the bodies of slain opponents.

I should also note that Gronan has whacked me a few times with various objects (sharp and blunt), just to see how well the stuff really works. There wasn't all that much damage to the mail, but I did get some very picturesque bruises.

Game-wise, I think that it would be likely that your average poor people might very well be desperate enough to wear butted mail, and which is why they look at the usual fully-armored player-character as so much money on the hoof / a walking armor shop.

Interesting my understanding was that there where no historical finds of butted mail.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;911262Agreed! Riveted is a howling pain in the butt; I had to make special jigs to overlap the links and hold them while I drilled them through, and then a tiny specialist anvil to peen over the rivet. Welded, the couple of times I tried it, was actually easier but much more time-consuming.

If i had to guess there's probably some snazy way to make it easier.
Though nothing comes to mind off the top of my hat.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;911264On, yes, very much so; one method used alternating rows of solid / stamped / welded rings linked by the riveted ones. You pay for what you get, I think... :)

Probably there a long history of that in there things why not armor.

Quote from: kosmos1214;911279Interesting my understanding was that there where no historical finds of butted mail.

If i had to guess there's probably some snazy way to make it easier.
Though nothing comes to mind off the top of my hat.

Probably there a long history of that in there things why not armor.

I dunno; Visby is so far off to one end of the bell curve that it's hard to tell if it's any sure indication of historical practice. Aside from places like the Arsenal at Graz, Austria, there are so few well-documented finds of mail that we'll probably never know for sure - for the very reasons that you point out. The stuff is probably not going to survive, unless it's stored or preserved under the right conditions. Sp much of what we know about mail is from illustrations, which are perhaps not the most reliable of technical sources. There's a lot more Japanese and Indo-Persian mail around then there is European, but that's due to the collecting habits of past generations I suspect.

If you do think of something, let me know! :)

Agreed. :)

Quote from: DavetheLost;911127Butted mail is definitely higher maintenance.

Id guess that is exactly why the player was repairing it for the store. Lots and lots of damaged rings and just plain missing rings. According to him the suit had gone through some pretty amature repairs with all sorts of mis-connected rings. Quick field repairs? No clue.

In any case I think by the time the wizard has shucked the armour the battles probably over in 5e.

Quote from: Psikerlord;911277So to be a bit clearer -  I think a degree of "class ability" niche protection is required. But not "role" protection. I prefer a game where any class can have depth in any "role", depending on the choices made as they level up.

Right. I detest attempts to enforce role protection where a player wont allow anyone else to take the same class as them. Or taking that further, wont allow anyone with the same role. The fighter doesn't want any other fighters and no rangers or paladins competing either.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;911284I dunno; Visby is so far off to one end of the bell curve that it's hard to tell if it's any sure indication of historical practice. Aside from places like the Arsenal at Graz, Austria, there are so few well-documented finds of mail that we'll probably never know for sure - for the very reasons that you point out. The stuff is probably not going to survive, unless it's stored or preserved under the right conditions. Sp much of what we know about mail is from illustrations, which are perhaps not the most reliable of technical sources. There's a lot more Japanese and Indo-Persian mail around then there is European, but that's due to the collecting habits of past generations I suspect.

If you do think of something, let me know! :)

Agreed. :)

Hey sure thing its nice to have someone talk about arms and armor with there arnt to meany in my area.
Actually there is one thing i can think of  a sword called a noklang the only reliable information i have ever found on the thing comes from the weapons book put out by the diagram group.
https://books.google.com/books?id=iEpJYgh3gkwC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=noklang+sword&source=bl&ots=L8RYq7l_3Z&sig=B8hEc6NNe-YShLtiJCBCKUZorO0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7n8PqxqjOAhVV6GMKHcE8AJwQ6AEILzAE#v=onepage&q=noklang%20sword&f=false
Number 2 on that page do you  know of a good place to look for information on it?

Quote from: kosmos1214;911391Number 2 on that page do you  know of a good place to look for information on it?

The Kachin Hills (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kachin_people) in northern Myanmar? Or did you mean a book? :D


'Cuz if you meant a book, I got almost nothing:

QuoteThe Kachin people are traditionally known for their disciplined fighting skills, complex clan inter-relations, craftsmanship, herbal healing and jungle survival skills.

Quote from: Bren;911429The Kachin Hills (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kachin_people) in northern Myanmar? Or did you mean a book? :D


'Cuz if you meant a book, I got almost nothing:

Thanks thats more then iv found in a while.

Quote from: kosmos1214;911445Thanks thats more then iv found in a while.

Your welcome. Sometimes it is amazing what one can find on the Internet.

Quote from: Bren;911460Your welcome. Sometimes it is amazing what one can find on the Internet.

Defiantly and at times how maddeningly hard it can be to find.

Quote from: kosmos1214;911391Hey sure thing its nice to have someone talk about arms and armor with there arnt to meany in my area.
Actually there is one thing i can think of  a sword called a noklang the only reliable information i have ever found on the thing comes from the weapons book put out by the diagram group.
https://books.google.com/books?id=iEpJYgh3gkwC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=noklang+sword&source=bl&ots=L8RYq7l_3Z&sig=B8hEc6NNe-YShLtiJCBCKUZorO0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7n8PqxqjOAhVV6GMKHcE8AJwQ6AEILzAE#v=onepage&q=noklang%20sword&f=false
Number 2 on that page do you  know of a good place to look for information on it?

Same here - always delighted to talk ironmongery! :)

I think Gronan and I were very lucky; practical experience making and using European-style arms and armor, and then being thrown in at the deep end with Prof. Barker's mind-boggling collection of snickersnees.

Cool weapon, isn't it? Variation on what my Chinese son-in-law calls (generically) a dao, which I gather in Chinese martial arts is anything that's a sword blade with a handle on it. This thing reminds me of a short-handled glaive - which is a bad translation of the Chinese term - or a shorter version of a naginata. On both, the blades are usually shorter then on this weapon, and from the two sets of guards I'd be fascinated to see this thing in action.

A couple of ideas for information; The V&A in London has one, and so does the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. As for how to use the thing, I'd be inclined to look for a Chinese tradition martial arts school, and have a session with one of their glaives.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;911516Same here - always delighted to talk ironmongery! :)

I think Gronan and I were very lucky; practical experience making and using European-style arms and armor, and then being thrown in at the deep end with Prof. Barker's mind-boggling collection of snickersnees.

Cool weapon, isn't it? Variation on what my Chinese son-in-law calls (generically) a dao, which I gather in Chinese martial arts is anything that's a sword blade with a handle on it. This thing reminds me of a short-handled glaive - which is a bad translation of the Chinese term - or a shorter version of a naginata. On both, the blades are usually shorter then on this weapon, and from the two sets of guards I'd be fascinated to see this thing in action.

A couple of ideas for information; The V&A in London has one, and so does the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. As for how to use the thing, I'd be inclined to look for a Chinese tradition martial arts school, and have a session with one of their glaives.

Thanks and i know just looking at it makes me think about how it would be used quite a bit.
As soon as i tripped over it in the book i when there no way im not putting that in my game but finding has been a pain so thanks again.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;911516Same here - always delighted to talk ironmongery! :)

I think Gronan and I were very lucky; practical experience making and using European-style arms and armor, and then being thrown in at the deep end with Prof. Barker's mind-boggling collection of snickersnees.

We were, honestly speaking, also lucky to grow up in the pre-D&D, pre Internet days.  Honestly, the amount of shit posted about arms and armor is worse that it ever was, and most of it is fourth or fifth hand sources.  Nobody even KNOWS about the Battle of Visby in 1361, never mind having actually sat down and looked through a copy of the extremely rare 2 volume work on it.  Or "Armory of Schloss Churberg."  Or even Claude Blair's "European Armor," or any of the works by the aforementioned Helmut Nickel.

We not only had first hand artifacts, we also had the advantage of being able to find real true honest-to-Karakan scholarly works on the subject instead of regurgitated crap churned out by game companies after a quick buck, scanned by somebody who didn't know any better, and then posted to the Web as though it were actual information.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;911516Same here - always delighted to talk ironmongery! :)

I think Gronan and I were very lucky; practical experience making and using European-style arms and armor, and then being thrown in at the deep end with Prof. Barker's mind-boggling collection of snickersnees.

Cool weapon, isn't it? Variation on what my Chinese son-in-law calls (generically) a dao, which I gather in Chinese martial arts is anything that's a sword blade with a handle on it.

A dao means a knife. It's not a specialized Chinese martial arts term nor does it carry some other hidden implication that 'der white guy' should be in awe of. It means a knife. Everything with a blade is a dao.

Quote from: Kellri;911579A dao means a knife. It's not a specialized Chinese martial arts term nor does it carry some other hidden implication that 'der white guy' should be in awe of. It means a knife. Everything with a blade is a dao.

Thank you - that's actually very helpful, as Zhodi speaks German and Mandarin; Keri, my daughter, speaks English and German, so everything gets translated through multiple filters. So this information helps me a lot in my understanding. :)

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911542We were, honestly speaking, also lucky to grow up in the pre-D&D, pre Internet days.  Honestly, the amount of shit posted about arms and armor is worse that it ever was, and most of it is fourth or fifth hand sources.  Nobody even KNOWS about the Battle of Visby in 1361, never mind having actually sat down and looked through a copy of the extremely rare 2 volume work on it.  Or "Armory of Schloss Churberg."  Or even Claude Blair's "European Armor," or any of the works by the aforementioned Helmut Nickel.

We not only had first hand artifacts, we also had the advantage of being able to find real true honest-to-Karakan scholarly works on the subject instead of regurgitated crap churned out by game companies after a quick buck, scanned by somebody who didn't know any better, and then posted to the Web as though it were actual information.

In all honestly iv spent a huge amount of time looking at books in my local library system.
and have looked at whats in other library systems in my area as best i can and there is a defiant lack of resources locally let alone the the number of useless or badly researched books.

Speaking of armour.

What does Roman Lamenar and Japanese/Byzantine Lamellar armours class as in D&D? Scale? Plate?

Depends also partially on coverage.  I'd probably count Lorica Segmentata and helmet as AC 5, shield making it AC 4.  Fuller coverage might bump it up one... I might count a full O-Yori as AC 4, or thereabouts.

I'm speaking OD&D here.

Quote from: Omega;911639Speaking of armour.

What does Roman Lamenar and Japanese/Byzantine Lamellar armours class as in D&D? Scale? Plate?

As Gronan pointed out, coverage plays a part. but so does weight and material used.

For example this piece of Byzantine Lamellar:  [ATTACH=CONFIG]283[/ATTACH]

I'd rate at either scale mail or (if the system lists it, I know that 3rd to 5th does) a breastplate in terms of AC.

This puppy on the other hand:  [ATTACH=CONFIG]284[/ATTACH]

I'd put down as splint.

But that's just me eyeballing, I'd have to do more research in materials, weight, flexibility.

Quote from: Omega;911639Speaking of armour.

What does Roman Lamenar and Japanese/Byzantine Lamellar armours class as in D&D? Scale? Plate?

I would give the Laminar/Lorica Segmentata a 5 (cuz I can't dance to it), as well as similar armors like the "coat-of-plates" where the metal pieces are fairly large. It's basically "splint mail" (AC 4) only without the mail. I handle the various scale, brigandine and lamellar armors as follows:

• If it is worn by itself and covers the torso and not much else, it's AC 6.



• If it's worn with some sort of mail backing and/or covers most of the body, it's AC 4.

Conversely, when the metal pieces are fewer and farther between, I lump them all under "studded". This includes the "coat of 1000 nails", bezainted, "ring" armor and any other armor consisting of a cloth or leather backing with metal bits added.

I use the shortest, most concise terms I can to describe armor in my game, because I still write everything by hand so I want to save space. I don't worry too much about what an armor is called* or its exact specifications**, because one of my worst nightmares involves turning into the kind of pedantic twat who starts squawking about how this type of armor didn't exist, or has the wrong name, or that the description EGG wrote doesn't match what's in some book or another. You know the kind of bore I'm talking about, right? Oh, and extra sad fuck points for anyone who spells mail as "maille".

* Most of the terminology for armor and weapons was made up fairly recently. For example, Lorica segmentata wasn't coined until about 1300 years after the Romans stopped using it. Here's another bit of trivia: the word mail was used to describe armor other than the ones made of interlocking metal links as far back as the early 1600s. Keep that in mind next time someone bitches about "plate mail" or "scale mail".

** I've freely used material from just about every edition of the game I've gotten my hands on. Sometimes the cost, weight and even the AC rating for an armor will be different and I don't catch it and change it to match the stats in AD&D (my drug of choice). THIS IS NOT A BAD THING! Not every suit of leather armor (for example) will be identical. Some will be AC 8 (the standard in AD&D) some could be AC7 (other editions of D&D, plus the 1E Monster Manual). I simply make up a reason why one suit is better than the other, such as quality of materials or craftsmanship or the condition it's in. A suit of chainmail might just be a coat of mail that leaves the legs and forearms uncovered and is thus AC 6 instead of AC 5. I've found that this kind of thing can make a regular piece of equipment a little more interesting. Give it a try and see how it goes for you.

Anyone ever run into players trying to enforce alignment niche? Like "Only one Lawful Good", yadda yadda. Way back in the 90s a player I knew related a run in with that which resulted in campaign and group implosion. Never seen it myself.

I give armour what ever rating seems appropriate. I don't always go exactly by the book. I remember reading one account of a suit of "jack", plates of horn sewn into the lining of a coat, that was so impenetrable that when the attackers finally killed the man wearing it they hacked it to bits in frustration. This is an armour type that doesn't even feature in the D&D tables.

I also feel that nudging individual amours up or down a point help to bring a sense of differences in quality, repair, etc. I don't see Armour Class or Damage Resistance as set in stone. They are quick shorthand so I don't have to figure out each goblin individually. I can give them all stock munitions grade leather and have one number all the same, while their chieftain gets the individualized stuff.

Quote from: Omega;911692Anyone ever run into players trying to enforce alignment niche? Like "Only one Lawful Good", yadda yadda. Way back in the 90s a player I knew related a run in with that which resulted in campaign and group implosion. Never seen it myself.

I love alignment but even to me that sounds like crazy talk. One of the first big things stressed about alignment is that it's like Fight Club, "first rule, nobody talks about Fight Club..." Hence covert sussing out through alignment languages, and that never openly or early in a relationship because it's such a major breach of tact.

To make it some sort of quota slots assumes a shared metagame knowledge of alignment outside of actual play (and it precludes several classes from working entirely unless 100% accomodated). Sounds wholly untenable -- and a gross assumption error about what was explicitly said about alignment. Implosion is unsurprising.

One thing I did run into was a player demanding spell niche protection. essentially "I have this spell/s and you cant have it to!". Apparently the DM theyd been with previous had some weird ideas on magic users and/or campaign setting. It sounded like there was essentially only one spell each in the whole world. So if you had Magic Missile then no one else knew it. Which created a totally different power struggle amongst wizards.

Once the player realized that wasnt the case at this table they were fine and loved that MU's could share spells and all that.

Quote from: Omega;911692Anyone ever run into players trying to enforce alignment niche? Like "Only one Lawful Good", yadda yadda.

I've seen the opposite ("everyone must be Lawful Good"), but never one-per-alignment.  Do you have any idea why that player was thinking this would be desirable?

Quote from: nDervish;911736I've seen the opposite ("everyone must be Lawful Good"), but never one-per-alignment.  Do you have any idea why that player was thinking this would be desirable?

No. The person relating it wasnt sure either the reason. Just that it lead to the game folding badly. Sounded allmost like a take on Fantasy Wargaming where the GM is told that clashing party member alignment is good and if they arent squabbling enough with eachother then to take over their characters and make them.

So at a total guess the player wanted, or was used to, inter-party friction based off alignment. Too artificial and forced for my tastes. If theres going to be alignment friction Id rather it came about naturally and by chance rather than a DM forcing it on us.

Quote from: Omega;911729One thing I did run into was a player demanding spell niche protection. essentially "I have this spell/s and you cant have it to!". Apparently the DM theyd been with previous had some weird ideas on magic users and/or campaign setting. It sounded like there was essentially only one spell each in the whole world. So if you had Magic Missile then no one else knew it. Which created a totally different power struggle amongst wizards.

Once the player realized that wasnt the case at this table they were fine and loved that MU's could share spells and all that.

It never ceases to amaze me how lucky I've been to have never played with fucktards like those you describe.

If the player is trying to enforce such a moronic restriction, I can't imagine even the politest players not telling him to fuck off. If my mage happens upon a scroll or spell book that has a spell that your mage, for some asshole reason, claims exclusive rights to, guess what -my mage now has the spell too. Don't like it? Tough titty for you.

If this is some kind of house rule by the DM, I would tend to be against it but under the right conditions could be interesting. If only one mage has magic missile (for example) then when he or she dies, the spell dies with them. So either the spell is gone forever, or a mage has to go back to the old drawing board and re-research the spell or it suddenly becomes available again to whoever gets hold of that mage's spell book. I can see quite a few mages getting fragged for access to their spells...

Quote from: Elfdart;911758It never ceases to amaze me how lucky I've been to have never played with fucktards like those you describe.

If the player is trying to enforce such a moronic restriction, I can't imagine even the politest players not telling him to fuck off.

My first reaction was to say "Theres the door." But I have some sort of supernatural power to collect players on the rebound off bad DMs so my SOP is to sit down and figure out how the player came to whatever oddball belief. In this case the player was just used to a peculiar campaign style and didnt know anything else.

My current group are ALL from former really bad DM groups and weaning them off the belief that the DM is out to kill and/or screw over their characters at every turn has been a struggle. Some of the worst bad habits of RPGing one or another have picked up because thats what they needed to survive.

And some of the most crack-headed claims and posts here on RPGsite oft stem from players with bad DMs and the fucked up beliefs they cling to even when shown that "No. That is not how it is at every table or even most tables."

Quote from: Elfdart;911758It never ceases to amaze me how lucky I've been to have never played with fucktards like those you describe.

If the player is trying to enforce such a moronic restriction, I can't imagine even the politest players not telling him to fuck off. If my mage happens upon a scroll or spell book that has a spell that your mage, for some asshole reason, claims exclusive rights to, guess what -my mage now has the spell too. Don't like it? Tough titty for you.

If this is some kind of house rule by the DM, I would tend to be against it but under the right conditions could be interesting. If only one mage has magic missile (for example) then when he or she dies, the spell dies with them. So either the spell is gone forever, or a mage has to go back to the old drawing board and re-research the spell or it suddenly becomes available again to whoever gets hold of that mage's spell book. I can see quite a few mages getting fragged for access to their spells...

YES!

That's you fucking D&D, son!

Quote from: Omega;911997My first reaction was to say "Theres the door." But I have some sort of supernatural power to collect players on the rebound off bad DMs so my SOP is to sit down and figure out how the player came to whatever oddball belief. In this case the player was just used to a peculiar campaign style and didnt know anything else.

My current group are ALL from former really bad DM groups and weaning them off the belief that the DM is out to kill and/or screw over their characters at every turn has been a struggle. Some of the worst bad habits of RPGing one or another have picked up because thats what they needed to survive.

And some of the most crack-headed claims and posts here on RPGsite oft stem from players with bad DMs and the fucked up beliefs they cling to even when shown that "No. That is not how it is at every table or even most tables."

I hate shit GMs with a passion and especially what they do to, who would otherwise be, fucking amazing players. The mindfuckery you have to unwind them from is insane. What this does mean though is I've collected, at most conservative count, a few dozen players for life who love the fuck out of my games and I'm thankful for that fact that I was able make RPGs a happy memory for them and something to look forward to.



Now, on the alignment point, I think Alignment is amazing. I absolutely hold my player to acting in accordance with their Alignment. Same way I hold them to acting with their Virtue and Vice. If a players robs a wealthy or alright motherfucker to give to his local poor community or, better yet, to feed his starving brothers and sisters, that's Chaotic as fuck but its a fundamentally Good thing. Rob for himself, cleanly as possible and from someone who's doing alright, straight Chaotic and Neutral. Rob a homeless man on the street of the few petty coins he's got while wrecking his shit or maybe giving him a beatdown? Evil all the way and Neutral in the first and definitely Chaotic in the second.

Its a dynamic scale and if you rock the boat, I'll declare a flip or have em' do a Wisdom roll.

Quote from: Omega;911997And some of the most crack-headed claims and posts here on RPGsite oft stem from players with bad DMs and the fucked up beliefs they cling to even when shown that "No. That is not how it is at every table or even most tables."

You also described most of the crackheaded complaints about gaming 'culture' over at rpg.net.

And Dragonsfoot. And Giants In the Playground. And Enworld. And...

And BGG/RPGG and...

Is there a fora that doesnt develop a nest of them?

Back on topic.

Theres also the opposite as noted earlier. Players who want everyone to be the same class.

This can be fun on its own with the right pitch to a group. But when it becomes a demand it can feel just as onerous as any other. I've seen a few DMs and players pitch the idea of say an all thief group, etc. Never seen one actually demand it. Usually the more insistent pitches I've seen was because someone was inspired by a book or movie. Three Musketeers was one a player wanted to emulate and one DM wanted to do a sort of Knights of the Round campaign because he'd red Le Morte d'Arthur. Whic is ok with me long as it isnt a demand.

Quote from: Omega;912134And BGG/RPGG and...

Is there a fora that doesnt develop a nest of them?

Back on topic.

Theres also the opposite as noted earlier. Players who want everyone to be the same class.

This can be fun on its own with the right pitch to a group. But when it becomes a demand it can feel just as onerous as any other. I've seen a few DMs and players pitch the idea of say an all thief group, etc. Never seen one actually demand it. Usually the more insistent pitches I've seen was because someone was inspired by a book or movie. Three Musketeers was one a player wanted to emulate and one DM wanted to do a sort of Knights of the Round campaign because he'd red Le Morte d'Arthur. Whic is ok with me long as it isnt a demand.

I tend to prefer classless games, but mono class games can be fun.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;909133When anyone wonders why I posted once in a year-and-a-half, re-read this post - Opa nails it.

Over the past three years the level of abject stupid on this site broke whatever gawddamned meter you use to measure abject stupid. Then it rebuilt the meter with chewing gum and packing tape and broke it again, only harder the second time, like dropping a cargo [strike]container[/strike] ship on it, and then nuking the meter and the ship from orbit, 'cause it's the only way to be sure.

See you in the funny pages.

Shame, we've missed you. Not that I can blame you or disagree in any way.

Of course, the condemnation loses a bit of its bite when you've been hanging out on RPGnet instead...

Quote from: TristramEvans;924242Of course, the condemnation loses a bit of its bite when you've been hanging out on RPGnet instead...

Well, if anyone on this site every bothered to get over SWINE! and SJWs!, they might notice that there's been a shift in attitudes among many of the gamers who frequent Big Purple: sandboxes, hexcrawls, develop-in-play, rulings and rules are written about at least as favorably as plot-heavy adventure paths for characters with sixteen page backstories. The influence of the OSR blogosphere in particular, supplemented by those of us who toiled long in the lavender and violet trenches, is palpable in many discussions - if you stick to talking about gaming instead of constantly looking for a hill of complaints about the moderation policy to die on, there are some good discussions to be had.

Moreover, there are more brainstorming threads, more stuff to actually mine for use at the table, at Big Purple than on many blogs these days.

It still has its fair share of puckered shit-spigots squirting corn-kerneled ass-gravy into otherwise useful discussions, but that's just as true of Knights and Knaves Alehouse, Dragonsfoot, and EN World.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;924535Well, if anyone on this site every bothered to get over SWINE! and SJWs!, they might notice that there's been a shift in attitudes among many of the gamers who frequent Big Purple: sandboxes, hexcrawls, develop-in-play, rulings and rules are written about at least as favorably as plot-heavy adventure paths for characters with sixteen page backstories. The influence of the OSR blogosphere in particular, supplemented by those of us who toiled long in the lavender and violet trenches, is palpable in many discussions - if you stick to talking about gaming instead of constantly looking for a hill of complaints about the moderation policy to die on, there are some good discussions to be had.

I kinda know. I've been working in that direction for years now, as evidenced by my post on TBP...:)
It's just that the moderators there manage to get on my nerves way more often. If you weren't right about the discussions, I would have deleted my account.
But I still have it;).

QuoteMoreover, there are more brainstorming threads, more stuff to actually mine for use at the table, at Big Purple than on many blogs these days.

Also true, but I don't even need to log in to see them. They're in the open parts of the forum, and I can log in if I want to say thanks for an idea, or give positive feedback (I've mostly stopped telling people on Internet how wrong they are).

QuoteIt still has its fair share of puckered shit-spigots squirting corn-kerneled ass-gravy into otherwise useful discussions, but that's just as true of Knights and Knaves Alehouse, Dragonsfoot, and EN World.

Maybe so, can't comment on any of those three. I find the ratio of such people is currently better on this forum, however, so here I am.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;924535puckered shit-spigots squirting corn-kerneled ass-gravy

Awesome.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;924535Well, if anyone on this site every bothered to get over SWINE! and SJWs!, they might notice that there's been a shift in attitudes among many of the gamers who frequent Big Purple...

Sure the paranoid monomania of some folks on this site about the eeevulh SJWs and Swine! is tedious and frequently annoying. But a big chunk of both the tedium and the annoyance can be avoided by staying out of the Punditry section of the site. And unlike TBP, here I don't have to read, re-read, and analyze to death every post before I hit the Submit button so I don't trigger a raging hyena pack or tick off some mod with a cause, a grudge, or poor reading comprehension. YMMV and all that.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;924535Well, if anyone on this site every bothered to get over SWINE! and SJWs!, they might notice that there's been a shift in attitudes among many of the gamers who frequent Big Purple: sandboxes, hexcrawls, develop-in-play, rulings and rules are written about at least as favorably as plot-heavy adventure paths for characters with sixteen page backstories. The influence of the OSR blogosphere in particular, supplemented by those of us who toiled long in the lavender and violet trenches, is palpable in many discussions - if you stick to talking about gaming instead of constantly looking for a hill of complaints about the moderation policy to die on, there are some good discussions to be had.

Moreover, there are more brainstorming threads, more stuff to actually mine for use at the table, at Big Purple than on many blogs these days.

It still has its fair share of puckered shit-spigots squirting corn-kerneled ass-gravy into otherwise useful discussions, but that's just as true of Knights and Knaves Alehouse, Dragonsfoot, and EN World.

Nah, ENWorld's cool. Shitheads tend to get dealt with there fairly consistently. Their more "senior" members are less ornery versions of you gits on 'ere generally. And I note particularly that the Star Wars lot on there are particularly derisive of each other, especially anything to do with Edge of the Empire+

Quote from: Bren;924560Sure the paranoid monomania of some folks on this site about the eeevulh SJWs and Swine! is tedious and frequently annoying. But a big chunk of both the tedium and the annoyance can be avoided by staying out of the Punditry section of the site. And unlike TBP, here I don't have to read, re-read, and analyze to death every post before I hit the Submit button so I don't trigger a raging hyena pack or tick off some mod with a cause, a grudge, or poor reading comprehension. YMMV and all that.

You're a bunch of old farts. RPG-lovin' farts.

In 20 years I might be one, though.

Ain't no better place to get some learnin' in for how it'll be!

Quote from: Black Vulmea;924535Well, if anyone on this site every bothered to get over SWINE! and SJWs!,

I think besides Pundit I've seen maybe 2 posters here use the term "swine" unironically.

Quote from: AsenRG;924537(I've mostly stopped telling people on Internet how wrong they are).

Feels like a weight off doesn't it?

Quote from: Bren;924560And unlike TBP, here I don't have to read, re-read, and analyze to death every post before I hit the Submit button so I don't trigger a raging hyena pack or tick off some mod with a cause, a grudge, or poor reading comprehension. YMMV and all that.

We sure seem to have about 0.5 blow-ups per day here, regardless. The reasons are different but I don't feel like they're better.

TBP - eh, I made my position clear long ago. There'll always be people you disagree with. If we spend our time talking about how anti-X we are, then we're nothing more than the negative reflection of the same thing. We do better by making this the best discussion site that provides useful insight into helping people game well. Living well is the best revenge and all that.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;924569We sure seem to have about 0.5 blow-ups per day here, regardless. The reasons are different but I don't feel like they're better.t.

My thoughts are that they are generally "better" because for the most part here we have the option of talking things out like adults, even if there's no guarantee anyone else is going to respond like an adult.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;924569We sure seem to have about 0.5 blow-ups per day here, regardless. The reasons are different but I don't feel like they're better.

I'm not looking for a site that has no blowups. I see blow-ups as the natural result of discussion that includes disagreement, combined with the limitations of communication solely via the written word (and often a hastily written word at that).  

QuoteTBP - eh, I made my position clear long ago. There'll always be people you disagree with. If we spend our time talking about how anti-X we are, then we're nothing more than the negative reflection of the same thing. We do better by making this the best discussion site that provides useful insight into helping people game well. Living well is the best revenge and all that.

In general I agree with the position you state here. I seldom talk about TBP and I almost never introduce it into a thread and I could be wrong, but I don't think I've ever started a thread about people's political views or about TBP. In this thread, I was responding to Black Vulmea's comments which are over generalizations. Mostly, because I'm sad he's chosen to absent himself.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;924569Feels like a weight off doesn't it?

Not at all! You're wrong:D!

(And for the irony-challenged, yes, it sure does feel better;)).

Quote from: TristramEvans;924563I think besides Pundit I've seen maybe 2 posters here use the term "swine" unironically.

What does that mean, anyway?  I've never understood that.

I mean, I know it was an insult from the movies and radio shows of the 1900's, simply because of the language laws in the entertainment industry, and often meant bastard, but other than that...

Quote from: Christopher Brady;924632What does that mean, anyway?  I've never understood that.

I mean, I know it was an insult from the movies and radio shows of the 1900's, simply because of the language laws in the entertainment industry, and often meant bastard, but other than that...

Pundit defined it in an old, stickied thread (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?4771-Once-More-Defining-quot-Swine-quot) in his forum.

Quote from: Bren;924560Sure the paranoid monomania of some folks on this site about the eeevulh SJWs and Swine! is tedious and frequently annoying. But a big chunk of both the tedium and the annoyance can be avoided by staying out of the Punditry section of the site. And unlike TBP, here I don't have to read, re-read, and analyze to death every post before I hit the Submit button so I don't trigger a raging hyena pack or tick off some mod with a cause, a grudge, or poor reading comprehension. YMMV and all that.

Thats been my experience too. Sure you can post over there and never see a problem. I have for a long long time now. But its walking across a minefield and its beyond absurd even now. So I stay in one quiet little corner of the site and venture out on grounhogs day before scampering back into my safe little hole because the nuclear winter is gonna be long yet.

Its not much different that posting on BGG where you have to watch what you say and sometimes where you say it lest you get a ban just for calling out a troll or liar.

Back on topic.

err... what was the topic again?

Quote from: TristramEvans;924575My thoughts are that they are generally "better" because for the most part here we have the option of talking things out like adults, even if there's no guarantee anyone else is going to respond like an adult.

Agreed at times we bounce off each other because some one took some thing wrong or in a way it was not intended,but we do as a group tend to make are points clear by the end of the discussion, and no one is banned normally.
Where as with the big purple you are unlikely to have a chance to clarify your meaning if you are misunderstood.

Quote from: Omega;924642Thats been my experience too. Sure you can post over there and never see a problem. I have for a long long time now. But its walking across a minefield and its beyond absurd even now. So I stay in one quiet little corner of the site and venture out on grounhogs day before scampering back into my safe little hole because the nuclear winter is gonna be long yet.

Its not much different that posting on BGG where you have to watch what you say and sometimes where you say it lest you get a ban just for calling out a troll or liar.

Back on topic.

err... what was the topic again?

Frankly the reason I stopped posting on the big purple is because I got tired of the whole "when the cats are away the mice will play" dynamic. That's without all of the blatant mod favoritism.With the favoritism I frankly see no real reason to frequent the site.When every time a thread starts to make some real head way A mod comes in and either A: bans some one: or B: kicks one of the major posters out of the thread: there is no point.

Quote from: Omega;924642err... what was the topic again?

'Niche Protection' and why it's bad.  I will reiterate my position, and belief, that we humans do it all the time anyway so whether or not our like or dislike if our games do it, I believe is due to how 'in your face' it is in the presentation.

I just went over there and browsed through the infractions forum a bit.  As far as I can tell, nothing whatsoever has changed except that they are now openly banning people for supporting Trump and/or criticizing Clinton.

As for niche protection, it's my experience that players do it even in systems that don't include it.  People don't want their characters to overlap too much to avoid stepping on each other's toes too much and to avoid redundancy.  They do it in points buy systems like M&M even though they have no mechanical niche protection at all.

Quote from: yosemitemike;924882I just went over there and browsed through the infractions forum a bit.

Drama-filled forum is full of drama.

Also, water still wet.

Why give credence to the bullshit?

Quote from: Black Vulmea;925036Drama-filled forum is full of drama.

Also, water still wet.

Why give credence to the bullshit?

It's difficult to generate much drama in a forum where regular users are not allowed to post and topics all have zero responses.  It's strictly a forum for the staff to announce who they are infracting, why and how severe the penalty will be.  Why give credence to "the bullshit"?  Because it's coming from people with the authority to enforce their bullshit and it's the same bullshit I have been seeing there for years.

Niche protection is awesome. With the detail that every character should be able to attempt to do things outside their niche, only to be much worse at it than someone within the niche.  Every character can theoretically fight, including trying some kind of special maneuver, but the fighter should fight much much better than any other class. Everyone should be able to try to hide or climb, but the thief should get to do so with great advantages.  Sometimes this can also mean getting to automatically succeed at things that other characters should only be able to succeed with a difficult check.

Quote from: RPGPundit;925450Niche protection is awesome. With the detail that every character should be able to attempt to do things outside their niche, only to be much worse at it than someone within the niche.  Every character can theoretically fight, including trying some kind of special maneuver, but the fighter should fight much much better than any other class. Everyone should be able to try to hide or climb, but the thief should get to do so with great advantages.  Sometimes this can also mean getting to automatically succeed at things that other characters should only be able to succeed with a difficult check.

Great, but this is something that you achieve by point-buy as well;).

Quote from: yosemitemike;925058It's strictly a forum for the staff to announce who they are infracting, why and how severe the penalty will be.

In other words, drama.

Quote from: yosemitemike;925058Why give credence to "the bullshit"?  Because it's coming from people with the authority to enforce their bullshit . . . (emphasis added - BV)

It's their fucking site. Whinging about it, especially on another site, just makes you a member of the alt-Drama Club. Don't be that guy.

Quote from: RPGPundit;925450Niche protection is awesome.

Niche protection is for gobshites, players who need rules as their surrogate cocks to measure because they suck at actually playing the game.

I don't like rigidly limited character archetypes. I prefer to have flexibility in my CharGen options. But at the same time I think that the GM should protect niches for the PCs by reviewing the different players' choices of PC before the game and trying to predict whether each PC will have their own opportunities to shine. This can't be an absolute. If everyone wants to play a fighter, well... some of them are going to be shining in the same situations, and perhaps not equally. But at least have a look at the character sheets and ask yourself - is there a player who is going to be actively prevented, by the rules, from ever really taking the spotlight in mechanically rich situations? Of course, in more roleplay-intensive, less mechanically rich situations, anyone can grab the spotlight with the right roleplay. But again it may be interesting to look at PCs' social advantages and disadvantages (even if they are reflected only in "fluff" and not in "crunch") and seeing if there is too much overlap. Then again, in the final analysis, a game with a lot of overlap between PCs can work great - but may need more thought from the GM.

Some players enjoy making one-trick ponies for their character.

If I understand the premise correctly, "niche protection" basically means players have assigned roles during the game and the system makes them very good at that and handicaps any other character attempting to o the same thing? So a fighter is very good at hand to hand combat, thieves are very good at finding/disarming traps, rangers are very good at forestry and foraging, and never the twain shall meet basically? I'm kind of dubious about that.  

It reminds me of the whole "assigned roles" thing in 4e, Controller, Striker, etc. The implications of which seemed to be that a party had to be made up of a specific selection or combination of characters to work effectively. I remember actually seeing local ads at the FLGS during that time where people were not seeking players, instead saying things to the effect of "our party needs a ----".

For one thing, it feels very artificial or "because game". It undermines randomly rolling up characters, shouldn't players then just be assigned one of the classes "needed" to fulfill the various niches required for a successful dungeoncrawl? It doesn't fit with either fantasy genre fiction or real life at all. I can't really see what the benefits are? What is the point of "niche protection"?

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927265Niche protection is for gobshites, players who need rules as their surrogate cocks to measure because they suck at actually playing the game.

:D
That's a less polite version of what I said a post before you. But you gain points for clarity;)!

Niches exist, but aren't protected in my games. Any character can try to do anything the player can think of to try. They have about as much chance as a gerbil does of flying an F-15, but they can still try.

If a player wants to make a character who is a specialist healer, fighter, jet pilot, whatever niche they choose, fine. I am not going to step in and stop another player from building a character who has skill in that area just because the niche is "taken". That leads to silliness. I also refuse to design adventures with tasks for each class and niche specifically included. "Now I'll throw in a trap for a thief to find, now some undead for the cleric to turn..." The adventure is what the adventure is. The characters have to use the tools they have to solve it. No clerics in the party going in to the Tomb of the Wight King? Guess you won't be relying on turning those undead, swords and holy water will have to suffice.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927265Niche protection is for gobshites, players who need rules as their surrogate cocks to measure because they suck at actually playing the game.

Delurking to throw down an emphatic +1 for this.

Once again, when your basic adventuring group was 9 to 12 characters, you were going to have multiples of most classes.  But that was a good thing; you needed plate armored fighters and clerics for your front and back lines, and the more spells and healing you had the better, because you could stay in the dungeon longer.

Which also led to "save your spells, we can handle this with swords."  Because the longer your scarce resources (spells) last, the longer you can stay in the dungeon, and the more loot (and therefore XP) you get.

I remember groups of that size. Small unit tactics, rather than depending on a very few individuals in protected niches.

I can also remember playing many parties that didn't have one or more "niches" filled and we did just fine.

Quote from: TristramEvans;927270If I understand the premise correctly, "niche protection" basically means players have assigned roles during the game and the system makes them very good at that and handicaps any other character attempting to o the same thing? So a fighter is very good at hand to hand combat, thieves are very good at finding/disarming traps, rangers are very good at forestry and foraging, and never the twain shall meet basically? I'm kind of dubious about that.  

It reminds me of the whole "assigned roles" thing in 4e, Controller, Striker, etc. The implications of which seemed to be that a party had to be made up of a specific selection or combination of characters to work effectively. I remember actually seeing local ads at the FLGS during that time where people were not seeking players, instead saying things to the effect of "our party needs a ----".

For one thing, it feels very artificial or "because game". It undermines randomly rolling up characters, shouldn't players then just be assigned one of the classes "needed" to fulfill the various niches required for a successful dungeoncrawl? It doesn't fit with either fantasy genre fiction or real life at all. I can't really see what the benefits are? What is the point of "niche protection"?

Well the idea of specialists isn't specific to roleplaying.  Take a game like Shadowrun or any kind of technical thief game.  You need a Hacker/Cracker, a Faceman, a Driver, a Gunman, a Planner, etc...  Now not all of those roles need to be exclusive, but you generally will need all those roles at least to be flexible in what you do.  If you don't have a Faceman or Cracker, but instead a couple extra Gunmen, well than that's going to change things a bit, you're not going to be doing Mission Impossible, you're going to be doing Heat.

So, when you're talking about classes now you have different things the different classes are best at.  Fighter, Thief, Ranger, Magic-User, Cleric.  Most of the time, during the TSR days, you could have a party of 2 Clerics, 2 Thieves and an Illusionist and do just fine...you just have to do it differently.

3e, as usual, is when it all went to shit.

The paradigm became a "designer experience".  4-person party, who could expect X number of encounters of Y level of difficulty, and Z number of those encounters gave you a level.  A vastly and ridiculously over-engineered design.  That still wasn't enough.  What really fucked things up is that WotC also removed practically every possible limitation on spellcasting, turned every spellcasting class into a Buffing and Summoning monstrosity, and released a bajillion supplements with power creep.

So now you have created a culture of gadgetry through the crunchy system, redefined the adventuring paradigm to a narrow range, introduced class imbalance on a cosmic scale, and kept doubling down on all of this with every new book - in the dawn of the MMO age.

Niche protection became a thing because with all of 3e consisting of rules the GM must follow with very little guidance on how NOT TO follow and simply do their own thing, they trained new GMs to be Screen Monkeys.  Follow the rules, let the players have their build, and be good little entertainers presenting our modules.  As a result of this, there really is no point in a non-spellcasting class in 3e if you don't have a GM who is willing to reconfigure the ridiculous levels of abuse the system allows.  Hence all of a sudden now people are crying about Niche Protection because they realize that a party filled with only Cleric and Mages, where Thieves and Fighters have what they normally do, done better by the spellcasters, isn't very fun.

So began the arms race, with new classes, new builds, new CharOp strategies in order to fix the problems by taking them to extreme levels - putting out fire with gasoline.

So "Niche Protection" was a very big deal in 4e, because, well 3e is an absolute mess without a strong GM.  The problem in 4e was, of course, they just made everyone a Mage essentially with different AEDU abilities, and turned D&D into an MMO on paper.

Personally, I didn't have that much trouble with 3e, although it did take work.  I just collected all the Class Abilities and Feats that existed as a reference, then built my own world specific classes, reinstituted a lot of the casting limitations that got cut, and things worked just fine. I just kind of got turned off of a Class/Level system combined with Skills and began to favor skill-based systems.  I kept with d20 Conan, one of the best versions of 3e I think, but then eventually switched over to MRQII/RQ6/Mythras.

Quote from: DavetheLost;927296Niches exist, but aren't protected in my games. Any character can try to do anything the player can think of to try. They have about as much chance as a gerbil does of flying an F-15, but they can still try.

I think this brings up an important point that apparently needs to be screamed in every thread on D&D classes: Niche protection does not mean the same thing as niche. A niche is a narrowly-defined role or set of abilities. Niche protection is protection of niches.

Also, I kind of feel that not every game with classes has niches. But that's not a popular opinion, and I don't think I can convince anyone else of that.

Quote from: DavetheLost;927296Niches exist, but aren't protected in my games. Any character can try to do anything the player can think of to try. They have about as much chance as a gerbil does of flying an F-15, but they can still try.

If a player wants to make a character who is a specialist healer, fighter, jet pilot, whatever niche they choose, fine. I am not going to step in and stop another player from building a character who has skill in that area just because the niche is "taken". That leads to silliness. I also refuse to design adventures with tasks for each class and niche specifically included. "Now I'll throw in a trap for a thief to find, now some undead for the cleric to turn..." The adventure is what the adventure is. The characters have to use the tools they have to solve it. No clerics in the party going in to the Tomb of the Wight King? Guess you won't be relying on turning those undead, swords and holy water will have to suffice.

Everything you said is 100% correct, and for some reason, the knowledge that GMs can do this and this is how things should work, hasn't been transmitted throughout all of D&D fandom.  These key areas of knowledge simply weren't passed on.

Quote from: talysman;927329Also, I kind of feel that not every game with classes has niches. But that's not a popular opinion, and I don't think I can convince anyone else of that.

Depends on how you define "Niche" like we were talking upthread.  If you simply mean "role or activity", well then there are niches, but every class is not the exclusive holder of that niche.
Dealing Melee Damage - Fighter/Paladin/Ranger, Cleric/Monk/Thief, Mage
Holding the Line - Fighter/Paladin, Cleric/Ranger
Thief Stuff - Thief, Assassin, Monk
etc...

So expand on your idea...

Quote from: TristramEvans;927270What is the point of "niche protection"?

To make D&D more like Chess?

Quote from: CRKrueger;927331Everything you said is 100% correct, and for some reason, the knowledge that GMs can do this and this is how things should work, hasn't been transmitted throughout all of D&D fandom.  These key areas of knowledge simply weren't passed on.

Not only were they not passed, lots of "advice to GMs" said specificially the GM has to enforce niche protection and construct adventures where each class gets a chance to shine:).

This, and White Wolf's (and others') "Storyteller as Illusionist" advice is why I read the GM section of new books first, and carefully. If it fails in one of those traps, or any of the others, I need to pay extra attention while reading the rules themselves;).

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927265Niche protection is for gobshites, players who need rules as their surrogate cocks to measure because they suck at actually playing the game.

Wow.  Just the sheer...  Really?  You honestly think that people who want to be Batman and just Batman and are happy in their little niche are in a penile measuring contest?  Really?  It has nothing to do with letting someone else play say, Luke Cage/Power Man and someone else wants to play Iron Fist?  Because they want to feel useful?

I can't...  I don't...  And in the REAL WORLD military we have niches, like Medic and Comms and Heavy Weapons and Infantry...  And you spout that BS?

My God...  Wow.

Quote from: TristramEvans;927270If I understand the premise correctly, "niche protection" basically means players have assigned roles during the game and the system makes them very good at that and handicaps any other character attempting to o the same thing? So a fighter is very good at hand to hand combat, thieves are very good at finding/disarming traps, rangers are very good at forestry and foraging, and never the twain shall meet basically? I'm kind of dubious about that.  

It reminds me of the whole "assigned roles" thing in 4e, Controller, Striker, etc. The implications of which seemed to be that a party had to be made up of a specific selection or combination of characters to work effectively. I remember actually seeing local ads at the FLGS during that time where people were not seeking players, instead saying things to the effect of "our party needs a ----".

For one thing, it feels very artificial or "because game". It undermines randomly rolling up characters, shouldn't players then just be assigned one of the classes "needed" to fulfill the various niches required for a successful dungeoncrawl? It doesn't fit with either fantasy genre fiction or real life at all. I can't really see what the benefits are? What is the point of "niche protection"?

1: More like only the thief can climb, pick locks, sneak. Only clerics can heal, and so on. Rare to see a class totally handicapped in other areas. We are not talking about only magic users magic and only fighters fight. But it can get to that point with some.

2: Right. With a few taking it to more absurd lengths such as theres ONLY one of each class allowed in a party. I've had players try to enforce that before. Though sometimes the "our party needs a" is because no one thinks that non-thieves can still do thieving actions. Or other reasons other than "only one each" such as they might have alot of Clerics and a Thief but no Fighters in the party yet.

3: Sometimes its just a defensiveness of position, essentially forced snowflake. Other times... who knows? Really. TRY fathoming some of the totally insane attitudes and conceptions players have concocted over any game.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;927415Wow.  Just the sheer...  Really?  You honestly think that people who want to be Batman and just Batman and are happy in their little niche are in a penile measuring contest?  Really?  It has nothing to do with letting someone else play say, Luke Cage/Power Man and someone else wants to play Iron Fist?  Because they want to feel useful?

I can't...  I don't...  And in the REAL WORLD military we have niches, like Medic and Comms and Heavy Weapons and Infantry...  And you spout that BS?

My God...  Wow.

I'm not sure what's funniest about this post.

That you took the time to actually type out sputtering incoherence?

That you think comparing superhero powers is actually a way to win an argument?

Or that you know anything about the military you didn't learn from playing Call of Duty or watching Aliens?

Man, it's like you're trolling yourself.

Quote from: DavetheLost;927323I remember groups of that size. Small unit tactics, rather than depending on a very few individuals in protected niches.

I can also remember playing many parties that didn't have one or more "niches" filled and we did just fine.

And if you really NEED a role filled ("Guys, if we're going to the Crypts of Fuckloads of Undead on the sixth level, we should have a Cleric") you could always try to hire an NPC.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927443I'm not sure what's funniest about this post.

That you took the time to actually type out sputtering incoherence?

That you think comparing superhero powers is actually a way to win an argument?

Or that you know anything about the military you didn't learn from playing Call of Duty or watching Aliens?

Man, it's like you're trolling yourself.

In that case, there would be a Daliesque magnificence to it.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;927443I'm not sure what's funniest about this post.

That you took the time to actually type out sputtering incoherence?

That you think comparing superhero powers is actually a way to win an argument?

Or that you know anything about the military you didn't learn from playing Call of Duty or watching Aliens?

Man, it's like you're trolling yourself.

To be fair, Cupcake has a point here, but it's a point that applies to later editions.  3E and 3.5 and Pathfinder, all of which I've played, plays a lot more like comic superheroes than the old style dungeon adventuring I started with.  In a superhero team you don't want more than one Flash or Iron Fist or Doctor Strange. As I said above, in OD&D it's close order combat and kickin' and gougin' in the mud and the blood and the beer, and the more swords the better.

And, marketing wise, it was inevitable that D&D would move in that direction.  Eventually, everybody that wanted 1E AD&D, and that style of game, HAD it.  At that point, change the game or die.  So from a business standpoint it is only logical that the play style would change, because you want to keep selling the game.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;927507So from a business standpoint it is only logical that the play style would change, because you want to keep selling [strike]the[/strike] a game.

The problem is there is no market for the game. So you need a different game to sell.


And yes I know that's what you meant. Just not quite what you said.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;927504And if you really NEED a role filled ("Guys, if we're going to the Crypts of Fuckloads of Undead on the sixth level, we should have a Cleric") you could always try to hire an NPC.

Retainers, Henchmen and just plain helpful classed NPCs are some of the more interesting, but over time forgotten aspects of D&D. It was nice to see 5e bring them back so some small degree.

Quote from: TristramEvans;927270...

It reminds me of the whole "assigned roles" thing in 4e, Controller, Striker, etc. The implications of which seemed to be that a party had to be made up of a specific selection or combination of characters to work effectively. I remember actually seeing local ads at the FLGS during that time where people were not seeking players, instead saying things to the effect of "our party needs a ----".

For one thing, it feels very artificial or "because game". It undermines randomly rolling up characters, shouldn't players then just be assigned one of the classes "needed" to fulfill the various niches required for a successful dungeoncrawl? It doesn't fit with either fantasy genre fiction or real life at all. I can't really see what the benefits are? What is the point of "niche protection"?

Well, when it gets to the point of clear artificiality, "because game", the player-group needing to have one person in each of several niches for artificial reasons, or players find themselves describing their characters as gamey labels, that feels way over my own boundaries of acceptability and interest.

I don't mind when those things intrinsically make sense, such as when a character has put most of their training and experience into learning certain special unique skills and have lived in a certain context, it just makes sense that they would be an expert much better in some of those skills, and that it would affect the type of person they are, their perspectives, and so on. As long as it makes sense and feels authentic, rather than that the game designer worships Rock-Paper-Scissors as a miracle of game design genius, or that it's designed to coddle the special snowflake sensibilities of players who want everyone else to suck at the thing their character specializes in, even if that thing is realistically something others could/would also be competent or even very good at, such as sneaking, or fighting, or having outdoor survival skills, or whatever.

It seems to me that if a game can represent enough levels of distinct difference in ability, then the snowflakes can be happy enough without artificially-enforced niche protection, and/or if the niche protection just works in a way that seems plausible enough. Sure many people can sneak around pretty well, but the guy who develops that for a big chunk of his life may be much better at it. Sure all sorts of people can get good at fighting, but the dedicated warrior is a few cuts above. If the game mechanics allow those (and other levels and types of) distinctions to be represented effectively then there's no need for artificial niche protection, unless the players choose characters whose skills don't match the adventures the GM makes, so the player feels like a fish out of water (or a forester in a desert/urban/aquatic adventure). On the other hand, if the game mechanics are too crude to allow that distinction in a satisfying way, then ya you could have issues (though still not ones for which I'd think the best answer would be "add niche protection").

Quote from: AsenRG;927411Not only were they not passed, lots of "advice to GMs" said specificially the GM has to enforce niche protection and construct adventures where each class gets a chance to shine:).

This, and White Wolf's (and others') "Storyteller as Illusionist" advice is why I read the GM section of new books first, and carefully. If it fails in one of those traps, or any of the others, I need to pay extra attention while reading the rules themselves;).

If you're doing Niche Protection right, there's no need at all to do either of these things.

Quote from: RPGPundit;928292If you're doing Niche Protection right, there's no need at all to do either of these things.

Then either I'm doing it right, or I'm not doing it at all. Basically, I leave it to the system to enforce that whoever spends more points in an area is going to be better, and tell the players to find a way to make the PC useful:D!

Either way, I'm not enforcing niche protection, and don't even care what their abilities are, much less constructing adventures that let them shine;).