Quote from: SeanchaiShrug. I never once used a caller, had a caller in my group, or met anyone in real life who did.

Same here. It was also relatively rare to run across a group with a designated mapper who mapped everything in detail.

Quote from: HaffrungThere's a difference between writing stuff up on index cards and using them to structure the whole 'quest' with a few narrow options.

Now all you have to do is demonstrate that if WotC produces official quest cards or DMs choose to use them that there'll have "a few narrow options" and you'll have a point.

Seanchai

Quote from: SeanchaiNow all you have to do is demonstrate that if WotC produces official quest cards or DMs choose to use them that there'll have "a few narrow options" and you'll have a point.

Exactly. I will say, though, that it won't surprise me if we see decks of "quest cards" - including blanks - offered for sale by WotC or another publisher.

Obviously, I'm another D&D player/DM who not only wasn't offended, but don't think this is remotely a big deal. I guess if you want to find something to be offended about, you can.

We're going to be playing Masks of Nyarlothotep for Call of Cthulhu. It's a big campaign with a lot of NPCs on different continents. One of the suggestions I ran across somewhere was to provide index cards with NPC details on them. So I photocopied all the little NPC portraits and pasted them on to some cards. There's room for the players to add their own notes if they choose. I plan to hand them out as the players encounter the NPCs.

So is this advice/plan going to ruin CoC, my game, and my players?

Seanchai

Quote from: ColonelHardissonI will say, though, that it won't surprise me if we see decks of "quest cards" - including blanks - offered for sale by WotC or another publisher.

That's cool. I bought Paizo's item cards and like 'em.

Seanchai

Quote from: SeanchaiObviously, I'm another D&D player/DM who not only wasn't offended, but don't think this is remotely a big deal. I guess if you want to find something to be offended about, you can.

We're going to be playing Masks of Nyarlothotep for Call of Cthulhu. It's a big campaign with a lot of NPCs on different continents. One of the suggestions I ran across somewhere was to provide index cards with NPC details on them. So I photocopied all the little NPC portraits and pasted them on to some cards. There's room for the players to add their own notes if they choose. I plan to hand them out as the players encounter the NPCs.

So is this advice/plan going to ruin CoC, my game, and my players?

Seanchai

Years ago in the 1e era, I took a pack of index cards and wrote out various encounters on them, from those rabbits-with-guns in the old Gamma World book to the Ghostbusters to more "mundane" encounters like patrols. I even included stuff like traps or a magical pop machine that dispensed healing potions. When I rolled for a random encounter (yep, we did that), I could just pull one of these out. I also wrote out NPCs on index cards, as well.

Quote from: SeanchaiThat's cool. I bought Paizo's item cards and like 'em.

Seanchai

Yeah, I like stuff like that, too. That's why what Wyatt wrote doesn't really bother me.

I see nothing wrong with that article.
I agree to the basic statement that an adventure should be more than a unconnected string of monsters and treasures, and that there should be a reason to the PCs to get out of the bed other than "getting rich and leveling up". (Not that there are many good adventures that lack monsters, coins and XP )
It isn't really news to most veteran gamers, but it's an important statement, especially as that is the point where I see the strengths of role-playing as a medium compared to video games, board games or whatever - you can make the fiction your own and do what you are yourself emotionally invested in, rather then getting into the dungeon to find 10 wolf pelts 'cause this lame-ass, unimportant und irrelevant job is the only quest available.

The index cards... Well, I guess they would be a nice gimmick to highlight important quests that are announced as such.
I wouldn't use it for "quests" that yet have to be found out as such, though (like what properties the key bears and on which door it's works, or that the smoky potion the PCs looted actually contains a powerful malign demon that will be freed if anyone is so stupid to open it).

That article is perfectly non-offensive.  Take your meds, Sett.

Yeah, dudes, I know I've got the big rep for Mr. 4e Hater (though I'd like to think I'm internally mellowing a bit, because I just don't really care anymore), but I'm really not seeing the Great Moral Panic!(tm) here.

My last group always handled XP and loot as a lump sum at the end of the session, for the sake of not slowing down the game.  

And come on, a couple lines of adventure description on a quest card is enough to freak you all the fuck out and start screeching about "OMFG NOOBZ!" or whatever the fuck?  Frankly, I've never even run or played a game where it was all that necessary to write down fuck all, but even so, a couple lines of text on an index card is hardly a call to action.  

Lighten the fuck up, people, this is about as utterly unoffensive and innocuous as the 4e stuff has gotten really.

If someone wants to buy a mini to represent their character, or a little plastic bed from Dwarven Forge to represent a bed, I don't see the issue of having a card with a quest on it.

Tactile representations used in D&D have been around for a long time.  This complaint is empty and shallow.

Sett, you missed this:

'We tried a few methods for using armor as DR in 4e. None of them proved viable and we wanted to fuck off down the boozer. Even systems that looked good on paper failed in playtest or so we're sayin' capiche? Typically, the problems we encountered were:

1. DR makes it hard to balance the heavily armored guy against the lightly armored guy. In the AC system, you simply compare expected attacks vs. expected AC, and expected hit points vs. expected damage. You can then cross reference those two to figure out how long a PC Ninja bad-bwoi can survive the ogre clusterfuck.

For instance, you might want a halfling leather-paladin to stand toe-to-toe with a runt smeglord for 8 rounds before dropping, but a mage only lasts 3. You can manipulate both AC and hit points to hit that sweet spot. Then, you can increment both values up at about the same rate to keep that comparison (mage vs. fighter) intact. See, my shit is ON.

Once you add DR to the system, things get a little weird. It makes it hard to use all four factors (hit points, hit rate, power-up meter, DR) without dropping one or making one a constant.

For instance, you might say that all melee attacks hit 50% of the time, then use DR and hit points to differentiate survival. Or, hit rate and DR might change, but everyone gets the same hit points as any fule kno.

Now, DR works very well in cool online games that have threat/aggro systems. Under these rules, the guys with high DR focus almost exclusively on drawing attacks. That can be fun in a real time game, but in D&D it's a real fucking drag. MMOs rock, they don't have to worry as much about the disparity between the heavily armor guy and the guy in light armor because there are lots of mechanics that simply prevent the light armored bitch from suffering smackdowns. Roll on fifth edition.

2. DR adds an extra step of work (Yawn). Rolling to hit is something we expect to do, and accounting for armor in that step speeds up the game. Adding another step, the check for DR or the time spent resolving it, slows the game down on every successful attack combo.

When we add DR to D&D in the alternate rules supplement, we think we'll do away with scaling attack bonuses. The to-hit number of the 1st and 30th level wargods would look a lot alike, as would their defenses. The issue would be that the 1st level dweeb would do little to no damage with each signature strike, while the 30th level badass mutha smears the 1st level one in a single shot. Awesome. 4e - e for Extreme!

The potentially interesting thing (well, if you're a no-life gamer who lives with mom) is that it makes for a clear distinction between high defense, low armor guys, and low defense, high armor guys. The fighter might take hits all day, but his DR lets him shrug them off like Seagal in Under Siege 2. The rogue dodges attacks, but if he takes two or three hits he needs to run like the pussy he is. We don't really have that in D&D, because both rogues and fighters play with the same defense value and that's easier for the punters with their tiny brains. There you have it. I'm the top boy, my shit is vital like Harvey Keital.On acid. BELIEVE IT!'

- Donny 'Who's the Daddy' Doohickey, Designer.

                        'Make it so...beeyatch!'

That´s what I said:

The whole argumentation is not about D&D anymore.

It´s

- aggro
- quest

Please connect the the dots.

We´ll meet next year, when you come running because they ruined your pastime.

Quote from: SettembriniThat´s what I said:

The whole argumentation is not about D&D anymore.

It´s

- aggro
- quest

Please connect the the dots.

We´ll meet next year, when you come running because they ruined your pastime.

As the good Colonel says, no. It's your doom and gloom pronouncement, you take the time to spell it out. There's plenty of retarded-ass baseless FUD rolling around, I'm not going to fact-check yours any more than someone else's.

Convince me you're not just running around in circles waving your arms over your head because there's no random encounter table*.

* Metaphorical-like. There might be. But I doubt it.

Call me perverse but the more people bitch about 4e, the more I want to play it. :confused: