Quote from: VisionStorm on June 26, 2023, 04:34:32 PM
But I don't disagree with your take or your approach on it. And have tried similar stuff on the past. But XP/equivalent for training always felt a little iffy to me, cuz it incentivised characters sitting on downtime artificially getting better by throwing money at their skills without actually doing anything. It made me think "why not just skip a year or more and get a bunch of levels just cuz time went by?" And I tend to be skeptical of stuff that grants you XP/equivalent without getting stuff done in play or "earning" it through actual accomplishments.

Truth be told, most group who play my campaigns don't want take advantage of downtime. The downside of successfully creating a feeling that the world is in motion is players feeling if they take a time-out to do something they will be "left behind". One group went out of its way to hire others to do things like craft potions, collect cargo (they had a sailing sail) to avoid taking downtime themselves.

The only system and setting where downtime was taken advantage of was AiME and Middle Earth. That was mostly because it was to get rid of shadow.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on June 26, 2023, 08:23:00 PM


So you're okay with DL making things even more absurd than baseline D&D, but not okay if we make things less absurd and closer to, say, medieval England?

(Also, a "good sword" is one thing, but what about a CLUB costing half a pound of gold? Does gold grow on trees in D&Dland? Wouldn't it be easier to produce clubs than to risk your life in a dungeon?)

When it comes to fantasy, there is very little that can considered absurd. A club does not cost a half a pound of gold in any case. In B/X a club costs 5gp. 1 cn of encumbrance does not translate directly to a tenth of a pound of weight. Encumbrance is a game construct meant to limit how much loot can be easily hauled away and thus count for XP. It is a game construct. ALL of this nonsense is simply a game construct which got lost in the shuffle as soon as folks started taking the game WAY more seriously than a game of Stratego or Monopoly. Leaving that there lets look at reasons why a club might cost adventurers 5gp. Joe and Bob, two villagers who live in the fantasy hamlet not far from an old ruined keep, would give a single silver shilling for a stick, no mater if it was well made. The folks around this place scrounge for copper, and barter often takes place. In to town comes a group of swaggering popinjays in fancy armor & clothes, spending more than a months wages at the pub having drinks and chatting up Billybob who claimed to have an uncle that swore he visited that keep in his youth. Word spreads fast that these newcomers are loaded. Thus prices for EVERYTHING get jacked up to take some of this wealth off the new visitors. "Why yes sir this is the finest club to be had. Lovingly crafted it is. I could part with it for say, a mere 5 gold and that's slitting me own throat." Astonishingly, the visitor pays it without a second thought! Now this club producing business model only makes sense if there is a steady stream of visitors coming through town with more gold than brains. If so, the club selling business makes sense. That doesn't make a club worth any more to the other locals. It is much like the expensive souvenirs sold to visitors in tourist traps. The items don't have hardly any value to the locals. Visitors pay for a memento of a vacation which has sentimental value, thus pay the jacked up prices, not because they think it worth much themselves.

Quotewhat about a CLUB costing half a pound of gold?

I've been following this discussion and you keep saying this. I don't remember that clubs had a cost in the PHB.
What source are you using that states a club costs 5gp?

Quote from: Melichor on June 26, 2023, 10:00:22 PM

I've been following this discussion and you keep saying this. I don't remember that clubs had a cost in the PHB.
What source are you using that states a club costs 5gp?

In Moldvay B/X EVERYTHING on the equipment list was in gp. Nothing on the list cost less than 1gp. Add that to the belief that encumbrance is strictly weight and Bob's your uncle, a club costs a half a pound of gold.

Quote from: Melichor on June 26, 2023, 10:00:22 PM

Quotewhat about a CLUB costing half a pound of gold?

I've been following this discussion and you keep saying this. I don't remember that clubs had a cost in the PHB.
What source are you using that states a club costs 5gp?

B/X.

But I misremembered: a club costs 3 gp rather than 5.

It is GARLIC that costs 5 gp.

My bad.

But at least garlic price has fewer apologists.

A dagger weights as much as 10 gp, for weight comparison.

EDIT: the strangest thing is that I actually use most of the prices as written. B/X is my favorite D&D, and now I'm starting to like AD&D a lot. There are few things I like to fix: silver standard, lighter coins, cheaper clubs and garlic. The insistence that everything makes sense if you do enough mental gymnastics is baffling to me. Clubs with sentimental value? Wow.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on June 26, 2023, 11:17:07 PM
EDIT: the strangest thing is that I actually use most of the prices as written. B/X is my favorite D&D, and now I'm starting to like AD&D a lot. There are few things I like to fix: silver standard, lighter coins, cheaper clubs and garlic. The insistence that everything makes sense if you do enough mental gymnastics is baffling to me. Clubs with sentimental value? Wow.

When I first started playing D&D, I never thought about "realism" because I was literally playing a game where my character could go into a dungeon and kill dragons. I graduated to AD&D and it didn't take long to wonder why boots cost 2GP while leather armor was only 5GP. Why? These prices made no "realistic" sense considering this was GOLD we're talking about. So I started down the path, chasing historical accuracy because AD&D was a medieval game with dragons so I figured it'd make a better game with a more "realistic" economic system. Chivalry & Sorcery presented the ideal for me because it was accurate in so far as my 13 year old self could tell. This led to wondering why there were weird monsters in underground lairs just waiting to be killed, inexplicably. Why did they have large chests of treasure just sitting there to be taken? That didn't make any sense. Thus the pursuit began for even more "realistic" games. Essentially I chased the notion of "realism" for many years until finally realizing that the whole point in playing was to have fun, it wasn't to simulate reality. AD&D isn't a medieval world simulator with dragons, it's a pulp adventure board game with rules to facilitate interesting play. There's nothing to "fix". Personal tastes can lead one to want to do things in a different way; I think that's why so many variations of RPGs exist. But when you lose the forest for the trees and really start watching how the sausage is made (to conflate multiple analogies) you're never ever ever going to be happy. Ever. There will always be something you'd choose to do differently until eventually you write your own game and aren't even satisfied with that, either. Playing is the entire point, and if it's fun to play then the game succeeds.

I've stopped worrying about stupid bullshit like "realistic" economies because that's functionally irrelevant to fun play after a certain point. And this isn't something I've thought for a long while; when ACKS was released I bitched about coins being used for the "realistic" economy which was unlike anything in the real world. Who gives a fuck? It's a game; concessions have to be made to get to the good parts like sneaking into elephant towers and skulking around forgotten cities. I want to be Conan, not Irving Scheklestein the accountant. Conan wastes money as soon as he finds it and is always broke, always looking for adventure. A dragon's horde is pissed away in a single night on ale and whores. Worrying about whether or not a cabbage should be 1CP or 2CP, depending on the time of season, is the concern of peons and rubes. Conan has no time to count pennies, he has skulls to crack.

  But what if you're a Conan who wants to roleplay being an Irving or Mortimer?  Can't Conan's dream of double entry bookkeeping, too?

Quote from: Brad on June 27, 2023, 05:51:35 AM
[I want to be Conan, not Irving Scheklestein the accountant. Conan wastes money as soon as he finds it and is always broke, always looking for adventure.

Yes, I feel exactly like this.

BTW, Conan almost never finds a magic item, as mentioned above, and will not keep them for more than one story. Or pay money for training or hirelings. IIRC Conan DOES spend gold on prostitutes, which might be the reason AD&D has such a table... But it depends on the type of game you're going for, I think.

And "realism" is not really the point, I agree.

It is just that some things sticks out like a sore thumb for me. Could be just a matter of taste, since I like medieval weapons, for example. I'm not particularly interested in armor, so if there is something wrong with gambeson, leather or scale, or if there is redundancy in "chain mail", it doesn't bothers me as much as a weak mace.

Take tieflings, for example. Shouldn't be a problem in a game where you fight dragons, or you could BE a balor/dragon originally. And I'm mostly okay with them, but recently they started to bother me, and I've started seeing the value of an all-human campaign. Again, not about realism, but the fact that there are demon-people walking around without notice started to wreck my suspension of disbelief as much as garlic costing 5 gp.

(Again, setting-specific: I'm okay with them in Ravnica, Planescape, etc.)

Quote from: Opaopajr on June 27, 2023, 06:59:12 AM
But what if you're a Conan who wants to roleplay being an Irving or Mortimer?  Can't Conan's dream of double entry bookkeeping, too?

Quote from: Eric Diaz on June 27, 2023, 09:01:32 AM

Yes, I feel exactly like this.

BTW, Conan almost never finds a magic item, as mentioned above, and will not keep them for more than one story. Or pay money for training or hirelings. IIRC Conan DOES spend gold on prostitutes, which might be the reason AD&D has such a table... But it depends on the type of game you're going for, I think.

Yeah, that's true. He says they're more trouble than they're worth. But AD&D just isn't Conan, it's also Elric and the Gray Mouser, HP Lovecraft, a little bit of John Carter and Flash Gordon, etc. An amalgam of all the pulp stuff in varying degrees so you have to make concessions in some places. Or just not use Greyhawk, which pretty much means you can't use AD&D without A LOT of work, and in that case you might as well make your own game, as stated. Which is what everyone under the sun does once they get tired of AD&D.

QuoteAnd "realism" is not really the point, I agree.

It is just that some things sticks out like a sore thumb for me. Could be just a matter of taste, since I like medieval weapons, for example. I'm not particularly interested in armor, so if there is something wrong with gambeson, leather or scale, or if there is redundancy in "chain mail", it doesn't bothers me as much as a weak mace.

It's the same reason I get annoyed with how some modern games treat certain weapons, ESPECIALLY shotguns. Half the time I'm wondering if the writers have every used a firearm in their lives...but that's life. Change stuff as needed to fit how you think they should work.

QuoteTake tieflings, for example. Shouldn't be a problem in a game where you fight dragons, or you could BE a balor/dragon originally. And I'm mostly okay with them, but recently they started to bother me, and I've started seeing the value of an all-human campaign. Again, not about realism, but the fact that there are demon-people walking around without notice started to wreck my suspension of disbelief as much as garlic costing 5 gp.

(Again, setting-specific: I'm okay with them in Ravnica, Planescape, etc.)

AD&D stresses humanocentric campaigning because outside of Lord of the Rings most of the important pulp and fantasy characters are human (or human enough); it emulates S&S and pulp fairly well when you use mostly humans. 5th edition D&D has gone the other route and essentially emulates modern videogames like World of Warcraft. It's much more cartoony in appearance and outlook, and crap like tieflings does nothing but stress this aesthetic. I would be okay with stuff like dragonborn and tieflings IF they weren't so fucking ubiquitous and actually acted alien. Instead they're just humans with scales or horns and some Hot Topic clothing; the game starts to feel more like an episode of Three's Company than an epic Kull tale.

5GP garlic is part of a dumb economy meant to get to the good parts of the game; tieflings radically change things to such a degree you're playing cartoon characters instead of adventurers.

Quote from: Brad on June 27, 2023, 09:29:40 AM

5GP garlic is part of a dumb economy meant to get to the good parts of the game; tieflings radically change things to such a degree you're playing cartoon characters instead of adventurers.

I almost spit my coffee! Reading this I instantly thought of that scene in Last Action Hero.

Quote from: Brad on June 27, 2023, 09:29:40 AM

Quote from: Opaopajr on June 27, 2023, 06:59:12 AM
But what if you're a Conan who wants to roleplay being an Irving or Mortimer?  Can't Conan's dream of double entry bookkeeping, too?

Quote from: Eric Diaz on June 27, 2023, 09:01:32 AM

Yes, I feel exactly like this.

BTW, Conan almost never finds a magic item, as mentioned above, and will not keep them for more than one story. Or pay money for training or hirelings. IIRC Conan DOES spend gold on prostitutes, which might be the reason AD&D has such a table... But it depends on the type of game you're going for, I think.

Yeah, that's true. He says they're more trouble than they're worth. But AD&D just isn't Conan, it's also Elric and the Gray Mouser, HP Lovecraft, a little bit of John Carter and Flash Gordon, etc. An amalgam of all the pulp stuff in varying degrees so you have to make concessions in some places. Or just not use Greyhawk, which pretty much means you can't use AD&D without A LOT of work, and in that case you might as well make your own game, as stated. Which is what everyone under the sun does once they get tired of AD&D.

QuoteAnd "realism" is not really the point, I agree.

It is just that some things sticks out like a sore thumb for me. Could be just a matter of taste, since I like medieval weapons, for example. I'm not particularly interested in armor, so if there is something wrong with gambeson, leather or scale, or if there is redundancy in "chain mail", it doesn't bothers me as much as a weak mace.

It's the same reason I get annoyed with how some modern games treat certain weapons, ESPECIALLY shotguns. Half the time I'm wondering if the writers have every used a firearm in their lives...but that's life. Change stuff as needed to fit how you think they should work.

QuoteTake tieflings, for example. Shouldn't be a problem in a game where you fight dragons, or you could BE a balor/dragon originally. And I'm mostly okay with them, but recently they started to bother me, and I've started seeing the value of an all-human campaign. Again, not about realism, but the fact that there are demon-people walking around without notice started to wreck my suspension of disbelief as much as garlic costing 5 gp.

(Again, setting-specific: I'm okay with them in Ravnica, Planescape, etc.)

AD&D stresses humanocentric campaigning because outside of Lord of the Rings most of the important pulp and fantasy characters are human (or human enough); it emulates S&S and pulp fairly well when you use mostly humans. 5th edition D&D has gone the other route and essentially emulates modern videogames like World of Warcraft. It's much more cartoony in appearance and outlook, and crap like tieflings does nothing but stress this aesthetic. I would be okay with stuff like dragonborn and tieflings IF they weren't so fucking ubiquitous and actually acted alien. Instead they're just humans with scales or horns and some Hot Topic clothing; the game starts to feel more like an episode of Three's Company than an epic Kull tale.

5GP garlic is part of a dumb economy meant to get to the good parts of the game; tieflings radically change things to such a degree you're playing cartoon characters instead of adventurers.

To further this, Appendix N when refrencing Moorcock iirc says Especially Hawkmoon and hawkmoon gets new magic items every book, besides the Black Jewel which is a detriment but is an aspect of the Black Sword he also get, the mad gods amulet, the sword of the dawn. And the runestaff and im probably forgetting a few (not counting the Flamelances since they're hi-tech energy weapons)

Quote from: Brad on June 27, 2023, 09:29:40 AM
Yeah, that's true. He says they're more trouble than they're worth. But AD&D just isn't Conan, it's also Elric and the Gray Mouser, HP Lovecraft, a little bit of John Carter and Flash Gordon, etc. An amalgam of all the pulp stuff in varying degrees so you have to make concessions in some places. Or just not use Greyhawk, which pretty much means you can't use AD&D without A LOT of work, and in that case you might as well make your own game, as stated. Which is what everyone under the sun does once they get tired of AD&D.

QuoteAnd "realism" is not really the point, I agree.

It is just that some things sticks out like a sore thumb for me. Could be just a matter of taste, since I like medieval weapons, for example. I'm not particularly interested in armor, so if there is something wrong with gambeson, leather or scale, or if there is redundancy in "chain mail", it doesn't bothers me as much as a weak mace.

It's the same reason I get annoyed with how some modern games treat certain weapons, ESPECIALLY shotguns. Half the time I'm wondering if the writers have every used a firearm in their lives...but that's life. Change stuff as needed to fit how you think they should work.

QuoteTake tieflings, for example. Shouldn't be a problem in a game where you fight dragons, or you could BE a balor/dragon originally. And I'm mostly okay with them, but recently they started to bother me, and I've started seeing the value of an all-human campaign. Again, not about realism, but the fact that there are demon-people walking around without notice started to wreck my suspension of disbelief as much as garlic costing 5 gp.

(Again, setting-specific: I'm okay with them in Ravnica, Planescape, etc.)

AD&D stresses humanocentric campaigning because outside of Lord of the Rings most of the important pulp and fantasy characters are human (or human enough); it emulates S&S and pulp fairly well when you use mostly humans. 5th edition D&D has gone the other route and essentially emulates modern videogames like World of Warcraft. It's much more cartoony in appearance and outlook, and crap like tieflings does nothing but stress this aesthetic. I would be okay with stuff like dragonborn and tieflings IF they weren't so fucking ubiquitous and actually acted alien. Instead they're just humans with scales or horns and some Hot Topic clothing; the game starts to feel more like an episode of Three's Company than an epic Kull tale.

5GP garlic is part of a dumb economy meant to get to the good parts of the game; tieflings radically change things to such a degree you're playing cartoon characters instead of adventurers.

Good points.

- Elric, Gray Mouser, HP Lovecraft, John Carter and Flash Gordon... they don't get tons of magic items either IIRC. But maybe Hawkmoon does! Or Vance characters (not sure).

- Guns: Exactly this! I have much more experience with martial arts (and maybe even math) than guns, which is why I can easily overlook the differences between different guns in modern games, but spend hours trying to daggers and maces to work as I'd like in the game.

- Garlic x tieflings: I'll concede garlic is much easier to ignore and 'fix" than tieflings!

Quote from: Slambo on June 27, 2023, 10:11:12 AM
To further this, Appendix N when refrencing Moorcock iirc says Especially Hawkmoon and hawkmoon gets new magic items every book, besides the Black Jewel which is a detriment but is an aspect of the Black Sword he also get, the mad gods amulet, the sword of the dawn. And the runestaff and im probably forgetting a few (not counting the Flamelances since they're hi-tech energy weapons)

Good catch!

"Moorcock, Michael: STORMBRINGER; STEALER OF SOULS; "Hawkmoon" series (esp. the first three books)"

I haven't read it, but I love Elric (and Corum, although I only read a little). Maybe I should check it out.

STORMBRINGER is also a good example. OOH, I love the book and the whole concept of an intelligent sword, OTOH I think D&D takes it to extremes with rtoo many intelligent swords.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on June 27, 2023, 11:43:25 AM


- Guns: Exactly this! I have much more experience with martial arts (and maybe even math) than guns, which is why I can easily overlook the differences between different guns in modern games, but spend hours trying to daggers and maces to work as I'd like in the game.

The best overall treatment of combat and weapons I have played with in a game was with GURPS. Honestly the only reason I am not running it nowadays is that support for it is pretty much dead. Fantasy is only supported with powered dungeon romping. Gone are the days of Harkwood & Tredroy. I just don't have the time these days to write everything myself. If I did then there wouldn't be any time to actually play it. I feel really let down by SJG after buying over 60 GURPS books and fourth Ed which I actually liked then ........nothing.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 27, 2023, 12:57:47 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on June 27, 2023, 11:43:25 AM


- Guns: Exactly this! I have much more experience with martial arts (and maybe even math) than guns, which is why I can easily overlook the differences between different guns in modern games, but spend hours trying to daggers and maces to work as I'd like in the game.

The best overall treatment of combat and weapons I have played with in a game was with GURPS. Honestly the only reason I am not running it nowadays is that support for it is pretty much dead. Fantasy is only supported with powered dungeon romping. Gone are the days of Harkwood & Tredroy. I just don't have the time these days to write everything myself. If I did then there wouldn't be any time to actually play it. I feel really let down by SJG after buying over 60 GURPS books and fourth Ed which I actually liked then ........nothing.

I think you hit the nail on the head! I played GURPS for decades and I'm more or less used to GURPS combat. I stopped playing it for a couple of reasons (some because the game, some because SJ basically said he doesn't want pro-life fans - IIRC, might be misremembering), but I really like how weapons work in GURPS. Had some good times in Yrth too!

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 27, 2023, 12:57:47 PM
The best overall treatment of combat and weapons I have played with in a game was with GURPS. Honestly the only reason I am not running it nowadays is that support for it is pretty much dead. Fantasy is only supported with powered dungeon romping. Gone are the days of Harkwood & Tredroy. I just don't have the time these days to write everything myself. If I did then there wouldn't be any time to actually play it. I feel really let down by SJG after buying over 60 GURPS books and fourth Ed which I actually liked then ........nothing.

I know I am repeating myself, but GURPS 3rd is the best RPG for gritty fantasy using just the main book. You don't need anything else. When I was a poor school kid and could afford only one book, I got the GURPS basic set and ran many, many games using the solitaire adventure and the caravan one as a template. One of the major appeals were the weapons and combat system, which I felt were vastly better than AD&D during my "Fuck Gygax, fuck TSR" phase. At one point I vowed to only play GURPS forever more which lasted about a couple weeks before I got Rifts...anyway, I ended up selling a complete set of 4th edition hardcovers because I really didn't care for it compared to 3rd. of which I have about 30(?) sourcebooks. I'd play GURPS now if someone wanted to run a campaign, and I'd run it if they wanted to play in one. But Munchkin probably brings in 99% of the revenue for SJGames, which means GURPS' days are probably numbered unless you want to buy Yet Another 12 page PDF about some random bullshit.

EDIT: ^^^seems we're all on the same page here