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The problem is the Skittle colored hair crowd thinks quirks and flaws are not as they are. They don't understand there are limits.

I would argue they simply don't want the actual flaws. They want the appearance of being disabled without actually having to play a disabled PC. Its virtue signaling retardation taken to its logical extreme. The stupid fucker that came up with the 'combat wheelchair' made sure that any such PC confined to one was better and more capable than a standard PC.

Sometimes that is probably it.  I think some of it is the same old stupid trick that's been around since the game first existed:  Try to push the GM's buttons to make them dance to your tune.  Some people just really get off on wrecking the experience for everyone else, to the point they aren't having fun if they can't push in that way. 

I decided a long time ago that I wasn't having any of that in any game I ran. Woke BS is yet another case.  It is a particularly annoying case in some ways, but the more subtle, non-political versions are just as damaging to a group in the long run.
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The way WotC is marketing this is just weird.  It's like they are trying to have their cake and eat it too.  They want to make a new edition but they don't want to alienate all of the 5e players.  So it's 5e but it's also not 5e.  It's the same but different.  It's okay if things go away because they will still be there?  What the fuck?  Either it goes away or it doesn't go away.  Is it 5e again or is it different?  If it's 5e again, why does anyone need it?  Are they removing things or not?  Why can't they just tell us what this product is going to be?

Because if they told us we'd wouldnt buy it. Perkins has already stated the DMG will practically push storygamer screeds like "The DM is there to serve the players and every player is a DM!" What DM is going to buy a book that tells them they have to be the players slave?
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For me, this is yet another case of the excluded middle.

I typically set up rules (or house rules) somewhat in line with B/X 3d6 down the line at start, without much more capability, but then tip the scales ever so slightly in favor of the players with our rules.  Exactly how varies by system.  There is something that is "special" about a PC, even if only slightly tougher than your average first level scrub.  Then I throw them in a meat grinder world--expect them to scout, explore, and think--and rule impartially from that basis.  In other words, I put my thumb on the scale when your character was built. After that, the thumb comes off.  In my own system, not every creature has a class like PC's do, starting PC's get at least a +2 in one ability if they don't have one from the roll, and that's about it. 

The net result is that characters probably aren't all that capable (in Shark's terms) at start. They are just capable enough that if they can survive a couple of short adventures or one longer one, by using their brains, they'll then be capable.  Sometimes capable adventurers are having to nurse maid an incapable NPC or replacement PC for a while.  Since it's mostly a sandbox, and the players are mostly deciding what they think they can handle, it works.  You could look at it as players choosing a "boot camp" style adventure from time to time, when they need to get someone to that capable state, or at least find out if they can.

Of course, if I'm going to run a one-shot or a short campaign with a theme of highly capable adventurers taking on the world, then that's a different thing.  I've done old D&D modules that were very much "bring a character of N experience points", a completely different dynamic than zero to maybe hero in a sandbox.
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Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion / Re: Orcs vs goblins
« Last post by SHARK on Today at 08:59:28 PM »
I like having different races, with their own distinct cultures, societies, and religions.
I guess that’s the question. How do you make the culture distinct. I can handle the religious part but culture m, well the orcs are fighting and dead before I can get any cultural details out.

Greetings!

Yes, Ruprecht! Making cultures distinct and interesting can be a challenge. Doing so also requires some good amount of planning, thought, and work. So, for example, I have in my Thandor world, a culture of Orcs known as the Khordron Horde. The Khordron Horde Orcs are savage and brutal, though they have also embraced advanced forms of technology, knowledge, organization, and culture. These developments, in turn, have cascade effects which have combined to make the Khordron Horde Orcs, as a nation, a kingdom, and a culture, very distinct from other Orc cultures. The Khordron Orcs have embraced advanced, industrial-scale agriculture, Institutional Slavery, organized technology, and an organized, hierarchical religion. Along with these changes, the Khordron Horde Orcs have also developed a more advanced and organized system of government and laws. Having a huge, unified, powerful Orc kingdom that is more or less High-Medieval makes for a very different kind of "Orc." Blend all of that with customs of eating humans, mass slavery, ritual sacrifice, gladiator arenas, and a society that glorifies the military, and martial, masculine values at every step, and that creates a radically different kind of Orc culture. Players encountering such NPC Khordron characters, or visiting a Khordron Orc city, are in store for a very different kind of experience.

I have another Orc culture, that is more rural based, not quite as sophisticated, that is more based upon Nordic cultures, themes, and values. Of course, these Orcs are also less organized, somewhat more tribal, and yet also highly skilled as seafarers and ship-builders. They live mostly in fortified villages and towns, as opposed to cities. They have agriculture, but it is more diffused, and not as organized. However, they are much more focused on seafaring, river trade, river travel, and fishing, than other kinds of Orcs.

A third prominent Orc culture in Thandor is a culture of Orcs that primarily live in subterranean realms, living in fortified villages and towns, though which are dug and formed from tunnels, caverns, dungeons, and chambers. These subterranean Orcs are also interbred and mixed with humanoid insects, which provides some insect-like features, insect-like mutations, and a culture which is insect-themed as a whole.

Each different culture worships a common religion, composed of a large pantheon of deities. However, each culture embraces some particular favourite deities and their corresponding cults, and emphasize them to different degrees wwithin their individual culture.

These three different Orc cultures embrace some similarities, for sure. However, there are numerous distinctions and differences, from religious spirituality, to social customs, breeding, mating rituals, government and social organization, that serves to make them considerably different from each other.

Does that help, Ruprecht?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
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Perkins is a doofus but I agree with him on number of classes; 1e AD&D got it about right IMO with classes & subclasses.

Then you open up Dragon and its a new class every 5 issues.

AD&D expanded classes slowly, much as 5e did. Fiend Folio and Oriental Adventures, and technically Dragonlance were about the only books to add new races or classes.

That all changed with 2e.
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I don't want to defend anyone at WOTC, but I actually agree with Perkins on this. If I were designing the game, I'd take it down to 4 base classes (Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Rogue) and make everything else a variant on one of those. Either through subclasses or by feat selection. Then again, I bailed out of the 5E ship years ago.

heh-heh. Same here. And honestly alot of folk initially felt the barbarian should have been a fighter subclass.
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Quirky in what way?

Like all non-humans? Thats as old as D&D, probably older.

Or they all had weird and overly elaborate backgrounds? Thats been around too. Just not as overwhelming as it feels modern games seem to obsess over.
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The problem is the Skittle colored hair crowd thinks quirks and flaws are not as they are. They don't understand there are limits.

I would argue they simply don't want the actual flaws. They want the appearance of being disabled without actually having to play a disabled PC. Its virtue signaling retardation taken to its logical extreme. The stupid fucker that came up with the 'combat wheelchair' made sure that any such PC confined to one was better and more capable than a standard PC.

Theres also a fantisization of being handicapped. As if it is no hindrance at all. Movies, cartoons.

Or they think they will automatically get some compensation sense from it that will lessen it. Guess what. You aint! I've talked with alot of handicapped folk about this and way more than half ended up with no other sense enhanced.

I feel this comes from the overall push to gloss over the negatives of being handicapped. Which leaves some people unprepared for the harsh realities.
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But at this point simply seeing a wheelchair is apparently just as triggering for yall as those hypothetical 'dogwhistles' the wokies keep complaining about.

I think you might have something there.
If one pops up in a game, I'm going to play that X-card.
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In the opinion of those of you who actually run games, can a wheelchair bound character have an 18 dexterity or equivalent, and does removing the chair alter this in anyway? If say a beholder thanos-sizes the wheelchair out from under your arse are we adjusting your ac or dodge or whatever?

In D&D the person would be prone and all the penalties that grants and no way to un-prone yourself without righting the chair and pulling yourself back in it. This actually happens in some of the Ghostbuster Extreme episodes where the wheelchair bound character gets knocked out of his chair. He either has to right it and get back in, or fight from the ground.
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