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Recent Posts

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1
Can’t pick the lock? Maybe it’s rusted shut.

That sounds suspiciously like a variant of quantum ogres.

I am going to clarify here: if the expert player character has a 90+% chance to pick the lock…AND FAILS THE ROLL… Then perhaps IT WAS NOT DUE TO LACK OF EXPERTISE THAT CAUSE THE FAILURE, but rather it was due to some other circumstance that was beyond the control of the character. 

If you fail the roll, you don’t pick the lock.  That’s the exact opposite of “Quantum Ogres”.

...OR he's just having a "bad day". Even the best of experts can have "one of those days": a normally ace pitcher gets whammied for 8 runs in 3 innings. starting quarterback gets intercepted 5 times and 3 of them score. you get the picture.
2
  NYC CRIME DOWN!!! Come on guys jhkim said so....though it is strange they have the NATIONAL GUARD stationed in the subways....

The National Guard is about optics over a handful of incidents - not about general rates in a city with millions of people and thousands of violent crimes a year. These days, a lot of people understand the world only through outrage at what they see on social media. If a crime gets caught on a video that goes viral, then everyone will be scared of specifically that crime for a few weeks, then they'll forget it and be scared of whatever the next viral video that fear-mongers pass around.

I said that NYC violent crime is lower than it was at the peak rate around 1990, but it is higher now than the low point that it reached in 2017-2018.
3
The RPGPundit's Own Forum / Re: Greta is at it..AGAIN
« Last post by jhkim on Today at 02:25:59 PM »
The lifetime emissions can range from 20% less to 60% less than a gasoline car, depending on how its made and especially on what source you're charging it from.

So, by only comparing lifetime emissions, you are conveniently leaving out the environmental harm done in the process of strip mining for the minerals needed to make the batteries to make the EVs.  You can't be unaware of this problem since GeekyBugle has brought it up several times in detail.  I can only conclude that you are being deliberately disingenuous and deliberately presenting a false view of the costs.  In short, you are arguing in bad faith again.

By "lifetime" I mean end to end, including both production and disposal -- i.e. including the minerals needed for the car body, engine, battery, etc.
4
This came up in another thread - and I'd want to address it without the baggage of the other topic. ForgottenF suggested that he felt like AD&D magic users stretched plausibility that other adventurers would take them into a dungeon.

Every occupation has a certain basic requirements where if you don't fill them, then no matter what your other merits are, you can't do that job. A fantasy adventurer needs to be able to run, climb, swim, sneak, fight and probably ride a horse. They don't need to be the best at any of those things, but if they can't do them at all, they're not qualified to be an adventurer. If they can't do those things physically, they need to be able to reliably produce an equivalent result magically.

You might say "Wait a minute! Lots of D&D characters can't do all those things". Yeah, I think it stretches plausibility that anyone would take a 1st level wizard with 6 strength, 3 HP, no armor and one spell per day with them into a dungeon. The chances are just too high of him either forcing the expedition to stall because he can't traverse the dungeon, or getting his companions killed trying to defend him. The only reason that happens is game convention.
I'm apparently alone in this, but I don't buy that a person who can't withstand physical hardship or defend themselves would succeed long-term as a career adventurer. It's not often an issue in D&D because of a bunch of meta reasons which are external to the fictional world of the game: everything from the way turn-based combat works, to dungeon design, the experience system and which factors are and are not simulated in the rules. That's what I mean by "game convention". Mostly I can let willing suspension of disbelief fill in the gaps, but it does bother me a bit that most fantasy RPGs reward specialization over generalism, just because I personally find playing generalists more fun.

I think it's a matter of taste, but I think there are some differences in viewpoints.

It seems like you're picturing an adventuring party like a SEAL team -- where everyone are highly-trained experts who can do anything and are all self-reliant. But I think AD&D pictured groups more as historical expeditions. They were likely to have a bunch of lesser combatants (henchmen) as well non-combatants like porters, torch-bearers, squires, hirelings, etc. I think of the Lewis and Clark expedition that had a bunch of unmarried soldiers but also boat crew, an trapper/interpreter and his pregnant wife, and an enslaved body servant.

I also question your comment about can't withstand physical hardship. In my experience, most magic users have low Strength but do have high Constitution, and I think of them as being quite tough and able to endure hardship. They're just not very skilled at fighting.

There are exceptions, I'm sure. I never read any Dragonlance fiction, but I understand that Raistlin was portrayed as sickly - and that may have become a stereotype of D&D, but I'm not sure it was part of the original vision. Gandalf was the earlier stereotype for the wizard, and he was technically an extremely tough demigod who wielded a sword on his horse in battle. AD&D magic users weren't Gandalf, for sure, but they weren't necessarily delicate flowers who couldn't endure hardship.
5
One additional thing. They apparently missed the memo that 5+ page backstories filled with trauma dumping were supposed to be a joke.



Who the hell writes a 5 page back story for a character that could be dissolved by green slime at 1st level? Or was this a Radiant Citadel type game?
6
I wonder if this is to encourage people to buy more current D&D products?

I legitimately believe this is the entire reason that they are claiming "it's not a new edition".

I've paid a good amount of attention to the playtest, and while I have no idea what's coming out in September, they have really changed a lot of how the game balance works.  For instance, the feats, which previously were just all generally meant to be worth +2 stats (with some being way better or way worse) are now being lined up into lesser feats and greater feats, and the idea is that you can't get the greater feats until like 4th level.  Even those greater feats are nowhere near as powerful as the top feats used to be in 5.0.  So the feats are nerfed! 
But all the "martial" classes, are buffed.  This is received pretty well as 5.0 has this as a common criticism (most of them don't know that this critique kinda goes back to early D&D and has always had some validity), because 5.0 lets casters move out of hiding, cast, and move back into hiding, depending on the shape of the place- a far cry from having to declare your action before initiative is rolled and risk interruption or your spell not being aimed at the correct target, or the scenario changing a lot.  Anyway, the playtest stuff had more impressive martial class scaling.

Ok so, 5.5 comes out.  It's all the same version, so you grab the variant human from 5.0, use it to take a really strong feat like 5.0 sharpshooter, and then take your first level in 5.5 fighter.  Now you have a character more powerful than can be created in either version, but it's all the same version, right?

No way.  They have to ramp up power options to sell books, and they can't let you pick and choose between versions.  There will be some kind of creation rules to prevent that.  By contrast, your 5.5 PHB built guy using something from Tasha's Cauldron Of Retcons And Apologies will be allowed, because they haven't reprinted that one yet, or... something.

So when they say that it's all the same version:
1- They want you to keep buying the existing products now.
2- They probably have a plan to keep you buying the non-directly-replaced existing products as well, later.

But I think (1) is enough to explain this obvious lie they keep pushing.
7
Even the Cleric is just a D&D-ism that is barely retained anyway as Bards now have Arcane healing.
In 5e, Bards are neither traditional arcane or divine casters.  From the 5e PHB:

Quote
Bards say that the multiverse was spoken into existence, that the words of the gods gave it shape, and that echoes of these primordial Words of Creation still resound throughout the cosmos . The music of bards is an attempt to snatch and harness those echoes, subtly woven into their spells and powers.

The bard spell list is actually pretty sparse in the PHB (some later supplements add a lot of other stuff to it, and therefore, a lot of power to the bard).  Bards are intended to supplement these spares spells with access to Magical Secrets at high levels, letting them grab a few spells from any other classes in the game with no ability to change your mind on this mini-multiclass power.  In any event, this "words of creation" bit explains why they get access to such a unique set of spells, and why their spell list leaves off so much baseline.

Also while 5e bards and clerics are both full casters that are intended to use a weapon more than a wizard does, clerics have better access to offensive cantrips and at mid levels either get a boost to cantrip damage or their single attack a round.  The bard has to actively pick a martial themed subclass to be able to really hold his own without expending spell slots. 

Out of all the people who say "I just want the core three (or the core four) classes" the only time I've seen anyone create anything with that idea that I personally want to play or run is Kevin Crawford, creator of Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number.  He also doesn't just limit you to his core three classes (warrior, expert, and either psychic or mage, depending), he also gives you "partial" classes that split the difference.  His splat content for classes are usually partial things as well. 

Mostly when I hear that, I just walk on by, because someone advocating for a game with just fighter, mage, rogue, cleric is one paladin player away from learning why there's more than just four classes.  The druid started as a subclass of cleric, but it sure works wonderfully once it's been established as its own class, as it can stop wasting space on things you can't do that a normal cleric can, like turn undead.

Hyperborea and ACKS both offer up the four standard classes, then spend a decent amount of pages giving you other classes too.  The obvious implication is that if you want to run the game and limit it to the basic classes, you can, and they are an intended and well designed part of the game (versus the power creep we saw historically, where the base clasess got sorta overwhelmed by later offerings).

But a game with just the four base classes, I just don't need.  I'm not gonna run that game.
8
I wonder if this is to encourage people to buy more current D&D products?  I’m sure there are plenty of people waiting for the “new” edition. Perhaps the projected quarter numbers for WotC are worse than expected?
9
I am a millennial, and will generally defend my generation. That said, one of the criticisms of the millennials (and I presume zoomers as well) is that they have been utterly poisoned by the overuse of irony in pop-culture. They're a product of the late-stage artistic stagnation the major entertainment mediums are locked in, so their entire cultural frame of reference is genre subversion and deconstruction. Everything is "post"-something, and the dreaded "genre trope" is a bogeyman to avoid at all costs. Far too many younger players are positively allergic to sincerity, and are basically too insecure to play a character straight in a roleplaying game. They have to try and be the class clown and show how cool they are with their "quirky" ideas.

That said, don't be a doomer about it just yet. If you're willing to take up the GM-ing torch, some of this can be overcome by good leadership. First of all, don't run 5e. And I don't say that for any game system reasons. 5e is by design a game with no strong theme or tone of it's own. If you instead run something with a strong internal tone, like say Cyberpunk, Deadlands or Call of Cthulhu, you might be surprised at how willing even younger players are to fall in line with it. Generally speaking, GMs have a lot of power to set the tone of a game and players are likely to follow. For my Roll20 games I have a "table rules" post I put out with the game listing, and the first item is "play sincerely". I make it very clear up front that I have no time for joke characters or people who play ironically, and generally I get agreement with that from across generations. A lot of younger people are desperate for some sincerity in their entertainment, even if they don't consciously realize it. When players do try to get "quirky" I have NPCs react the way real people would, with eye-rolling and irritation, and treating them like children. When the overplayed joke starts to fall flat, people usually stop it.

Be quirky in return.

Play a human fighter with a wife, kids and extended family to support. He’s adventuring to get his family a better life. He has no interest in the other characters’ drama; he’s here to provide for his family and drama gets in the way of getting the job done so he can home and see them (also insist on plenty of downtime for precisely this reason).

A lot of the 5e groups I’ve experienced won’t have any idea what to do with that. It will (sadly, not literally) break their brains.

Yeah, I've done something similar in the past. Play a straight-laced, well-meaning, mature character, and play that character as intelligent and capable. The irony brigade can't deal with a Dudley Doright character who isn't being played as a joke. They'll try to make fun of you for a bit, but it won't work because your character exposes all their childish insecurities. You'll end up having to play the party's dad initially, but you'll also end up being the de facto leader, and after a while they'll start falling in line.

EDIT: You do have to be a little bit careful with this approach. Playing a realistically good person is way more difficult than playing a self-serving dickhead or a stereotype. I have seen people try this and fall horribly flat because they aren't good leaders. Trying this approach and failing is one of the reasons for the "lawful stupid paladin" stereotype.
10
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?

Easy: they have no fucking clue what they're doing. Not in marketing. Not in game design. Not in anything.

WoTC is a company that has a chronic case of cranial rectum-itis.
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