Post/Author/DateTime	Post
disco54 02-16-07, 04:40 PM	Standards The Living Greyhawk Campaign Standards (LGCS) ensures that everyone is working from the same base of rules. While interpretations of those rules may differ with some people ruling looser, and some stricter, everyone is working from the same book. A clearly defined chain of command ensures that any the meta-game disputes are judged. I haven’t agreed with every decision made against my characters by a judge, but I’m glad that there is a clear authority and that rules are final at the table. The newest LGCS just came out, and it addresses many of the things I myself have thought could use a change. This just goes to show that plenty of people care enough to continually improve the game. Good writing The writing for Living Greyhawk (LG) is done by professional, and semi-professional authors. The guidelines are clear and accessible, so anyone can submit a module. Getting a module approved is going to be a rigorous process that separates the wheat from the chaff. LG ends up with a good adventure, and the writer improves. It’s consistently better writing then one DM could do week-after-week while running a home game. Endless adventures Every region has about eight new regional adventures every year, bordering regions share a few meta-regional adventures, and anyone can play the 20-or-so core adventures. Now retail published adventures like Fane of the Drow can be played for LG credit too. If you travel, you can play even more adventures in other regions. Now I play a LOT of D&D. I’m going to at least a half-dozen LG conventions this year, and playing LG in my home region at least once per month. I will probably run a few adventures as a matter of course, but I will not run out of adventures to play. Consistent characters Your character travels with you. Possibly the best thing about LG is having your character progress and improve. So many things disrupt a D&D home game like jobs, family, moving, DM burnout, and the list goes on. With LG you can always play your character somewhere. Go places & meet new people I’ve been to a few LG only conventions. Well, at least they were to me since the ONLY thing I did was play Living Greyhawk. You can sit down at a table, and play straight away. Everybody is working with the same basic rules and expectations. This type of standardization does tend to create some clichés and unsavory terminology. For example, “OK they’re dead -we ‘Greyhawk’ the room”, in role-play parlance means, “These poor souls died for naught. Tis’ a shame, but perhaps they have some items that we can use to make right of their folly”. However, with all the meta-rules and expectations already a given, players are free to enjoy a fun game of D&D together. Like any large group of fans, there is something of an unspoken bond with other LG players, so traveling state-to-state to play at conventions in other regions lets you meet new people on common ground. Over time adventures are had, and friendships are made. Having fun and making friends. -An escape from the humdrum or angst of real life. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
magebeast 02-17-07, 11:18 AM	Standards “OK they’re dead -we ‘Greyhawk’ the room”, in role-play parlance means, “These poor souls died for naught. Tis’ a shame, but perhaps they have some items that we can use to make right of their folly”. However, with all the meta-rules and expectations already a given, players are free to enjoy a fun game of D&D together. Like any large group of fans, there is something of an unspoken bond with other LG players, so traveling state-to-state to play at conventions in other regions lets you meet new people on common ground. In the Bandit Kingdoms, this is known as "BKing the bodies," although it also includes hastily removing their heads, removing the tongues from said heads, and giving said heads and tongues to separate people.
solbergb 02-17-07, 12:01 PM	I don't find it surprising that professional adventurers, who provoke people into attacking them and sell their gear for profit routinely would have a term for "we take the time to strip them of everything we can carry." Greyhawk is a den of thieves, run by thieves (this isn't just prejudice. I've played a lot of GH mods with guards and politicans corrupted by the thief and assassin guilds). It is actually fairly "incharacter" to call such looting "Greyhawking", because, as all know, a body left in the street in Greyhawk might not cause much alarm, but it would be picked clean in seconds of anything remotely useful :) Back on topic - I did something like this...wrote a "Why Living Greyhawk" letter that was a compilation of discussions I'd had with friendss to explain why I was spending all my RPG time on this campaign. It was used by our con organizers at cons with walkins that year. But yes, most of the same points. It's convenient and endless - it is a long term campaign for people too busy to have a home campaign. The content produced is utterly astounding. It is possible to "keep up" with the production in your own region, but if you mix in travel you could literally play every weekend of every week in the year, and quite a few weekdays. Most of us sadly lack the time and resources to do that. But it's nice to have it there...and sufficient players out there to enjoy the content with. It is also different enough in structure and style, in what it "allows" and "forbids" that it doesn't compete with home campaigns- I was in both at the time and each made me appreciate the other. Each had "freedoms" the others didn't have, and "continuity" of a different sort. I compared a home campaign to a long running comic "team" book, where one issue might be all combat, another all dialog and character deveopment, with a constant cast of characters with occasional changes. LG is more like the television series...your point of view character traveling through the land, with each episode having a hook, confict and resolution, but with some recurring characters and plotlines. Another benefit is that LG is "safe". Female players and characters don't have to worry about the "demon baby rape" plot (unless they volunteer, as a quite a number did with a certain dragon last year...but the ones I know were mostly draconic-bloodline spont caster types so I guess that isn't surprising.). A startling number of female gamers or ex-gamers have encountered that plot when they first started out. The campaign is PG-13 as a rule, and the Judge is supposed to be sensitive on descriptions and "adult" situations to the table composition of players. It's actually much more like fantasy literature than a normal campaign. The point of view character is YOUR characer, and he has different companions as he wanders around. Some are seen once, others become old friends, warmly greeted when they meet up again for further mayhem. The campaign has standards and we all moan and complain about times when standards aren't met. But the feedback is what keeps the campaign honest. If we don't mock the dervishes with incorrect weapons and feats that don't qualify them for the class, question baby killing of evil humanoids in interactives, bicker about character balance and incorrectly EL'd encounters - we're not doing our job as players to keep th standards high.
Lomiat 02-17-07, 01:19 PM	Other selling points: Diversity of encounters-- From my experiences in home campaigns, I know that DMs (or authors) tend to have their own styles, their favorite monsters, the skillls they consider, the ways in which they play to characters' strengths, and eventually a home campaign (as liberating as it may be in other ways) narrows itself down to fit its specific audience. LG, meanwhile, presents a collection of adventures by different authors who favor different skill uses and monsters and settings and strategies. In other words, I wouldn't have expected to face a dinosaur or yrthak or advanced umbral choker in a home campaign, but I've seen all these things and stranger in LG. Sometimes, it proves a little disorienting (some monsters and situations strain my suspension of disbelief), but generally it's just really neat to see how the campaign makes use of just about EVERY skill a PC could possibly have and lets me use those pages of my Monster Manual that might otherwise never see the light of day. Regional flavors-- Many regions have worked very hard to develop a strong, consistent flavor. It's rewarding both for the play experience and also for character development. My Dyvers character is quite different in his approach than my Shield Lands characters, and it suits him well.
MysticRhythms 02-19-07, 02:41 PM	I made my first Living Greyhawk character at last year's Winter Fantasy and just leveled him to 5th after DDXP this weekend, so I have the same timeframe and the same perspective. While I thoroughly enjoy LG and will continue to play it, I do offer the following negative observations on the campaign. 1) It's primarily a quest for more stuff Living Greyhawk is a lot more "about the stuff" than it is "about the story." The majority of players at the tables I've played at in conventions aren't as interested in PLAYING the game and their characters as they are in acquiring stuff. Many times the 4-5 hour time slot is a race to get to the AR and to get as many of the goodies on the AR as possible with the plot and the roleplay of anyone's individual character taking a huge backseat. I hear "I need to play my fighter for this mod because the AR gives me something that my cleric will have no use for" a LOT more than "well, it only makes sense for me to play this character in this series since he played in the other parts of the series before." Very few people remember the names of recurring NPCs that their characters have encountered but so many can remember that one AR where they finally got their Ring of Counterspells access. the new LGCS does more to circumvent this "quest for stuff" but it's still a major driving force of the campaign. 2) Prestige Classes aren't prestigious I've seen very few players that stay in one Prestige Class - more than 90% of those who are "prestigious" are mutting around with as many PRC's as they can get to pack as many abilities and saving throw bonuses on their characters. And in many cases where people do stick to a Prestige Class, it's because the PrC is such a no-brainer that EVERYONE is taking it. I can't spin a dead cat over my head without bludgeoning 732 "Radiant Servants of *insert the God that gives me the best domains here*" A subset of this phenomenon is that the campaign is a lot more about min-maxing then it is about building an interesting character concept. How many Bear Warriors have you seen with just that 1 level of Bear Warrior? How many fighters take 1 level of Barbarian and Extra Rage? How many spellcasters dip into that one level of Mindbender just to get a saving throw bonus and free telepathy without having to sacrifice a caster level? It's hard to consider anything to be "prestigious" when so many people do things the same way. 3) Three swings and you're out I remember sitting at my first few LG tables and hearing fighters saying something like "Just take Extra Rage once and that's all you will ever need since you'll Rage at every fight." I found that statement confusing until I had played my first half-dozen modules. Yep. Fight. Fight. Big Bad Evil Guy. What happens then with the average low-level Fighters (who always have one level of Barbairan specifically for this). Don't Rage. Don't Rage. Rage and drop my one campaign card that gives me huge bonuses on what I know is the last fight I'll need it for. It affects peoples' choices because abilities that are now available 1x/day are a lot more powerful since they get used once every 3 encounters. People design characters around this campaign "quirk." Casters manage their spells around 3 encounters. It adds an uncomfortable amount of metagaming as well. "Well we know that we can't be at the end of the adventure because we've only had two fights." 4) Skills? D&D 3.5 uses skills?!?! Compare the number of times you make initiative checks, attack rolls and saving throws versus the number of skill checks you REALLY need to make to complete a module. This makes a lot of attractive classes like Barbarians, Rangers, Rogues and Bards a lot less attractive to play. Skills just don't have enough impact in the campaign. Yes it's nice to have the guy who can pass that one DC 25 Knowledge Arcana check to let you learn what the weakness is of the BBEG in that ONE module, but it's just not an important use of a d20. Not anywhere near as important as an attack roll or a saving throw or caster level check. There certainly are exceptions to this, but in general, if one were to make a spectrum where "D&D miniatures" is at the left end and "D&D 3.5" is at the right end, it's my perception that LG is too far to the left on that spectrum for me. I'd like Bluff, Hide, Move Silently, Balance, Knowledge and Profession to matter a little more than they do at the moment. They do in my home games and in all honesty, they do in that ... OTHER ... campaign supported by RPGA at the moment. 5) Con judges often have a 'plane to catch' I know it's the nature of a convention to get things done efficiently for the most number of people. I know that getting things done quickly is attractive from a "business" perspective. However, I fly several hundred miles to some cons. I pay for hotel rooms. I take time off work. I really don't want to hear "I'll be sure to have you guys blow through this mod in record time." I'm paying to sit at that table for a 4-5 hour slot. I'm not interested in zipping forward at breakneck speed. I know that sometimes people want to try squeezing in another slot or that judges have other responsibilities and they're doign this as a favor and such. When I judge, I give you what I feel should be your money's worth. When I judge, I'm supposed to be there for 4-5 hours and everyone at the table should expect to be there for that time. You're playing the game to have fun. I'm there for fun. Does anyone else feel gipped when you sit down and the mod is over in an hour and a half? I do.
GrahamWills 02-19-07, 05:27 PM	I *strongly* sympathize with the issue you raise -- however I do think that your experiences are more likely when playing core modules than when playing regionals. I mainly draw on experiences in Verbobonc and Veluna, but in my experiences of cons there (most recently the excellent Winter War and WiV), I would say ... 1) It's primarily a quest for more stuff. I play regionals almost entirely based on the characters, and who has played what in which series. At the last Verby mod I played, when the judge asked "who has played any of the last X in the series with this character", we had 5 out of 6 hands go up. The 6th was an out-of-regioner. For core games, yep, I go by guessed access or what seems right. I play my wizard if it seems wizardy, my monk if I think there's any chance of not being rewarded with a piece of metal, and my barbarian whenever. 2) Prestige Classes aren't prestigious Totally agree. 3) Three swings and you're out Well, not in Verbobonc. I've played mods recently with zero combats and one with six (admittedly a special). Metagaming on the numebr 3 is not so useful. 4) Skills? D&D 3.5 uses skills?!?! People skills get used more in regionals, where you actually care about the people. In a core mod, it's less likely you care if the X of Y hates you -- so what? You'll never be there again. In your home region, though, diplomacy and the like are more important. However, D&D is basically a combat game. 80% of the PHB feats are combat-related and so, yeah, skills are a second-class part of your sheet. 5) Con judges often have a 'plane to catch' Regional judges love their mods more. Or maybe they hate them -- but they definitely care way more. Either way, you are much less likely to see this badness (and I agree -- it *is* bad) at a regional con. Basically, I think of core mods as one-shots. Bright Sands didn't grip me so, basically, any core mod I have played in the last few years has just been a sidetrack. Off to the hanging glacier. Back. No change to character. Down into some pits. Back. No change to character. Meet some pseudonaturalness and defeat it. Etc. The fact that I'll never meet the people again means there is absolutely no reason for me to remember more than "that was the place I got the frosty underpants of coolness".
copper_wyrmling 02-19-07, 05:45 PM	Basically, I think of core mods as one-shots. Bright Sands didn't grip me so, basically, any core mod I have played in the last few years has just been a sidetrack. Off to the hanging glacier. Back. No change to character. Down into some pits. Back. No change to character. Meet some pseudonaturalness and defeat it. Etc. The fact that I'll never meet the people again means there is absolutely no reason for me to remember more than "that was the place I got the frosty underpants of coolness". Weird. We've had totally different experiences with Core mods ;) My sorcerer practically has Home Region: Core - she almost exclusively plays Cores, and her attitudes and the "flavor" of her spellcasting has been heavily shaped by certain Core series (the Dreaming from Sins of Ages Past, insights into ancient magic from Windows to the Serpent's Soul, Scarlet Brotherhood interactions in various scenarios, the anti-slavery focus in the Pomarj modules, the politics of Hardby and the Bright Lands...) In somewhere like the City of Greyhawk, she has friends to stay with, contacts in most of the major city organizations (legal and illegal), she goes disguised so that the assassins stop targeting her and the City Watch will actually talk to her (she's managed to annoy a lot of people in Greyhawk), and so on... My cleric was much more involved in Perrenland and Iuz's Border States regional and metaregional plotlines, but Tenh is a bit like a second home to her: she's been involved in the Tenha plotlines from the Year 3 Ether Threat series onward. As you might guess from this, I play ALL series mods based on what characters played the rest of the series, wherever possible. For mods that aren't part of a series, I try to guess which PC would be most appropriate, from the blurb - I tend to bring my Sacred Exorcist to modules that imply undead / fiendish involvement, my Wild Mage to scenarios that might involve dragons or bizarre magic, and so on.
Samwise 02-19-07, 08:30 PM	I made my first Living Greyhawk character at last year's Winter Fantasy and just leveled him to 5th after DDXP this weekend, so I have the same timeframe and the same perspective. While I thoroughly enjoy LG and will continue to play it, I do offer the following negative observations on the campaign. 1) It's primarily a quest for more stuff For some. Others do pay attention to the background. I never remember NPC names because I never remember any names, but I sure remember the background from adventure to adventure. Admittedly, I have a leg up on it in many cases, but that doesn't mean I can just casually assume I know everything. As for why I do it, it is very simple - knowledge is always power. I have stepped into many LG adventures knowing the motivations of the NPCs without needing a skill check. That lets me anticipate what they will want, and take actions to advance my character. As for players knowing something is in an adventure for one character or another, that is cheating. 2) Prestige Classes aren't prestigious While I agree, at this point it would require a major campaign rules shift to limit people to only one prestige class. 3) Three swings and you're out Well, if we were in a home game, most players would plan their resource allocation the same way. After a certain number of encounters, they leave the dungeon so their spellcasters can recover spells. However, I don't always see this. Not every adventure has all of the encounters in the same day. You don't always have to save your spells and limited use class abilities for a specific encounter. As such, there is often a lot more to resource management than just counting the number of fights you have been in. 4) Skills? D&D 3.5 uses skills?!?! That depends on your group and their characters. Certainly Spot and Listen get used in every combat, but Knowledge skills, Charisma skills, and other skills are used constantly by people I game with. Profession and Craft skills are a bit more difficult to work into most games, but they can be relevant. A key issue with this is a design plan. Very simply, if an adventure can only be resolved by a table with a specific skill making a specific high DC, you have effectively made it impossible to complete for every other table. That isn't an issue in a home game, it is a major issue in an LG game with variable musters. Including a workaround for groups that simply don't have someone with the right skill is the only fair way to manage that. 5) Con judges often have a 'plane to catch' I ran six slots of the core special at DDXP where the players sucessfully completed the adventure. (And one where they didn't, sorry guys.) When every one of those tables sat down, I heard one thing: "I hope we have enough time to complete the adventure." I did not hear a single complaint from any table when I finished the slot a hour or more before the scheduled end. Granted, everyone may have simply been overwhelmed with joy at having survived, I also heard a lot of exclamations of desire to simply survive to the end of the slot, but the 33 or so people (not every table had six players) was equally thrilled with completing the entire adventure. I ran that fast not because I had a plane to catch (even on Sunday when the person who gave me a ride down didn't have a slot to play), a game to play (I went there to run, not play, and didn't play a single round the whole time, or even sit in the Delve during all my down time), or even rush so I could go eat or try to catch some extra sleep (although I certainly could have used some on Friday). I did it so the players could finish the adventure, something they considered a significant goal to achieve. I also run very fast at the venue I play at. While a few people are often shocked at the breakneck pace I keep up for combat, the overwhelming majority consider a week with me as DM as a great opportunity to get home early, and maybe earn some extra WIFE Reward Points (if applicable) for doing so. So no, not everyone feels cheated if a four hour slot is over in one and a half hours. (Although I typically consider two to two and a half hours more typical.) And many even appreciate it.
MysticRhythms 02-19-07, 10:48 PM	I knew there would be people posting exceptions to what I said and of course I've seen them. The statements I made were trends ... what I found to be typical. I'll expand here ... As for players knowing something is in an adventure for one character or another, that is cheating. I never said it wasn't cheating. However, it happens at roughly 75% of the tables I play at to-date. "Oh, this is the one where you get Nightsong Enforcer access." Or "there's cool stuff from Frostburn in this one." Call it cheating. Call it metagaming. It happens at a majority of the tables - not a minority. While I agree, at this point it would require a major campaign rules shift to limit people to only one prestige class. So? Didn't we just experience a major campaign shift? Well, if we were in a home game, most players would plan their resource allocation the same way. After a certain number of encounters, they leave the dungeon so their spellcasters can recover spells. People do not plan on "only needing three rages" or "saving their Luck domain for the third encounter." It's a lot more prevalent when the paradigm is three combat encounters. And of my last 10 LG mods, 8 of them used the three encounter paradigm. Of the two that didn't, one was a Core Special. The three encounter formula is very much "the norm." If you don't believe me, then pay attention to how many people at the table notice when the number deviates from 3. At every table I've played where there were more or less encounters, someone made a comment about it. That depends on your group and their characters. It depends on the mod more than you are admitting. Certainly Spot and Listen get used in every combat, but Knowledge skills, Charisma skills, and other skills are used constantly by people I game with. Used as constantly as an attack roll or a saving throw though? A key issue with this is a design plan. Very simply, if an adventure can only be resolved by a table with a specific skill making a specific high DC, you have effectively made it impossible to complete for every other table. So essentially there are no adventures that can be completed without a party that has a skilled melee combatant? Including a workaround for groups that simply don't have someone with the right skill is the only fair way to manage that. What's the workaround for mustering a table that can only manage to field two arcanists, a rogue and a cleric? I ran six slots of the core special at DDXP where the players sucessfully completed the adventure. (And one where they didn't, sorry guys.) When every one of those tables sat down, I heard one thing: "I hope we have enough time to complete the adventure." Let's both admit that Core Specials shouldn't be compared to your typical LG module though. I did not hear a single complaint from any table when I finished the slot a hour or more before the scheduled end. Finishing one hour before the slot ends is far different from finishing one hour into the slot. The two LG mods I played ASIDE of the Core Special were both over in under two hours. Four of the five Xen'drik mods I played all took at least 4 hours and some could have stretched into other slots ... That may not seem like a big deal but I spent around 300 bucks to fly to DC and another 400 on hotel and 60+ on the convention itself. I'm not there to collect AR's ... I'm there to play my characters. I felt a bit cheated when it came to my LG experiences. It's a good thing they had the Xen'drik Dungeon Delve going to keep me entertained though. I did it so the players could finish the adventure, something they considered a significant goal to achieve. I don't disagree - when you're talking about Core Specials. But that was one of three LG events I played in over the weekend and it was the only one I really enjoyed. I also run very fast at the venue I play at. While a few people are often shocked at the breakneck pace I keep up for combat, the overwhelming majority consider a week with me as DM as a great opportunity to get home early, and maybe earn some extra WIFE Reward Points (if applicable) for doing so. See now I just don't understand this mentality. To me, this game is a hobby. I'm not trying to rush through IT to get back to my other life obligations. I'm waiting for my obligations to hurry up and finish so I can get to my hobby hours. One shouldn't have to need "wife points." One should take care of their obligations and then make time for hobbies and fun. And when that time for hobbies and fun comes along, who wants to rush it to get it overwith? I don't get it. This is why I sometimes get the feeling that some people play LG as if it's a job. Alright ... got the mod done in forty five minutes ... got my AR and now I can go get another AR in another 45 and be home in time for ... an early bedtime so I can work in the morning? What? That's FUN for people? So no, not everyone feels cheated if a four hour slot is over in one and a half hours. I do. Give me three of my six bucks back cause I came to play a game. I do agree with the previous poster who said that regionals offered a better playing experience than Core mods though. The jury is sitll out on Adaptables for me, but I'll be playing Red Hand of Doom soon.
Samwise 02-19-07, 11:58 PM	I knew there would be people posting exceptions to what I said and of course I've seen them. The statements I made were trends ... what I found to be typical. I'll expand here ... I haven't found them to be typical. I never said it wasn't cheating. However, it happens at roughly 75% of the tables I play at to-date. "Oh, this is the one where you get Nightsong Enforcer access." Or "there's cool stuff from Frostburn in this one." Call it cheating. Call it metagaming. It happens at a majority of the tables - not a minority. I've seen that at less than 10% of the tables I've played at - a distinct minority. And it remains cheating, and should be treated as such. So? Didn't we just experience a major campaign shift? Not on the level of restricting PCs to one prestige class only until they take all the levels in it. People do not plan on "only needing three rages" or "saving their Luck domain for the third encounter." It's a lot more prevalent when the paradigm is three combat encounters. And of my last 10 LG mods, 8 of them used the three encounter paradigm. Of the two that didn't, one was a Core Special. The three encounter formula is very much "the norm." If you don't believe me, then pay attention to how many people at the table notice when the number deviates from 3. At every table I've played where there were more or less encounters, someone made a comment about it. I'm quite aware that it is the standard for adventures. It seems you aren't aware why it is the standard for adventures, and expect that it can be changed with a wave of the authors' and editors' hands. It can't. And yes, people are aware of it, and take it into account. That is unfortunate but inevitable, and still not significantly different from players counting their resources in a home game. It depends on the mod more than you are admitting. Over a group of adventures, it averages out. Used as constantly as an attack roll or a saving throw though? Given that almost every encounter begins with them, I'd say so. So essentially there are no adventures that can be completed without a party that has a skilled melee combatant? There are a few, yes. But melee ability is not a unique feature of a single class, feat, spell, or skill. So while virtually no adventure can be completed without the ability to deal a massive amount of damage, few require the damage to be delivered only in melee as opposed to at range or by spell. What's the workaround for mustering a table that can only manage to field two arcanists, a rogue and a cleric? Reasonably balanced encounters. Let's both admit that Core Specials shouldn't be compared to your typical LG module though. Let's not, since you specifically mentioned conventions. Finishing one hour before the slot ends is far different from finishing one hour into the slot. The two LG mods I played ASIDE of the Core Special were both over in under two hours. Four of the five Xen'drik mods I played all took at least 4 hours and some could have stretched into other slots ... And? I routinely find LG adventures to run far shorter than two hours simply because of the speed with which I run combats. I however run very fast combats, and the adventures are plotted on the assumption that others will take longer. That may not seem like a big deal but I spent around 300 bucks to fly to DC and another 400 on hotel and 60+ on the convention itself. I'm not there to collect AR's ... I'm there to play my characters. I felt a bit cheated when it came to my LG experiences. It's a good thing they had the Xen'drik Dungeon Delve going to keep me entertained though. I'm sure it is a big deal to you. That doesn't mean others might not enjoy a faster game session. I don't disagree - when you're talking about Core Specials. But that was one of three LG events I played in over the weekend and it was the only one I really enjoyed. It applies to other events just as much. They were quite assertive about finishing slots up 30 minutes before the end time. And consider the alternative - the DM constantly watching the clock, and either deliberately slowing the pace simply to fill time, or suddenly rushing a group to stay on time. I wouldn't consider either fun. See now I just don't understand this mentality. To me, this game is a hobby. I'm not trying to rush through IT to get back to my other life obligations. I'm waiting for my obligations to hurry up and finish so I can get to my hobby hours. One shouldn't have to need "wife points." One should take care of their obligations and then make time for hobbies and fun. And when that time for hobbies and fun comes along, who wants to rush it to get it overwith? I don't get it. Obviously you don't. That doesn't mean others don't have to consider such things, and have to plan accordingly. We play on a Thursday night. People need to get to the venue after work, get home after the game, and get to work the next day. Most would love to sit around for even more hours, but unfortunately not everyone has a schedule to allow for that. The choice is then squeezing the game in or not gaming at all. Of those, some people prefer squeezing a game in. This is why I sometimes get the feeling that some people play LG as if it's a job. Alright ... got the mod done in forty five minutes ... got my AR and now I can go get another AR in another 45 and be home in time for ... an early bedtime so I can work in the morning? What? That's FUN for people? Yes. It is. Is it really a problem for you to accept that? I do. Give me three of my six bucks back cause I came to play a game. How about you just don't show up instead? Because I show up to run a game, not perform on demand. Even if I got that six bucks per person, my time is worth a heck of a lot more than $36 per hour, never mind per four hours. WotC covering my hotel room still doesn't cover my food expenses. At the venue I run and play at the fee is only $3 per slot, and I get a whole $5 store credit for running an adventure. I pay to be at a game just like you, and I expect a game to last as long as it needs to finish, not to run down a clock. I do agree with the previous poster who said that regionals offered a better playing experience than Core mods though. The jury is sitll out on Adaptables for me, but I'll be playing Red Hand of Doom soon. And will you feel "cheated" if the first part doesn't take 16 hours to play? If so, I wonder how many people you will find able to schedule that much time for a single session.
disco54 02-20-07, 12:56 AM	Hey, this is supposed to be a <3 LG thread! :D Honestly, I've seen LGers play for loot, leetness, and role-play. I've seen LGers play for all three, and I've seen some some say they play for one, while they really play for another. What's really cool about LG is that all those people get thier fix. I have learned that sometimes you have to filter the stuff that rubs you the wrong way. The power-gamers need to tolerate the role-players as they drag out an encounter that could be ender with a diplomacy roll, and the role-players have to concoct some reason that thier characters would be in with this random group. Then the power-gamers have to try to ignore the idiot talking about the stuff on the AR (if he's a real power gamer -in it for the ghallenge, not a munchin), and the RPers have to wince and try really hard not to loose suspension of disbelief. If you can live-and-let-live, you can have fun in LG with no regrets. If you're to principled in one direction or the other, you should probably be playing either WoW or a D&D home game.
solbergb 02-20-07, 01:02 AM	What one person finds typical, everyone else finds to be atypical. This is a very big campaign, and styles vary WILDLY from place to place. Around where I play, nobody knows what's on the AR unless the blurb hints at it (eg, Pits of Azak Zul had a previous module indicating starmetal was to be found there....but I'll point out my char didn't get any, so it is far from a sure thing). We just don't do that. At best we might say "Your character Fred might enjoy this mod" but usually that's because the mod is good for Fred, not the access. Ie Fred may be a monk in a module that has a bunch of monk-challenges and honorable combat with badguy monks, or Fred might be a trapfinder in a module that actually has some traps, or Fred might be a draconic sorcerer and get to meet a dragon, etc. We don't say why. For the PRC thing, I just can't bring myself to care. I played point-buy systems such as Hero and Avatar with customization systems such as Feng Shui and in all such systems, you just take options to get abilitiles. In my games your class is not stamped on your forehead unless the PRC actually IS an in-game metaorg as well (and reveals itself or is marked somehow). A wild mage is just a guy with unpredictable magic. A Church Inquisitor has just had special training from a specific church. Alienist means you've interacted with teh Far Realms. Etc. Barring a few weird thing like Nightsong Enforcer, Shadowbane Stalker and the like, what matters is the METAORGANIZATIONS a PC belongs to or the FAVORS/CONTACTS he's earned or the ROLE he fills in a party, not what classes he took (depending on whether you are wanting to know about PC capabilities or PC contacts). I don't find a Paladin15 a better "roleplay" choice for a divine warrior than a monk2/cleric1/paladin4/fighter2/pious templar4/warpriest2. One focuses on smite and mount and paladin spellcasting. The other more on feats, domain abilities, class abiliites and diverse but weak spellcasting. The second guy is down two BAB and is paying skills/feats in prereqs to get some class abilities and diversity. The Pally might be a better "tank" but it doesn't make him a better "roleplayer". Prestige classes SHOULD NOT be prestigious unless they're built into the fabric of ingame metaorgs (eg, the Darkhagar (sp?) or the Knights of the Watch or the Silend Ones). What training you happen to emphasize as you gain experience shouldn't be your only roleplay hook or even an especially important hook. Regarding limited use stuff - in LG our characters encounter 1-3 combats a day as a rule. It isn't surprising that after a year or so of this, they'll start making assumptions about this and start tuning their spell mix or whatever around it. One thing I do to reduce the metagaming is ALWAYS use limited use abilities at the first opportunity where the char would think they might help. That way I don't "save it for the BBEG" fight. This sometimes hurts me in days that go a lot more fights, but actually, in the "1 a day" encounter adventures I get more uses of those abilities. But the CHARACTER does the same thing every time unless he has ingame knowledge that he might want to save resources for later. I treat campaign cards the same way. To me a good game has every spell and ability and card used, not sitting idle on my character sheet. My casters also always go flatout until the combat is pretty clearly won, then they do "mopup" stuff with low level spells. I do sometimes run my casters out on tough days. That's why they own consumables. I've seen just as many "cautious" people though, who conserve their boom until the party is in trouble. I don't think it is as successful a strategy in LG (many days, their best spells lie wasted unused, or whatever) but that isn't really metagaming either. When a fight goes bad, these guys pull out the stops. Maybe some of them ARE metagaming, but they're doing it in a way that actually hurts them. The final fight quite often isn't actually the hardest one. It is more sensible to tune your response to the difficulty of the battle at hand, or alternately to just try to win every fight as fast as possible. Either approach is a sensible thing for an experienced adventurer. Regarding skill use. The way the author guidelines are written, a certain number of EL's have to be in an adventure. As only a relatively small % of overall xp can be given for anything that isn't combat or a trap, that means much of a module's time will be allocated to combat. The proper use of noncombat skills in a shared campaign is generally to make things much easier for people good at the right skills, make things somewhat easier for people who find a clever way to use a different set of skills/capabilities and put those who lack any skills at a significant disadvantage - but not fail the module. Also remember that many, many skills get replaced by spells as levels advance. All of the mobility skills just replace a use of a fly spell. Tongues trumps language skills. Many social skills can be somewhat replaced by divinations and enchantments. Free movement trumps escape artist. A skillmonkey preserves resoources for the party, leaving more for fighting. A party good at using forensic magic and skills and scouting (skills or magic) can enter a fight buffed and knowing their opponent, where the brainless "kick in the doors until something jumps us" folks start out surprised, with foes who know about THEM and having no information about how to fight their opponents. The trick is to use such forensic/scouting magic or skills as a player in a way that doesn't hose up the pacing of the module. There are ways to do it, and parties that do so tend to have a much easier time with a large category of encoutners. Likewise a really good diplomat or scout can give the party the option of a "no resource" encounter win (although often at the cost of loot). Finally the impatient judge thing. I got no beef with fast judges that actually run the mod. I am often that guy myself - we finish early because I'm prepared, I waste no time shuffling papers, my combats run briskly because I know the capabiliites of the bad guys and play them with no heasitation, etc. I do sympathize with annoyance at judges that fastforward the module when there isn't a pacing reason to do so. I've been fortunate to only run into two or three such judges ever. If the mod normally runs in 6 hours and you only have 4 hours, some concessions have to be made to pacing. At my tables though, that means things like "Calling fights" if the party will clearly win and resources yet to be burned to win won't matter (party can rest etc before next fight, or it is final battle), bringing NPC interactions to a more rapid close than I would if I didn't have time or replacing detailed scenes involving lots of skill checks and verbal descriptions or mapping with "what is your approach to this situation. What are your relevant skills. Can you do this with a take 10? Ok here is what happens." The priority at conventions is: 1. The players get to play the entire module 2. They players actions have consequences, including failure but not just because we didn't have time to finish the module. 3. I don't run over and mess up the con scheduling This is a judge pacing thing. If you don't know how long it takes to do later parts of the module, you don't know whether you have to speed things up earlier if the PC's are behind. Often all you need is "look, this is a long module, we're running late, do you mind if we wrap up the discussion with this shopkeeper and move on?"
Lupo 02-20-07, 01:29 AM	I made my first Living Greyhawk character at last year's Winter Fantasy and just leveled him to 5th after DDXP this weekend, so I have the same timeframe and the same perspective. While I thoroughly enjoy LG and will continue to play it, I do offer the following negative observations on the campaign. 1) It's primarily a quest for more stuff Living Greyhawk is a lot more "about the stuff" than it is "about the story." The majority of players at the tables I've played at in conventions aren't as interested in PLAYING the game and their characters as they are in acquiring stuff. Many times the 4-5 hour time slot is a race to get to the AR and to get as many of the goodies on the AR as possible with the plot and the roleplay of anyone's individual character taking a huge backseat. I hear "I need to play my fighter for this mod because the AR gives me something that my cleric will have no use for" a LOT more than "well, it only makes sense for me to play this character in this series since he played in the other parts of the series before." Very few people remember the names of recurring NPCs that their characters have encountered but so many can remember that one AR where they finally got their Ring of Counterspells access. the new LGCS does more to circumvent this "quest for stuff" but it's still a major driving force of the campaign. this highly depends on the people you play with ;) and sometimes it is hard to remember and recall correctly which of the bundle off characters run into which NPC and plot line. 2) Prestige Classes aren't prestigious I've seen very few players that stay in one Prestige Class - more than 90% of those who are "prestigious" are mutting around with as many PRC's as they can get to pack as many abilities and saving throw bonuses on their characters. And in many cases where people do stick to a Prestige Class, it's because the PrC is such a no-brainer that EVERYONE is taking it. I can't spin a dead cat over my head without bludgeoning 732 "Radiant Servants of *insert the God that gives me the best domains here*" A subset of this phenomenon is that the campaign is a lot more about min-maxing then it is about building an interesting character concept. How many Bear Warriors have you seen with just that 1 level of Bear Warrior? How many fighters take 1 level of Barbarian and Extra Rage? How many spellcasters dip into that one level of Mindbender just to get a saving throw bonus and free telepathy without having to sacrifice a caster level? It's hard to consider anything to be "prestigious" when so many people do things the same way. that is more a D&D 3.x issue, have you noticed that some prestige classes are DESIGNED as one or two level dips??? they are meant to work this way. i agree that there are two (or three) sets of prestige classes: careers: prestige classes one has to qualify for or special design for and then stick till the end initiate of the sevenfoild veil, pious templar (can be but need not), master thrower, radiant servant of mighty cheese, stormlord specials: designed to be only taken a few levels; exotic weapon master and the like get some goodies: fatespinner, occult slayer the problem is, due to the editing of WotC all prestige classes are equal but some are more so :P, some are heavily "front loaded" some give the goodies spread over several levels and some are just trash. 3) Three swings and you're out I remember sitting at my first few LG tables and hearing fighters saying something like "Just take Extra Rage once and that's all you will ever need since you'll Rage at every fight." I found that statement confusing until I had played my first half-dozen modules. Yep. Fight. Fight. Big Bad Evil Guy. What happens then with the average low-level Fighters (who always have one level of Barbairan specifically for this). Don't Rage. Don't Rage. Rage and drop my one campaign card that gives me huge bonuses on what I know is the last fight I'll need it for. It affects peoples' choices because abilities that are now available 1x/day are a lot more powerful since they get used once every 3 encounters. People design characters around this campaign "quirk." Casters manage their spells around 3 encounters. It adds an uncomfortable amount of metagaming as well. "Well we know that we can't be at the end of the adventure because we've only had two fights." oh yea, that is the same as people sitting at their desk, looking at the clock, then at the new pile of folders and calling it a day by very slowly sorting them by color. 4) Skills? D&D 3.5 uses skills?!?! Compare the number of times you make initiative checks, attack rolls and saving throws versus the number of skill checks you REALLY need to make to complete a module. This makes a lot of attractive classes like Barbarians, Rangers, Rogues and Bards a lot less attractive to play. Skills just don't have enough impact in the campaign. Yes it's nice to have the guy who can pass that one DC 25 Knowledge Arcana check to let you learn what the weakness is of the BBEG in that ONE module, but it's just not an important use of a d20. Not anywhere near as important as an attack roll or a saving throw or caster level check. There certainly are exceptions to this, but in general, if one were to make a spectrum where "D&D miniatures" is at the left end and "D&D 3.5" is at the right end, it's my perception that LG is too far to the left on that spectrum for me. I'd like Bluff, Hide, Move Silently, Balance, Knowledge and Profession to matter a little more than they do at the moment. They do in my home games and in all honesty, they do in that ... OTHER ... campaign supported by RPGA at the moment. yes a lot of min-maxed builds have things like an int penalty, and sitting at a table of min-maxed players - roll players - can be hard. so just try to avoid them.:) on the other hand, do you really want to see more modules that need high checks in "craft embroidering" or you are out???????? 5) Con judges often have a 'plane to catch' I know it's the nature of a convention to get things done efficiently for the most number of people. I know that getting things done quickly is attractive from a "business" perspective. However, I fly several hundred miles to some cons. I pay for hotel rooms. I take time off work. I really don't want to hear "I'll be sure to have you guys blow through this mod in record time." I'm paying to sit at that table for a 4-5 hour slot. I'm not interested in zipping forward at breakneck speed. I know that sometimes people want to try squeezing in another slot or that judges have other responsibilities and they're doign this as a favor and such. When I judge, I give you what I feel should be your money's worth. When I judge, I'm supposed to be there for 4-5 hours and everyone at the table should expect to be there for that time. You're playing the game to have fun. I'm there for fun. Does anyone else feel gipped when you sit down and the mod is over in an hour and a half? I do. this might happen, but i have seen it very seldom, most time the fast forward button is used by DMs with poor time management or because players insisted on role playing at inappropriate amount and the slot is three quarters through and the module only one quarter. like the ones that created "disruptive characters" like "my fighter-mercenary never swings without being payed for it" or "all of you have to pray to my god five times a day to get me heal you" or rogues "i steal every single coin out of this peasants village, because i am such a great thief" and starting endless debates on this instead of real gaming.:( ciao martin m.
gomeztoo 02-20-07, 04:12 AM	Basically, I think of core mods as one-shots. Heh. Different for me. I can nearly only play Core mods (unless I visit France or GenCon UK's freeby slot). Hence, Cores are more imporatnt, and I try to steer my PCs to participate in the right series or locations. Voa is my Bright Sands PC (until Time's Tide, anyway). Clover is my Greyhawk city PC. Nesalia is my draconic main who is in at least four Core series - which actually pays off. It works, and some Core NPCs, locations, or events do become known and affect the PC (sometimes drastically). Occasionally, I am forced to play a char outside a series, and it generally doen't go well: Nesalia played a Bright Sand mod and instantly ****** off Karistyne (the DM had to *invent* a disfavor for that AR). Voa played a Slavers mod (Nes' series) and didn't really care for anything that happened there as it didn't affect her at all. Involving yourself in the series is what makes them interesting.
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 07:55 AM	I haven't found them to be typical. Well, I've been playing for one year. I have about 50AR's and about a fourth of those are regional. Of the remaining 35 or so AR's, 4 r 5 are Specials. That leaves 30-some AR's. Granted, I'm fairly "new" but that's what this thread is about - perceptions of a player who has been playing for just one year. The five comments I've made have been typical, for me, in those 30-some AR's. Take that as you will. I've seen that at less than 10% of the tables I've played at - a distinct minority. OK. You have your perceptions. I have mine. I play at conventions. Gamers routinely drop comments about the encounters in mods as they play them. What exactly can I do when I'm standing there waiting around for my slot to muster and some guy asks me what I'm playing and once I tell him, he just spews out something that gives away information about the mod? Yeah, I can stop the guy and I definitely try to, but it's like crying "objection!" in a court room AFTER the other lawyer has gotten the jury to hear his comment. It's too late. And can you honestly tell me that discussing the modules isn't rampant? You've obviously played far longer than I have, but in one year, I've already seen it as commonplace. It's also difficult when you sit at the table and someone who just played an event that you are scheduled to play in the next slot flips out their AR and says they want to buy *this* or use *that*. I'm not sure of a way to fix that problem, but to suggest it isn't a problem seems a bit short-sighted to me. And it remains cheating, and should be treated as such. How many times have you seen discipline for it? Not on the level of restricting PCs to one prestige class only until they take all the levels in it. I didn't say it would be easy. What I did say is that there aren't enough costs associated with doing so. In the Campaigns style of play, it's incredibly difficult to dip around so much because you have to pay expansion slots for your Prestige Classes and it costs three expansion slots (a very significant number as you only have one expansion slot per character level and you really ant to use them to "buy" other things). I don't like seeing the cookie-cutter fighters all abusing Wild Runner, Bear Warrior, Pious Templar. I believe it does more harm than good. I understand it is likely that this will never change. I am merely pointing out that I find it to be a flaw with the campaign. It makes things boring if every cleric with a Prestige Class is taking Radiant Servant. I am glad to see them banning things like Master of Many Forms and Divine Metamagic because it encourages people to have options. I'm quite aware that it is the standard for adventures. It seems you aren't aware why it is the standard for adventures, and expect that it can be changed with a wave of the authors' and editors' hands. It can't. Who said I wanted things done with a wave of the hand? All I said is that it's a problem. I didn't offer a solution because most of the things I would come up with would make players mad. The power level of rechargable abilities is amplified in a game where only three encounters take place. It's one of the reasons why "fighters suck." I personally prefer situations where my dedcision to use abilities should require thinking beyond "well this is the last encounter of the day/mod so it only makes sense to use it now." And yes, people are aware of it, and take it into account. That is unfortunate but inevitable, and still not significantly different from players counting their resources in a home game. I disagree. In a home game where the number of encounters in a day is always a question mark, the classes that have permanent abilities that are always "on" (fighter feats, Rogue skills) have more value. In a home game, high level spellcasters will find themselves taxed for resources far more often too. Over a group of adventures, it averages out.{/QUOTE] I've actually judged a fair number of the same Core mods I've played already and I do not find this to be the case at all. [QUOTE]Given that almost every encounter begins with them, I'd say so. Almost every encounter begins with a Hide/Move Silently check? Uh ... no. Spot/Listen? More likely. In my opinion, there are a good number of skills that are rarely or never used in core LG mods. There are a few, yes. But melee ability is not a unique feature of a single class, feat, spell, or skill. I could say the same thing about Knowledge, Diplomacy, Survival, Hide, Move Silently, Climb, Jump ... but how many tables do you see where players are willing to group up without someone who has made a conscious effort to maintain full (or nearly full) BaB? So while virtually no adventure can be completed without the ability to deal a massive amount of damage, few require the damage to be delivered only in melee as opposed to at range or by spell. Perhaps this is true at the higher levels where I haven't played yet, but it's definitely not the case at the lower levels. At APL 4-6, you either roll through everything (groups that have 1-2 melee-based damage dealers) or you die a lot (groups that have none). Let's not, since you specifically mentioned conventions. One convention = nine slots. LG Core Special = 1 slot. What happens in Core adventures is a small percentage of LG offerings. There are three specials a year and what - 20 total core mods? Yes, I mentioned conventions but I'm talking about my overall experiences with the entire campaign and the majority of the campaign isn't "Special." And? I routinely find LG adventures to run far shorter than two hours simply because of the speed with which I run combats. Congratulations. I'm not here to talk about your prowess as a judge, however. If you read what I said, my issue is with judges who skip ahead to the combats merely to skip ahead. And it happens more frequently than I'd like. I have no problems with a judge cutting a roleplaying encoutner or fight short because the mod is long. By all means, please be expeditious if it means not finishing the mod on time. But don't short-change me just because you like to run the combats and run them quickly at the sake of the plot or other aspects of the module. I'm there to enjoy that boxed-text or that NPC just as much as the fights. And a good judge should be able to pace the slot well enough to hit all of the module. I however run very fast combats, and the adventures are plotted on the assumption that others will take longer. COmbats run as quickly as the table runs them - not as quickly as you run them. Again, I'm not interested in discussing your ability as a judge. I'm sure it is a big deal to you. That doesn't mean others might not enjoy a faster game session. I'm not posting in this thread to speak for others. I'm posting my "one year perspective" of the campaign. To me, the game is a hobby that I make time for. I'm not going to conventions to rush through modules. It applies to other events just as much. They were quite assertive about finishing slots up 30 minutes before the end time. Up above, I said I had no problems with slots that finish an hour early. I said I had problems with mods that finished two or more hours early. And consider the alternative - the DM constantly watching the clock, and either deliberately slowing the pace simply to fill time, or suddenly rushing a group to stay on time. I wouldn't consider either fun. It's the judge's responsibility to read the mod and have some understanding of what will take longer and what won't. What I consider "not fun" is sitting around for two and a half hours, 300 miles away from home, waiting for the next slot. Who wants to pay a grand for that? I'd rahter just run a home game. We play on a Thursday night. People need to get to the venue after work, get home after the game, and get to work the next day. Most would love to sit around for even more hours, but unfortunately not everyone has a schedule to allow for that. The choice is then squeezing the game in or not gaming at all. Of those, some people prefer squeezing a game in. I'd prefer scheduling a more managable time slot then. the main thing you're forgetting in this scenario above is that your entire table is aware of everyone's time crunch and respects it. At a convention, there should be no time crunch like this. Conventions are scheduled events with scheduled time slots and people should respect that others are devoting time to be there. I don't "squeeze in" a game at a convention. I'm there to play at a relaxed pace. Yes. It is. Is it really a problem for you to accept that? It's not a problem for me to accept other peoples' idea of fun. It is a problem if they expect me to share those ideals, however. How about you just don't show up instead? Because I show up to run a game, not perform on demand. Wow ... just ... wow. I have absolutely nothing I can say to these two comments. Moving along ... Even if I got that six bucks per person, my time is worth a heck of a lot more than $36 per hour, never mind per four hours. WotC covering my hotel room still doesn't cover my food expenses. At the venue I run and play at the fee is only $3 per slot, and I get a whole $5 store credit for running an adventure. I judge too. I don't treat it like a job and I certainly don't expect to be treated like royalty. I wouldn't judge if I didn't accept that I have a responsibility to make my players feel that they've gotten their money's worth. I do have high expectations for a judge because I'm also paying my time to be there. I pay to be at a game just like you, and I expect a game to last as long as it needs to finish, not to run down a clock. And I expect to play the entire mod the author intended. Not to fast forward to the combats just because the judge wants to rush the mod. Nowhere did I say I wantedmore time than necessary to complete a mod. And will you feel "cheated" if the first part doesn't take 16 hours to play? I'm playing it in a home game so it is unlikely I'll feel cheated as the group I play with shares the same views on what is "fun." If so, I wonder how many people you will find able to schedule that much time for a single session. We already have a full table devoting an entire weekend to running part one of Red Hand of Doom (and devoting future weekends to completing it), so the answer to your question is "7."
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 10:34 AM	I have learned that sometimes you have to filter the stuff that rubs you the wrong way. *snipped other stuff* If you can live-and-let-live, you can have fun in LG with no regrets. If you're to principled in one direction or the other, you should probably be playing either WoW or a D&D home game. I wholeheartedly agree and I didn't mean to suggest that LG sucks. It certainly doesn't. I was just pointing out some things I have issue with. I do tend to filter out the "bad stuff" for the most part and if I held the campaign in a truly low opinion, I wouldn't be leveling three characters to 4th/5th over the past year. Many of the points brought up by the OP are strong enough to far outweigh the negatives I mentioned. When I play a truly interesting scenario with a truly good judge, I'm not so bothered by the "quest to find stuff" aspect of the campaign. In the end, it's all about maximum fun.
Samwise 02-20-07, 11:17 AM	Well, I've been playing for one year. I have about 50AR's and about a fourth of those are regional. Of the remaining 35 or so AR's, 4 r 5 are Specials. That leaves 30-some AR's. Granted, I'm fairly "new" but that's what this thread is about - perceptions of a player who has been playing for just one year. The five comments I've made have been typical, for me, in those 30-some AR's. Take that as you will. I take it as the experience of 30 ARs, mostly from conventions. They are a very different experience from playing cores at a regular venue. OK. You have your perceptions. I have mine. I play at conventions. Gamers routinely drop comments about the encounters in mods as they play them. What exactly can I do when I'm standing there waiting around for my slot to muster and some guy asks me what I'm playing and once I tell him, he just spews out something that gives away information about the mod? Yeah, I can stop the guy and I definitely try to, but it's like crying "objection!" in a court room AFTER the other lawyer has gotten the jury to hear his comment. It's too late. You do exactly that. In a firm but non-shouting voice, you simply state: "Please don't give me any spoilers, I want to enjoy the adventure completely." If he doesn't get the hint, proceed to: "I thought giving away spoilers was cheating?" Hopefully at that point he stops or a campaign official shows up to explain the issue more forcefully. How many times have you seen discipline for it? Not very often. But that is because most people get the hint after after a direct statement about what they are doing. I didn't say it would be easy. What I did say is that there aren't enough costs associated with doing so. In the Campaigns style of play . . . The Campaigns have their own issues though. That may well be one of them. I don't like seeing the cookie-cutter fighters all abusing Wild Runner, Bear Warrior, Pious Templar. I believe it does more harm than good. Then don't play with people with those characters. You don't like it, other people do. Some people may object to your style of play, or your desire to interfere with how they want to play. Who said I wanted things done with a wave of the hand? All I said is that it's a problem. I didn't offer a solution because most of the things I would come up with would make players mad. The power level of rechargable abilities is amplified in a game where only three encounters take place. It's one of the reasons why "fighters suck." I personally prefer situations where my dedcision to use abilities should require thinking beyond "well this is the last encounter of the day/mod so it only makes sense to use it now." What is wrong with that as a basis for making a decision? What should it be based on? I disagree. In a home game where the number of encounters in a day is always a question mark, the classes that have permanent abilities that are always "on" (fighter feats, Rogue skills) have more value. In a home game, high level spellcasters will find themselves taxed for resources far more often too. Not really. I run a home campaign, and the interaction between classes is significant enough that the non-spellcasters are quite satisfied with retreating when the spellcasters are no longer able to support them. I've actually judged a fair number of the same Core mods I've played already and I do not find this to be the case at all. I've judged at least 50 adventures 2 or more times. I find skill use to definitely average out across those adventures. Some groups depend on them, some groups don't. Almost every encounter begins with a Hide/Move Silently check? Uh ... no. Spot/Listen? More likely. In my opinion, there are a good number of skills that are rarely or never used in core LG mods. I said every encounter begins with Spot and Listen. And just because a skill is rarely or never mentioned does not mean it is a bad thing. Not every skill is of the same utility. Further, a skill doesn't have to be mentioned to be usable. A core adventure doesn't need to give the DC for Rope Use in every encounter. The core rules do that, and if a player wants to use some rope the DM should let him do so according to the rules. I could say the same thing about Knowledge, Diplomacy, Survival, Hide, Move Silently, Climb, Jump ... but how many tables do you see where players are willing to group up without someone who has made a conscious effort to maintain full (or nearly full) BaB? I've seen more tables fail because of a lack of a maxed out Knowledge, Diplomacy, Search, Spot, Listen, Open Locks, or Disable Device skill than I have because of a lack of a maxed out BAB. Perhaps this is true at the higher levels where I haven't played yet, but it's definitely not the case at the lower levels. At APL 4-6, you either roll through everything (groups that have 1-2 melee-based damage dealers) or you die a lot (groups that have none). Again, no. I've seen tables with 3 arcanists roll over opposition like it wasn't even there at APL 4-6. It all depends on the specific critters in the adventure. One convention = nine slots. LG Core Special = 1 slot. What happens in Core adventures is a small percentage of LG offerings. There are three specials a year and what - 20 total core mods? Yes, I mentioned conventions but I'm talking about my overall experiences with the entire campaign and the majority of the campaign isn't "Special." Not to sound hackneyed, but every adventure I run is special. Congratulations. I'm not here to talk about your prowess as a judge, however. If you read what I said, my issue is with judges who skip ahead to the combats merely to skip ahead. And it happens more frequently than I'd like. I have no problems with a judge cutting a roleplaying encoutner or fight short because the mod is long. By all means, please be expeditious if it means not finishing the mod on time. Then your issue is with specific DMs, and not the campaign overall, or the adventures. What you need to do in such a situation is talk to the DM or the convention staff about that specific individual. But don't short-change me just because you like to run the combats and run them quickly at the sake of the plot or other aspects of the module. I'm there to enjoy that boxed-text or that NPC just as much as the fights. And a good judge should be able to pace the slot well enough to hit all of the module. Then enjoy them. But boxed text should not be monologues. It is for describing a scene, not practice for the DM's public speaking class. NPCs remain limited by the length of an adventure. Combats are limited by a reasonable amount of time for every player's action, and by how many resources are expended per round of combat. Very few people are interested in waiting 5-10 minutes for someone to decide what they want to do every round, and not many more care to have a combat go more than 5 rounds and blow out the spellcasters' slots. If it takes longer to beat the monsters than it does to set up the board, a group is probably in a lot of trouble. Combats run as quickly as the table runs them - not as quickly as you run them. Again, I'm not interested in discussing your ability as a judge. No, they run as quickly as the DM runs them. If a DM takes 5 minutes to decide what every creature he has does, then lets the players hold a discussion group to decide on every action of every character, the combat is going to drag excessively. If a DM can make a decision for every creature in 10-60 seconds, and holds players to deciding on their actions within a minute, the combat is going to be over very fast. It is all a matter of DM control of the table. It's the judge's responsibility to read the mod and have some understanding of what will take longer and what won't. What I consider "not fun" is sitting around for two and a half hours, 300 miles away from home, waiting for the next slot. Who wants to pay a grand for that? I'd rahter just run a home game. And what if the adventure just runs short? What if the players have just the spell, item, or weapon for every encounter? What if the players have no desire to interact with a particular NPC? I've run several adventures that padding the action, encouraging gratuitous table talk, and wandering off for excessive food and bathroom breaks still couldn't stretch the thing out to two hours. I'd prefer scheduling a more managable time slot then. the main thing you're forgetting in this scenario above is that your entire table is aware of everyone's time crunch and respects it. At a convention, there should be no time crunch like this. Conventions are scheduled events with scheduled time slots and people should respect that others are devoting time to be there. I don't "squeeze in" a game at a convention. I'm there to play at a relaxed pace. Even conventions face a time crunch. People still need to get food between slots, get to the bathroom, and at many, hit the dealer room. And sometimes a relaxed pace is still relatively fast. It's not a problem for me to accept other peoples' idea of fun. It is a problem if they expect me to share those ideals, however. But you seem to expect them to share yours. I judge too. I don't treat it like a job and I certainly don't expect to be treated like royalty. I wouldn't judge if I didn't accept that I have a responsibility to make my players feel that they've gotten their money's worth. I do have high expectations for a judge because I'm also paying my time to be there. What money's worth? $6 for a slot? How much do you expect to get for that normally? As for your travel expenses, it is hardly the DMs responsibility for that. He is not getting anything from the airline, hotel, or restaurants, so there is no reason for him to be responsible for your expenses on those things. And I expect to play the entire mod the author intended. Not to fast forward to the combats just because the judge wants to rush the mod. Nowhere did I say I wanted more time than necessary to complete a mod. And nowhere did I suggest fast forwarding to the combats. And you have demanded a DM run for a full four hours, apparently no matter what. I'm playing it in a home game so it is unlikely I'll feel cheated as the group I play with shares the same views on what is "fun." Unless it just doesn't take 16 hours to finish. But I am sure your DM will find a way to stretch it out no matter what.
Drezden 02-20-07, 12:00 PM	One shouldn't have to need "wife points." Obviously, you are not married. You can never have enough wifepoints. :) Let me just add that, as one of the organizers of the regular game night that Sam DMs at, Sam is an amazing DM who consistently completes modules faster than anyone else. And you really don't feel cheated by the process - he manages to get everything in. The slot we play in can accomodate a 5 hour game - but it a lot nicer to be done in 2 1/2 or 3 and still get the whole module in. Sam is even nice when you brutalize his "impossible" high level encounter in his mod in 1 1/2 rounds. :) Daren
Samwise 02-20-07, 12:05 PM	Sam is even nice when you brutalize his "impossible" high level encounter in his mod in 1 1/2 rounds. :) Daren So everyone knows, when I do something worse next time, it is all Daren's fault. :P
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 01:39 PM	I take it as the experience of 30 ARs, mostly from conventions. They are a very different experience from playing cores at a regular venue. Well then perhaps you should reserve your comments for those who play in regular venues and not comment on convention play since you're admitting that the play is vastly different. You do exactly that. In a firm but non-shouting voice, you simply state: "Please don't give me any spoilers, I want to enjoy the adventure completely." If he doesn't get the hint, proceed to: "I thought giving away spoilers was cheating?" Hopefully at that point he stops or a campaign official shows up to explain the issue more forcefully. And my point is that it's too late. He's opened his mouth and the deed is done. What good will it do at that point? Will I somehow unlearn it? Am I also expected to discipline all the other people who heard him say it? The point is that regardless of my mentioning a dislike for it or your post here proclaiming it as cheating, it still gets done and done on a regular basis. In one year of playing, I've seen it often enough to know it is a problem. Expand that to the multi-year existence of the campaign and I'm sure you can see it's a magnified problem. Again, you speak mostly form the perspective of the small group of people you run things for on a regular basis (at least that's the impression I get) so disciplining one of a small group carries far more weight than telling some random guy at Convention X that he's cheating. The Campaigns have their own issues though. That may well be one of them. Yep, they do have other issues, but in the Campaigns model, Prestige Classes ARE Prestigious. Then don't play with people with those characters. You don't like it, other people do. Some people may object to your style of play, or your desire to interfere with how they want to play. Do you go to large conventions much? I don't get to pick the 5 other people at my table as readily as you suggest. And LG makes it even harder because of APLs. It's easy to say "don't play with people who abuse Prestige Class multiclassing." Then of course, one would find himself being unable to play the campaign as everyone does it. At the table, I play my guy and I shut my mouth about it as it doesn't do anything constructive to voice one's opinions at the gaming table. Seeing ten billion Radiant Servants of Pelor is just lame. Everyone admits the Prestige Class is overpowered but it will get used because it's allowed. It's also expected at higher levels of play that you come optimized or you don't come at all. Higher APL tables have players who are very opinionated of what the other 5 people bring. My buddy who plays a 3rd level half-orc cleric of St Cuthbert got an unusually high numebr of queer looks just because he used a feat choice on proficiency with the warhammer. Is it an optimal selection? No. Should he get queer looks for choosing it? No. But he does. What is wrong with that as a basis for making a decision? What should it be based on? I don't mind it as the basis for some decisions, but all things in moderation, please. When 9 of 10 tables are saving all of their one-shot abilities for one big turn against the BBEG, I'd say that it takes the decision-making process away from the player. I've judged at least 50 adventures 2 or more times. I find skill use to definitely average out across those adventures. I don't. I'll just agree to disagree. Maybe I'll make a follow up post in a year after further analysis and see if I change my mind. As of today? Skills don't matter much in LG. I don't believe I'm in the minority on this observation either, but I'd be glad to hear more counterarguments. I said every encounter begins with Spot and Listen. This is patently false as many encounters that were run for me in my first year began with auto-surprise. Now that is definitely the responsibility of a judge, but it most certainly wasn't "every." Luckily I joined the game after the Feign Surprise card came into being. And just because a skill is rarely or never mentioned does not mean it is a bad thing. Not every skill is of the same utility. Further, a skill doesn't have to be mentioned to be usable. A core adventure doesn't need to give the DC for Rope Use in every encounter. The core rules do that, and if a player wants to use some rope the DM should let him do so according to the rules. I'm not asking for every skill to be infinitely more useful. i'm asking for skill checks to simply matter more than they currently do. Currently, there are more base classes that offer 4+ skill points per level than there are that do not. That suggest that skill checks should be used fairly often. In a full year's worth of modules, I had one table have to make a Tracking check (and they didn't even NEED to make it). I've actually had my druid attempt to use it in mods where it wasn't a necessity, but it proved to be of no value whatsoever. It never avoided any encounter or made any fight easier. I personally think that sometimes, it should. Again, in Campaign events, it has. I've seen more tables fail because of a lack of a maxed out Knowledge, Diplomacy, Search, Spot, Listen, Open Locks, or Disable Device skill than I have because of a lack of a maxed out BAB. *checking my DM history in my RPGA account* I've judged about 20 times in the past year. I see by my history that around 6 of those were regional events, so I'll ignore those. For the 14 other mods I've judged, no table has failed because of a failed skill check that you've mentioned. I've had 4 table failures total. One of those was because of a porrly written issue in a mod. The other 3 were all low-APL tables that didn't have enough damage-dealing to handle the ending fights because they were lacking full BaB classes. Again, no. I've seen tables with 3 arcanists roll over opposition like it wasn't even there at APL 4-6. It all depends on the specific critters in the adventure. I hope you're right and that I just need more experience udner my belt, but as of right now, I don't believe you. Not to sound hackneyed, but every adventure I run is special. I'm not a huge fan of hubris. Then your issue is with specific DMs, and not the campaign overall, or the adventures. It's both, actually. Sometimes it's the DM that fast-forwards and sometimes the mod is just ... well ... not worth my time. Not every single work can be a gem. What you need to do in such a situation is talk to the DM or the convention staff about that specific individual. Or I can jsut accept that there's no way my voice has any bearing on changing it from happening and jsut suck it up and play. That's what I usually do. Suck it up and play. Liek I said, if the problem were incredibly rampant, I'd jsut play Xen'drik Expeditions and dump LG altogether but I won't make that drastic change just yet. But boxed text should not be monologues. It is for describing a scene, not practice for the DM's public speaking class. You take a lot of what I say to strange extremes. In the case I mentioned, the boxed text and anything the DM deemed irrelevant to the encounter was skipped. I had no idea what purpose we had for being where we were or even as much as a description of what we were facing when I heard "roll for initiative." And it does bother me if someone tryign to judge simply cannot read even passably well. NPCs remain limited by the length of an adventure. I'm fine with that. But if they are there for me to interact with in some way that makes the module make SENSE that doesn't intrude on ending the time slot in the four hours, then I want to interact with them and actually play the game rather than have the judge read a list of "things I was supposed to figure out from NPC X." Again, please don't throw the "must finish the mod on time" argument back at me for this. I'm talking about having these snippits of storyline skipped because a judge wants their name in the Guiness Book of World Records for Event Completion time. If it takes longer to beat the monsters than it does to set up the board, a group is probably in a lot of trouble. So in a fight where one of the PC's plays a summoning druid and has anywhere from 3-4 meaningful actions on his turn because of animals, then the table is in a lot of trouble? Since you are fond of tossing out individual examples, I've seen single fights that end up taking nearly a half hour of actual game time. Again, at a convention, you don't have a crack team of six players who all work together regualrly to bang out modules at breakneck speed and all know how to work together. You have a truly random assortment of people interacting and - dare I say that - sometimes you have NEW players doing it. My knowledge of the rules as a DM and my knowledge of my PC's tactics helps but I can only speak for myself and the rules. I also don't know what everyone has on their AR's, either. No, they run as quickly as the DM runs them. Shenanigans. Newer players' turns take time. People with multiple ations have turns that take time. People who do need to look something up (and even savvy veterans at tables NEED to look things up) takes time. I don't care if you're the best judge ever - the encounter time is greatly affected by what all 7 people at the table do - not just you. If a DM takes 5 minutes to decide what every creature he has does Again, you're pointing out an extreme. I say "combats take time" and you extend that to "if it takes 5 minutes for EVERY action" ... And what if the adventure just runs short? Then it runs short. If I felt the module to be fun, I probably won't notice. If I feel a "What? that's IT?!?!" moment, then I'll ask for the author's name and duly note it. What if the players have just the spell, item, or weapon for every encounter? I've never seen this happen yet, so I'll tell you once I do. What if the players have no desire to interact with a particular NPC? I've seen this happen and had no problem with it. If the missed interaction costs the group, then it's the group's fault. If the missed interaction cost nothing and the module was completed, then I'd start to wonder why it was even there in the first place. Wouldn't you? I've run several adventures that padding the action, encouraging gratuitous table talk, and wandering off for excessive food and bathroom breaks still couldn't stretch the thing out to two hours. in which case, I'd blame the author unless the adventure was still fun for me. Even conventions face a time crunch. People still need to get food between slots, get to the bathroom, and at many, hit the dealer room. That's all an individual player's responsibility. If they are time crunched, then they should find a way to become less crunched. They shouldn't impose their poor scheduling on me. If I want to see the dealer rooms, I make time for it. If I want to get food between slots, I make time for it. Maybe I play one fewer slot. As for bathroom breaks, I've never seen them to be so lengthy as to be disruptive. I don't want MY convention time to be mandated by YOUR inability to find time to eat. Skip a slot if you think you'll be time crunched. Don't make me do something faster just to accommodate you. But you seem to expect them to share yours. Me voicing my displeasure is not the equivalent of me demanding anyone play the way I want. In fact, I make sure to make my own sacrifices just to minimize anyone else's issues. That doesn't mean I have to like playing a mod at warp speed. the shame of it is that I rarely get to choose who my judge is. I do try to avoid the ones at whose tables I don't wish to play, but conventions rarely tell you who your judge is until after the table is assembled and you're sitting at it. So I tend to suck it up "for just this one slot." That doesn't mean I can't have an opinion on it afterwards ... What money's worth? $6 for a slot? How much do you expect to get for that normally? I expect the judge to run the adventure and to expect to be there for the full time slot if we need it. I do not expect a judge to slam through it in 90 minutes jsut because Bob wants to hit the dealer room. When I judge, I give my players at the table my undivided attention for the full time slot. I believe that's what comes with the task of judging. If you can't handle that type of commitment, then you shouldn't BE a judge. As for your travel expenses, it is hardly the DMs responsibility for that. He is not getting anything from the airline, hotel, or restaurants, so there is no reason for him to be responsible for your expenses on those things. He is responsible for giving me my 4-5 hour time slot. If he can't handle that responsibility, he shouldn't be judging. That's what I give to my players when I sit down to judge and I'm very careful about tiem management. And you have demanded a DM run for a full four hours, apparently no matter what. If the full experience of the mod takes only 2 hours, then there's nothing the DM can do about it. If they make shortcuts just to get it done in two hours when they have a full four hours to work with, then I'd rather sit at someone else's table. Unless it just doesn't take 16 hours to finish. But I am sure your DM will find a way to stretch it out no matter what. We're going to run the first part at a normal pace to have fun. None of us need "wife points" (despite all of us having wives or significant others). We've all devoted an entire weekend to play the mod. It might take that long and it might not. We won't be time crunched because we've all made the commitment to be there. One person can't devote the full weekend to doing so, so someone else took his place. We tend to try and respect everyone's time at the table and realize we're all there to have fun rather than plow through a mod for the sake of getting it done. If my DM finds a way to MAKE the adventure last 16 huors, I'm confident enough in his ability that it will be a needed 16 hours and hat it will be incredibly fun.
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 01:44 PM	Obviously, you are not married. You can never have enough wifepoints. :) I have a fiancee and she and I are both adults. "Wife points" aren't needed when you spend plenty of tiem with each other and respect each others' need to have "your own thing." Let me just add that, as one of the organizers of the regular game night that Sam DMs at, Sam is an amazing DM who consistently completes modules faster than anyone else. While I'm sure that's wonderful for Sam and his group, I'm not in his group and you can't clone Sam to be at every convention. And completing a module fast isn't high on my priority list when I've already set aside a block of time for gaming. I'd rather it take longer if the experience is more fun as a whole.
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 01:56 PM	I *strongly* sympathize with the issue you raise -- however I do think that your experiences are more likely when playing core modules than when playing regionals. I didn't give your post an equal amount of response time, but I will now. I do agree here - LG is much better played with Regional and Interactive play options in my opinion. It's unfortunate that some people have to rely on the Core mods because I've found that Regional play does remove some of my issues with the campaign. For core games, yep, I go by guessed access or what seems right. I play my wizard if it seems wizardy, my monk if I think there's any chance of not being rewarded with a piece of metal, and my barbarian whenever. I do it too and I'm encouraged to do it by other LG players. Now it's not as bad if it just feels like an adventure my wizard/druid/insert character here would play in. But when the choice is determined based on what AR goody is obtained at the end, then I have a problem. Personally, I feel there are too many simple things "Closed" and too many weird thigns "Open" in the LGCS. A slight tweaking of some of this with the option to be allowed SOME choice in the matter beforehand (Again, Campaigns uses Expansion Slots - a mechanism that would be perfect for solvign this issue). It's annoying to scout out what mods will get you access to the things you want for the right character. Hey my fighter gets ... scroll of Benign Transposition. Hey my Wizard just got ... access to Tactical Soldier. instead of letting players have a limited choice in getting the right thign on the right character, they instead scope out what's on AR's or resort to "cheating." It is one of the most awkward things about the AR system. Well, not in Verbobonc. I've played mods recently with zero combats and one with six (admittedly a special). Metagaming on the numebr 3 is not so useful. I play in Highfolk primarily and I do notice that the number three is less significant when doing regional stuff. But in Core mods ... In a core mod, it's less likely you care if the X of Y hates you -- so what? You'll never be there again. In your home region, though, diplomacy and the like are more important. However, D&D is basically a combat game. 80% of the PHB feats are combat-related and so, yeah, skills are a second-class part of your sheet. And that's a shame. I guess I'd just be happy if my rogue could get more mileage out of his ranks in Hide and Move Silently or my Druid actually got some benefit out of Survival other than "living off the wild." Basically, I think of core mods as one-shots. Bright Sands didn't grip me so, basically, any core mod I have played in the last few years has just been a sidetrack. See - I tried really hard with my Bright Sands druid to get into the setting and though I liked the plotline of the story arc, it was still too limited for my tastes. There could have been so much mroe done with it and I tried my best to immerse myself in the setting when playing. In the end, I just get the feeling that the Bright Sands was an excuse to create centaur PCs. Did we even USE the Sandstorm book at all? It sure didn't feel like it. The fact that I'll never meet the people again means there is absolutely no reason for me to remember more than "that was the place I got the frosty underpants of coolness". Yeah - I guess that's where the core "series" mods should provide some element of familiarity, but the lack of it in the Bright Sands campaign arc was really disappointing. Maybe two years just isn't enough time to get such a story done.
kenobi65 02-20-07, 01:57 PM	I have a fiancee and she and I are both adults. "Wife points" aren't needed when you spend plenty of tiem with each other and respect each others' need to have "your own thing." That's great for you. Some folks aren't fortunate enough to have a spouse who understands gaming. (Me, I'm a damned bastard, because my wife is an avid gamer.) My friends and I joke about "wife points", though I don't *think* any of us is in a situation in which there's an actual tally. It's just a cute way of saying, "I can't go to every single event; I've got other things I have to take care of, too." "Spending plenty of time with each other" is just an informal way of earning wife points, anyway. :)
solbergb 02-20-07, 02:08 PM	Access by the wrong guy isn't that big a problem. People stress about it a lot more when they've played 1 year or less. Perhaps people are cheating in your area because they don't really understand this yet. Or perhaps they're cheating because people like you aren't speaking up every time it happens. They may spoil one AR for you, but they'll stop doing it in future if you make your displeasure known, each and every time. The access tends to come around, often enough that you don't actually need to play a specific adventure to get it, because some other adventure will happen later and give it to you. You will however not believe my assurance until you've played longer and seen this effect for yourself. I remember stressing a lot about access my first year too, and not really believing assurances that it would get better (and in year 3-4 there WAS less access, they had not really fine tuned the favor/ar system yet...and it was STILL ok). This is especially true with magic item access. By level 8-9 most characters have more useful for their character access than they'll ever have the cash to spend, and that's almost certainly true if you consider that they'll keep getting more access as they play more. The same is pretty much true of feat or PRC access, especially with retraining in the game. Spell access...less so. But the open spell list is freaking huge and excuse me if I don't cry about not every caster always getting the limited spell they want most. Special missions can give it to you if it is essential to your character.
Samwise 02-20-07, 02:25 PM	Well then perhaps you should reserve your comments for those who play in regular venues and not comment on convention play since you're admitting that the play is vastly different. Or perhaps I shouldn't, since most play is not at conventions. And my point is that it's too late. It isn't too late. You can stop him from saying more, and discourage him from doing it again. Yep, they do have other issues, but in the Campaigns model, Prestige Classes ARE Prestigious. Having a card is prestigious? Do you go to large conventions much? I don't get to pick the 5 other people at my table as readily as you suggest. Then i guess the people I saw walking away from tables was my imagination. Seeing ten billion Radiant Servants of Pelor is just lame. . . . Should he get queer looks for choosing it? No. But he does. But you want to give people queer looks for choosing Radiant Cheezeweasel. That consideration works both ways. I don't mind it as the basis for some decisions, but all things in moderation, please. When 9 of 10 tables are saving all of their one-shot abilities for one big turn against the BBEG, I'd say that it takes the decision-making process away from the player. All things? Like success in combat? I don't think so. If players are smart enough to plan to use their resources in an effective manner it means they deserve the benefits of learning how to do so. The decision-making process has not been taken from them at all. They may still decide to use some one-shot ability sooner rather than later, and in some cases it is merited. This is patently false as many encounters that were run for me in my first year began with auto-surprise. Then the DMs were running the encounters wrong. There is no auto-surprise. An adventure does not have to instruct the DM to follow the rules. There is a certain minimal expectation of knowledge of the rules and commitment to running by the rules that is expected. I'm not asking for every skill to be infinitely more useful. i'm asking for skill checks to simply matter more than they currently do. And as I said, to do so would mean that some encounters are impossible for some parties. You already complained about issues with mustering, why would you want to make it worse? [/quote]*checking my DM history in my RPGA account* I've judged about 20 times in the past year. I see by my history that around 6 of those were regional events, so I'll ignore those. For the 14 other mods I've judged, no table has failed because of a failed skill check that you've mentioned.[/quote] I've judged over 50 times in the past year. I had several tables I had to squeeze around critical skill checks. I've had 4 table failures total. One of those was because of a porrly written issue in a mod. The other 3 were all low-APL tables that didn't have enough damage-dealing to handle the ending fights because they were lacking full BaB classes. I think I may have had 1 table failure in the last year, plus the one at DDXP. Neither was because of a lack of full BAB classes. I hope you're right and that I just need more experience udner my belt, but as of right now, I don't believe you. That just demonstrates how little experience you have. I'm not a huge fan of hubris. I'm a huge hater of false modesty. It's both, actually. Sometimes it's the DM that fast-forwards and sometimes the mod is just ... well ... not worth my time. Not every single work can be a gem. So others should blame you when you don't care? Or I can jsut accept that there's no way my voice has any bearing on changing it from happening and jsut suck it up and play. If you aren't willing to make an effort, then you must bear some responsibility for the situation. You take a lot of what I say to strange extremes. No, I take it to the extremes I have seen. I have sat down and looked at an adventure where I was expected to read a page of text, and sat at others where I have two or more pages of text read to me. That may interest you, but it turns off the vast majority of players. I'm fine with that. But if they are there for me to interact with in some way that makes the module make SENSE that doesn't intrude on ending the time slot in the four hours, then I want to interact with them and actually play the game rather than have the judge read a list of "things I was supposed to figure out from NPC X." Again, please don't throw the "must finish the mod on time" argument back at me for this. No, what I am going to throw at you is the situation where an adventure is overwritten with such text, and the players fail to ask a "trigger" question, and the DM decides he can't tell them the critical bit of information because they didn't say the magic word. So in a fight where one of the PC's plays a summoning druid and has anywhere from 3-4 meaningful actions on his turn because of animals, then the table is in a lot of trouble? Seeing as I play a summoning wizard, yes. I take 10-15 seconds to snatch up three dice, drop them, call out numbers, roll extra dice, announce damage, and move on to my next summoned critter, and then my action. If you run a summoner you have a responsibility to the other players to know what your critters can do, and resolve their actions in a timely fashion. Shenanigans. Newer players' turns take time. People with multiple ations have turns that take time. People who do need to look something up (and even savvy veterans at tables NEED to look things up) takes time. I don't care if you're the best judge ever - the encounter time is greatly affected by what all 7 people at the table do - not just you. No shenanigans. A newer player gets a reasonable allowance. If you have multiple actions, or complex actions, or have to look something up, you should have prepared for it during the rest of the round. Again, you're pointing out an extreme. I say "combats take time" and you extend that to "if it takes 5 minutes for EVERY action" ... That's because I've seen people who will do that if given the opportunity. I've never seen this happen yet, so I'll tell you once I do. So again it comes down to your lack of experience. I've seen this happen and had no problem with it. If the missed interaction costs the group, then it's the group's fault. If the missed interaction cost nothing and the module was completed, then I'd start to wonder why it was even there in the first place. Wouldn't you? It would depend. A lot of such encounters appear just in case a group gets sidetracked. You don't seem to appreciate the factors that affect adventure design. Don't make me do something faster just to accommodate you. As opposed to people not doing something to accommodate you. When I judge, I give my players at the table my undivided attention for the full time slot. I believe that's what comes with the task of judging. If you can't handle that type of commitment, then you shouldn't BE a judge. But you don't think you should mention to the convention staff if they don't. Instead you want to make general comments about people and situations that nobody has any knowledge of but you, and that nobody can do anything about because the event is long since over. Really, what do you expect anyone on the boards to be able to do now that DDXP is finished? He is responsible for giving me my 4-5 hour time slot. If he can't handle that responsibility, he shouldn't be judging. That's what I give to my players when I sit down to judge and I'm very careful about tiem management. He is responsible to everyone at the table, not just you. He is not responsible for however much money you spent. When you forget the first and bring up the second, you are doing so at the expense of your responsibilities to the other players and the DM. I play in Highfolk primarily and I do notice that the number three is less significant when doing regional stuff. But in Core mods ... I notice a lot more meta-gaming in the regionals than I do in cores, primarily because the regionals have a greater tie in to the meta-orgs. Yeah - I guess that's where the core "series" mods should provide some element of familiarity, but the lack of it in the Bright Sands campaign arc was really disappointing. I started playing (as opposed to just DMing) just for the Bright Sands series. I have found, and exploited, numerous elements of continuity and familiarity. Maybe two years just isn't enough time to get such a story done. Regrettably two years is the most you can reasonably expect because of the rate of character advancement in the campaign, and the problems with new players not being able to play retired adventures. That said, there is a considerable effort to add a greater sense of continuity in the core adventures, especially those set in the Domain of Greyhawk. From gratuitously referenced NPCs to deliberately reused NPCs, there is a very strong desire to make them more than random episodes with no relationship to each other. Naturally this will require a PC to play a majority of those adventures, but even between PCs you should see a greater and greater sense of them actually taking place in the same area, even if they are not directly linked.
copper_wyrmling 02-20-07, 02:48 PM	The access tends to come around, often enough that you don't actually need to play a specific adventure to get it, because some other adventure will happen later and give it to you. You will however not believe my assurance until you've played longer and seen this effect for yourself. I remember stressing a lot about access my first year too, and not really believing assurances that it would get better (and in year 3-4 there WAS less access, they had not really fine tuned the favor/ar system yet...and it was STILL ok). This is especially true with magic item access. By level 8-9 most characters have more useful for their character access than they'll ever have the cash to spend, and that's almost certainly true if you consider that they'll keep getting more access as they play more. The same is pretty much true of feat or PRC access, especially with retraining in the game. *shrugs* There may be some regional variation on this. I've had some pretty amazing runs of bad luck with item access - like my demon-hunting L15 cleric who has never gotten access to any of the anti-demon weapon enhancements like holy, evil outsider bane, axiomatic or sacred (she does have a holy quarterstaff, she joined a meta-org to get it, back when they gave magic item access), because I managed to play every game offering those enhancements with my sorcerer. The same cleric didn't see access to the Animated enhancement or Boots of Speed until she was L13. Until recently, my L11 sorcerer had 25000gp in unspent funds, because there was NOTHING that she had access to that she wanted to buy. (I finally gave in and bought a stat-booster, which I didn't want that much but was better than having the gold sitting around doing nothing... and then, of course, I found access to three metamagic rods in as many games, one of which I couldn't afford due to buying the stat-booster. Ah well.) I'm hoping that moving the stat-boosters / vests / cloaks to Open access will lead to more interesting items turning up on ARs. We'll see. But I do agree with solbergb that new people tend to stress a bit more about access. It's also been my experience that they worry more about character advancement, playing up for better xp/gp ratios, and always having optimal parties. Most of the people I know who've been playing for a while (i.e. have a primary character who's retired or is close to it) are a bit more relaxed about such things. That's just a general observation, though, and it obviously doesn't always hold true. And regarding party balance... yeah, it's important to have someone who can do damage. But at any APL, if you give me a party with two arcanists, a rogue, and a cleric, I'll be a happy player. The closest any of my PCs has ever come to a TPK was an APL 4 table consisting of four melee bruisers where the only spellcasting was one level of cleric (party, meet bearded devils; bearded devils, meet party with no Heal skill and only CL1 cure spells...), and at APL 6-8 I played quite frequently with a group where the main damage-dealers were an archer and my sorcerer, and that worked pretty well.
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 03:36 PM	OK ... too much arrogance for me at this point ... Or perhaps I shouldn't, since most play is not at conventions. Most play for you. Perhaps you should consider leaving your opinion to the venues you play in and leave me to mine, thanks. Though I appreciate you trying to create my opinion FOR me. It isn't too late. You can stop him from saying more, and discourage him from doing it again. Tell me how I'm supposed to remove what he revealed from my memory. You're reading a mystery novel. Some kibitzer comes up to you and tells you the ending. Just how exactlydo you discipline the person enuogh to undo his "mistake?" You can't. The damage is done and you'll probably neer see that guy in another event at another convention. But you'll see a dozen of his clones. Having a card is prestigious? There are things other than cards that affect this choice. Check the Campaign Standards if you care to comment further on this aspect of the topic. In my opinion, the Campaigns model handles Prestige Class nonsense much better than LG does. The end. Then i guess the people I saw walking away from tables was my imagination. Perhaps you have an active imagination. Tables don't form the way you like them to form at conventions. I've been to about a dozen of them so far and in my limited experience, it's not easy to form the APL you want with LG. I've actually been turned away twice with preregistered tickets simply because I got outvoted for what APL we should play. So although you seem to have this knack for having perfect tables of nothing but happy LG players, the truth lies further in the middle. But you want to give people queer looks for choosing Radiant Cheezeweasel. That consideration works both ways. I don't begrudge players their choices if they're allowed to do so. It's not like my friend is forbidden from choosing Warhammer Proficiency. By all means ... continue to encourage players to pick "that no brainer prestige class for all clerics." It only furthers the argument. You wouldn't use the term "cheeseweazel" if you truly disagreed. I get the sense that you're just trying to be a contrarian because Ive mentioned some valid negative points about LG. If players are smart enough to plan to use their resources in an effective manner it means they deserve the benefits of learning how to do so. The decision-making process has not been taken from them at all. They may still decide to use some one-shot ability sooner rather than later, and in some cases it is merited. In rare cases. I hear "saving my rage for the end encounter" far more often than not. How much decision-making is really involved in that? *yawn* Then the DMs were running the encounters wrong. There is no auto-surprise. While I agree, that doesn't mask the problem. An adventure does not have to instruct the DM to follow the rules. Nope. And I don't have to appreciate an incompetent judge either. There is a certain minimal expectation of knowledge of the rules and commitment to running by the rules that is expected. Yep. Never disagreed with that. And as I said, to do so would mean that some encounters are impossible for some parties. No offense, but too bad. Have you counted up the number of low APL modules that currently use swarms? No alchemist's Fire or you rolled too low on your three flasks of it to hit AND you don't have a wizard? I guess that's a party wipe. Thanks for playing. So if the modules will encourage the use of things like swarms that happen to nail parties that totally forgot to get enough alchemicals to deal with them, then you should allow me my use of some encounters that get blown up by failed Hide or Diplomacy or other skill rolls. To use some of your apparently favourite terminology ... "that consideration works both ways." You already complained about issues with mustering, why would you want to make it worse? Apparently in your LG utopia there ARE no problems with mustering and everything IO've stated is completely false anyway. I've judged over 50 times in the past year. I had several tables I had to squeeze around critical skill checks. Congratulations again. When I catch up to you, I'll compare notes. As it stands right now, it would have to be well above average for this to happen in a mere 30 mods of judging for me. Maybe I'll defy the odds and suddenly see how critical skill checks seem to be, according to you. I'm not exactly holding my breath, though. I think I may have had 1 table failure in the last year, plus the one at DDXP. Neither was because of a lack of full BAB classes. Your experiences don't invalidate mine. I'd also say that my average is higher. So your data isn't goign to affect MY observation. I tell most new players of fighters to take Power Attack because offensive output wins games and because many VETERAN LG players passed this on to me. Now I see why. That just demonstrates how little experience you have. Which I've acknowledged. But I'm still quite capable of formulating trends with my limited data and my observations aren't invalidated by your experience either. I'm a huge hater of false modesty. It isn't false. But being as arrogant as you have been in your responses, I can see why you think that. If you aren't willing to make an effort, then you must bear some responsibility for the situation. Look at your responses to my complaints. You're handwaving every single one of them away and sometimes with extreme examples, no less. If you're so willing to just ignore everything I've said, then what good does it do to tell anyone if I'm THAT wrong? I have sat down and looked at an adventure where I was expected to read a page of text, and sat at others where I have two or more pages of text read to me. That may interest you, but it turns off the vast majority of players. I didn't realize you spoke for the vast majority. I was relating my personal experience. Perhaps you should do the same? Seeing as I play a summoning wizard, yes. I take 10-15 seconds to snatch up three dice, drop them, call out numbers, roll extra dice, announce damage, and move on to my next summoned critter, and then my action. Pardon me while I bow to your self-proclaimed awesomeness ... again. I must be the only one in the entire campaign who needs to occasionally look something up or make sure I have all modifiers accounted for. No shenanigans. A newer player gets a reasonable allowance. If you have multiple actions, or complex actions, or have to look something up, you should have prepared for it during the rest of the round. I see. Send me your RPGA number so that I know I have to have perfect memory and recollection of everything my character is able to do BEFORE I sit at your table and find out that "learning" is neither tolerated nor allowed. That seems like such a friendly environment to game in. That's because I've seen people who will do that if given the opportunity. I thought everything was perfect in your "I run modules as smooth and fast as any judge" world. Where have you seen it? So again it comes down to your lack of experience. Yep. I offer absolutely nothing of value to a thread discussing the observations of a one-year player SIMPLY because I have only ... one ... year ... of ... LG experience. I should just shut up, huh? You don't seem to appreciate the factors that affect adventure design. Nope. No appreciation whatsoever. Because, as you can see, my statements indicate that I find the entire campaign to be flawed and unplayable because that's what I said above. Oh ... except for those parts where I specifically point out that I ... didn't. As opposed to people not doing something to accommodate you. I don't see how my "just shutting up and playing" is me being demanding of accommodation. Is it a crime to have an opinion or to simply say "you know what? The LG tables I played at were subpar for DDXP?" But you don't think you should mention to the convention staff if they don't. Instead you want to make general comments about people and situations that nobody has any knowledge of but you, and that nobody can do anything about because the event is long since over. I don't get to pick and choose my judges at conventions. I don't find out who is judging until I sit down at the table, so my opinion of the judge's performance truly doesn't matter. There's such a huge demand for judges that convention staff will indeed take as many as they can get. So even if I raised high hell about the poor judge I had at Table X at Convention Y, do you really think it will change anything whatsoever? Especially when fellow RPGA members like yourself have a handwaved argument for everything I had issue with already? Really, what do you expect anyone on the boards to be able to do now that DDXP is finished? Nothing. I didn't ask for anything. I contributed to a thread that I felt I could contribute to meaningfully seeing as how I share the same amount of time as the OP does and I can look at the campaign through less-biased eyes than someone who has devoted ... say ... five years to it. I'd love to see my comments addressed but I'm fairly certain they won't be. It won't make me stop playing, though. At least not yet. Now if more successful "Campaign Style" campaigns come into play ... I'll gladly stop posting here, pack up my gear and go play in the games where the format is better. He is responsible to everyone at the table, not just you. I never said JUST me. I said INCLUDING me. you really paint this prima donna picture of me and it's grossly inaccurate. I'm one of the least demanding people I know. When I see a waiting line of players to get into an event that lacks judges, I volunteer to judge to offer more people more playing time. If that's the behavior of someone that you find to be demanding, then I guess we should jsut move on to other topics as we'll never see eye to eye on this. I notice a lot more meta-gaming in the regionals than I do in cores, primarily because the regionals have a greater tie in to the meta-orgs. Well we are each limited by our own observations. I started playing (as opposed to just DMing) just for the Bright Sands series. I have found, and exploited, numerous elements of continuity and familiarity. Congratulations. I call it "the centaur series" because it really didn't offer enough beyond that. It used practically nothing from the Sandstorm book. The desert played little to no part in the series at all. In nearly every module where there was a choice between serving Karistyne or Rary, it was nearly an obvious table consensus to choose Karistyne simply because she's a paladin. There were so many missed opportunities to make that a truly rich and engrossing story and in the ned, all I get out of it is "hey, at least I have friends with Centaur characters now." Regrettably two years is the most you can reasonably expect because of the rate of character advancement in the campaign, and the problems with new players not being able to play retired adventures. At least you said "regrettably." That said, there is a considerable effort to add a greater sense of continuity in the core adventures, especially those set in the Domain of Greyhawk. I'll believe it when I start seeing it more. I really tried my best to enjoy the Bright Sands series and I devoted nearly an entire convention just to make a new character for it and to play it with that one character and overall, the series came out lacking for me. From gratuitously referenced NPCs to deliberately reused NPCs, there is a very strong desire to make them more than random episodes with no relationship to each other. Naturally this will require a PC to play a majority of those adventures, but even between PCs you should see a greater and greater sense of them actually taking place in the same area, even if they are not directly linked. I'd be all for this and I'll reserve my judgment until I see them taking a better stab at it than they did with Bright Sands.
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 03:47 PM	But I do agree with solbergb that new people tend to stress a bit more about access. It's also been my experience that they worry more about character advancement, playing up for better xp/gp ratios, and always having optimal parties. Most of the people I know who've been playing for a while (i.e. have a primary character who's retired or is close to it) are a bit more relaxed about such things. That's just a general observation, though, and it obviously doesn't always hold true. My Sorcerer just got some pretty unique access to some stuff in the Tome of Magic. Yes it's not an optimal selection. Yes it's pretty rare. I want to try it out because it's just different - sort of the mentality that I want to do it simply because I CAN. But to continue to make the character playable and at least moderately contribute as a whole. I'll need more access to things specifically from that book. Now if I were playing in a Campaigns setting, I could sacrifice some of my character's personal customization options (Expansion slots) to assure myself of getting access to the feats and items I really want to see on that character to make him "work." This is the only access I'm "concerned" about because LG isn't very forgiving on takebacks. This is a case of the campaign offering me a fun option that I'd really like to try to take advantage of, but the rules of the campaign make the option less attractive. Granted, it's a very unique situation so perhaps I shouldn't bring it up here. And regarding party balance... yeah, it's important to have someone who can do damage. But at any APL, if you give me a party with two arcanists, a rogue, and a cleric, I'll be a happy player. The worst experiences I've had (failures or near-failures) have been when my group lacked some type of melee specialist who could do a lot of damage in a big hurry. And it seems to be scarier at lower APLs where you simply just don't have a lot of hit points or a high AC or any room for much error. at APL 6-8 I played quite frequently with a group where the main damage-dealers were an archer and my sorcerer, and that worked pretty well. Well, we're goign forward into Red Hand of Doom with two arcanists - my Sorcerer 5 and a Warmage 5. The rest of the group is fairly well balanced and I'm not overly concerned. I care less about perfect party makeup as I do about just being able to play the APL that I want to play at. I've played my Sorcerer up to APL 6 when I was APL 4 and had no fun at all. I was told to "stay in the back" and I'm really not interested in being a spectator when I'm trying to play.
solbergb 02-20-07, 04:09 PM	well...arcanists SHOULD usually stay in back, playing up or down. They contribute just fine from a distance. Just one thing on the last few posts. 1. It is ok to have opinions based on personal experience. 2. Just be aware that others have different experiences. 3. When people with longer, wider and more varied experiences than you have a different impression of the campaign, the likely problem is not the campaign, but the local group of players and judges that you play with. 4. It is possible to change the local style. I know this because I've done it, by not accepting behavior from my peers that I found unacceptable. My own pet peeves are 1. Not playing by the rules as a judge or author (autosurprise being a symptom, as are stupid statblocks). This doesn't extend to grey areas, where judges get to decide how it goes. 2. Unprepared judges. This in my mind is the fault of both the con/gameday organizers AND the judges. If judges refuse to run when unprepared, the organizer will do a better job of making sure they have time to prep. If judges USE the time they have and proactively work to get slotzeros organized and draft or final copies of mods in hand, the organizer doesn't have to work nearly so hard. 3. People running modules that they dislike. Just don't do it. I still see all three of these sometimes, but less than when I started 3 years ago. Leading by example helps (I try not to exhibit any of these behaviors) but so does speaking up when you're not happy to the people who are making you unhappy. (case in point - hearing spoilers on modules). To me it sounds like MysticRhythms has some legit complaints, but most are the kind dealt with at the local level rather than campaign level. (the one not in that category is his/her irritation with PRC multiclassing. That's something that is campaign specific, but sorry, a lot of people like it the way it is and don't feel that restricting multiclassing adds anything to the game except possibly even more artificial builds)
Mommy was an Orc 02-20-07, 04:19 PM	I'm a little confused how wife points or a judge needing to be doing other things with their time enter into the equation at a convention...especially to the point of only needing an hour and a half to run a four hour slot. "Anyone have anything special they need?" "Could we get done in two hours, because I need two hours for a romantic dinner before the next slot and I don't want to cancel my reservation?" One of the things I dislike is when mods get pushed so hard that I, the player, have no idea what's going on in the mod, either in terms of backstory, combat, or the motivation of NPCs. And that happens often enough to be a problem.
solbergb 02-20-07, 04:30 PM	"Wife points" or "Hubby points" don't apply to the "finishing fast" discussion in context of normal convention slots. That discussion centered more around weekday "home games" and groups organized around that concept, or it can apply to midnight madnesses.
smerwin29 02-20-07, 04:41 PM	I'm heavily invested in both LG and XE, and I know both parties involved in this ever-lengthening conversation. Both are good chaps, and I can see where both have had buttons pushed to keep the conversation going longer than it probably should have. To try to address the points and cut past any animosity, let me address some points. 1. LG being about the quest for more stuff. In a sense, this is true. Now whether this is good or bad is completely dependent on the type of player, and just because it can be a quest for more stuff doesn't mean people don't focus on the story. The Campaign model does remove that need to quest for stuff, and therefore it often does cater to players who like to focus more on the story part of the hobby than one the collecting stuff part of the hobby. Of course, that is why some people prefer Living to D&D Campaign. 2. Prestige classes are less prestigious in LG. Personally, I agree with this. I love how the D&D Campaigns system eliminates the ability to "dip" limitlessly in any and all classes and prestige classes. I think it cuts down on a lot of abuse. Of course, it is a personal preference, and I know some people's fun is seeing how powerfully they can make their characters by dipping. 3. Three swings and you are out - As a writer for both campaigns, I have to admit that the restrictions on how adventures are written are more stringent in LG, and that can lead to more similar module structures. But I think some of these restrictions are being lifted, which should help. And when you have 100s of adventures in a campaign rather than just 10s, you are going to see more overlap. 4. Skills being important. The Faction system is going to allow adventures to hinge more on skills than LG, at least in my case. I can assume that the Crimson Codex PCs are going to have a variety of skills because of the nature of the faction. I feel safe throwing in those instances where failing a skill check seriously impares a party's chance at success. I don't feel as safe doing that in LG. I still think that writers can do a better job of making skills be important without making it an automatic failure if a strange skill check is failed. The problem is, it is not easy to pull off. Too many times I have seen (or done myself) either making the consequences too severe or not severe enough. But that doesn't mean writers shouldn't try to reward players who focus on skills. 5. Fast judging - Simply put, people want different things. Of course I wouldn't want a judge to skip important parts of the adventure just to get it done. On the other hand, I have had a few judges who failed to finish the adventure in twice the time it should have taken, so I can appreciate a judge who can do that. I think 99% of the players appreciate any judge that can run a 4-hour adventure in 3-4 hours, cover all the bases that should be covered in the adventure, and make the players happy. Shawn
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 04:42 PM	One of the things I dislike is when mods get pushed so hard that I, the player, have no idea what's going on in the mod, either in terms of backstory, combat, or the motivation of NPCs. And that happens often enough to be a problem. Thank you for stating (more eloquently) what I was trying to voice with my "judges seem to always need to catch a plane" comment. This is exactly what my beef was - and at a convention, this technique of judging is pointless.
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 04:45 PM	To me it sounds like MysticRhythms has some legit complaints, but most are the kind dealt with at the local level rather than campaign level. (the one not in that category is his/her irritation with PRC multiclassing. That's something that is campaign specific, but sorry, a lot of people like it the way it is and don't feel that restricting multiclassing adds anything to the game except possibly even more artificial builds) In all honesty, I could probably live with having an armada of Radiant Servants of Pelor if I could get the other issues handled. As to it being at the local level, the most egregious offenses actually happen at the big cons. I do udnerstand your point about suggesting it's something other than a campaign level issue but the campaign rules don't discourage enough of the bad behavior and that's the point I was trying to make.
solbergb 02-20-07, 05:06 PM	Ok..the "big cons" are in my mind also a "local community". They are run by individuals who all have their own ideas on what constitutes adequate organization for mustering, getting zeros for judges, getting mods in the hand of judges and not picking flakes/adversarial judges in future when judges behave badly. Give your feedback to the organizer, and consider getting involved in their judge recruiting and training programs. Frankly, I think our local cons are far better run than the chaos I hear about at the core-only RPGA-run cons. This is probably a function of scale, geographic distribution of judges and the fact that the organizers are usually Circle members who are busy with other things too. My point is that on the scale of a convention, no matter how big, your voice has leverage and can be heard so the next one goes better. On the scale of the LG campaign, it's harder to change things.
Drezden 02-20-07, 08:10 PM	I have a fiancee and she and I are both adults. "Wife points" aren't needed when you spend plenty of tiem with each other and respect each others' need to have "your own thing." Ha ha ha. Yep - as I suspected - not married. Just wait a couple of years. A fiancee is not a wife. See how easy it is to just do "your own thing" after a couple of children. You will need wife points then. Oh, wait - you and your fiancee are different - you have that one special true love. Ha ha ha ha. Daren P.S. Sorry if comments seem a bit harsh. But having an unmarried person talking about wife points at all is like a new player to DnD talking about what works at APL16. Don't try and talk about it, until you have played it (or experienced it).
MysticRhythms 02-20-07, 08:44 PM	Ha ha ha. Yep - as I suspected - not married. *snipped the rest as it is irrelevant* I'm going to ignore these comments and focus on the topic at hand. Hopefully you can do the same.
Samwise 02-21-07, 12:41 AM	Most play for you. Perhaps you should consider leaving your opinion to the venues you play in and leave me to mine, thanks. Though I appreciate you trying to create my opinion FOR me. No, most play for the campaign. Go check the play history of an adventure some time, and compare the number of times it is ordered for a convention to the number of times it is ordered for a home game or game day. Tell me how I'm supposed to remove what he revealed from my memory. You speak up not to undo the damage, but to prevent it in the future. Perhaps you have an active imagination. Tables don't form the way you like them to form at conventions. I've been to about a dozen of them so far and in my limited experience, it's not easy to form the APL you want with LG. Or perhaps you just don't have sufficient experience. I don't begrudge players their choices if they're allowed to do so. It's not like my friend is forbidden from choosing Warhammer Proficiency. By all means ... continue to encourage players to pick "that no brainer prestige class for all clerics." It only furthers the argument. You wouldn't use the term "cheeseweazel" if you truly disagreed. Except I don't begrudge them. You do. So what if I think the class is overpowered? Most everyone who takes it thinks it is overpowered too. So what? You seem content to haughtily dismiss anyone who dares to make a powerful character, while complaining about anyone who dares to question your character builds. Apparently respect for what people want is solely one way with you. No offense, but too bad. Have you counted up the number of low APL modules that currently use swarms? No alchemist's Fire or you rolled too low on your three flasks of it to hit AND you don't have a wizard? I guess that's a party wipe. Thanks for playing. As it happens . . . One of the tables I ran at DDXP didn't have an arcanist. I simply noted this lack clearly for them as they were preparing spells, and they managed to deal with all the encounters quite easily. As for whether PCs should come up short like that regularly, one would hope they don't. But not everyone wants to "waste" money on consumables. Look at your responses to my complaints. You're handwaving every single one of them away and sometimes with extreme examples, no less. If you're so willing to just ignore everything I've said, then what good does it do to tell anyone if I'm THAT wrong? I didn't have to handwave anything, you did that by noting your limited experience. I thought everything was perfect in your "I run modules as smooth and fast as any judge" world. Where have you seen it? Yep. I offer absolutely nothing of value to a thread discussing the observations of a one-year player SIMPLY because I have only ... one ... year ... of ... LG experience. I should just shut up, huh? No, but you should control your attitude when people offer differing experiences. You speak of arrogance, but everything you say drips with arrogance as you proclaim that your experiences reflect the sum total experience of the campaign. You speak of having your views heard, but you refuse to acknowledge any opposing views or experiences. I don't see how my "just shutting up and playing" is me being demanding of accommodation. Is it a crime to have an opinion or to simply say "you know what? The LG tables I played at were subpar for DDXP?" It is not a crime, but it is a waste of effort to insist in one breath that your complaints at a convention will be irrelevant and demand in the next breath that your complaints on a message board be addressed and corrected immediately. I don't get to pick and choose my judges at conventions. I don't find out who is judging until I sit down at the table, so my opinion of the judge's performance truly doesn't matter. There's such a huge demand for judges that convention staff will indeed take as many as they can get. So even if I raised high hell about the poor judge I had at Table X at Convention Y, do you really think it will change anything whatsoever? Yes. I do. I know the convention staff. They take complaints about DMs very seriously. But you never even gave them the chance to deal with the issue. You just assumed they wouldn't bother. If you won't bother to try correcting the situation, you can't expect anyone else to do it for you. Congratulations. I call it "the centaur series" because it really didn't offer enough beyond that. It used practically nothing from the Sandstorm book. The desert played little to no part in the series at all. In nearly every module where there was a choice between serving Karistyne or Rary, it was nearly an obvious table consensus to choose Karistyne simply because she's a paladin. There were so many missed opportunities to make that a truly rich and engrossing story and in the ned, all I get out of it is "hey, at least I have friends with Centaur characters now." All of which were choices you and the people you played with made. I made other choices, and got a lot more out of the series. It seems like you are the one who missed the opportunities. At least you said "regrettably." Yep. That's because I like grand 5+ year story arcs. I tried that when the campaign started. People liked it - when they could finally reflect on it over the years and with different characters than the ones they started with. And I learned the difference between the pace at which I'd prefer to tell a story and the pace at which the campaign runs. (I also learned the difference between how much fantasy, sci-fi, and horror I have read and how much the average LG player had read, but that is another story.) So the choice is between a story arc that fits within the structure of the campaign and can reasonably be accessible to a new player that jumps in at any time, and one that doesn't, and excludes new players from the beginning or possibly the end of an arc. However much I might want to do something different, setting things up for them is more important. However I find your dislike of 2 year story arcs rather peculiar given your preference for the D&D Campaigns. I guess you aren't aware that they have a 2 year lifespan. How is that good for them but bad for LG?
Eric Anondson 02-21-07, 01:50 AM	I'm going to ignore these comments and focus on the topic at hand.The topic at hand being the one you hijacked off into the complete opposite direction from this thread's title and original post? :ahem: Really, out of etiquette you probably should have started a different thread.
MysticRhythms 02-21-07, 10:05 AM	Really, out of etiquette you probably should have started a different thread. The thread's main title is "Reflections of a Living Greyhawk one-year alumni." His reflections just happened to all be positive. I did point out that I agreed with his five reasons of why LG is a good campaign. I merely offered an additional five points of reflection. What seems to be correlated to "hijacking" is that I'm offering a few negative opinions in what people believe should be a "promote LG only" thread. I never said LG sucked - I actually believe the contrary and agree with the OP. I offered up the other observations I learned in one year of playing which I do believe are on topic with this thread.
MysticRhythms 02-21-07, 10:19 AM	1. LG being about the quest for more stuff. In a sense, this is true. Now whether this is good or bad is completely dependent on the type of player, and just because it can be a quest for more stuff doesn't mean people don't focus on the story. The Campaign model does remove that need to quest for stuff, and therefore it often does cater to players who like to focus more on the story part of the hobby than one the collecting stuff part of the hobby. Of course, that is why some people prefer Living to D&D Campaign. That's a good objective way of pointing it out. I should point out that it is my preference to not have to "quest for stuff" and that I'd rather just play my character. It's not that LG doesn't offer me that option. I just feel that for my preferred method of play, the Campaign model works better in this regard. The Campaign model encourages me to not worry about my character's stuff and focus on just playing my character more. That's one aspect of that model that I feel is an improvement over the LG model. 2. Prestige classes are less prestigious in LG. Personally, I agree with this. I love how the D&D Campaigns system eliminates the ability to "dip" limitlessly in any and all classes and prestige classes. I think it cuts down on a lot of abuse. Of course, it is a personal preference, and I know some people's fun is seeing how powerfully they can make their characters by dipping. Yep - you're right again. This again comes down to personal preference. I find it a breath of fresh air that there is a greater variety of character archetypes in the Campaign events I've played in. LG caters more to character optimization with people focusing on builds. That does lead to a lot of carbon copies as people try to squeeze out every bit of power in their choices. That's a wonderful level of freedom if that's what you're looking for in a campaign. I simply prefer Prestige Classes to be Prestigious and this is yet again one area where the Campaign model beats out LG in my opinion. 3. Three swings and you are out - As a writer for both campaigns, I have to admit that the restrictions on how adventures are written are more stringent in LG, and that can lead to more similar module structures. But I think some of these restrictions are being lifted, which should help. And when you have 100s of adventures in a campaign rather than just 10s, you are going to see more overlap. I do only have about a year and a half worth of mods to comment on, but I had noticed the three encounter paradigm rather quickly. I was encouraged by some aspects of the Bright Sands campaign but still feel that the mere existence of a Paladin offering the jobs to the players took away from the player choices in that campaign (my character really had good reasons to support Rary's choices but I kept hearing "who votes against a Paladin?" so often). It was a great idea that just needed a bit of a finer execution. I am encouraged by your statement that the restrictions on writing are slowly being lifted and I do hope things move away from the "three fights and you're done" model of many scenarios today. 4. Skills being important. The Faction system is going to allow adventures to hinge more on skills than LG, at least in my case. I can assume that the Crimson Codex PCs are going to have a variety of skills because of the nature of the faction. I feel safe throwing in those instances where failing a skill check seriously impares a party's chance at success. I don't feel as safe doing that in LG. I still think that writers can do a better job of making skills be important without making it an automatic failure if a strange skill check is failed. The problem is, it is not easy to pull off. Too many times I have seen (or done myself) either making the consequences too severe or not severe enough. But that doesn't mean writers shouldn't try to reward players who focus on skills. Having played 15 or so Campaign-style events now, I can definitely say that skills do matter more in that campaign. The writers of that campaign's mods have found an excellent balance of making skills useful but not being in such high demand that tables would fail on one roll of the dice. This is the third area where the Campaigns model just does it better than LG, but it has more to do with the high quality of writing in the modules for Xen'drik Expeditions rather than the model itself. 5. Fast judging - Simply put, people want different things. Of course I wouldn't want a judge to skip important parts of the adventure just to get it done. On the other hand, I have had a few judges who failed to finish the adventure in twice the time it should have taken, so I can appreciate a judge who can do that. I think 99% of the players appreciate any judge that can run a 4-hour adventure in 3-4 hours, cover all the bases that should be covered in the adventure, and make the players happy. The more I read about this the more I realize that it's really a personal issue of mine. I did make a point to go comment to the amazing judges I had for DDXP and to be honest, there were far more good than bad (though I played more Campaigns stuff than LG stuff). I should have made comment to the event staff about the poor experience I had. That was definitely my fault. I can't really fault the LG campaign if I experience a bad judge at the table. That's really comparing apples to potatoes.
Eric Anondson 02-21-07, 12:37 PM	The thread's main title is "Reflections of a Living Greyhawk one-year alumni." His reflections just happened to all be positive.Nice trimmage, but I'm not a fool. It's positive because the thread's title is "Reflections of a Living Greyhawk one-year alumni, or five reasons why LG Rocks" (emphasis mine, no period after alumni, its a comma) Quite a good reason why the thread was not started to be about what's wrong with LG. The OP'er even pleaded in post #11 (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=11532025&postcount=11):Hey, this is supposed to be a <3 LG thread!
Mattastrophic 02-21-07, 02:51 PM	Nice trimmage, but I'm not a fool. It's positive because the thread's title is "Reflections of a Living Greyhawk one-year alumni, or five reasons why LG Rocks" (emphasis mine, no period after alumni, its a comma) Anyways... my own five... -You meet people. Many more than you ever will at a homegame. -Portability of characters. I took my own guys from Virginia to Oregon seamlessly, and I picked up right where I left off. That rocks! -Availability of modules. 'Cause there are so many to play at any one time! -Battle interactives. They can be the most intense D&D experiences ever. You bring your A game, and then some, and hope you come out alive. -It's cool to be unique! I mean, my primary is a Virtuoso. Talk about a prestigous class. -Matt
Asaris 02-21-07, 05:09 PM	What I like most about LG is its flexibility. With a home game, you're meeting every week or every other week. With a campaign, you go away for a few months and *bam* your character is five levels higher. In LG, if I'm too busy to play, I can pick my character up again right where I left off.
Timlagor 02-22-07, 06:36 PM	My experiences of play in the UK don't mesh with yours at all so I won't go into that too much. Maybe we just have better people over here :P I really don't get your PrC argument. 1) You say you hate everyone playing RSoPs (or whatever) and being the same 2) You also hate people being able to mix prestige classes to get the customised character they want. It makes no sense to me at all that you should think a character can have multiple Prestige Classes under 3.5 rules. They simply aren't written that way. It would be nice to have teachers for things: the prestige should come from getting in and acts performed for the relevant organisation not from a pedestrian progression through the levels ...but that just isn't practical in a modular campaign. Of course "Prestige Class" is just a label and taking it lliterally seems rather strange anyway. You can get just as 'cracked out' without 'mutting' as you can with it ...now where's that link to the CoDzilla quote? [I personally think the XenDrik rules on multiclassing (last version I saw) are crazy and completely fail to do what they claim to intend but that's a different thread. ] ..and yeah: speak up when someone spoilers at you; you might not hear them again but someone will. It's not something I've seen after new people have had it explained. (there can be issues with things coming up in game that pertain to other modules but that isn't what you are talking about)
MysticRhythms 02-22-07, 08:25 PM	I really don't get your PrC argument. 1) You say you hate everyone playing RSoPs (or whatever) and being the same 2) You also hate people being able to mix prestige classes to get the customised character they want. In the first case, the Prestige Class (RSoP) is too easy to get into and doesn't really cost anything. It gives more abilities than just progressing as a cleric and dos so without forcing the PC to make tough decisions. It's a "no brainer" PrC - it gives you "stuff" and you don't have to pay for the stuff. It lacks prestige because everyone is doing it. Everyone is doing it because there is little to no penalty for doing it. In the second case, people dip 1-2 levels in an obnoxious number of Prestige Classes. This is less of a case of everyone doing the same hting, but more of a case that people are gobbling up as many abilities without giving much rhyme or reason to a roleplaying motivation for picking a "prestige" class. In this case, the builds aren't prestigious because the people sucking up the abilities just want the abilities. If the abilities were all made into feats, then it is unlikely that the Prestige Class would be taken. In my (admittedly) limited view of how I would expect things to work, I'd see some Prestige Class choices out there for roleplaying reasons and people would stay true to their Prestige Class. This is just my view of Prestige Classes and I'm not all that broken up by it. Personally, I'd feel "dirty" if I played a PC that didn't have a reason to enter a Prestige Class beyond some useful game mechanic it offers. I admit it's personal preference. I'd like to see someone enter a Prestige Class like Cavalier and stck with it. That's all. It makes no sense to me at all that you should think a character can have multiple Prestige Classes under 3.5 rules. They simply aren't written that way. It would be nice to have teachers for things: the prestige should come from getting in and acts performed for the relevant organisation not from a pedestrian progression through the levels ...but that just isn't practical in a modular campaign. I do agree that it isn't practical, but the way it is done in the Campaigns style of play is something I feel meshes better with the way I like to view the game. I don't begrudge people for choosing the options that are available though. I realize I'm probably n the minority in my opinion on this, so I accept that people should be permitted to play the game the way they enjoy as long as it's within the spirit of the rules. Of course "Prestige Class" is just a label and taking it lliterally seems rather strange anyway. It's jsut a label in the LG campaign or in the Rules as Written, but many DMs in home campaigns feel that the choice should be prestigious and have some roleplaying significane beyond the game mechanics. I accept that LG isn't intereested in doing that. You can get just as 'cracked out' without 'mutting' as you can with it ...now where's that link to the CoDzilla quote? I'm not suggesting that you can't build optimal characters without level-dipping by any means. It just makes the term "prestige class" look really silly. Why have any roleplaying elements tied to them whatsoever? Why not just make a list of them with their prerequisites and toss out all the roleplaying ties altogether then? [I personally think the XenDrik rules on multiclassing (last version I saw) are crazy and completely fail to do what they claim to intend but that's a different thread. ] You should take a look at the newer rules then. The only limitation they place on multiclassing is that any Prestige Class costs you 3 "expansion slots." Expansion slots are used to purchase things like non-core spells and feats and items. You gain an expansion slot for each character level. ..and yeah: speak up when someone spoilers at you; you might not hear them again but someone will. It's not something I've seen after new people have had it explained. (there can be issues with things coming up in game that pertain to other modules but that isn't what you are talking about) I'm definitely going to be more careful about this and be more of a rules cop about it. It's just so rampant at the big conventions that it seems like the norm rather than a breaking of the rules.
Sieylianna 02-22-07, 09:06 PM	In the first case, the Prestige Class (RSoP) is too easy to get into and doesn't really cost anything. It gives more abilities than just progressing as a cleric and dos so without forcing the PC to make tough decisions. It's a "no brainer" PrC - it gives you "stuff" and you don't have to pay for the stuff. It lacks prestige because everyone is doing it. Everyone is doing it because there is little to no penalty for doing it. The Circle also made Radiant Servant available to about a dozen deities. If you were stuck with a single deity and his domain choices, it won't be as attractive. Finally, the extra turning feat is more of a cost since DMM and DSP are closed than it was in the past. Ed
solbergb 02-22-07, 09:08 PM	I'm definitely going to be more careful about this and be more of a rules cop about it. It's just so rampant at the big conventions that it seems like the norm rather than a breaking of the rules. It isn't in most places. It probably won't be at yours if you speak up, and encourage people you know to also speak up. Regarding the PRC/multiclass thing, there are two "religious" points of view on this. Some people feel a "Class" is somehow tied to roleplay. "I am a Paladin". "I am a Cavalier". Some people feel a "class level" is just a string of feat-like things attached together in a package, kind of like a really big tactical feat. "I am a cavalry-type" (which might be Paladin, Cavalier or something else entirely, single class or mutt of 8 different classes). The people in the second camp find it incomprehensible that people in the first camp are somehow offended by how they build their character. They feel it is what the character can DO and how the character ACTS that defines the character, not how these abilities were achieved. It makes no difference to them if the weapon spec came from fighter4 or pious templar or favored soul, except that the latter two imply a connection with a divine being, and thus the latter two would imply a holy warrior or divine caster of some kind, where the former could be totally nonmagical. People in the first camp talk of "loyalty to a PRC", "Trainers", "how did you learn that", "Contrived roleplay excuses". They're projecting their attitudes to what these concepts mean on someone who does not hold the same attitude. To a "Classes are just a package of related abilities" person, what matters is "Am I good enough at mounted combat to say I'm a cavalry guy? Am I satisfied that my character's capabilities match my vision of what he can do? What should I do next to make the mental image of my character work mechanically." To a "The Class is the Profession" person, you only consider multiclassing or PRC'ing if you are thinking of changing the attitude of the character. Indeed you might think of yourself as a "Cavalier" even before you have PRC levels, mentally assuming the prereqs are a package with the class. From what I can tell, such people find it incomprehensible, a major roleplay shift, to abandon the "plan" to become one class or PRC and do anything else. Note that the "classes are package of abilities" people tend to resent PRC prereqs and consider them a major downside of PRCing. A character that cherry-picks several PRC's is paying with several feats and boatloads of skill points that he can't spend on other things, things that make his character better. They consider it a HUGE cost to have to "waste a feat" on something that doesn't fit their image of the character just to get to the PRC that does fit it (my Warchanter is still bitter about having to take weapon focus and combat expertise to be a warchanter. Those feats have zip to do with the class abilities of Warchanter and do in fact interfere with the "roleplay" since I had to work them into the story even though they didn't make sense). Most PRC's are just simple mechanical things - they're ways to multiclass more effectively (eldritch knight, arcane trickster, mystic theurge) or a way to do something normal with slightly different flavor (an arcane archer is very much like an "arcane ranger", all the way down to similar # of skillpoints a level). A dwarven defender is kind of a "heavy armor barbarian", with his "rage" being the stance, etc). Treating them like a profession is silly. Other PRC's ARE more like professions. Warchanter and Seeker of the Song and Sublime Chord radically transform what a bard does. Stonelord, Tatooed Monk, Menacing Brute give new abilities tied to flavor, and these abilities get better if you stick with the class. Even so - a character might take a "night course" in being a tatooed monk or become a "Master Black Belt". Only when a PRC is tied into the world of Greyhawk should there be any penalty for abandoning it (barring class restrictions, such as ex-monk, blah blah). Joining an organization like the Silent Ones could have consequences if you break its code. I can say that in real life, I reinvent what I do professionally about every 3 years, and my hobbies change faster than that. I can name literally dozens of things I once achieved some competence at but didn't stick with long enough to be a "master". In real life, I'd be the guy who multiclassed, took dips in PRC's and retrained a lot of stuff. This in spite of the fact that I've stuck with the same woman for the last 16 years, and stayed at the same company for the last 15 years. In real life there are also people who are "called" to a profession or role (such as parent), stick with the same hobbies and rarely experience change and can't imagine changing what they do. The fantasy world can accomodate both kinds of people. Neither way is "right". I in fact play both kinds of characters. (my arcane archer was always an arcane archer, even before he got his wizard level. My warchanter is much the same, and my cleric of geshtai and stormlord (now favored soul) of Procan are too and warmage is likely to be. But my monk12/wiz1 soon fighter1-2 is a generalist in spite of his class. He's been a soldier, a merchant, tried two other paths of martial arts/monkhood and a tried being a spy among failed professions, and he's mastered performance arts, acrobatics, Disciple of Discipline monk techniuqes and combat instruction. Along the way he went from very clueless about human behavior to hard-won abilities to read intentions from actions and speech, and his social skills have gone up and down, as he gained confidence, then became a bit arrogant, with odd humblings in the way. He doesn't consider himself any more of a "monk" than his friend who is something like monk2/fighter2/barb2/ranger2/pious templar4. His friend still fights mostly unarmed, has acrobatic skills, runs pretty fast, is religious and usually makes saving throws (but differently - he has still embraced the foolish path of rage and likes Kord) . Both are light infantry specialists who can do the sorts of things that monks do. He also doesn't consider himself less of a "monk" when he's monk12/wiz1/fighter2 than the monk15 peer. He's a smart monk instead of a wise one, his chi expresses in arcane ways instead of through introspection. BAB and saves are very similar, as are other things (fiery fists or flame blade...what's the difference? Only whether you are smart vs wise. Sometimes one is better, sometimes the other)
MysticRhythms 02-22-07, 09:09 PM	The Circle also made Radiant Servant available to about a dozen deities. If you were stuck with a single deity and his domain choices, it won't be as attractive. That only makes the problem worse. Finally, the extra turning feat is more of a cost since DMM and DSP are closed than it was in the past. Extra Turning still has value to a Turning cleric and there are other Divine Feats. I think it's jsut a problem I have with this particular Prestige Class. I wouldn't have minded seeing it go the way of the Master of Many Forms in the last LGCS update.
bhale187 02-22-07, 09:15 PM	I really can't figure out people who come to the boards and ***** and moan about all the negative aspects of LG. If you don't like it stick to home games, seems pretty simple to me. Why play a game that you are clearly unhappy with?
MysticRhythms 02-22-07, 09:17 PM	I really can't figure out people who come to the boards and ***** and moan about all the negative aspects of LG. If you don't like it stick to home games, seems pretty simple to me. Why play a game that you are clearly unhappy with? Because I'm not "clearly" unhappy with it. If you'd read what I wrote, you'd see that I actually like the campaign. I'd just prefer some elements change. I don't see why so many fans of LG defend every aspect of the campaign blindly, so I guess we're even.
bhale187 02-22-07, 09:20 PM	You say you like the campaign but all five of your reflections were negative.............
MysticRhythms 02-22-07, 09:21 PM	Regarding the PRC/multiclass thing, there are two "religious" points of view on this. I do agree with this. And you're right, it's just two different viewpoints. Personally, I'd rather they had no Prestige Classes whatsoever and just take all of those abilities and turn them into feats with prerequisites and let the player determine their roleplay path themselves.
MysticRhythms 02-22-07, 09:22 PM	You say you like the campaign but all five of your reflections were negative............. Read what else I said - especially the parts about how I intend to keep playing the campaign and how I agree with the original poster. The things I mention as negatives are items that I feel that the D&D Campaigns playstyle handles better and I do play Campaigns as well.
bitznarf 02-22-07, 09:28 PM	I really can't figure out people who come to the boards and ***** and moan about all the negative aspects of LG. If you don't like it stick to home games, seems pretty simple to me. Why play a game that you are clearly unhappy with? Because I'm not "clearly" unhappy with it. If you'd read what I wrote, you'd see that I actually like the campaign. I'd just prefer some elements change. I don't see why so many fans of LG defend every aspect of the campaign blindly, so I guess we're even. Its the Gnomes.
Samwise 02-22-07, 11:18 PM	I don't see why so many fans of LG defend every aspect of the campaign blindly, so I guess we're even. Just because people don't agree with you doesn't mean they are defending every, or any, aspect of the campaign blindly. You want people to respect your dissenting views, but you continually insult anyone who doesn't support them fanatically.
MysticRhythms 02-23-07, 12:34 AM	Just because people don't agree with you doesn't mean they are defending every, or any, aspect of the campaign blindly. You want people to respect your dissenting views, but you continually insult anyone who doesn't support them fanatically. You appear to have a liberal definition of the word "insult."
Samwise 02-23-07, 12:39 AM	You appear to have a liberal definition of the word "insult." Telling people that the only way they could possibly support the current campaign rules is "blindly" doesn't have much leeway to be anything but an intended insult.
MysticRhythms 02-23-07, 12:44 AM	Telling people that the only way they could possibly support the current campaign rules is "blindly" doesn't have much leeway to be anything but an intended insult. Suggesting that my use of the term "blindly" is insulting while ignoring someone else's use of the phrase "*****ing and moaning" is more than a bit hypocritical. Especially when I bluntly pointed out that I enjoyed the campaign.
Britt 02-23-07, 12:59 AM	Everyone knock it off. No one is accomplishing anything at this point. You've got multiple people saying they like the campaign and arguing about insignificant points. I don't see how this conversation is at all constructive at this point.