Post/Author/DateTime	Post
palebear 09-16-03, 11:08 AM	Am I the only DM who: Doesn't allow Player Characters to use the magic item tables as shopping lists?(I'll two Ring-of-Three-Wishes and a Rod of Lordly Might to go please...) Doesn't allow Player Characters to pick up any-old-template the feel like?(Shadow Walker anyone?) Doesn't allow evil Player Characters in a party of good characters? Doesn't allow Player Characters who choose to be evil to act like they're good? Am I the only DM who uses any common sense any more? Please feel free to add your comments and frustrations.
airhead 09-16-03, 11:18 AM	I feel your pain. Am I the only DM that does not have ALL the splat books? Am I the only DM that does not allow any PRC from any splat book that my player has read? Am I the only DM that does not allow "monster" characters? Am I the only DM that requires non-evil pc's?
sculyblast 09-16-03, 11:22 AM	well I don't let them look inside the dmg but there are sometimes magical items for sale. but the most likely way to get magical items is form tresure
sculyblast 09-16-03, 11:24 AM	sorry clicked to fast on the post topic botton. Doesn't allow Player Characters to pick up any-old-template the feel like?(Shadow Walker anyone?) well they can't pick up one just if they like but if it fits in their character and we are very high leveled I allow them templates Doesn't allow evil Player Characters in a party of good characters? well I allow them but the party is so far to throw them out theirselfs Doesn't allow Player Characters who choose to be evil to act like they're good? that is punished with a xp panalty and alignment change
Yuffie 09-16-03, 11:39 AM	Originally posted by palebear Am I the only DM who: Doesn't allow Player Characters to use the magic item tables as shopping lists?(I'll two Ring-of-Three-Wishes and a Rod of Lordly Might to go please...) No, I prohibit that too. When 3e first came out, I let people do it, and I realized how utterly boring and lame it was... not to mention that it inspired powergaming over purpose. Doesn't allow Player Characters to pick up any-old-template the feel like?(Shadow Walker anyone?) No, I very strictly limit templates, and as a general rule don't allow them. Doesn't allow evil Player Characters in a party of good characters? I'm fortunately blessed with good enough roleplayers that they can handle this in an interesting light, and create conflict that's intriguing rather than disruptive. Not all DMs are so blessed; I certainly haven't always been. Doesn't allow Player Characters who choose to be evil to act like they're good? And more importantly, vice versa. Am I the only DM that does not have ALL the splat books? Yes. ;) j/k I don't buy the modules, but I do try to keep up on all the official rulebooks. Am I the only DM that does not allow any PRC from any splat book that my player has read? I most certainly limit what PrCs are allowed. Am I the only DM that does not allow "monster" characters? I would allow a monster character if I felt it was appropriate for the campaign. Am I the only DM that requires non-evil pc's? As I mentioned before, my group plays "Evil" with depth and interest. Evil does not = mindless freak of nature who wants to murder, conquer, rape, pillage, and steal 24/7. They realize this and as such create interesting characters that are still viable as PCs... while still being evil in various ways. Generally, it's the people who play Chaotic Neutral characters in campaigns that prohibit Evil characters that you have to worry about.
Skeane 09-16-03, 11:45 AM	that there were prices associated with magic items so the DM would have an idea of what kind of 'treasure' was appropriate for a given adventure. DM's let players buy that stuff? Wow (and Ewww.)
PenderGrass 09-16-03, 11:46 AM	1. No shopping lists. Heck, IMC I don't even let them create anything beyond scrolls and potions. 2. All PC classes are subject to my approval - but I try to let them have anything they want (modified, if needs be). 3. I don't restrict alignments too much (least not AFTER the game starts) - but try to let them know they may rolling up a new PC shortly after joining the main group if their PC does not fit in with the rest of the PCs. 4. Again, I leave the RPing to the Players - if they are faking - then there is no reason why everyone wouldn't get a Sense Motive roll to become suspicious. 5. "Common Sense" is not as common as you may think it is.
Chobemaster 09-16-03, 11:51 AM	Originally posted by palebear Am I the only DM who: Doesn't allow Player Characters to use the magic item tables as shopping lists?(I'll two Ring-of-Three-Wishes and a Rod of Lordly Might to go please...) Doesn't allow Player Characters to pick up any-old-template the feel like?(Shadow Walker anyone?) Doesn't allow evil Player Characters in a party of good characters? Doesn't allow Player Characters who choose to be evil to act like they're good? Am I the only DM who uses any common sense any more? Please feel free to add your comments and frustrations. No, no, no,no,no
Kalanth 09-16-03, 11:55 AM	Originally posted by palebear Am I the only DM who: Doesn't allow Player Characters to use the magic item tables as shopping lists?(I'll two Ring-of-Three-Wishes and a Rod of Lordly Might to go please...) I never ever let my players look at the DMG. There are no magic shops on my home made world, nor are there any on the Dragonlance setting that I am playing on as of now. Doesn't allow Player Characters to pick up any-old-template the feel like?(Shadow Walker anyone?) I will let them propose the idea to me, but I usually do not allow any old template. In fact, the Half-Celestial that I allowed in my present game is the first one I have ever actually approved. Doesn't allow evil Player Characters in a party of good characters? Because I am playing using the Dragonlance Campaign Setting, I don't even allow evil alignments at all. Doesn't allow Player Characters who choose to be evil to act like they're good? Its ok if the Evil character has some compasion some of the times (in other words acts good) but an alignment change occurs if they act good all the time. Am I the only DM who uses any common sense any more? I would like to think that I do, and that I give fair and diplomatic answers to most problems that occur in game.
Yuffie 09-16-03, 12:01 PM	Originally posted by Skeane that there were prices associated with magic items so the DM would have an idea of what kind of 'treasure' was appropriate for a given adventure. DM's let players buy that stuff? Wow (and Ewww.) You'd be surprised. It's created an "entitlement to the best stuff in the books" mentality among some players... and some DMs, who feel that because now it's laid out in simple format, characters should have the best possible items in the DMG by the time they move on to epic levels... and naturally, it's led to a further sense of entitlement that every epic-level character deserves multiple artifact-grade items. There are a few threads about this at the moment.
donbaloo 09-16-03, 12:02 PM	Hehe, I hear ya palebear. Lots of stuff I read here makes me feel like a stingy DM. But if my players like and prefer the campaign world that way, is it really all that stingy? My PC's can't buy magic items other than the occassional potion or scroll because they're not available on the market. They love it, as a matter of fact they have no idea what is included in the entirety of the DMG's magic item lists. I've never allowed templates and own exactly none of the splat books. Actually, one player once purchased sword and fist for another DM's campaign. Its been incorporated into my pile of D&D books and modules and has been opened exactly zero times in any of our games. Never even asked for. An evil PC? Never had one of those either. They're not necessarily banned, definately discouraged though, but never had anyone really interested in one. And as for now Prestige Classes are not for the players, and haven't been since their advent. Never had a PC prestige class. Not saying we never will, but it will be an unusual circumstance if we do. Take care.
Skeane 09-16-03, 12:06 PM	Here's another: Am I the only DM who... Doesn't let players look at any copies of DMG or MM books whilst at the gaming table? It always annoyed me when I tried to describe a monster that pcs had not previously encountered, and some player would whip out the MM and try match the description to find out all he needed to do to combat...
angry_keebler 09-16-03, 12:07 PM	Originally posted by palebear Am I the only DM who: Doesn't allow Player Characters to use the magic item tables as shopping lists?(I'll two Ring-of-Three-Wishes and a Rod of Lordly Might to go please...) Doesn't allow Player Characters to pick up any-old-template the feel like?(Shadow Walker anyone?) Doesn't allow evil Player Characters in a party of good characters? Doesn't allow Player Characters who choose to be evil to act like they're good? Am I the only DM who uses any common sense any more? Please feel free to add your comments and frustrations. If only you were. And the world Can be a better place And the world Can be a better place For you And me Just wait And Seeeee!!
Chobemaster 09-16-03, 12:12 PM	Originally posted by airhead I feel your pain. Am I the only DM that does not have ALL the splat books? Am I the only DM that does not allow any PRC from any splat book that my player has read? Am I the only DM that does not allow "monster" characters? Am I the only DM that requires non-evil pc's? No, no, no, no.
Fixxxer 09-16-03, 12:33 PM	--Doesn't allow Player Characters to use the magic item tables as shopping lists?-- This is why we usually roleplay shopping trips. Rarely (if ever) will a shopkeeper say "Oh yes...this is a Cloak of Charisma." This is because usually, the shopkeeper doesn't know what to call it. He'll usually describe it as an item that makes people like you more. This is also a good time for a shopkeeper to try to pawn off inferior gear to the PCs...who may get suckered if they're not careful.
PenderGrass 09-16-03, 12:36 PM	This is also a good time for a shopkeeper to try to pawn off inferior gear to the PCs...who may get suckered if they're not careful. I hate your shopkeeper, Fixxxer, I really really do... he is a slimey, no-good, lousy, rotten, rat bastard! Death to Fixxxer's shopkeepers!!!! :b:
chris7476 09-16-03, 12:46 PM	...doesn't make insane house rules that change the system for no reason?
bitnine 09-16-03, 12:54 PM	Originally posted by chris7476 ...doesn't make insane house rules that change the system for no reason? Yup, you're alone in that. Once I ruled... Hmmm, I know I can think of an example here.... Erm. Ah, yes. Once I ruled away all of the gods and instead had the clerics of my homebrew world worship aspects of a single Creator. Then I proceeded to laugh maniacally as I replaced Time Stop in the trickery domain with Otto's Irresistable Dance. Then I danced gleefully as I gave the wizard a fighter's BAB. Wait... I didn't do the last one, I don't think. [Edit: Am I the only DM who doesn't state: "Well, all right. You can't play an evil character. But you can do evil things. We'll either say they don't shift your alignment or redefine them to be nonevil. Everyone cool with that?" ;) /Edit]
chrome_gnome 09-16-03, 12:56 PM	Sometime around the late '80s or early 90's there was a shift in the tone and attitude of D&D materials. The game began to treat the characters as though they were the main characters in a novel and therefor entitled to all sorts of DM generosity. No longer were character's supposed to die to wandering monsters not related to the plot of the story. The DM was encouraged to "fudge" his rolls to let the players barely survive. Monsters were supposed to flee or just happen to fail saving throws when it was needed to make the "story come out better" The powers that be in charge D&D core rules somehow got the idea that just because a player sat at the game table they were entitled to live the life of a storybook hero complete with fabricated close calls and dramatic rescues. The people writing the rules lost faith in the system itself in my opinion. They stopped believing that the dice and the rule mechanics would construct a story of fantasy and high adventure and instead laid it upon the DM to ENSURE the stories came out with certain endings. They reasoned that people didn't like having mid to high level characters cut down mid campaign and throwing the plotline into chaos. They thought it would be better to give the customers what they wanted.....instant gratification. Let's face the facts, for the first time in my 20 years of DMing there are people playing D&D who played a fantasy computer game first. People who are just now trying out D&D after 3 or 4 years of Everquest or some other MMORPG. People who are used to getting what they want rather than what they earn. Somewhere along this journey DMs were convinced by players and by the rulebooks that their job was no longer to try and kill the characters with nasty monsters and devious traps. They were supposed to put things in front of the characters that were beatable in order to generate the proper level based rewards to ensure the characters were "properly equipped for their level". D&D was created to be an environment where the rules dictated actions and the dice dictated outcomes. Simple as that. If the outcome was not what you wanted instead of blaming the dice you should look at the actions you took to make such an outcome possible. The DM was not supposed to throw instant death encounters at you to try to "win" by killing the players. He was supposed to craft a realistic world where nosy heroes get killed when they poke their head into some creature's lair uninvited. He was supposed to make a place where smart actions yielded good results and poor actions yielded poor results. Things made sense back then because the rules trusted a DM's common sense and players trusted the DM to play a fair game. Take a look at the posts on these boards and listen to the problems so many people's campaigns are having. It all seems to point back to the critical problem of not letting the players take actions and the rolling the dice to resolve them. It all seems to point to DMs who think they have to take every matter into their own hands to make the heroes in the story stay heroic. The game was never supposed to be so hard or difficult and when DMs wake up to this fact and get back to basics you slowly but surely start seeing happier folks. You see campaigns where the players respect and fear the adventure that lay before them. Players who appreciate every treasure they have or every XP they collected becasue they know they earned it straight up. No pulled punches, no fudged dice rolls for the sake of the story arc. Instant gratification is fun for a bit but it never quenches the thirst. So in response to your original question...no your not the only one who uses common sense anymore. Your just one of the few will admit it.
palebear 09-16-03, 12:59 PM	It's the magic item shopping that really gets to me though... I hear," Hey I'm ninth level, I should have a strength buff by now shouldn't I , C'mon at least +3!!" This drives me insane!! If the same character wants to burn campaign time and take an item creation feat AND THEN CREATE THE DESIRED ITEM, I have no problem with requests. It's when they think that +2 buffs should be readily available at every magic shop miraculously when they achieve 4th level that it gets out of hand. ...just venting. :D How about this: Am I the only DM who requires party members to READ the magic section of the PHB before allowing them to play spellcasters? ...who requires party members to defend each other if they're good? ...who doesn't start Player characters at 15th level? -pb
dafrca 09-16-03, 01:02 PM	Am I the only DM who: Thinks it is OK to have a good vs. evil world where there is less “grey” areas? Remembers it is just a game and if the players are not having fun it is not worth doing? Remembers that the respect of the players is earned? Does not try to justify all the rules using “reality” but rather admits some exist for game mechanics reasons? Who does not mind allowing the PCs to have some of “toys” they want once in a while? Who applies the same restrictions and house rules to the NPCs that are used on the PCs? Who thinks house rules are something that should be rare and well play tested and discussed before they are used? dafrca
palebear 09-16-03, 01:02 PM	Great post Chrome, I couldn't agree with you more. -pb
Yuffie 09-16-03, 01:14 PM	Originally posted by dafrca Am I the only DM who: Thinks it is OK to have a good vs. evil world where there is less “grey” areas? It's okay, I just don't find it appealing or interesting. I've tried it before. I just don't agree with it, and I wouldn't play in a campaign like that. But, if you and your players have fun, that's what's important. However, you're not playing 'regular' D&D at that point... much as someone isn't playing 'regular' D&D if there are not principles of absolute Good and absolute Evil. The balance can tip either way. It doesn't matter though. What matters is whether your group finds the experience fulfilling. If it gets brought up on the forums, I'll happily debate it with folk... but if people have fun, that's good. I mean, I agree that absolute Good and absolute Evil exist in D&D. That's a fundamental staple of D&D. Some things are Good and some things are Evil. What I disagree with is what some people define as "what a Good person does" and "what an Evil person does". Furthermore, as I see it... "there are evil creatures, and then there are truly abhorrent creatures of nightmarish evil". The existence of a "lesser evil" that doesn't necessarily deserve to be killed on sight only enhances the overwhelming foul-ness of the truly vile, despicable villains. Remembers it is just a game and if the players are not having fun it is not worth doing? I agree entirely. However, that doesn't mean that we all can agree on what's fun and what's not. ;) We can, however, agree that we're all playing to have fun. Remembers that the respect of the players is earned? I agree! Does not try to justify all the rules using “reality” but rather admits some exist for game mechanics reasons? I agree. Some rules need exist for game mechanics / ease of use. Who does not mind allowing the PCs to have some of “toys” they want once in a while? True. But I prefer to give my players interesting toys rather than ones that are simply "powerful". Who applies the same restrictions and house rules to the NPCs that are used on the PCs? I do the same thing. Who thinks house rules are something that should be rare and well play tested and discussed before they are used? I also agree.
Fixxxer 09-16-03, 01:20 PM	Originally posted by PenderGrass I hate your shopkeeper, Fixxxer, I really really do... he is a slimey, no-good, lousy, rotten, rat bastard! Death to Fixxxer's shopkeepers!!!! :b: Yeah, I modeled him after myself. :D Am I the only DM who... Doesn't have a group that includes a medusa, two yuan-ti, a drow, a troll and two gorgons? Doesn't make a habit of allowing bitter enemies in the same group at level 1? (meaning orcs and unicorns or sahaiugan and ...well, anything else) Spends any amount of time thinking about my game before 1/2 and hour prior to the next session?
PenderGrass 09-16-03, 01:36 PM	Spends any amount of time thinking about my game before 1/2 and hour prior to the next session? LOL!!! sheesh - no doubt, eh? How many times do you see posts like - "Players at my door - Please Help!!"??? It just cracks me up..... Also, if your shopkeepers are modeled after you - dang, according to your Journal site your mood never varies from - "****** off, dangerous, frustrated with the world, etc..." lol too funny
Fixxxer 09-16-03, 03:30 PM	Whoa! Somebody actually reads that?!? /me is suprised
PenderGrass 09-16-03, 03:44 PM	Whoa! Somebody actually reads that?!? You mean everyone DOESN'T read it? Doesn't everyone want to know who Fixxxer is? I mean - why does he eat brains? How did his sermon go? And who will or won't actually be sharing a hotel room with him EVER again? :confused: People want to know.:b:
Israfel666 09-16-03, 05:18 PM	Originally posted by chrome_gnome Sometime around the late '80s or early 90's there was a shift in the tone and attitude of D&D materials. The game began to treat the characters as though they were the main characters in a novel and therefor entitled to all sorts of DM generosity. No longer were character's supposed to die to wandering monsters not related to the plot of the story. The DM was encouraged to "fudge" his rolls to let the players barely survive. Monsters were supposed to flee or just happen to fail saving throws when it was needed to make the "story come out better" The powers that be in charge D&D core rules somehow got the idea that just because a player sat at the game table they were entitled to live the life of a storybook hero complete with fabricated close calls and dramatic rescues. In other words, D&D stopped being a wargame and became a roleplaying game, where you become attached to your character and do not want to see him lost to a bugbear (generated by the random wilderness encounter table) who rolled three 20s and scored critical hits against your players. You want people to say "Oh, my 27th character died. I'll roll another" instead of feeling that their hero fulfilled his/her lif with a glorious death, or feeling anger at the murder of their alter ego and seek revenge with another character. Fine for you. The people writing the rules lost faith in the system itself in my opinion. They stopped believing that the dice and the rule mechanics would construct a story of fantasy and high adventure and instead laid it upon the DM to ENSURE the stories came out with certain endings. They reasoned that people didn't like having mid to high level characters cut down mid campaign and throwing the plotline into chaos. They discovered that a carefully laid out plot and hearfeltly written characters and parties could be destroyed by a simple bad dice roll. They also realized that this was not a very fulfilling situation for all the work you (DM+players) put into your adventure. Therefore, they took steps to prevent this. You want DMs to be ruled by the dice, not to rule the dice. Fine for you. They thought it would be better to give the customers what they wanted.....instant gratification. Let's face the facts, for the first time in my 20 years of DMing there are people playing D&D who played a fantasy computer game first. People who are just now trying out D&D after 3 or 4 years of Everquest or some other MMORPG. People who are used to getting what they want rather than what they earn. Yeah, computer RPGs are so like today's DM. If Baldur's Gate II feels you have created a good character, it fudges the dice roll not to let him/her die [/sarcasm, but seriously, can't you realize that the dice-obeying way of playing you encouraged above is exactly the one you get in CRPGs?]. You want characters to become totally min/maxed character sheets, whose only purpose is surviving as long as possible against a monster-generating DM-machine, instead of having an IC purpose in their IC life. Fine for you. Somewhere along this journey DMs were convinced by players and by the rulebooks that their job was no longer to try and kill the characters with nasty monsters and devious traps. They were supposed to put things in front of the characters that were beatable in order to generate the proper level based rewards to ensure the characters were "properly equipped for their level". DMs were convinced that D&D is not simply a wargame, or better, that it has the *potential* to be more than a simple wargame. D&D is not a match between the DM and the players, who are both restricted by the rules. There can be no match between the Overgod of a Universe and a half dozen mortals in that universe. DMs' job is to create a fun and fascinating story, not to "try and kill the characters". Challenges, deadly risks and sometimes even a PC death can add to the general fun, but are in no way the only ingredient of the "D&D enjoyable session" recipe. D&D was created to be an environment where the rules dictated actions and the dice dictated outcomes. Simple as that. If the outcome was not what you wanted instead of blaming the dice you should look at the actions you took to make such an outcome possible. Am I (a player) to be blamed if I get three 1s straight during a pivotal encounter? Am I (a player) to be blamed if the dragon rolls a critical? IS MY CHARACTER TO BE LET DIE BECAUSE THE DM SHOULD FOLLOW THE DICE? The DM was not supposed to throw instant death encounters at you to try to "win" by killing the players. How can this sentence not contradict what you wrote a few lines above ("Somewhere along this journey DMs were convinced by players and by the rulebooks that their job was no longer to try and kill the characters with nasty monsters and devious traps. ")?. First you complain that DMs no longer "try and kill the characters", then you say that they should not "try to "win" by killing the players". You should correct one of the two statement, and let me suggest to correct the first because it was pure absurdity (as I replied above) Take a look at the posts on these boards and listen to the problems so many people's campaigns are having. It all seems to point back to the critical problem of not letting the players take actions and the rolling the dice to resolve them. It all seems to point to DMs who think they have to take every matter into their own hands to make the heroes in the story stay heroic. Yes, we "modern DMs" want our player's characters to live a long life and become heroes. That is the point of evasion fantasy. If I wanted the PC to be everyday Joes prone to die at their first mistake I would not be playing D&D. D&D is a heroic game, for Ao's sake. A game where you can play a daredevil, Wis 6 chaotic good halfling rogue who goes against *impossible* odds to save his friends... and survives. Because the DM allows it, and he allows it because he knows that this is the most enjoyable thing. The game was never supposed to be so hard or difficult and when DMs wake up to this fact and get back to basics you slowly but surely start seeing happier folks. You see campaigns where the players respect and fear the adventure that lay before them. Players who appreciate every treasure they have or every XP they collected becasue they know they earned it straight up. No pulled punches, no fudged dice rolls for the sake of the story arc. Instant gratification is fun for a bit but it never quenches the thirst. These may be the campaigns you like. You are entitled to make your own judgement. But so am I, and I have the same rights as you (ie: none) to say what the game was "supposed" to be. And I have to say this: even though I may enjoy making effective characters, I don't play Dungeons&Dragons to show that I am a great min/maxer whose characters survive endless battles. I don't play D&D to confront my skills against the DM's. I don't play D&D to feel the pitiable elation of writing "New item: dragonhide full plate" on my character sheet. That is instant gratification, and it goes away between two sessions. And it can all be destroyed by so little as a simple bad die roll at the wrong moment. I play Dungeons&Dragons because I love heroic tales. Just like in the past I played Vampire: the Masquerade because I wanted to create a story of horror and tragedy, I now play D&D because I want to create a story of heroic (or villanous) deeds and battles that will make fireside tales. To this end, I work as a player and as a DM. As a player, I make well-rounded characters who have a worthy background behind them and a great potential ahead of them. As a DM, I make memorable opponents, I pose challenging questions and I create razor-sharp moments of tension. And I would hate to see all of this ruined because a) my character is a flamboyant overconfident duelist who won't refuse a challenge, even an impossible one and b) my opponent NPC was a 20th level fighter and c) the DM cannot bypass the rules because (as you said) "rules dictates actions and the dice dictates outcomes". I would feel offended. A DM who acts this way is sending his players the message: "Your characters are less important than the dice". But I am not here to give the spotlight to the dice. I am here to give the spotlight to the characters. If this means to fudge the dice, to lower the challenges, to award more XPs than the rules say, I will do it. In this way, I and the people like me create adventures that rival with novels. Adventures we enjoy through every single moment of every session, because they are not spoiled by the terror of a random wilderness monster killing all of the party for some mechanical reason. In your way, you create endless wargames where players create and play characters with the only purpose to survive, not through asking themselves "what would my character do?". For this, the characters receive items and XP, like mine. The players receive nothing except the short satisfaction of a victory granted by an adversary (the DM) who could have destroyed them with but a single word. Sure, the DM has an easier time: he just has to apply and trust the rules. But how much does he lose for this *lazyness*? He loses everything that D&D has grown into in the last ten years, which, thanks to your post, I can say is a lot, even though I was not there playing yet. You enjoy this? Good for you. But let me disagree heartily and forbid you to suggest that the players like me are weaklings unwilling to face the risk of character - or character sheet? - death, and that the DMs like me are frightful cowards who do nothing but bury their players in XP and gold because they are too afraid to follow that harsh be-a-good-and-lucky-tactician-or-die rule. Because this is the message your post sent me, with all of its contempt and all of its i-am-holier-than-thou language. To all others: thanks for reading all the way through this rant.
Israfel666 09-16-03, 05:27 PM	Addition: I'd like to ask clarification about whether anybody know Chrome to be a troll or not. After I wrote my reply, I found this (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=97234) thread. The thread starter is obviously a troll (in fact the thread was locked) and I find it disturbing that Chrome approved Keebler's "tips"... if he was sincere, of course. If he was trolling, then I'm just annoyed of wasting my time in writing such a long reply.
Lord_Soto 09-16-03, 09:33 PM	Originally posted by Fixxxer Whoa! Somebody actually reads that?!? /me is suprised Well.. then apparently I'm not the only person who reads Fixxxer's blog. Am I the only DM who thinks a character shouldn't go 1st to Epic in less than a year real-time? Am I the only DM who thinks that prestige classes are for high level characters who earned them, not fifth level characters who barely meet the minimum requirements, and then only because they have been building for that PrC since before they ever rolled stats? Am I the only DM who still makes my players roll stats instead of point buy?
Skeane 09-16-03, 11:14 PM	Am I the only DM who thinks that prestige classes are for high level characters who earned them, not fifth level characters who barely meet the minimum requirements, and then only because they have been building for that PrC since before they ever rolled stats? Thank you! I award prestige classes sparingly as a reward for good roleplaying. If a player acts like a prestige class, I consider it. If they don't I flat out refuse them. If they 'deserve' the prestige class, I give them an adventure or encounter to set them on the path. Even at that, it's uber rare that I'd allow prestige at anything under lvl 8 or 9.
palebear 09-17-03, 12:08 PM	Israfel666, you make some good points but I'd ask you to consider that Chrome also has legitimate gripes with the trend in RPG gaming in general. I would never agree that the death of a character to a random wilderness encounter is necessarily a good this for a campaign, but the player knowledge that no such encounter will ever lead to player death is terrible. It is the inherent risk that makes encounters exciting. If the players are thinking,"Oh this is not an important encounter, I'm pretty sure I'm not in too much danger here." it is not a good thing. I think a lack of tension is equivalent to a lack of excitement. I am of the opinion that the recent trend toward 'instant heroes' in the D&D game system is a bad thing. Players who are born into the role do not value their characters as much as someone who has, after months of gaming, arrived at a heroic level of power with an in-game fleshing out of the flavour of their character. The recent trend toward starting at high levels (I would say levels 9-12) in many campaigns is a byproduct of this paradigm. The very fact that players (and many DMs) are now opting out of the 'earning your stripes' portions of the game and opting for a computer RPG simulation is evidence of this. Does this mean I think that DMs should be slaves to their die rolls? No. A significant portion of the DM's duties include making sure that everyone is having fun. If you've built an encounter around a single die roll and it goes astray, then that's just not good planning on your part. If, on the other hand, you've carefully crafted an encounter and the PCs want to try something that is ridiculously dangerous or simply foolhardy then I believe that the death of a player character goes a long way towards teaching the lessons of planning and patience. What's character death mean in D&D anyway, you're only as 'dead' as you are 'far' from a house of worship. The last resort of any DM is Rule 0. If after you've created a well planned campaign and your players have been model role-players and it still comes down to a series of rolled dice, then you have to decide which option will maximize fun , excitement, and further the storyline of your campaign. I'm not a rules mechanic, nor am I writing a novel. The story will unfold in an unpredictable manner and the mechanics of the game will, in part, be responsible for many of the twists and turns of the story. You said "Yes, we "modern DMs" want our player's characters to live a long life and become heroes.". You and I are in total agreement. I want my players to live long and become heroes, but many may not. I want my players to earn their hero cookie. I want my players to enjoy the ride as much as the title. And at the end of the day it's all about fun. If a party and their DM enjoy Uber-slugfests, I say let them slug away. If other want to go diceless, more power to them. I would like to play D&D just as I have for my whole life. I use the rules to guide the actions of the characters in my campaigns and when it gets dicey (pardon the pun)... I nudge, bump or interpret the outcomes to make sure we all walk away with a good experience. Whoah! That got long fast. Just some thoughts... -pb
chrome_gnome 09-17-03, 01:27 PM	Well some folks can get their feathers ruffled around these parts can't they? For the record I am far from a troll as I do not sink to name calling or direct attacks on people for stating their opinion and I do not post ideas with the intent to enrage other members of the boards. To the contrary I enjoy a spirited debate and I always conduct myself with the rules of fai play in mind. To settle any debate I am very serious in what I say and I have conducted my games with my current group this way since I moved to Georgia 11 years ago to attend engineering college. The group I play with now is comprised exclusively of people I met in college and my wife who attended a nearby liberal arts college. If you were to ask them the system is enjoyable, realistic and is prone to generating points of high drama and bitter defeat in equal fashion. I'll try to address the points raised about what I said as best I can. As for D&D turning into a RP from a wargame this point is actually kind of reversed. I have played tabletop wargames from Games Workshop such as Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy and even the much older Rogue Trader system. These rules are written with a miniatures are mandatory mindset which ironically is something that is FOR THE FIRST TIME in the history of D&D actually spelled out in the current version 3.5 books. The current rules were written with miniatures in mind to complement the recent and upcoming D&D miniatures line. In all prior editions of the D&D miniatures were always suggested to help clarify positional combat but were never written in mandatory terms in the rulebooks. I am well aware that you can play under the new rules without miniatures but the fact remains that the new rules are making combat much more tactically detailed than ever before. So I would respond that D&D used to be a roleplaying game and is now becoming more and more like a tabletop wargame. Regarding a character who dies to a randomly generated bugbear that happened to roll several critical hits I stand by my point. If players can benefit from crits inflicting massive amounts of damage from a rare dice roll against the monsters then they should expect the same in turn. Characters, it can be argued, are subject to many more rolls against them during their life but in my opinion the characters are also played by an intelligent player who makes smart decisions and cannot be taken out of the equation regardless of how much people think they are "staying in character". If the player is not going to run the risk of death from a random wilderness encounter you are stealing the joy of beating death one more time from the player. Is it harsh? Sure but then so are alot of things in life. People play to have fun and take risks with death they would never take in real life. Rewards are made sweeter when the risks involved are made real. Carefully laid out plots cannot be ruined by a failed dice roll. If a plot falls apart because of a bad roll or an unexpected character death then the plot was not very well thought out. My worlds exist with or without the player characters. While the PCs are the center of the world from their perspective they are just another set of fool-hearty adventurers to the other denziens of the planet. My plots and stories react to a player dying and keep right on ticking. Actions demand reactions and there is no single event that should bring a plotline to a halt unless you as the DM are railroading a story down the PCs throat. As for min/maxiing it is something that cannot be stopped as long as there are rules. Understanding and proper usage of the rules to their fullest extent is what provides the game with a "fair and balanced" dynamic. I expect my players to have detailed backgrounds, in fact we use alot of the 1st edition rules to help this process along. If the players try to put 2 dimensional characters in my face at the table they will meet a very unwelcome NPC response. As for the point of playing being trying to survive against the onslaught of DM spawned encounters...well that IS kind of the original point of D&D. Player actions deserve environment reactions, it is as simple as that. I don't claim to have any sort of magic this is the fun way to play D&D formula. I say how I play and why. People can take from it what they will but I make no excuses about my style. If some folks think I am in some sort of extreme minority then so be it. Should players be at fault if they roll 3 staright 1's during an encounter? Yes, because it is their actions that put them in a situation where rolling three ones would bring about a horrible tragedy. You must remember not everyone is trying to make their players play out a novel where the outcome is already known. My players and I see what happens and let he adventure write itself. I give my players tremendous freedoms and we are all rewarded with exciting outcomes because of it. As for contradicting myself, its not really the intention of what I wrote though I can see how people may not fully understand my point so let me try to expand on it. The job of the DM is to place encounters in the world that have the very real possibility of character death. Without such dangers the rewards far outweight the risks. The DM should always be using his wisdom and trying to challenge the players to the limit with LEAST AMOUNT OF FORCE required. Any halfwit DM can throw a dragon at the players at level 10 and burn them to a crisp. That is not fair play and is not in the spirit of the game. Having the players be picked apart by a goblin stronghold at that level is using the least to accomplish the most. The DM should always be asking himself, "Is there any way to get the same style of combat encounter with less individually dangerous opponents" If the DM is not trying to kill the players how else do you explain sending the party into a dungeon to fight kobolds until one side or the other is dead? I as the DM don't like seeing the players die, though sometimes their deaths can be humerous. I play the role of the monsters and the monsters, for the most part, want to kill the intruders into thier lairs. As for determining what is the right way to play...people are supposed to make up their own minds. I have played alot of White Wolf Vampire and Mage where die rolls do take a back seat to the story but the game rules are written from that point of view. I enjoy both styles quite a bit actually. D&D was meant to be a beer and pizza game of fun and fantasy. Don't believe me? Do yourself a favor and talk to Gary Gygax sometime if you can catch him on the Dragonsfoot message boards where he moderates the msg boards for his new game Lejendary Adventures or if you can see him at a convention. As for my holier than thou language I apologize if you took it that way. I am speaking my beliefs and I don't back down in the face of opposition in how I act or speak. People are free to disagree and I enjoy reading what people have to say and what people think. Freedom of speech has a cost and it is hearing what you may not like listening to.
Vaalingrade Ashland 09-17-03, 01:31 PM	Originally posted by palebear Am I the only DM who: Doesn't allow Player Characters to use the magic item tables as shopping lists?(I'll two Ring-of-Three-Wishes and a Rod of Lordly Might to go please...) Doesn't allow Player Characters to pick up any-old-template the feel like?(Shadow Walker anyone?) Doesn't allow evil Player Characters in a party of good characters? Doesn't allow Player Characters who choose to be evil to act like they're good? Am I the only DM who uses any common sense any more? Please feel free to add your comments and frustrations. 1: Some stuff on the list doesn't exist, but the rest can be bought because people like money. 2: See 1 except for the money part 3: Don't particularly care 4: see 3 5: I'm going to take exception to this. Originally posted by airhead I feel your pain. Am I the only DM that does not have ALL the splat books? Am I the only DM that does not allow any PRC from any splat book that my player has read? Am I the only DM that does not allow "monster" characters? Am I the only DM that requires non-evil pc's? 1:I got 'em all 2:See 2 from the previous post 3:See 2 4:See 3 from previous post.
Brknlf 09-17-03, 02:17 PM	Regarding a character who dies to a randomly generated bugbear that happened to roll several critical hits I stand by my point. I also want to make a point in favor of wandering (random) monsters. Dying at the hands of the bugbears (and other 'evil' sentient races) or bandits or magical creatures and beasts or even wild animals that are generated randomly really enforces the concept that leaving the settled lands of Pleasant Dale and traveling into 'wild' lands is dangerous. There is a reason all the humans (or other 'good' or civilized sentient races) are settled into their own area, it is safe, not inhabited by monsters like dragons, carrion crawlers, purple worms, etc. and living communaly allows for quicker mobilization of every in defense of their settlement against outside threats like maruading evil races, unintelligent wandering monsters that roam the wilds and the like. No one said adventuring into wild, savage, unknown, dangerous lands was easy - and random bugbear patrols showing up enforces the idea that the kids aren't in kansas anymore.
Israfel666 09-17-03, 03:58 PM	It seems we have very different views of what we seek in D&D... I mean, even more different than I originally thought. If I got it right: to you, the challenge and the fun lie in the encounters. You believe that PCs enjoy no particular advantage over monsters and NPCs except those explicitly stated by the books (4d6 drop lowest stats, adventuring classes). You believe that D&D is "a beer and pizza game of fun and fantasy", where enemy killing = character advancement. And playing a hero is a right to be "earned" through lots of adventures and kobold slaughtering. Your players' fun lies in overcoming these challenges with their combination of strategy and luck. Well, I disagree. To me, the fun lies in the story. The fact that D&D is a very combat-focused rules system does not mean that combat is the pivotal part of the game. Combat is something that happens because, in a medieval-fantasy world, a hero cannot truly earn that title without having defeated scores of powerful enemies. Since the purpose of my games is to play heroes, I expect characters to defeat them, and I take steps in order to make sure they can. I am not interested in playing "would-be heroes that died in the woods to a bugbear"... my characters should die only if their deaths are meaningful*. As a DM, I have better ways to make players feel the danger of wilderness - like ability damage, being reduced to -5 HPs, poison, disease, magic item consuming, etc. - without having to destroy their characters for this. And I do not consider it my duty to create an effective character and playing it in the most effective way - my first priority is to come up with a fascinating character concept, succeed in interpretating it and, last, representing it as best as I can with my sheet. Sometimes my character concept includes him/her being a good combatant, and I min/max (an exercise of intellect I enjoy a lot); sometimes it doesn't, as with an evil dwarf cleric/rogue I recently created, and I don't. You see, according to your year-long experience, I am not probably playing the "pure", GaryGygax version of D&D. This I can agree to, but I refuse to take blame for. I do not want to require *players* to be strategist - they should only be capable actors. Being a good min/maxer is optional - and being clueless about what makes an effective character IMO is not something that should cripple your roleplaying experience. Edit: I wanted to add about the "wargame" thing. I agree that encouraging miniatures is something that shifts D&D towards a small-scale Warhammer, and I don't like it either. But outside of editorial choices - because we are not talking about TSR/WOTC, but about individual DMs - try to compare the way of playing you envisioned and the one I envisioned. Can you say yours is less close to wargames and CRPGs than mine? *sidenote: as a DM, I don't allow "Resurrection for sale", and as a player, I don't ask party members to resurrect my dead characters. The ability of clerics to resurrect people outside of exceptional circumstances is something that definitely ruines my vision of the game world.
thalious 09-17-03, 04:05 PM	"Doesn't allow Player Characters to use the magic item tables as shopping lists?(I'll two Ring-of-Three-Wishes and a Rod of Lordly Might to go please...)" It is rare for my players to find magic items and even rarer when they find one or more just laying around "waiting" to be bought. "Doesn't allow Player Characters to pick up any-old-template the feel like?(Shadow Walker anyone?)" I don't allow just anything, but I am open to ideas. "Doesn't allow evil Player Characters in a party of good characters?" Play your character. If a players want to bring their evil character around the good party, go for it, I still expect them to RP their character and have reason why their character would go. "Doesn't allow Player Characters who choose to be evil to act like they're good?" I let my players action determine their alignment. Just because one of the play evil does not mean that they have to be Chaotic Stupid or Slapstick evil. "Am I the only DM who uses any common sense any more?" No, though it does that some DMs could not reason their way out of wet paper bag.
angry_keebler 09-17-03, 04:13 PM	I think I'm the last of the breed. Is it just me, or Am I the last DM who 1. Follows the rules, as presented in the books. 2. Allows anything which doesn't contradict the core rule books. 3. Never fudges dice rolls. Ever. 4. Has no problem killing the Party on level 2, because they got unlucky on some dice rolls. 5. Is never at a loss for quality players. 6. Allows all the Splat books, Dungeon Magazine, and other 3rd party rules, as long as they are not entirely retarded. 7. Allows Hitler Youth Lawful Good. 8. Has had fun with every decision, every session, every week, for the past 10 years of playing/DMing. 9. Has had the same core group of players for over a decade. 10. Believes that DnD is still just a war game at heart. 11. Is still awesome. I fear that I am...
palebear 09-17-03, 04:55 PM	Israfel666: I'm not sure if you directed much of your last post to me but I have a few thoughts. I would agree that we have different ideas on what the purpose (for lack of a better term) of the PCs involvement with a campaign should be. I absolutely think that the fun lies in the encounters, because the encounters shape the story. I don't necessarily agree that enemy killing is equal to advancement, but it is a fundamental part of becoming heroic. Playing a hero should be earned, not by "kobold slaughtering" but certainly through "lots of adventures". Strategy, luck, player actions and the prepared adventure all add up to the story which is the characters' lives. The characters contribute a part to the weave of the campaign tapestry, and once they hold sway over enough of the threads, the story becomes more and more focused around the players actions. I believe that players can feel railroaded into decisions if you know they will always win or always lose encounter 3. Fundamentally, the chaos associated with missed rolls serves to spice up the adventure and keeps the story spontaneous. These little surprises inject life into the campaign, and without them the DM is nothing more than the narrator to announce the next forgone conquest. I think that it's important in this discussion to point out that the players are the ones supposed to be having the fun. Their characters are merely tools to that end. If my balloon should pop, I buy a new one. If I lose my golf ball, I go back to the bag for another. Although I agree that no player character death should be meaningless, I will have to agree to disagree on what defines 'meaningless'. You say,"I do not want to require *players* to be strategist - they should only be capable actors." I would agree that we have fundamentally different views in regard to this. Actors only read what script they are given. No thought is required (or rewarded) and it is a fundamentally passive role. That is not to say that if you and your party enjoy this format, that you should cease. Fun is the goal and if that's what's fun for your group, I think that's great. I just prefer to have my players take a more active role in shaping the world/campaign. I also believe that my players enjoy the min/max and strategic components of D&D and would sorely miss these aspects if they were removed (I know I would). I've enjoyed this discussion and I think that we can chalk it up to the fact that D&D (most RPGs for that matter) are what you make of them. Thanks for your responses and I'd love to hear more about your ideas. -pb
chrome_gnome 09-17-03, 05:05 PM	That's the beauty of the system in its basic from. People can agree to disagree and both can still have a splendid time, which in the end is all that really matters. As for the wargame angle it is part and parcel to me and my group as we are all mechanical engineers by day. We love number crunching, reference tables and designing things. Even in our hobbies our schooling rears its ugly head :) Complicated rules and lots of charts are part of what we expect to be able to have the rules settle the various positions the players find themselves in. The D&D you describe is indeed more in line with Mind's Eye Theatre, which can be a real hoot with the right group. I know in Atlanta the Vampire RPG and live action both enjoy a large following. All of the ways of brining dead characters back to life still give my players "nine lives" as it were. I can understand your "make the first life count" style but it's just not what any of us grew up playing. Mind you I do not have a rez capable cleric in every little town they enter but rather they usually have to play "defend" the corpse for a session long trek. Dragging your buddies body out to get a rez while not letting the baddies eat it is part of the fun for us, hehe. The basic difference I think just boils down to how I view my players as players moving very complex chess pieces around a very complicated board. You and many others approach the player as more of an actor. No big deal, just different viewpoints :)
Stardrake 09-17-03, 09:33 PM	These rules are written with a miniatures are mandatory mindset which ironically is something that is FOR THE FIRST TIME in the history of D&D actually spelled out in the current version 3.5 books. Well, not quite. On the very cover of the first edition of DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS (Tactical Studies Rules, 1974) it says, "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures". Hey, your armor class varied depending on facing (the back was not as good). We had to work away from figures back then, largely because there weren't that many available! Things did change with AD&D, but that was later.....
chrome_gnome 09-17-03, 11:32 PM	Well I'll be snookered:) I guess you really do learn something everyday. I never had any of the, I believe it was called white box or white book stuff, which I think is what you are referring to. My first D&D set was the red boxed basic and the rest as they say is history. I think a better example of fantasy miniature RPG-lite is something like HeroQuest or Warhammer quest. In that game you drew cards to see what cardboard room tile was placed next, rolled to see what was in the room and either killed it, died trying, ran or moved forward. It was simple as can be and was tremendously fun and easy to play pick up games with complete novices. I always enjoyed using miniatures in RPGs because it seemed to keep the players minds focused on the matter at hand. Having the entire situation depicted in a person's imagination, while quite thrilling at times, can easily fall victim to player day dreaming or other unrelated thoughts. I don't mean to switch gears but one of my biggest gripes with the 3.5 edition books, that I just finished reading a couple of weeks ago, is that the miniatures rules seem more mandatory than ever before and I felt like the reason behind that decision at WoTC was not one in the best interest of the game. The decision was one, it seemed to me at least, to be a new business model in action where the company wanted to combine the collectable card rarity with a miniatures line backed by the best selling RPG in history. The older AD&D books never seemed like they were trying to market to you or trying to manipulate you in buying alot more stuff to play with. They offered tons of suggestions but it seemed like genuine advice rather than the tone I get from the new material. Of course maybe thats why TSR went under, hehe.
was_fired 09-18-03, 12:53 AM	1. Who flat out bans gate because it bugs me. 2. Who has the major form of currency in the world in the form of minor artifacts each worth 1,000gp which only have the power to be unreplicatable due to the fact they are minor artifacts and the amazing magical power of causing anyone annoying enough to try to disjoin them to get their save DC back at them plus five. I hate MD and thus it is no more. 3. Nearly never rolls random treasure instead simply grabing what the creatures would use leading to a long period of giving wealth out in fullplate and flaming spiked chains. 4. Accidentally allowed a custom magic item in which has a worth of over 90,000gp and allowing a 10th level character to buy this. To this day I can't figure out how he payed for it but I know he did. 5. Doesn't make every minor encounter a trap attached to a greater storyline 6. Laughs at players who ask for access to PrCs which I think are unballanced from any book. 7. Fondly recalls an elfs battle cry once being, "Were magically delicious!" Said right before he killed another PC with one shot of a bow freeing him from a curse.
Skeane 09-18-03, 01:09 AM	Personally, I think that the move to build a stronger link btwn minatures and D&D was a good one. Here's why: You've got a retailer that stocks RPGs and a publisher that makes the rpgs; D&D pretty much requires 3 books to play, and you're done. After you buy those three books, you've little reason to come back to that retailer-- and there's little reason for the publisher to do anything more. The stock goes stagnant... you get a couple of new players every now and then.. but people who don't own core books, aren't going to keep your store/publishing house open. Without something new, the store's going to focus on other products and the publisher is going to do the same. One solution: publish supplementary material... then you've constantly got new stock coming in and the biz stays alive for everyone. Only TSR did this, and it served only to muddle gameplay with so many rules and counter rules, that D&D almost went the way of the dingo... Another solution: publish adventures. I think this is a good move, but DMs are the only ones that have need for adventures, and they're a fraction of the the D&D market... add to that the number of DMs that prefer custom campaigning, and you've reduced that market still... Publishing adventures will increase shelf space allotted to product and keep product fresh, but won't boost sales spectacularly. Third Solution: take a page from the things that are successful. Look around at the products that have more shelf space and keep audiences coming back. TCGs and there like seem to do a pretty good job of it. But nobody wants D&D to be a TCG, they just want to get some of that like interest in the game... so they add sections on using minis and come out with a line of collectible minis. This increases product that all sectors of D&D core audience can purchase and keeps the game fresh on store shelves... seems like a good plan to me. Personally, I don't buy minis. I think there are times when having something laid out is handy, and I find that if you're pressed for markers a collection of coins, poker chips, erasers, or anything other freely available item does the trick just fine... regardless, I'm all for anything WoTC can come up with to infuse more life into the game and I hope the collectible minis do take off. Those of us that don't use them wont, and those of us that do can. ...And all of us can enjoy a break from all those useless splat books.
Nephet 09-18-03, 01:34 AM	Fudging dice rolls is a disservice to both the game and to the players. Either eliminate the roll altogether, or respect the result no matter the outcome. Wealth levels (and consequently the argument over magic shoppes) only matter if you use the CR system for challenges and xp awards. Templates and PC alignments can wreck a game and should be DM purvey. My philosophy is to allow as much as I can that still makes sense IMC.
Israfel666 09-18-03, 10:39 AM	Palebear: you seem to say that I run the risk of railroading players, and I surely do not deny the fact that it is the main peril of my playing style. I try to do everything I can to avoid this, usually by preparing as little as I can for the session and letting the players' choices lead the road towards the crossroads I prepared. And my players do not know that they will always *win* - they just know they will (out of exceptional circumstances) always *survive*. Defeat != PK, and while I make use of the first, I am very, very reluctant about using the second. I also employed the word "actors" because I couldn't find a better one (using "roleplayers" would have been pointless, since we obviously give it different meanings), but I can assure you that I do not intend to give passive roles to the characters. They do "read" a script, but unlike theathre actors, they are the ones who write them, session by session (btw, do you know the Italian "Comedy of Art" of XVII and XVIII centuries? Actors in those theathres played pre-estabilished roles, but decided their character's action in real-time during the show, with only a rough, generic plotline as a guide. This is very similar to RPGs IMO). And, while characters are a tool for fun, that does not mean they are expendable. If I were to make a rough existimation, I'd say that a well-thought character should go through at least two or three adventures before the DM starts considering the idea of letting him/her die. Chrome Gnome: Uuh, an engineer. I have one for a brother and I know what it means :D (I hope to become a mathematician, though, which may be almost as bad :devil:). And you got it damn close... although I never played LARP, my first and foremost roleplaying experience was Vampire: the Masquerade, and I have only recently switched to D&D, i.e. when the Drizzt and Time of Troubles sagas showed me that you can play in a combat-heavy medieval-fantasy world and still do much more than what you could do in a CRPG (after playing through Baldur's Gate I, Baldur's Gate II, Throne of Bhaal and Icewind Dale II, I've had all of the hack-n-slash I need ;), although BG2 had awesome plots and NPCs as well).
palebear 09-18-03, 11:15 AM	Hey Skeane, I'm not completely over my bout of hatred toward retail stores yet. This could be contributing to my attitude that if a change to the core rules greatest benefit, is that it enhances store owners profits then it is not a change for the good. Let's face it, an increase to the retail's bottom line generally associated with an increased cost to the player. With the obvious exception being older gamers (who have more expendable income), most gamers do not want to pay more to play this version than they did for the last. The increased reliance on 'squares' is an obvious attempt to contribute to the 'must have miniatures' mentality. This is not a turn for the better in my opinion. Hey Nephet, I don't fudge die rolls...I apply circumstance penalties on Armor Classes ;) I agree with you on wealth, and PRCs. I guess it all comes down to whatever works for that particular campaign. Hey Israfel666, I can completely understand your format. Back in second Edition I ran an Oriental Adventure campaign that was nearly diceless. Very little preparation and a sense of high adventure were the order of the day. It was a refreshing change from the dungeon crawls, but eventually we found much more excitment from the tactical dice-based combat and encounter systems that have been core to D&D. I didn't mean to dump on your system, but I think you got my point about actor vs. participant. :) Another note, sometimes it does take my players two or three sessions to die. They're body is generally being carried around from point to point in the meantime to the amusement and annoyance of many. :D Big laughs always accompany a body waiting to be Rezzed/Raised. -pb
Dungeon Master 09-18-03, 12:44 PM	First, actors are not passive, they interpret a script and character and add something to it. If they didn't, all actors would be exactly the same. A famous actor once gave me the advice to let an actor do a scene a couple times before giving notes, because presumably that actor was hired for what he/she would bring to the character. As for the increased reliance on mini's, I'm completely against it. It's one thing to make collectible mini's available, its another to make them mandatory. And sure, WoTC says they aren't necessary, but just look at the rules and you will see how much focus is being given to mini's. It's just a plot to make money, just like with PrC's. I guess I stand somewhere in between Chrome and Israfel. I don't like to kill players with random encounters because their death IS meaninless and my carefully constructred plot is ruined. If they are 5th level and decide to go bother the local giant tribe, however, then they are as good as dead and that is that. So, regarding random encounters, their death should only come as a result of bad decision making on their part, not dismal dice rolling. However, Israfel also mentioned something about a duelist going against impossible odds. If the odds are impossible, the players are going to die. Simple as that. If they didn't die, they would quickly realize that the odds weren't impossible. I have seen this happen: A DM who was unwilling to let characters die and it was not long before the players lost their enjoyment of the game. They KNEW they couldn't die until the fight with the BBEG, and even then were pretty sure they wouldn't stay dead.
chrome_gnome 09-18-03, 01:02 PM	Well I also take a great deal of time creating very specific wilderness encounter tables and take a great deal of effort in using NPCs to explain the relative danger involved in the various areas of the campaign world to my players. My players when deciding to travel know that by taking the shortest route to the destination through the Hilmaeshen Forest are accepting responsibility for the increased danger. They are risking death to get the reward of a trip that is 1/3 as long. I don't use one tabe for forest and one for hills and so on. I have pretty much named every area of my campaign world and have generated tables for each area specifically. I think some people were assuming it was possible for the players to roll a Green Dragon encounter or a Bugbear encounter in the same area and it just isn't that simple. I use a large table that is not just 1-20 it is more like 1-100 but you still roll a d20 to determine the monster. The trick is I haev various base amounts that are added to each roll based on the areas they are in. This roll has a small list of modifiers as well like weather and player actions like campfires and so on that can swing the roll somewhat out of the 20 monster range assigned to the area but only by 5 or 6. So I guess what I am saying is that my players choice of travel route is always their decision, as is their destination often times, and so the burden of wilderness dangers lie squarely in their lap. If they are worried they can join a caravan, hire escort mercenaries and so on. I just wanted to clear that up :)
airhead 09-18-03, 01:16 PM	Am I the only DM that likes to see D&D products move off of the shelves? Yes the company has to stay viable. Got my 1e stuff. got my homebrew stuff. No need to ever buy anything else. TSR goes bankrupt. I would like to see D&D stay on the shelves this time around. Maybe not to the point of MtG where you had to buy a box of cards every 3 months ($100++) just to be competitive.
palebear 09-18-03, 01:18 PM	Originally posted by Dungeon Master ...all actors would be exactly the same. . They're not?:D Sorry I couldn't resist. It appears we agree on most points though. Hey Chrome nice post. I experimented with a table system for campaign events one time. I had tables for World events, tables for local events, and tables for when certain encounters would occur. I worked out allright and also led to many surprising/entertaining situations. I like the randomness tables allow for. For instance, there is a chance the party could sneak through the swamp without encountering a black dragon.......it's a 4 in 20 chance, but it's still a chance. :D Have you ever tried using tables that affect other tables? I had one encounter that increased or decreased the likelyhood of an encounter on a seperate table. This was interesting too. Am I the only DM who doesn't allow players to absolve all their evil deeds by performing good ones? ...who requires Clerics and Druids to act in faith? ...who doesn't always let Druids run their animal companion like another PC? ...will not reschedule gaming sessions around block-buster releases?(C'mon can't we start at 10:00, LOTR two towers premiers tonight!!) -pb
chrome_gnome 09-18-03, 01:31 PM	I used to use tables that fed off each other but it quickly gets out of hand and the cross referencing got in the way of a smooth game which was the point of the tables in the first place for me. That is why I when to a single table per area that had the complete beastiary for that area on it from lowest power to highest power. The sliding roll concept I borrowed from somewhere else, though I am at a loss for where exactly at the moment. This way each table only took the front and back of a sheet, contained all the monsters without duplication of monster entires and had the applicable modifier to the die roll. I use a range like 10-14 Goblin Warparty to represent increased chance of appearance over a monster with a single entry like 20 Bugbear. The list can change in size as it is not rolled on a d100 as some people try to do which makes throwing together new monster types a breeze. I have been fairly happy with the results over the years but as I am starting a new campaign I am going to have to redo the lists fairly extensively. Oh boy :(
palebear 09-18-03, 01:33 PM	Originally posted by airhead Am I the only DM that likes to see D&D products move off of the shelves? Nope, I like to see it move of in favour of new products. And fortunately D&D is not competitive so there's no risk of players having to keep up with anybody. Regular injections of new material are always good. I buy most of the new stuff that comes out. I think that if they would just make sure it's not just rehashing the old stuff, that it would 'jump on the shelves' a bit more. Who wants to buy books that just compile old info that is probably in other books that you already own? -pb
Brknlf 09-18-03, 01:46 PM	Seeing as its come up and some people seem to agree ... I'm surprised no ones said ... am I the only DM who likes to use random table generators to make my job a little easier. Anyway, this is a little off-topic, but since random encounter tables have come up I thought I'd offer a little more depth to them as well. Sometimes in game, players like to hunt animals and I'm tired of them taking a day or two to try and use other skills to locate animals ... am I the only DM who includes normal animals as a fair portion of the random encounter tables? I added them because when the find something like a big game animal, they might like to hunt it. On the Al-Qadim mailing list, I was asking around for something to make animal encounters more interest (other than DM: You see a deer in the forest, Player: What's it doing, DM: Um ... foraging). So this biologist responded with a simple generator to determine what exactly the animals or doing. I thought this was great and have been playing around with it ever since. Here's the quoted portion of his response on the list (you can probably find the e-mail in the discussion list archives here): I guess I would probably approach it with on the one hand a set of organisms, and on the other hand, a set of biological interactions. So you could role on an Organisms table ORGANISMS (1d8) 1-3 Plant 4-5 Herbivore/Omnivore 6-7 Predator 8 Scavenger With your hit leading you to another table on which to role. And then a table of Biological Interactions. INTERACTION (1d6) 1-2 Individual Behaviors 3-5 Population Interactions 6 Community Interactions INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIORS (1d6) 1 Newborn or nest 2 Young at play 3 Territoriality 4 Family Interaction/enemy avoidance 5 Courtship 6 Hunting or Predation POPULATION INTERACTION (1d6) 1 Herding/Flocking/Swarming behavior 2 Reproductive interactions: male-male competition, male displays... 3 Signs of Herbivory/Predation in the landscape (herd trampling...) 4 Signs of past mortality in the landscape (bones, etc.) 5 Disease/parasitism 6 Edge of species distribution COMMUNITY INTERACTION (1d6) 1-2 Biotype edge (high desert, scrub, grassland, shrubland, savannah, cavern, forest, abandoned farmland...) 3-4 Local resource abundance (watering pool, salt lick, shade, soda lake, sudden rainstorm, filling wadi...) 5-6 Environmental Challenge (fire, sandstorm, pest outbreak...) Of course, I am myself a biologist, and very familar with life histories (not to mention current wildlife documentaries), and so can pretty easily make the leap from a specific organism to a kind of appropriate behavior it might exhibit. Others might have a harder time with such leaps.
palebear 09-18-03, 02:13 PM	After reading this board for the last couple of weeks, I'm starting to wonder: Am I the only DM who spends more time adventuring with his group than arguing with it? -pb
dafrca 09-18-03, 02:32 PM	Originally posted by palebear After reading this board for the last couple of weeks, I'm starting to wonder: Am I the only DM who spends more time adventuring with his group than arguing with it? -pb Nope, but I can see how it might seem that way around here. :D dafrca
Israfel666 09-18-03, 03:06 PM	I'd like to answer to Dungeon Master: the fact that players know (even though I do not say it openly) that their characters will not die does not mean that they stop feeling challenged. As I said in an above post, there are hundreds of nonlethal ways to make a character suffer the consequences of his actions - to pick up the above example, if a duelist challenged the Greatest Swordman of the Nation over a slight insult, I'd have the swordsman reduce him to 5 HP, disarm him, paralyze him with an ad-hoc created special attack, tear his clothes to pieces with his rapier and throw him half-naked into a busy street (or something equally humiliating). IMO that would be a far better solution than a PK. Besides, if a player *knows* that his character's action is stupid, but he goes on anyway because that is what the character would do, I think he should be admired, not punished, because he did... can we call it "anti-metagaming"? As for the table thing that has been brought up, my technique for random encounters is the following: everytime I'm wandering through a sourcebook or online message and I find myself thinking "I'd love to throw that to my players!", I note it down on a page of my DM's notebook, taking care of adjusting the challenge for a correct CR. When I feel the need for a random encounter, I look at the list and pick up something appropriate. This way I always get encounters I like, and which I have already thought how to manage. For example, my current "to-throw list" (the players are in the Underdark) includes: rust monsters, duergar psion, black pudding on the roof, anarchic phantom fungus, half-shadow dragon deep rothè, and more which I do not remember right now.
Pongolyn 09-18-03, 04:11 PM	So I would respond that D&D used to be a roleplaying game and is now becoming more and more like a tabletop wargame. Hear, hear, although I'd like to add that I prefer D&D's brand of roleplaying to any other tabletop wargame that claimed to include RP. However, I am seriously considering removing battlemaps from my game (thus eliminating "square" movement) and instead giving my players tape measures. What impresses me most is how easy that is to do since 3.0 came out (and Lawd, would it make aerial movement much simpler)! Pongo, sometime wargamer
LordArkan 09-18-03, 04:14 PM	Originally posted by Fixxxer Spends any amount of time thinking about my game before 1/2 and hour prior to the next session? Um.. its an hour before my next game session, and I just finished thinking about my game. (?) :angel: Of course, the only work I really needed for this week is converting Skull City and the Black Academy to 3rd ed (That's right, I'm running my party through Return to the Tomb of Horrors... should be fun :smirk: :D )