I mean, I can picture two meanings: one in terms of the game being fun to play, and the other being in terms of realism. But we are talking about people learning to do things like play Poker or ride a boat through shooting monsters with revolvers, after all...
@BanjoFox Shouldn't that reasoning apply equally to advancing already acquired skills, too? Not just the untrained --> d4 gap?
@kviiri -- Not necessarily. For me the hardest part of, say learning Python, was getting the basics down. Once I had that it was simply a matter of figuring out more advanced topics
...which came easier because I knew the general "this is how Python does stuff".
I know the hands, but not much more. Especially about Texas Hold'em, because when I was a kid, the basic five-card draw was far more popular among my friends.
But it doesn't really matter, I think arguing for realism in the Savage Worlds' stat advancement system is rather pointless because in real life I'd learn those things through rigorous practice, not shooting demons in the head.
@kviiri I'm still waiting to play my first SW game. BUt in character creation (and in reading up about the world), it seems very easy to create unbalanced characters.
It seems that if you don't go over the top, you will be under the ground.
I'm fine with my character learning stuff by bashing in demon skulls, because that's usually fun and convenient. The point being: when we're already there, why let realism bother us anymore elsewhere? It's not going to start making sense anymore.
@BanjoFox Does it need to be justified by anything else that it creates a good game?
Why expend energy over-analyzing a given system so long as it does not impede good game? My realism comment was one example of how it might be justified. Certainly not the only, or final solution.
Our time with Deadlands: Reloaded (based on Savage Worlds) had the worst system issues we've had so far in our group. Granted, many of those issues sprung from the fact that the system is designed to be more simulationist than we expected.
@kviiri -- there are a LOT of differences (as far as I recall) from Deadlands (classic). Wish I had kept my books... but they went away during my second or third purge.
Haven't tried them, and voted against introducing them in our group. I fear they'd slow combat down too much, even though they did seem tactically interesting.
@BanjoFox If you prefer story over mechanics, have you ever played some system that's narrative-oriented by design?
@BanjoFox If you get your hands on Apocalypse World handbook, I recommend reading it. It's written in this way where it not just states rules, but expresses intention behind them. Might give useful pointers for other RPGs too.
Back in Should we add a [rules-as-written] tag warning, and what should it say? we came to a general agremeent on a couple of tag warnings for the site.
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I am also not willing to say that I am necessarily against rules, or even a rules minimalist. I just prefer when i can roleplay something out instead of having to get a math degree to understand what I'm doing ;)
I wish I had more time to experiment with homebrewed D&D combat rules. I was playing the new Gauntlet arcade game reboot on Steam the other day & thought Why can't D&D combat rules be as simple and fast-paced as this? It's like D&D as a game is schizophrenic. You have the roleplaying persona and the board game persona. Once combat is initiated, you transition from role-playing into an "I go you go" board game.
Anyways, people have debated D&D combat rules for a very long time.
@tuskiomi it's a different question, and you can probably pretty easily mention "i've read [this other question] and my situation is different because of the different party composition [or whatever else materially affects the situation".
Rationed Carnage - When you cast this spell, target gains a pool of dice equal to twice your caster level. As a free action, the target may apply up to (spell level) dice from the pool to an attack, before the target makes the attack roll. The target deals that many additional d6s of damage. Dice not applied to an attack within the duration of this spell disappear. Lasts for minutes/level.
@GreySage The target does that many, yes. Might need tweaking, but the goal would be to have a spell worth spending slots on compared to fireball, without heavily shrinking the action cost compared to other spells.
(Also, at CL 20, casting as a 9th level spell, you'd have 40 dice in the pool, but only able to spend 9d6 per attack. You'd need 5 attacks to spend all the dice, but one of the attacks only gets 4d6)
@GreySage the idea is that the dice are spent, although I'm willing to arguments to the contrary.
Worst-case it does ~equal damage to a similar-level fireball with failed saves but with worse action economy and not AoE, best case double the damage but still no AoE... should result in roughly equal utility though
@Delioth Most 3.5 direct damage spells do either CL *1d6 damage for arcane spells, for CL *0.5d8 for divine spells. This spell has potential for twice that, although it is predicated on accuracy
@GreySage Yeah, but it doesn't have the AoE from fireball - if you deal half damage on a miss, then you're at CLd6 damage, but a fireball which hits 2 people and both succeed their saves will do about the same damage
@JoshuaAslanSmith Hi Josh - I was talking about all D&D editions in general. the basic format of D&D combat hasn't changed - it's roll for initiative (either collectively, PCs vs. monsters, or individually), then everyone take turns with their actions. I think players fall into two camps on this, those who get revved up when the DM says "Ok, everyone roll for initiative!" and those like Mike Mearls who wanted to chuck initiative from D&D 5th.
@godskook Yep, I use it for IC drinking contests, but with Charisma instead of Dex (Improved Initiative and other mods still apply). Whoever's turn it is decides what everyone's drinking, and every full "round" a new drink is introduced
@RobertF to me its really edition dependent, am I playing a 4e game where generally whatever class Im running will get ot shine and do a cool thing in combat and everyone can high five as we solve the tactical puzzle
or am I playing 5e where my fighter just makes 2 attack swings and clocks out till its his turn again and positioning is not very important
this can also come up in other systems, I love dungeonworld but encountered my first major issue gming for it when I wrote up a mini campaign based on the Darkest Dungeon videogame and its focused on exploring the manor and surrounding area and ridding it of all sorts of weird monsters
but combat is the least engaging aspect of dungeonworld
so it made one of my favorite systems really boring
@RobertF I find that, though the basic structure hasn't changed, there's a qualitative difference between a number of editions. If you go back to AD&D 1e or earlier, especially B/X D&D, combat options are quite limited — which makes combat much faster, and which I find makes the mode shift to “you go, I go” much less of a disruption to the “rest of the game.”
I'm wondering if a much simplified version of hack 'n slash D&D combat could be run w/out initiative or even turns - in real time that is. The DM says "You walk into the Orc mess hall. There are 20 heavily armed & hostile Orcs eating and drinking. They stumble to their feet and charge you."
At this point the DM places 20 Orc minis on the grid map of the room, and starts inching them forward one square at a time (maybe he rolls 1d3 to see how many squares they move). Players then simply announce what they're doing and do it w/out waiting their turn.
@RobertF At that point it becomes dangerous to any more "shy" players - they might not be loud enough to get their actions in (or to polite to talk over someone else, or...or...or...)
And if you're asking each player... you're using initiative (whether you call it that or roll it is irrelevant, but if every player gets a turn it's initiative)
@RobertF There are many RPGs that tackle combat in fundamentally different ways. The no-initiative/social-initiative method Dungeon World and Diaspora use is a very different take. Bloody Versus from Burning Wheel is completely different, as is Burning Wheel's more complex Fight system. There are many ways to structure combat that aren't like D&D.
@RobertF There's no turns. But it's not really free-form either, more like it has clear, strict rules (that bind the GM too) but those rules are more oriented towards narrative than crunch.
@JoshuaAslanSmith DW doesn't care about fairness. :) It works better for me when I think about spotlight, not fairness, but even then not when I think of spotlight as the primary goal, just a backup reminder to make sure everyone gets into the action. The primary goal for GMing DW combat is “what happens next?” regardless of who it involves, and “make a GM move.”
It also helps to let go of the modern D&Dism that everyone is a fighter, even if they're not a Fighter. Let/encourage/spotlight different classes doing things that aren't toe-to-toe combat, during combats.
@RobertF The basic rule of the game is "To do it, do it" - in other words, describe what your character is doing and then the group determines whether it triggers one of the game's moves. There's moves for a variety of situations of combat, action and social life.
@kviiri That's seems reasonable to me. If you go with completely free-form DW combat, maybe give each player a "time out" marker so if things are going too fast, they can pause the action.
It's not completely free form. There's still hit points and damage rolls for combat. It's actually a bit off-putting to me since I'm used to the fixed damage of Apocalypse World.
@kviiri I dislike the swingy “ping” that DW combat can have (“a hit! yay! roll damage… 1, versus Armor 3… uh… Next!”). It's not so bad because combat is so dymamic and fast-moving, but it's a small sour note for me.
@BanjoFox I was just watching that Youtube video last week. I commented on the final results - with a p-value = 0.001055 the 7-sided die does not roll fairly.
@RobertF Absolutely. We actually had a fight recently where the swarm of psychic Lawful-Stupid newtlings they were fighting (the newtlings were using a ballista as a close combat weapon) turned into an epic, but short fight, because the Monk successfully fictionally positioned for a parley, and then succeeded in getting them as allies.
(The newlings have become a major plot point, despite them originally being a random encounter.)
@SevenSidedDie I completely agree Im not running the system as intended when I do that, its a combo of my instincts trained to gm for 4e D&D and that im running for new rpg players who tend to run roughshod over on another
@JoshuaAslanSmith The roughshod thing I've dealt with in this group (we have a very enthusiastic player). The key is “cool! let's come back to that though after we find out what happens with [player]”.
Although if one player announces "I'm parleying with the Orcs" and another player says "Charge!", moving his fighter in and making attack rolls, could lead to interesting results.
@RobertF Notably, DW doesn't give XP for defeating things (with one small exception). Instead you get XP for doing the things that your character is about, and for taking risks.
DW exists in this weird space where it has certain genre expectations that only veterans would have but many of its rules are the antithesis of trad games so I run into completely different problems when running it for veterans or newbies
@RobertF Not a great example, because “I parley” isn't an action that's executable — not enough actual “okay, but what do you do?” description. But in general, that kind of conflict isn't — two people have declared that they're doing something at the same time, so now the GM says “cool, so [player 1], [player 2] is yelling and running forward, what do you think about that? What do you do?”
DW was sort of a letdown to me because it felt too much like DnD back then, and not enough like Apocalypse World. But I've grown more open to different games again.
@kviiri That's what DW was going for directly, yeah. I still wish there was a fantasy spinnoff of AW that worked just like AW but had fantasy playbooks and setting bits. I love DW, but sometimes I want the tight non-throwback dynamic of AW, just in a fantasy setting. Give me a Duke playbook and an Archwizard and a Hierophant!
@JoshuaAslanSmith I've taken a lot of inspiration from AW too. One thing in particular I like is how the game revolves around rules, and the rules don't get in the way. It's easy to GM - no need to apply the fiat constantly.
@SevenSidedDie Yeah. I started working on my own way back but I didn't really have all my understanding back then.
Blades in the Dark: core mechanics is your roll 1d6 per ranks in a skill which can get extra 1d6 from someone helping, spending stress (a resource used to boost roles or to minimize bad consequences), specifically accepting a bad thing to get 1d6 (devils bargain) or if you are rolling at 0d you roll 2d6 and take the lower
you only take the highest value die out of the pool
(except in the 2d6 lower for 0), no math required
then 1-3 is a failure 4-5 is a partial sucess, 6 is a full success
it also uses the clocks from Apoc but as circles divided into wedges
BTW are there any Adobe Flash experts in the house? I found an online dungeon editor on the Rusty Axe website (rustyaxe.com) but apparently the Flash upgrades have rendered it inoperable according to the developer.
@RobertF If you're into post-apo, I really recommend you to look into Apocalypse World. The book is a good read anyway. Not much fluff but excellent points on playing as a group.
@JoshuaAslanSmith Thanks for the game tip, I'll look into it when I have the time.
@RobertF But as far as online dungeon editors, Dungeon Painter is pretty solid (and they have a studio version which is awesome but neither online nor free)
@Delioth Cool I'll check that out. I do have a copy of Dungeon Designer I bought a few years ago. It's a great program, but trying to draw in lighting effects from the torches in the dungeon map has been a headache.
@godskook Impossible to start at level 3 with it without rolling for stats, or a magic item. But if you get to fighter 4, you get for first ASI and that can boost you to a +4 modifier
@godskook Well, actually now that I think about it, if you take the ranged fighting style, your ranged weapon attacks can easily get to +7. But for melee attacks, you're out of luck without magic items, rolling stats or waiting till 4th level.
@godskook Either really. The only way I know of to start with an 18 or higher is rolling for stats, starting at 4th level, or starting with a magic item. As for a +6 bonus, you could take the ranged fighting style, but aside from that, you would need an external bonus, like a spell or bardic inspiration. Or again, a magic item.
@NautArch Yup. that's also the highest score in the standard array. You could potentially get a score of 18 with a feat, but the only race that RAW gets a feat at first level is variant human, which only has a +1 to two separate stats as I recall.
@Delioth That's what attracted me to the Dungeon Demon dungeon mapper on the Rusty Axe website - it's free and simple + the lighting effects in the pics looks incredible. I emailed the developer, he said he couldn't support Dungeon Demon anymore. After the Adobe Flash updates, the program stopped working, which must have been years of work. :(
Now, that's all in isolation. If you have a group of players, it's pretty easy to get a +6 modifier. Bless or bardic inspiration will give you enough of a boost to reach +6 to-hit, or potentially even higher. And advantage is usually said to average out around +5 to your roll, though it doesn't change your to-hit modifier.
@RobertF I don't recall if there's a way to run flash programs with an old version of flash... but it might be possible to build a Virtual Machine which only has the last working version of flash installed, open a browser and run the program through there. That could help to mitigate some of the security problems with running old flash too (esp. if the dev will give you the flash files- then you can leave the VM without an internet connection)
@Adam Right. A 17 (which is possible to achieve), would net you a +3 for the stat, +2 Proficiency for a total of +5. You're just fishing for a spell/ability to raise you +1 to get a +6, and there are lots of ways to do that.
So, after checking through the unearthed arcana, there is a feat called blade mastery which will give you a +1 bonus to hit with certain weapons. It's a feat, so you would need to be a variant human to take it that early, and the DM would need to approve it. but a variant human fighter with 16 strength who takes that feat would have a +6 bonus to hit with most swords at 1st through 3rd level
That might be a little too much work for some lighting effects though. Dungeon painter will at the very least let you create arbitrary polygons and apply filters to them (like making a black area that's mostly transparent to create a shadow).
Alternatively, overlay the whole area in shadow and then cut pieces out of that layer to create areas of light
Address the problem where the pain is, not where you think the problem is.
Addressing this out of character, with that player, at -that- point is, imho, far more productive than attempting to work-around the situation.
The "pain" in this situation is that one player is outshining his team-mates...
@RobertF Yeah, you can add a glow but I don't recall how big the effect can get. I only used the glowy filters to blur edges for some pieces (I turned trees into holes)
But layering can help with avoiding glows going to places you don't want them to.
@godskook How that player is doing as much damage as the rogue, I'm not sure. At most, I would expect the fighter to do 1d8+5 damage, especially since they should only have 1 attack. Maybe 2d8+10 with an action surge if both attacks hit. The rogue should do something like 1d8+2d6+3 with a sneak attack.
"For instance in the game of "chicken" if one player has the option of ripping the steering wheel from their car they should always take it because it leads to a "sub game" in which their rational opponent is precluded from doing the same thing (and killing them both). The wheel-ripper will always win the game (making his opponent swerve away), and the opponent's threat to suicidally follow suit is not credible." - Wiki
@nitsua60 I'm moreso thinking debugging a problem that may or may not be CSS related, but the relevant HTML+AngularJS is constructed via a C# method embedded into the HTML file that's using reflection to pull configuration data off the object-types.
Yeah.....so, part of the problem is that somebody tried to branch a file back 3 months ago, without using branching, just in a new file in the same folder, with a slightly different name, but not referenced in the code anyone else was working on.
He did some tinkering on that code, while the in-use code saw quite a few revisions itself, but more bugfix-level stuff.
This does not look like it'll be fun to re-merge......
Turns out, the merging wasn't too bad. The branch nobody knew about except him was basically left untouched from the initial branching, so comparing that to what we have now was reasonably fast.
because I felt like it? XD that community is finite and constantly shrinking
when there is drama on one site, they try to go another site to avoid drama only to find that the drama, and other players they had issues with follow them haha
I've tried OWbN a bit, and honestly, I really don't care for the genre as set up in the chapters I've played in. Worst parts of high-school, gamified, is what it felt like.
I'd probably enjoy the WoD system more in a tabletop format with the pvp toned down, relative to what OWbN was giving me.
I do recommend Clevinger's Avengers and the Infinity Gauntlet, though. Been a while since I read it, but it's a funny summary/satire of the Infinity Gauntlet story being used as a loose framework for the MCU.
It includes Hulk and Doctor Doom arguing about who gets the front seat:
(The original full Infinity Gauntlet story is pretty good too, but not so great as a primer for the MCU version; it's largely a Silver Surfer story, for one thing.)
(If you're going to spend that much time reading a sprawling, thoughtful story arc from the Big Two, I'd recommend the Saga of the Swamp Thing or the Knightfall trilogy instead.)
I think so. 1 was really into it, 1 was a bit tired and 1 was hurting from some medical thing. But they want to play again and that's what matters most.
Hey. I have a question. I was in here a couple days ago and I think someone posted a lego picture of the moment in the Adventure Zone podcast when the wizard got the Poison Fire Sword of Doom. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
@BESW That reminds me of a game of Halo Reach I played... We were playing Zombies, and a friend had a hologram ability. He was the last man standing, and as a final move, he sent the hologram off the edge of the map screaming "GO HOLLY! GO GET HELP!!"
@Hypersapien I would have to unfortunately say no, I do not
Back in Should we add a [rules-as-written] tag warning, and what should it say? we came to a general agremeent on a couple of tag warnings for the site.
This post is a feature request directed to Stack Exchange staff to secure their assistance in implementing those tag warnings.
For rules-as...
Address the problem where the pain is, not where you think the problem is.
Addressing this out of character, with that player, at -that- point is, imho, far more productive than attempting to work-around the situation.
The "pain" in this situation is that one player is outshining his team-mates...
