It isnt one of mine but its on a question of mine and I dont feel it contributes anything at all. its vauge and just says use this it has profit. with no explanation
SE is designed to let unhelpful answers sift to the bottom, but is only interested in actually purging answers that are Not Answers, Spam, or Not Welcome In Our Community, or the like.
"the Nevernever really wants to breed with us, it seems" - of course the faeries want to breed with us - we're far more interesting than the weirdness beyond the world.
His half-orc society actually got steamrollered as the Little Guy caught between two colliding empires, and he used his role as priest to revitalize the society later. When the player left island, the PC retired from adventuring to become the Raja's spiritual advisor (and try to turn the kid into someone the nation of half-orcs would actually follow, instead of a prissy lisping poser raised in a dragonborn state).
...then the rest of the party timeskipped 78 years and he died in the meantime.
@SimonGill or require a "simulationist-fetish" tag or a "rules-fetish" tag. So that the two camps can stop fighting and have a rebellious son marry a rebellious daughter.
Shh, don't you know that people play 3.5 because of character customization, which lets them make unique snowflakes, unlike that heathen 4e in which everyone is the same.
mind you, special-snowflakes has nothing on academic special snowflakes
Where people base their job on being an individual special snowflake with unique research talents working on a problem no-one else can work on unless they have a copy of excel.
> "A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect," roared the Humbug, waving his cane furiously. "Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables."
Much better.
(Internet arguments often make me think of The Phantom Tollbooth.)
Perhaps I should add the Island of Conclusions to my profile.
> “You’re on the Island of Conclusions.” “But how did we get here?” asked Milo. “You jumped, of course,” explained Canby. “That’s the way most everyone gets here. It’s really quite simple: every time you decide something without having a good reason, you jump to Conclusions whether you like it or not. It’s such an easy trip to make that I’ve been here hundreds of times.” “But this is such an unpleasant looking place,” Milo remarked. “Yes, that’s true,” admitted Canby; “it does look much better from a distance.”
The only way you can leave Conclusions is to swim through the Sea of Knowledge.
(Unfortunately, some folks --like the Humbug-- can swim in it all day and never get wet.)
King Azaz the Unabridged and his brother The Mathemagician quarreled about whether words or numbers were more important. They asked the Princesses Rhyme and Reason to settle the debate, but the Princesses said each were equally important.
So the brothers banished Rhyme and Reason to the Castle in the Air, and have never agreed on anything ever since.
It's not a subtle book, but it is very nuanced and clever.
@BrianBallsun-Stanton Oy! They were perfectly natural things any completely irrational person with a grease pencil would do given an immobile comrade that's off on a magic trip.
> “They’re very tasty,” explained the Humbug, “but they don’t always agree with you. Here’s one that’s very good.” He handed it to Milo and, through the icing and nuts, Milo saw that it said “THE EARTH IS FLAT.” “People swallowed that one for years,” commented the Spelling Bee, “but it’s not very popular these days– d-a-y-s.” He picked up a long one that stated “THE MOON IS MADE OF GREEN CHEESE” and hungrily bit off the part that said “CHEESE.” “Now THERE’s a half-baked idea,” he said, smiling.
@Magician I showed my players the Same Page Tool, and they said they think the group is comfortable enough to not have to formalize the social contract like that.
@BESW My pleasure. My group is currently ignoring it, but that's probably because I've put it up as a post on our G+ community page, and TECHNOLOGY HOW DOES IT WORK.
the 12.04 netboot installer would like to tell you that progress bars or indications are for sissies. You will wait patiently untli the machine gracefully moves to the next step, YOU PEON!
@BrianBallsun-Stanton LOL. I think that he's having a problem seeing the change in probability caused by the presence of Aspects, so he's just looking at the bare numbers.
@BrianBallsun-Stanton Go ahead and nuke, I think. At least I'm going to try to take anything else he posts to chat, but I think he's made of his mind, so the discussion isn't going to continue anyway. Sorry about the length.
I just never again have to deal with a system in which the victor is the person who found the best combination of poor mechanics. It's like playing with first-turn-kill M:tG decks.
See, I haven't ever run into that as an issue. Players communicate the kind of game they want to their DM by creating certain kinds of characters, and all of those various splatbooks provide you with the means to produce creative challenges for that game.
Besides, you forgot the mantra: The Most Broken Books Are Core.
See, I started helping my players analyze the system (and other systems) and was able to guide them through the transition process of being able to choose an op level and dwell within it.
It doesn't need to be all or nothing, you know. 3.5 has multiple gradients between "The party contains a Truenamer and a Samu-WHY?!" and "So this is my demiplane, and sometimes I visit the one the Psion lives in."
A combination of mature agreement and judicious banning of some spells or options works out great.
Aye, but your group has the knowledge, and I think the maturity.
3.5 can be a nightmare but it can also be incredibly fun. The amount of RAW options (not to mention massive homebrew community) provides such rich ability to bring concepts to mechanical life.
Here's a question for SE that I'm not going to ask due to Brian beating me to death with a floppy hat: What agreements and limits are needed to restrain D&D 3.5 to specific power tiers?
If you had a thread, I'd have an answer. The only trouble would be that other mod guy walking in and giving a denialism answer of the kind I've seen him offer up 'round these parts.
You're a rules-centric thinker, like myself but to a much greater extent. You study the rules, analyse them, understand them, evaluate them, and then decide whether to follow or change them based on that evaluation.
Myx, due largely to his experience with rules-centric thinkers who skip the evaluation stage, doesn't understand that. He is an intuitive GM who makes decisions based on reading group dynamics and feeling out appropriate actions in each instance, usually without generalizing policies from those instances.
Both are entirely valid but largely antithetical approaches to system adjudication.
See, the thing about the second one is that it doesn't produce helpful advice that you can then export to other groups, is difficult and finnicky to do right, and is very often adopted by people who frankly abuse the idea to the point of becoming nightmare DMs.
Which makes it difficult for me to endorse, ever, especially in a Q&A format such as this site.
What's amusing is that D&D 3.5 is such a mess from trying to accomodate everyone that it's become a fertile ground for such approaches to clash without recognizing their differences from the start.
@Lord_Gareth Yeeeeah, and "rules lawyer" is a dirty phrase for the exact same reason.
It attempts to be the One RP to Rule Them All, and fails miserably by thinking it can accomodate all styles under one roof.
You need SOME level of intuition in order to tease out what a group needs and wants, even if the end result is a social contract and explicit house rules.
Poor Zachiel becomes miserable when he tries to substitute rules for empathy.
I don't agree with Myx or you entirely. I believe that a group needs to both evaluate the system and figure out what their emotional and social needs are, and then attempt to fuse the two together in what is inevitably a system that can only work for that group (though depending on how explicit they are about it, the system could contain inferences that another group would unconsciously alter to fit its own needs, giving the illusion of a multi-group-compatible system).
Ignoring the rules is a disaster waiting to happen, and even Myx understands that; he just uses the rules as largely subconscious starting points from which to strike out on his own.
And you obviously are painfully aware of the need for group cohesion through empathic and intuitive tools, but use the rules as a framework in which to build that cohesion, kicking out only the most rotten of the wood.
Yeah, years of having to train my players away from some of the most mind-boggling narrative and/or mechanical habits has taught me how to interface with a group the hard way. Thankfully it was a very rewarding lesson.
I've received fairly intensive training and experience in facilitating courses that train people to become active participants in their neighborhood's social and spiritual upliftment. It's not the role of a teacher, but of a more experienced peer working alongside friends on a path of service.
This translates very directly to my approach to GMing.
I really wish that I hadn't been the only one to start exploring system mastery in my group, but more than anything I wish I wasn't the only one interested in exploring varieties of roleplaying experiences rather than making essentially similar concepts over and over.
As a GM, I am a collaborator working with other participants to achieve a common goal. Each of us has unique talents that can be discovered and honed through work and mutual support, and each of us will take on a slightly different role.
@Lord_Gareth mmm, it's always a shame when a group's members can't reconcile their different interets.
It's generally been solved; my DMs have let my freak flag fly, even in some cases where minor storyline tweaking had to happen. Sometimes in cases where the DM wanted to hand out, say, a universal bonus feat I've turned it down because I had a concept in mind and that feat doesn't gel.
This happens a lot with Force Sensitivity in SAGA edition, I'm sad to say.
Try to remember that just because you've seen an attitude or approach go sour, it doesn't mean it always must --and that some people feel the same about yours.
@C.Ross I notice you've got a few d20 modern questions so I pose this to you. Does buying an object or service with a DC15 or higher purchase DC cost the amount on the supplied table+1, or the amount on the table?
2) at the top of the tower in the present, they fight a passing tentacle and discover the orrery that Opened the Way. In the past, they see the orrery being powered by the thought cannon.
3) having been thoroughly whupped by the tentacle, they are visited by the ghost of their old companion who inspires them to use the thought cannon to close the Way.
4) they decide whether to bring the past cannon forward or to drag the present cannon over, and do so (lots of fighting either way).
5) they set up and use the thought cannon while Far Realm creatures try to stop them (skill challenge in combat).
