You Probably Can't
At least, not in a Monk-specific fashion. I'll explain why in a minute or two, but consider that you may have to solve this on an OOC level, with the player himself, and not on the character's level.
Here's the Problem
Monks have a lot of reasons that the game's not enjoyabl...
I am looking for something that doesn't require a devoted GM, and instead either doesn't use a GM, uses randomly generated content, predefined content, or all-players-are-the-GM.
With OUTBREAK: UNDEAD, while it does require a GM, it requires one in a very light context. Most of the encounters ar...
ElNino, I saw the same thing. Your comment was originally posted as a new user Comic2something or other, then immediately deleted and reposted as you. You also deleted the "Phil, post Fiasco so I can upvote" comment.
@ElNino let's try to get off on a better foot here. Welcome to our community, I'm sorry your first experience was negative, but we are here trying to help.
I stand by my accusation of sockpuppeting. I have plenty of experience with them, and they have telltale behaviour patters. The mod tools will sort it out, so my say-so isn't necessary really.
@Eilleen quick chat primer: Click the arrow on the right-hand side of a comment to respond specifically to that comment. Press the "up" arrow to edit your previous post, but there's a time limit after which you can't edit anymore.
@waxeagle That was what I really didn't like. It started out uncivil with the duplicate tag (which I initially didn't agree with) and spiraled out of control. Frustrating, but sometimes it's best to just disengage.
@Eilleen That can sometimes just be an issue of group culture, you know? I had that problem teaching a newbie to 3.5; I kept forgetting that he didn't know stuff the way the others (sort of) did.
@waxeagle Yeah... I didn't mean you. The bad thing is, I didn't think it was a bad question originally. But the continued edits because someone cast a close vote and the comment stream made it so.
is that... when I ask "Can I do this?" The DM just asume my character is doing whatever I asked.... So things either turn out very very bad or they just end up making me a joke
To talk about sensitive topics like "The way you handle X event at the table makes me sad," it's best to have the talk somewhere else, somewhen else, so it's less urgent and immediate. Lets people be more objective.
so... the enemy is where i can't see it/.... so I asked if I could move through the coridor in order to see the enemy.... but turns out I said "Can I move through the wall"....
@Eilleen Okay...meaning no disrespect to your group, but that's just low on their parts. If someone treated me that way violence would ensue in an immediate and furious fashion.
@Eilleen I have! His name was Garret, and he's still held up in my player group as an example of a horrible, passive-aggressive DM. We hate him beyond words. I would honestly suggest that you find a game where that guy is not DMing.
because... they all seem to act naturally... so maybe that is something that happens at all of their games? The DM takes everything literally and if you make a mistake you get made fun of
Even if that's the way they normally play, you are new, and they should make allowances for that. Otherwise you'll never learn to play the game properly
@Eilleen It fits the culture of some groups, but I'll respectfully state my opinion that some groups are wretched and should just Stop Playing until they learn how to do so in an emotionally mature and respectful manner.
@Lord_Gareth the point is .... my other noob friend still thinks he is the best DM in the whole world.... because he DOES posses a lot of knowledge about the game....
On the other hand, I knew one GM who thought that the way to enforce role-playing was to make everything people said at the table be in-character whether it was intended or not.
@Eilleen A GM is not good because he knows the rules.
A GM is good because he can provide a fun, safe experience for the group.
Heck, a GM can be nearly clueless about the rules, and have the other players help him with that, and still be an excellent GM if he's good at creating fun experiences at the table.
Throwing you in the deep end of the pool and expecting you to learn to swim is brutal and detracts from everyone's fun. You're unhappy because you don't know what's possible, and everyone else is impatient while you figure it out or frustrated because you aren't contributing.
3.5 is a very difficult-to-learn system. It's highly divisive, causes all manner of fights, and may or may not savage your innocence beyond all repair and leave you as a cynical husk capable only of hate and sarcasm. I would seriously make careful consideration as to if you want to learn it at all - and I'm saying this as a fan. There's a lot of wonderful RPG systems out there and this one might not be worth the fight.
@Lord_Gareth oh and I forgot the best part.... That DM hates 4ed... something of 'it's too much of a video game' 'dummed down' and ... 'cero custumization'
@Phil - It's a D20 system designed for ease of learning and clarity of mechanics. It started as a 3.5 fix and rapidly became something else entirely, and it's glorious.
@BESW Well, Legend's very definitely Gamist in nature, with Narrativist elements present all up and down its skill system. On the flip side, the culture around the game is very much about coming up with your own fluff and story and how one mechanic can represent a variety of things. It was designed by the kind of people who play both 3.5 and FATE, if you get my meaning.
Geez, I may have to bounty this Mantle question >.<
@Phil A few reasons. Firstly because of the development paradigm (to quote: "We want this game to be so comprehensible that aliens can play it."). Secondly because Legend embraces versatility of character concepts and player agency - the rules are designed to help you, not restrict you, in bringing your characters to life. [Continued]
Lastly because by achieving mechanical balance without sacrificing versatility they've made no-stress mechanics - that is, if you pick things that sound cool for your character concept, they are cool and no further consideration on the number crunching need happen. You can devote your time and energy to fleshing out your character, worrying about characterization and backstory, etc.
I've used Legend to create drugged-up snipers, tunneling goblins with extradimensional stomachs, spiders that hunt with swarms of web-spitting necromantic hands, a knight with powers over earth and stone, a trick shooter from Earth and an honest-to-god Paladin, complete with Magic Glowy Power
Someone who uses multiple accounts to create the appearance of multiple people. Then they use those to all support the main account's actions/ arguments.
@Lord_Gareth Well I've downloaded it and had a quick glance, but I guess the types of things you are referring to would only become apparent after extended play.
It's unfortunate, because I actually quite liked the question I thought they were asking. There aren't many games that have exactly the kind of random generation they describe.
@BESW I'm not sure if it was justified. But they're weren't a troll—trolls are harmless. Sockpuppeting is actively damaging to the system though, and they were obviously somewhat practiced at it and knew how to exploit the site's tools to gain power they're not supposed to have.
@BESW I'm just not sure. I did try to reign in the inflammation, but it's hard to separate out the "you are clearly sockpuppetting and plagiarising" from "you are being an awful, nasty person".
@BESW - Kind of the same here. I'll admit I pursued it probably a bit more than I should have, I was trying to point out the inconsistencies and escalations in his comments.
Part of the latter is not giving them leeway when they misbehave, but it's also about not misbehaving myself. Suddenly they have no traction and just look like idiots or jerks. (And if I've misdiagnosed a troll when it's some other problem, I don't look like a jerk.)
@BESW That might have been best. But then I wouldn't have seen the confirming evidence, where they were switching accounts too fast and replied with the wrong one. I couldn't tell if they were a habitual sockpuppet or just a misguided new user until they did that. That was ample confirmation.
The problem is that sockpuppeting is a form of social engineering. They were using their trollish behaviour to make their sockpuppetry more effective and less obvious.
@Lord_Gareth I found the core character creation clunky and there's just something about the whole mechanic that doesn't 'click' with me. Not sure I can really describe it in any greater detail...
@BESW I like to think that Legend largely abolished Goblin Dice. I might not like the Skill Game system, but it does a great job of shooting Goblin Dice right in the face.
@Phil I agree with you on the character creation end of things for the majority of D20 systems. Legend's done quite a bit to streamline things but I'll admit that it can look intimidating at first. If you have any questions feel free to throw 'em up on the Stack - @KRyan, myself, and a few of the Legend devs are here.
@BESW Please note that the in-combat uses of various skills still have the Goblin Dice issue. However, since combat is when that's supposed to happen...
Plus using a skill isn't your entire turn. In point of fact it's only a small fraction of it, so if your Acrobatics or Vigor check doesn't go off you can still cast spells, heal your allies, beat faces in, etc
@wraith808 I feel like the re-asker needs to have the same burning desire, as I thought the user did, for a solid random-encounter subsystem like OUTBREAK has, in order to make the re-asked question generate good answers. I liked it, but I don't have that strong desire, and without it I expect it would get a lot of so-so answers about close-but-no-cigar RPGs.
@BESW Definitely not. The Skill Game system uses a combination of D20 rolls and a bidding system; successful rolls get you Tokens that are spent on resolving the encounter somehow.
@Phil It is! I personally don't like it, but I'm in the minority in the Legend community on that score and I wont' say that they didn't test it to death because they did indeed test the unholy hell out of it until their computer monitors wept blood .
@Phil Since I've got about seven minutes to kill, would you like an example of what I'm talking about with regards to character creation in Legend? Toss out a concept for me and I'll see what I can do about bringing it to life.
@SevenSidedDie @Problematic and I are talking about morality games in Fate Core, and speculating about a two-player shoulder angel/shoulder devil game.
Ultimate PvP: battle for control of the human's decision and make him EAT THAT CAKE!
@Phil I was going to say "oh absolutely!" but it's not quite true where I talk about one-shots. For the part of the answer that deal with the actual question (long-term games), absolultely. But because it doesn't have the same first-game structure (AW: "follow the PCs around for a day and make their life interesting") it takes totally different prep for a one-shot, though it works just as well.
@SevenSidedDie I'm interested in the long term bit. So how long term is long term? It doesn't seem that there is massive head room for character advancement once you hit the level cap and all...
@Phil There's more room for development than there appears at first glance. The thing about DW is that there is more happening in most sessions than in most editions of D&D, so though you level faster, it's at the same 'amount of stuff per level' speed.
And there's also the fact that you can start switching playbooks or retiring characters. By the time you start seeing the ceiling, you also start to understand why the ceiling has a trap door and wondering what's past it.
@Problematic The best thing to come out of that is this great review of Fiasco they plagiarised. It makes me want to play it again/more.
@Problematic Fiasco is one of the best games I've ever played. It's like mainlining pure gold, if that weren't a terrible, burn-y idea that is exactly the sort of poor choice you might find in a game of Fiasco. ;)
Fiasco is pretty awesome. It's a bit of a gateway game into story games, but it's awesome enough in its own right that if you never go further, it's still great fun.
I would recommend something like Polaris or Microscope if you want to scratch that particular story-gaming itch some more...
@Problematic It is pretty high level, to be sure. Different strokes for different folks (and different strokes to scratch different itches too)
That being said, if you're in a particularly RP-y group, you often find yourself diving deep into some situations and "taking control" of people a lot more than just fleshing out events in your timeline.
Shock is another good one if you want something higher-brow than Fiasco (although you can get really dark and serious in Fiasco depending on your group)
@Problematic cool. I hadn't paid for microscope yet, so I picked up both as PDFs :)
@JohnCraven I see kingdom as an interesting interlude in a fantasy campaign. You get to a new town. Time to see who the players are
@Problematic I think, and this is just me, sitting down and playing microscope for no good reason a couple of times might be the way to introduce it, then use it for real.
my first experience was using it for a real campaign setting, but with Brian taking the lead so no trouble there. But my second experience was playing it with my normal gaming group and it got...weird? which was fun because it was just for fun, but you've got to have a different atmosphere for it when you want to create a setting history
@waxeagle KINGDOM! I so regret missing that at GoPlayNW last year. I hadn't realised Ben was working on a new game until I was looking at the signup sheets.
@waxeagle Yeah, Microscope often goes weird/silly the first time or three a group uses it, unless you're all fond of Serious Roleplaying and approach it that way.
@ObliviousSage I've had weird/silly (Renaissance superheroes against the Lightning Pope! Juggalos in Space!) and I've had very dramatic (the Godhead Drug tragedy, angsty viking betrayals a là Game of Thrones).
I think it depends on how much the group members rely on humour to maintain/relieve their suspension of disbelief. Unlike some games, it's apparently impossible to have silliness just exist at the table-talk level.
@Problematic Fiasco is so much fun. There's a "D&D" playset around somewhere that I want to try sometime: you've just killed the dragon and you've got the hoard… and then the fiasco starts.
@Problematic Yep, there are details missing. You could sorta reconstruct it from what's in the review, like an archaeologist trying to figure out how to play Senet, but you'd end up playing an original game that didn't quite work the same.
@C.Ross I was, but unfortunately the comments in question got deleted so it's a bit of a moot point. Essentially, Myx was being a passive-aggressive snot. Again.
Purely for hypothetical interest, what exactly is the correct thing to do in circumstances when you think a mod is......not doing what you think they should do? Having to post your issue in a chatroom like this for public viewing sometimes feels like it could be a barrier.
As a firmly anti-charop player I see where mxyzplk is coming from—online the charop crowd is large and vocal, and that skews every online discussion into either being charop-based or needing to carve out a niche of no-charop context. I also understand why the way he carved that niche is offensive.
@SevenSidedDie The thing from my perspective is that I'm not answering as an optimizer, and certainly not as a player in "high-op" games. I'm not high-op, frankly. I couldn't handle it. When I give answers like, "You know, Monk just isn't a workable class," it's because it's not, because even if you cooperate and try to involve roleplaying and creative skill use it still freaking sucks.
But the other thing from my perspective - and this is the big one - is that Myx gets away with flaming, belittling, and condescension that would have my head on a spike.
He's a mod. His behavior is supposed to be exemplary.
@Lord_Gareth You have to define a context for "sucks" though. What I and people like mxyzplk assume when a blanket statement like that is made, is that it's coming from a charop frame of reference. Monks don't suck in every game, ergo there's more going on.
