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Post by Q Man on Sept 1, 2018 17:07:19 GMT -5
I come from more of a horror background with my influences, and, depending on the setting, I prefer a system which makes magic rare and more difficult to cast. I also want magic to be scary. This isn't a traditional science, this is meddling. I DO want an occult feel, and I want consequences. Dabbling in magical fields is dangerous, and corruptive. Wizards are prone to madness, particularly if they become seekers of power. These influences are in fantasy, from the evil nutsticks who tormented Conan, to Lady Galadriel in Lord of the Rings. This is, however, a game, and the wizard needs to function as a PC. There are spells which are mastered, fast combat spells. These have to be designed into the game. In the world of Harry Potter (stay with me), Harry was told never to use anything which he isn't sure how it works, or what is powering it. That isn't a direct quote, but it is close and it says something important as it relates to D&D. There is the magic which we produce, that comes from within us; and there is the magic which we don't. Figuring out which spells are which can be challenging, but not impossible. Spells which allow a person to know something that is impossible for them to know suggests an external source, but we can also identify some spells which are permanent at lower levels or even spells which have longer durations without the wizard's concentration being taxed. The problem with the system's use in OD&D is that the three booklets only give you a couple of casting times, we are either on our own or we can just look them up in the AD&D handbooks or just make them up yourself. (I haven't read many OD&D supplements, they're probably in one of those too). Anything that takes longer than 1 round is probably a ritual, and if it takes a turn to cast, it is definitely a ritual! That is only ten minutes. This spell is not something that you can use in combat. They are Strategic in nature, vs. tactical. They also speed along different aspects or make things easier during turn-based stages of play. The OP only gave a tiny example of them, and I don't think that Light should be on there, as the duration and the power of the spell is too low, but Continual Light should be! Something is there which must be dismissed. What happens if it isn't? What is causing this light to be where it cannot be? This is a magic item that any lowly 3rd level wizard can cast, why haven't they replaced torches and lanterns? You'd think that if this spell was without risk, that you'd find them everywhere! It can also be weaponized by casting it directly at the eyes which is akin to torture and qualify as an evil act in my book. This is all personal interpretation, of course. A way of placing limits on spells which can be abused or ones which we believe are flawed and would mess up the world. As far as enemy mages are concerned, they cast what I want them to cast. I might turn to the books for inspiration, but I'm not going to stop the game to look up a spell effect that comes to me during play either. Is it fair? Considering the mental state of the enemy mage and his approaching death, yeah. I think that it is fair. I kind of think that that rule that says that the DM must always be fair is new school. There are way too many rules, if I want a slimy little weasel of a mage to run from the party into a cemetery, and cause all sorts of chaos while the players are powerless to stop him until the stage is set, that is what I'm gonna do. I like the horror aspects and I like a lot of the other points you made. IMO the house rule I was commenting on only accomplishes the neutering of the character class of magic-user and fails to accomplish the things that you would like to accomplish. The character is 100 miles from the nearest city and wants to cast a spell, where does he go to pay to be allowed to cast his spell? To me that makes no in game sense. Is someone following each mage around to collect fees for casting spells? Ritual immediately, at least for me, calls the Occult to mind and evokes the thought of Satantic Cult, given the persecution D&D has had due to those unfair associations I choose to avoid terminology that might revive such associations. I am not concerned about having to be "fair," like balance it is overrated and abused as a concept. |
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Post by Q Man on Sept 1, 2018 17:10:15 GMT -5
Rituals are okay in my book for the same reason ripx187 mentioned but I'd limit them to stuff like summoning spells, wishes or spells that rituals would make sense, not stuff like sleep, fireball and the like. I would agree with this, although as I stated I think there are a lot of good reasons not to use that word. |
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Post by mao on Sept 3, 2018 14:51:52 GMT -5
New school gaming and modern society at all levels loves the murderhobo amoral trope (see nearly all video games as another reference point), old school gaming loves the exploration moral teamwork trope and that is what society used to favor. If you read history, there was a lot of teamwork that made exploration of the world possible and yes while those teams had individuals that were in essence murderhobo's, those teams also had very moral self-sacrificing people that were part of a team that just wanted to find out what was over the horizon and come back and tell people about it. The fact that they hoped to make a profit so they could do more of it, does not negate the sacrifices and teamwork. Go read the story of the men who died reaching the South Pole. That is inspiring to me. This is what i want to get back to - where PCs are heroic not dastardly villains as many in my old games ended up as. Have an exalt. 10% bonus to ep if good, 15% penalty if you are neutral, -50% ep if evil, this will fix your problems |
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Post by ripx187 on Sept 3, 2018 15:22:59 GMT -5
My rule of thumb is that you get what you give. I try to be as neutral as possible, but the game itself rewards and punishes the actions of the users. If a party earns a murder hobo reputation they will be treated as such. A magic sword can betray you or refuse to cooperate until you have redeemed yourself. The forces of good can put a bounty on your heads, and treat you like the monsters you are. Your gods will abandon you and you will find that new gods seek your favour with short-term gains which lead to corruption.
Evil leads to a fast track of easy power and gains, but it is a very temporary reward. Evil plays an unforgiving game.
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Post by mao on Sept 10, 2018 11:54:18 GMT -5
I'll go first.  One of the "House Rules" is this 18.) This is IMO a completely unnecessary house rule and it indicates to me that the person putting it forth has not read the rules as throughly as they think they have or they may have never read the original rules and are proceeding based on what their DM(s) have done in the games they have played. In Volume 1 of Men and Magic is says In later prints "Balrog" was replaced with "Dragon" when the Tolkien items were censored. As you can see it says "virtually anything" and so a house rule about this is redundant, the topic was already covered. There is nothing in the rules that says you have to play men, elves, dwarves and hobbits. From the very beginning you had carte blanche to play any creature as your character. You could if you choose, have a completely non-humanoid campaign which goes way beyond the advanced house rule. Further the contention that you were limited to "good" races is an unwarranted assumption since that "restriction" is not found in OD&D and, in fact, men were specified in the rules to be of any alignment, whether Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic, while Good and Evil were not part of the alignment system in OD&D. As for the "Races that are too powerful off-the-bat suffer greater EXP costs to advance levels." It is likely that the part about beginning relatively weak and work up to the top was not applied since you can make them not "too powerful off-the-bat". The XP costs to advance in levels would, of course, be part of the ref's work up for a particular new character race. So we see here that contrary to popular conception, as I have read this premise many times over the years, OD&D completely and throughly addressed this issue all the way back in 1974 in the original document. There is, in fact, no restriction to the "stock Tolkien races" and players have immense freedom to play any creature humanoid or non-humanoid that they wish. The only thing they need is a ref that is willing to put in a bit of time (and it is not a huge amount of time by any means) to rough out the first few levels for the character race and then expand it as the character grows in levels. I would go a step further and say as long as you only make cosmetic and minor changes , a player can play a blink dog or any other sentient. It just has to be able to talk ( the blink dog would need a minor teleport rule and bad ac and damage out put |
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Post by mao on Sept 10, 2018 12:13:32 GMT -5
My next little topic to write on is this one about point buy 3.) I just don't understand what the problem is that people have with rolling 3d6 in order for the stats. Yeah, I understand when Greyhawk came along the stat creep and bonus creep started and then in 1st AD&D the methods to generate higher stats were added to the rules and it escalated from there. It went from 5 minutes to create a characters and start playing to 3 hours up to days to create a character, get the "concept" just right and "optimized and write a book for a back story But I don't understand why people have such an aversion to just playing what they've got from 3d6 in order and maximizing your playing time instead of maximizing your prep time. These point buy methods are just not to my taste either. Instead of giving me a set number of points and trying to make me think and agonize over how to create the "best" character with "optimizing" those numbers I would rather just roll 3d6 and take my chances. This above wants to cap starting attributes at 15. I would rather roll 3d6 and try to a 16, 17 or 18 and take my chances at rolling a 3, 4 or 5. There are the people who roll 4d6 or 5d6 or even 6d6 and keep the three highest rolls each time just to get "good" numbers. They get one number under 12 and think that is unplayable. You read and hear about all these characters that don't have any stats under a 13 or even 15. They want to have a character "build" that has no weakness and is "optimized." Some of the names commonly used to describe these players are "power gamers," "min-maxers," and "munchkins." More and more that is the trend. IMO it is not the methods that are new school, it is the attitude that is new school. The attitude that says the character is no fun to play unless he is the best at everything. But that attitude leads to boring. And the balanced adventures where no one is ever supposed to lose is boring. When you don't have any weakness to overcome and you have no risks to take all you get is boring. They claim they are having fun (and believe me I am not intending this to come off as saying they are having "bad wrong fun," because that is not what I am saying), but IMO they could be having so much more fun if they had not spent years of playing instant gratification can't ever lose games. Everyone should have a chance to learn to play without access to "Save Game" mode so it can be replayed as many times as it takes to "win." With "Save Game" mode, do you ever really win? I had to go with point buy for a while as there was a cheating problem that finally got on my nerves , But last I played the table was smaller and the light better so could watch them roll 3d6 in order. Trust me, point buy is dull. |
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Post by mao on Sept 10, 2018 12:18:49 GMT -5
I'm going to take a shot at one of these. 4.) This IMO is new school and for the reason that it replaces the original mechanic of XP based on gold which encouraged the original game virtue of exploration which encouraged immersion in the game. It helped people connect with the setting and want to learn about it and become part of it since all of that would help them collect gold and stay alive. The object was not to kill everything and anything, but to avoid combat and use all available options. Basing experience on on killing things encourages a play style that is not immersed in the setting, it encourages the new school murder hobo trope where PCs view all NPC's even peaceful town people as just XPs on the hoof. Even worse is the reducing the XP for Fighting-Men (and other classes) to go up in levels to 10% of the normal value for a unified fast track XP chart so as to reach high levels really quickly and pretty much bypass all the fun to be had earning your way up in level. If you only want to play high level character that badly, then just start everyone at high level and pretend that you earned it. Some people may find being given everything on a silver platter to be fun, but it is not for me. I think my millage is varying on this one. I have used the fighter EP chart for everyone because I play such low level, it's taken as long as a year for PCs to make 3rd, at that slow rate it evens out. |
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Post by Harry Wolf on Sept 10, 2018 20:04:45 GMT -5
My next little topic to write on is this one about point buy 3.) I just don't understand what the problem is that people have with rolling 3d6 in order for the stats. Yeah, I understand when Greyhawk came along the stat creep and bonus creep started and then in 1st AD&D the methods to generate higher stats were added to the rules and it escalated from there. It went from 5 minutes to create a characters and start playing to 3 hours up to days to create a character, get the "concept" just right and "optimized and write a book for a back story But I don't understand why people have such an aversion to just playing what they've got from 3d6 in order and maximizing your playing time instead of maximizing your prep time. These point buy methods are just not to my taste either. Instead of giving me a set number of points and trying to make me think and agonize over how to create the "best" character with "optimizing" those numbers I would rather just roll 3d6 and take my chances. This above wants to cap starting attributes at 15. I would rather roll 3d6 and try to a 16, 17 or 18 and take my chances at rolling a 3, 4 or 5. There are the people who roll 4d6 or 5d6 or even 6d6 and keep the three highest rolls each time just to get "good" numbers. They get one number under 12 and think that is unplayable. You read and hear about all these characters that don't have any stats under a 13 or even 15. They want to have a character "build" that has no weakness and is "optimized." Some of the names commonly used to describe these players are "power gamers," "min-maxers," and "munchkins." More and more that is the trend. IMO it is not the methods that are new school, it is the attitude that is new school. The attitude that says the character is no fun to play unless he is the best at everything. But that attitude leads to boring. And the balanced adventures where no one is ever supposed to lose is boring. When you don't have any weakness to overcome and you have no risks to take all you get is boring. They claim they are having fun (and believe me I am not intending this to come off as saying they are having "bad wrong fun," because that is not what I am saying), but IMO they could be having so much more fun if they had not spent years of playing instant gratification can't ever lose games. Everyone should have a chance to learn to play without access to "Save Game" mode so it can be replayed as many times as it takes to "win." With "Save Game" mode, do you ever really win? I had to go with point buy for a while as there was a cheating problem that finally got on my nerves , But last I played the table was smaller and the light better so could watch them roll 3d6 in order. Trust me, point buy is dull. People were cheating on their die rolls? That is pretty bad, I don't think I could put up with cheater's, even if that was the only way I would get to play. |
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Post by Harry Wolf on Sept 10, 2018 20:05:30 GMT -5
I'm going to take a shot at one of these. 4.) This IMO is new school and for the reason that it replaces the original mechanic of XP based on gold which encouraged the original game virtue of exploration which encouraged immersion in the game. It helped people connect with the setting and want to learn about it and become part of it since all of that would help them collect gold and stay alive. The object was not to kill everything and anything, but to avoid combat and use all available options. Basing experience on on killing things encourages a play style that is not immersed in the setting, it encourages the new school murder hobo trope where PCs view all NPC's even peaceful town people as just XPs on the hoof. Even worse is the reducing the XP for Fighting-Men (and other classes) to go up in levels to 10% of the normal value for a unified fast track XP chart so as to reach high levels really quickly and pretty much bypass all the fun to be had earning your way up in level. If you only want to play high level character that badly, then just start everyone at high level and pretend that you earned it. Some people may find being given everything on a silver platter to be fun, but it is not for me. I think my millage is varying on this one. I have used the fighter EP chart for everyone because I play such low level, it's taken as long as a year for PCs to make 3rd, at that slow rate it evens out. How many hours of gaming during that year? |
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Post by mao on Sept 11, 2018 5:46:10 GMT -5
I think my millage is varying on this one. I have used the fighter EP chart for everyone because I play such low level, it's taken as long as a year for PCs to make 3rd, at that slow rate it evens out. How many hours of gaming during that year? 4 hours a week for 40-45 games a year |
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Post by El Borak on Sept 11, 2018 10:16:36 GMT -5
As for the "Races that are too powerful off-the-bat suffer greater EXP costs to advance levels." It is likely that the part about beginning relatively weak and work up to the top was not applied since you can make them not "too powerful off-the-bat". The XP costs to advance in levels would, of course, be part of the ref's work up for a particular new character race. So we see here that contrary to popular conception, as I have read this premise many times over the years, OD&D completely and throughly addressed this issue all the way back in 1974 in the original document. There is, in fact, no restriction to the "stock Tolkien races" and players have immense freedom to play any creature humanoid or non-humanoid that they wish. The only thing they need is a ref that is willing to put in a bit of time (and it is not a huge amount of time by any means) to rough out the first few levels for the character race and then expand it as the character grows in levels. I would go a step further and say as long as you only make cosmetic and minor changes , a player can play a blink dog or any other sentient. It just has to be able to talk ( the blink dog would need a minor teleport rule and bad ac and damage out put Yeah, but going beyond cosmetic and minor changes is fun. |
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Post by mao on Sept 12, 2018 7:43:12 GMT -5
There is no science to RP. Gary and Arneson didn't create one for a reason, for it is doomed to failure due to the sheer numbers of variables involved and the thousands of directions one can take within it. The best way to learn it and thus what level or degree you want to strive for within it as a DM or a player is to actually play it. Just like swimming, the only way to learn that is to jump into the water and let the mind and body sort it out. There was always enough base in OD&D to accomplish that, for if there had not been we wouldn't be here right now. Love this post. Talking only gets you so far then you have to PLAY. |
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Post by Harry Wolf on Sept 12, 2018 10:41:16 GMT -5
How many hours of gaming during that year? 4 hours a week for 40-45 games a year OK so 160 to 180 hours of gaming to reach 3rd level. That seems about right to me if you can game that often. |
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Post by mao on Sept 12, 2018 11:25:13 GMT -5
4 hours a week for 40-45 games a year OK so 160 to 180 hours of gaming to reach 3rd level. That seems about right to me if you can game that often. Unfortunately that's the "good ol' days" now |
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Post by mao on Sept 13, 2018 10:19:42 GMT -5
Insisting on playing with high stats is neither new or old school, nor is it bad fun. I personally feel that it changes the game but we low stat fans are, and never had been, the norm. Can we convert munchkins? I don't know. I think that it depends on the stat and what people want to play. A fighting man with an INT of 5 is okay, but a cleric with a STR of 8 is not. Everybody wants high CONs and high DEX. Why? Because of the rewards that goes with them. Roll a poor CON and you are going to get punished severely by the rules. A DEX of 3? Missle weapons are out. CON of 3? You are doomed. Why this was built into the game is beyond me. If it is such a bad thing to roll a 3 on CON, then why are we allowed to do it? Having CON sucked off of you by a magic baddy seems to be why 3 is there, this does suggest that we should be rerolling 1s at least once. Is a character with a super low CON even fit to be a dungeon delver? Probably not, but what if you can keep this guy going through play? What does that say about your skill as a player? You are going to have to learn how to limit the dice rolls, you are going to have to play smart. This is not for novice players; in fact, it is kind of showing off. That is why we low staters do what we do. Yes, we eventually run out of luck. We crash and burn. We laugh about it while rolling up a new character. That is a difference too: The high staters might be getting more attached to their characters than we are. That is a thing too. I am all over the place on this, I've tried standard array, point buy and many dice methods. When last I ran I did 3d6 in order and it was kinda fun(other than several suicides from one guy). As I am very unlikely to run in the mid future, I have a long time to think about it. |
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Post by True Black Raven on Sept 17, 2018 17:56:34 GMT -5
Insisting on playing with high stats is neither new or old school, nor is it bad fun. I personally feel that it changes the game but we low stat fans are, and never had been, the norm. Can we convert munchkins? I don't know. I think that it depends on the stat and what people want to play. A fighting man with an INT of 5 is okay, but a cleric with a STR of 8 is not. Everybody wants high CONs and high DEX. Why? Because of the rewards that goes with them. Roll a poor CON and you are going to get punished severely by the rules. A DEX of 3? Missle weapons are out. CON of 3? You are doomed. Why this was built into the game is beyond me. If it is such a bad thing to roll a 3 on CON, then why are we allowed to do it? Having CON sucked off of you by a magic baddy seems to be why 3 is there, this does suggest that we should be rerolling 1s at least once. Is a character with a super low CON even fit to be a dungeon delver? Probably not, but what if you can keep this guy going through play? What does that say about your skill as a player? You are going to have to learn how to limit the dice rolls, you are going to have to play smart. This is not for novice players; in fact, it is kind of showing off. That is why we low staters do what we do. Yes, we eventually run out of luck. We crash and burn. We laugh about it while rolling up a new character. That is a difference too: The high staters might be getting more attached to their characters than we are. That is a thing too. I think it all comes back to the DM and how he runs the game. If you are playing straight OD&D without the supplements, then the stats are still used but are not the feast or famine it is in later versions. You could even argue that the original 3d6 in order is more realistic and that success or failure is more about heart, character and determination than it is than about the "stats". There is more than one short, scrawny, ugly billionaire in the world and you could also argue that among that group that high INT was not the prime factor in their success either. |
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