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Post by mao on Aug 6, 2018 8:56:13 GMT -5
On my old to do list was Bronze age Superheros That would be a trip Mao! I was going to do an Athens and Sparta thing. The PCs would be demi gods of a city state caught in the middle |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 6, 2018 9:14:22 GMT -5
That would be a trip Mao! I was going to do an Athens and Sparta thing. The PCs would be demi gods of a city state caught in the middle That would be a fun thing, you'll have to write that up and post it someday once you have cleared your plate of the current stuff. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 18, 2018 20:12:54 GMT -5
I am the "house wife" of the family, so I can pop on as I go about my daily chores, As to my creative output, I usual focus on one project, but my muse has been all over the place. i hope this creative streak continues. As do we all! So do we all - what? Want to be house wives? I'd never marry a house. |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 18, 2018 21:06:15 GMT -5
So do we all - what? Want to be house wives? I'd never marry a house. No one wants to marry a house, no what we want is for his creative streak to continue, but your mind went to marrying houses. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 18, 2018 21:10:59 GMT -5
I do try to stay within my species.
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Post by El Borak on Aug 18, 2018 22:08:25 GMT -5
I do try to stay within my species. Pine? |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 18, 2018 22:09:44 GMT -5
I do try to stay within my species. Pine? Only for the fyords. And the Chyevrolets. |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 18, 2018 22:12:43 GMT -5
Only for the fyords. And the Chyevrolets. Oak for everything else? |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 18, 2018 22:17:30 GMT -5
Naw. The oak's on you.
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Post by El Borak on Aug 18, 2018 22:46:37 GMT -5
 That's beautiful, well-played!
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 20, 2018 20:50:59 GMT -5
Gotcha! That is something that I thought lead me down a dark road around here? I mean, I do it! It is part of my game. Too often I think that folks get too caught up in tales of Good and Evil, I like things to be a bit more grounded. Nobody wants to deal with baby orcs. You just have to decide what baby orcs are like. Will they try to eat you if you pick one up or are the redeemable. You have to decide or you can make them a manufactured item with no free will or something else. No, no dark road, Tuckerizing monsters predated Tucker by a lot, I think it goes all the way back to Arneson. Or Gilgamesh. |
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Post by Mighty Darci on Aug 20, 2018 21:26:00 GMT -5
Stupid monsters that are pushovers is just bad DMing. |
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Aug 20, 2018 22:19:53 GMT -5
Stupid monsters that are pushovers is just bad DMing. I guess that I'll keep that in mind our dear Mighty Darci.  |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 21, 2018 1:35:10 GMT -5
Stupid monsters that are pushovers is just bad DMing. I guess that I'll keep that in mind our dear Mighty Darci . Oops! |
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Post by mao on Aug 21, 2018 8:51:44 GMT -5
Stupid monsters that are pushovers is just bad DMing. Ok this thread is amazingly derailed which gave me an idea. Let's quote a post on this thread that is off topic and extend the offtopicness(I think I invented a word) let's see how far off topic we can get. I'll start with above quote: I disagree. when I was running 4th, I set up a exactly level appropriate Troll encounter, with the trolls in optimum formation. The trolls. were slaughtered in 1/2 a round, 4th was just so awful .4th had a few good ideas though, my fav was quantified fantasy terrain, for example squares on the floor that were the blood of ancient warriors. If you stand on the squares you are more likely to crit hit. I just wish that they had published more. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Aug 21, 2018 9:26:28 GMT -5
I split the threads ( mao you can jump back in on your superhero thing if you have something to post in that regard) |
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Post by mao on Aug 21, 2018 9:26:37 GMT -5
If you are familiar with Tucker's kobolds, it means you play the monsters like they are real, like they have goals and like they value their lives and possessions. Then there are no monsters that are pushovers, at least when you are on their territory and you don't get caught up in trying to win an arms race, because it becomes about smart play on both sides, not a bigger badder sword. This is dumb. There should be dumb, disorganized sword fodder, once in a while they should run into things that are hurt, poss badly. Just as once in a while they run into something they need to run from |
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Post by mao on Aug 21, 2018 9:28:54 GMT -5
I split the threads ( mao you can jump back in on your superhero thing if you have something to post in that regard) Not ready to circle back to this, very low priority for me, I will get around to it. |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 21, 2018 9:37:57 GMT -5
If you are familiar with Tucker's kobolds, it means you play the monsters like they are real, like they have goals and like they value their lives and possessions. Then there are no monsters that are pushovers, at least when you are on their territory and you don't get caught up in trying to win an arms race, because it becomes about smart play on both sides, not a bigger badder sword. This is dumb. There should be dumb, disorganized sword fodder, once in a while they should run into things that are hurt, poss badly. Just as once in a while they run into something they need to run from Yes, once in a while is fine. The problem is some games with some DMs have a steady diet of all pushovers. For instance you said I disagree. when I was running 4th, I set up a exactly level appropriate Troll encounter, with the trolls in optimum formation. The trolls. were slaughtered in 1/2 a round, 4th was just so awful .4th had a few good ideas though, my fav was quantified fantasy terrain, for example squares on the floor that were the blood of ancient warriors. If you stand on the squares you are more likely to crit hit. I just wish that they had published more. So was this an example of a once in a while push over? If you trolls are at full strength and they only lasted half a round(half a round??) then either they were already badly wounded and not at full strength or it was not really "level appropriate". I assume you were talking 4E D&D. But back to Tuckerizing monsters, you missed the context which was having trouble challenging high level characters and you can do that by playing the monsters as I suggested. I was not suggesting that you do this with all monsters when the players are low level. But I do suggest that you teach the players from 1st level on that monsters are not going to kneel down and say kill me and take my stuff. Monsters should always be tough, they should always be played like they value their lives, especially the intelligent ones and even the more animal like ones. Minimal intelligent ones not so much, but then you should be able to avoid a lot of them. Also if the monsters are always tough, the players should learn to pursue non-violent options of which there should be many in most cases. |
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Post by mao on Aug 21, 2018 9:49:05 GMT -5
This is dumb. There should be dumb, disorganized sword fodder, once in a while they should run into things that are hurt, poss badly. Just as once in a while they run into something they need to run from Yes, once in a while is fine. The problem is some games with some DMs have a steady diet of all pushovers. For instance you said I disagree. when I was running 4th, I set up a exactly level appropriate Troll encounter, with the trolls in optimum formation. The trolls. were slaughtered in 1/2 a round, 4th was just so awful .4th had a few good ideas though, my fav was quantified fantasy terrain, for example squares on the floor that were the blood of ancient warriors. If you stand on the squares you are more likely to crit hit. I just wish that they had published more. So was this an example of a once in a while push over? If you trolls are at full strength and they only lasted half a round(half a round??) then either they were already badly wounded and not at full strength or it was not really "level appropriate". I assume you were talking 4E D&D. But back to Tuckerizing monsters, you missed the context which was having trouble challenging high level characters and you can do that by playing the monsters as I suggested. I was not suggesting that you do this with all monsters when the players are low level. But I do suggest that you teach the players from 1st level on that monsters are not going to kneel down and say kill me and take my stuff. Monsters should always be tough, they should always be played like they value their lives, especially the intelligent ones and even the more animal like ones. Minimal intelligent ones not so much, but then you should be able to avoid a lot of them. Also if the monsters are always tough, the players should learn to pursue non-violent options of which there should be many in most cases. Even dragons can be stupid, actually full of themselves and might not tke a challange serious enuf, I started my career as a very popular killer DM, but found that I liked things better when death was extremely infrequent of PCs. We could go around and around with this, I agree to disagree |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 21, 2018 9:52:29 GMT -5
Yes, once in a while is fine. The problem is some games with some DMs have a steady diet of all pushovers. For instance you said So was this an example of a once in a while push over? If you trolls are at full strength and they only lasted half a round(half a round??) then either they were already badly wounded and not at full strength or it was not really "level appropriate". I assume you were talking 4E D&D. But back to Tuckerizing monsters, you missed the context which was having trouble challenging high level characters and you can do that by playing the monsters as I suggested. I was not suggesting that you do this with all monsters when the players are low level. But I do suggest that you teach the players from 1st level on that monsters are not going to kneel down and say kill me and take my stuff. Monsters should always be tough, they should always be played like they value their lives, especially the intelligent ones and even the more animal like ones. Minimal intelligent ones not so much, but then you should be able to avoid a lot of them. Also if the monsters are always tough, the players should learn to pursue non-violent options of which there should be many in most cases. Even dragons can be stupid, actually full of themselves and might not tke a challange serious enuf, I started my career as a very popular killer DM, but found that I liked things better when death was extremely infrequent of PCs. We could go around and around with this, I agree to disagree Who said anything about making death frequent? Again the context was challenging high level characters. You can make the monsters tough at all level and challenge the characters to do something other then kill as the only option. But it doesn't mean that you will have a high PC death rate, unless they insist on fighting everything. |
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Post by mao on Aug 21, 2018 9:56:59 GMT -5
Even dragons can be stupid, actually full of themselves and might not tke a challange serious enuf, I started my career as a very popular killer DM, but found that I liked things better when death was extremely infrequent of PCs. We could go around and around with this, I agree to disagree Who said anything about making death frequent? Again the context was challenging high level characters. You can make the monsters tough at all level and challenge the characters to do something other then kill as the only option. But it doesn't mean that you will have a high PC death rate, unless they insist on fighting everything. true that was off topic, sorry |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 21, 2018 10:09:03 GMT -5
Who said anything about making death frequent? Again the context was challenging high level characters. You can make the monsters tough at all level and challenge the characters to do something other then kill as the only option. But it doesn't mean that you will have a high PC death rate, unless they insist on fighting everything. true that was off topic, sorry No not off topic, just an assumption that could be true in some games, but is not true in all games and IMO should not be true. IMO tough monsters played smart and played like their lives matter to them should not translate to killer DM, it should translate to smart players and less killing over all. IMO the game is partly about maximizing options and maximizing interesting things. Successfully killing everything you meet is boring in the long run. |
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Post by ripx187 on Aug 22, 2018 17:08:51 GMT -5
Creating a living environment that is independent of the players is important to me. Now, in regards to death, I submit the idea that some creatures (including humans) have religious principles which glorify death, and reward bravery when all is lost. Take the Cult of Odin, if you died of old age, you went to Hel. The only way to achieve true ascension, described as being welcomed into Valhalla, was to die in battle. Romans had a similar philosophy. The only way to appease a god of war is to kill your enemies and die well.
With monsters, we can take this to an extreme. Orcs are the caricatures of war pigs. As long as their boss holds, they hold because if they don't the punishment that they'll receive for desertion will be much worse than anything that their enemies can do to them. When an orc loses a morale check, this is the worst thing that could happen to him! We have to decide what will become of these guys. Will they give up and starve in the woods, or will they seek to prove themselves with even worse atrocities that before?
Orcs are complex creatures. In Tolkien, the good guys were able to capture one for questioning and instead of begging for its miserable life it taunted and provoked, laughing while it died. This, I believe sets a precedence. The philosophy of these creatures is interesting, death is a reward all unto itself. Tolkien could have used evil men, but he didn't. I think that a Viking or a Celt would act the same way if in the same predicament, however, perhaps the orc is more extreme in its beliefs than even the evil men were?
On the same note, I seek to find a place for all creatures, and the goblin I hold very dear. In my worlds, these guys are absolutely crazy! They spend their free time thinking up ways to hurt and kill people, designing insane machines of war that are just as dangerous to the users as they are to their enemies, and they use these machines with a joy that we will never know. We are talking about creatures who will watch other goblins crawl into a catapult and get splattered against the castle wall, and then volunteer to be next because they actually believe that they will make it over the wall alive. How can these creatures be hated by the gods?
The flaw of the orc and the goblin is that they are so good at what they do that once they win, they don't really want the spoils. It is the act of violence that they love. They don't farm, they have no desire to settle down, they don't want a cute little house in a charming glen. As DM's we really have to love these guys.
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Post by El Borak on Aug 22, 2018 20:33:47 GMT -5
Creating a living environment that is independent of the players is important to me. Now, in regards to death, I submit the idea that some creatures (including humans) have religious principles which glorify death, and reward bravery when all is lost. Take the Cult of Odin, if you died of old age, you went to Hel. The only way to achieve true ascension, described as being welcomed into Valhalla, was to die in battle. Romans had a similar philosophy. The only way to appease a god of war is to kill your enemies and die well. With monsters, we can take this to an extreme. Orcs are the caricatures of war pigs. As long as their boss holds, they hold because if they don't the punishment that they'll receive for desertion will be much worse than anything that their enemies can do to them. When an orc loses a morale check, this is the worst thing that could happen to him! We have to decide what will become of these guys. Will they give up and starve in the woods, or will they seek to prove themselves with even worse atrocities that before? Orcs are complex creatures. In Tolkien, the good guys were able to capture one for questioning and instead of begging for its miserable life it taunted and provoked, laughing while it died. This, I believe sets a precedence. The philosophy of these creatures is interesting, death is a reward all unto itself. Tolkien could have used evil men, but he didn't. I think that a Viking or a Celt would act the same way if in the same predicament, however, perhaps the orc is more extreme in its beliefs than even the evil men were? On the same note, I seek to find a place for all creatures, and the goblin I hold very dear. In my worlds, these guys are absolutely crazy! They spend their free time thinking up ways to hurt and kill people, designing insane machines of war that are just as dangerous to the users as they are to their enemies, and they use these machines with a joy that we will never know. We are talking about creatures who will watch other goblins crawl into a catapult and get splattered against the castle wall, and then volunteer to be next because they actually believe that they will make it over the wall alive. How can these creatures be hated by the gods? The flaw of the orc and the goblin is that they are so good at what they do that once they win, they don't really want the spoils. It is the act of violence that they love. They don't farm, they have no desire to settle down, they don't want a cute little house in a charming glen. As DM's we really have to love these guys. Great post, have an exalt! |
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Post by Mighty Darci on Aug 23, 2018 0:23:26 GMT -5
Stupid monsters that are pushovers is just bad DMing. I guess that I'll keep that in mind our dear Mighty Darci . Please do, I hate to be killed by wimpy monsters, if I am going to die, I want it to be from a quality opponent! |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 24, 2018 9:58:08 GMT -5
Please do, I hate to be killed by wimpy monsters, if I am going to die, I want it to be from a quality opponent! Now that is old school!  |
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That's beautiful, well-played!
