The Gaming Den

So who goes first in combat? Wait, what? .... ---HAH. Libertad, you really ought to remove that "Always goes first" and just leave initiative at a +8 for Drizzt and Enteri and such. Changed! By the way, guys, feel free to convert iconic D&D characters if you want to. I wouldn't find s...

http://suvudu.com/files/2010/10/LordSoth.jpg Lord Soth, Knight of the Black Rose LE Human Male Swordwraith Knight 10/Death Knight 4/Swordwraith Paragon 3 (Undead, Dark-minded, Unliving subtypes) Hit Points: 192 Initiative: +5 Speed: 30 feet Armor Class: 31 (+14 armor, +2 dex, +5 deflection), touch ...

The problem here isn't anything like min-maxxing vs roleplaying but just that the dm and the players expected something else out of the game. If you wanted a certain kind of game than you should tell them up front what to expect. And you can tell them what you expect from them too. On a related not...

I'm currently reading: A Lawyer's Journey: The Morris Dees Story Morris Dees is the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and his biography describes how events within his personal life and the Civil Rights Movement convinced him to battle racist hate groups in the courtrooms and overturn prej...

I think it also has to do with the fear of loss of control. Nobody likes a game where players are little more than an audience watching the DM narrate a "my way or the highway" novel disguised as a gaming session. Any rules which would take away PC control would make players shy away from ...

For this reason, even though there's no fluff, gameplay, or logical reason why NPC-on-PC diplomacy can't be allowed or balanced, you cannot have it in your game. It'll be a marketing disaster. You can still do force PCs to do stuff with magic like Dominate Person and mind control stuff. Players can...

Libertad, do you want me to bump the 'Anatomy of Failed Design: Diplomacy' thread? Bump away! http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51971 This actually reminds me of how many players min-maxed in Vampire games by being super-smooth mind control vampires who can get anyone to do anything for them. Th...

http://images.wikia.com/forgottenrealms/images/9/9a/Servant_det01.jpg Artemis Entreri NE Male Human Fighter 12/Assassin 6 Hit Points: 154 (+54 with Periapt) Initiative: +8 Speed: 30 feet Armor Class: 41 (+10 armor, +5 Dex, +6 Deflection, +2 Elusive Target, +8 Shield bonus TWF), touch 23, flat-foote...

Some guys think that the ideal form of "role-playing" involves the combination of drama club and a gaming session, where the players and DM have their characters converse with each other describe what they do without rolling any dice, engaging in combat, or planning out tactics. Normally, ...

This story's so bad I have to bring it up here! Hope nobody minds if a cross-post! Over at the WotC forums, I read a story in the "What's a DM to do?" section. One of the players in the group, who we'll call Gary, was really, really homophobic. I'm talking "gays are abominations in th...

Just because a subculture uses a term inappropriately doesn't mean that they're irrational morons. I think that people who associate min-maxing with munchkinism were negatively affected by some problem players. First impressions tend to make a dent,and hearing about similar negative experiences from...

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Because the RPG community, by and large, is made up of idiots?

Ain't that a little harsh?

edit: And this is also one of the reasons I still think arguable the WORST piece of shit brought to us by 4E edition was the "Mike Mearls or whoever the crazy fuck who wrote this was labels and insults every form of gamer he can imagine" chapter. I don't own any 4th Edition books. I'd lik...

New Character Background: Hunter of the Supernatural Maybe your parents were devoured by werewolves. Perhaps you joined a secret society sworn to defend humanity against the Legions of the Night. Researching, hunting, and killing these fell forces of darkness is your duty. Effect: Gather Information...

I really loved the 3rd Edition Manual of the Planes. It opened up an entire multiverse of cool worlds and entities. I spent many months imagining the awesome adventures I'd run when I eventually got a group together. I also liked the Wurst of Grimtooth's Traps by Necromancer Games. It was a humorous...

The problem with the NRA is that they're fear-mongerers. Charlton Heston, former President, genuinely believes that white conservative Christians are an oppressed majority whose rights are being taken away by liberals. The NRA also published a comic advocating that feminists and environmentalists we...

I noticed a troubling tendency on boards to associate min-maxing and munchkinism as an inseparable whole. I nicknamed this trend the Munchkinmaxer Fallacy. The original munchkin was a French D&D player known as Fat Bill. He played D&D not as a cooperative game where a party overcame challen...

Doom wrote:But hey, Kender were the only ones to kill a dragonlord, if I recall correctly.

Don't forget that it was Tasslehoff who wounded an Eldritch Abomination by stabbing it in the toe.

I believe that anyone who wants to constrain noncasters with "realism" don't care about balance. I believe that they WANT spellcasters to dominate. I believe that Tome of Battle was a base breaker because it made martial classes with "spellcaster-ish" abilities. I remember viewin...

Alright, the post looks good now! Thanks!

I don't understand how it works. If I enter in a URL between URL tags, it does not create a link. Example: www.google.com If I try to quote someone, the quote tags don't work: Example: This is a quote. I have similar problems with the bold and italics labels. Any help would be appreciated!

I think that the Tome of Necromancy introduced concepts (Dark-Minded and Unliving) that were meant to be a replacement for standard undead concepts like the Deathless. Being trained in Knowledge (Religion) allowed one to make critical hits and sneak attacks against undead.

They mean more like: I want magic to be able to do anything (including breaking the game in half) and fighters will be limited by realism. But fighters should be just as good as casters! I may have misspoke. I meant to say that many gamers are aware of imbalance in 3rd Edition and: want equivalent ...

In my "Consumer demand for caster dominance" thread, many posters suggested that a sizable portion of gamers want contradictory elements in their RPGs. I think that the problem relates to a broken fanbase rather than fans who cannot ever be pleased. The latter exists to some extent (and th...

@CatharzGodfoot: I wanted Van Richten to have the ability to find traps and get Evasion. I admit that I have not given an in-depth look at the expanded base classes within the Tome PDF. What I wanted for Van Richten was skill versatility, diverse ways to research opponents and get the right tool for...