FrankTrollman wrote:Are you seriously telling me that the game should be more like AD&D, where the Fighter says "I waste it with my crossbow!" every. Single. Round?
Of course that's not what I'm saying.
Your sample has them not knowing which set of five they get to choose until it is their turn. Their decision process will then happen on their turn. Hence, everything stops while they decide.
The balance of static to fate options will change the length of a turn. We never had to wait for Spike on his turn because he'd already decided what to do; he knew what his options were beforehand and worked on them while other turns processed. And he never took the plain 'I waste it with my sword,' ever.
I'm just saying that the matrix you're offering is a bit complex to be throwing at a level one player on their turn. 'Decide already' isn't really an option.
-Crissa
PS, no one will play Monopoly with me because apparently I was the only one to have read the rules that say you can't buy or sell stuff from the bank (like houses) unless there are tokens to buy or sell. So I 'won' by buying up the remainder of the houses after my spouse and her friend locked up sets on park place et al and were about to buy hotels for it.
FrankTrollman wrote:Are you seriously telling me that the game should be more like AD&D, where the Fighter says "I waste it with my crossbow!" every. Single. Round?
Of course that's not what I'm saying.
Your sample has them not knowing which set of five they get to choose until it is their turn. Their decision process will then happen on their turn. Hence, everything stops while they decide.
My example had them rolling next turn's WoF roll at the end of this turn. So they would have the entire period between this turn and next turn to, if necessary, look up Parting Blow if they didn't remember what it did.
So given that you are complaining about something that is almost the opposite of what I actually said, what is your actual position on what I actually said?
If you must have multiple things on the WoF, I would prefer a roll that happens end-of-turn and starts with one thing at the beginning of a character's story life and moves up from there.
Crissa wrote:
And for the choices to be fairly clear.
What do you mean by that? That the best actions out of the five offered are obvious and the choice in itself is basically just a newbie trap?
Yeah. I think that's the idea. After all, if the choice isn't clear to an experienced player then you might as well just completely randomize all of the abilities.
The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread, begging and sleeping under bridges.
-Anatole France
Mount Flamethrower on rear
Drive in reverse
Win Game.
-Josh Kablack
Wow, it's rather tough for that situation to come up in Monopoly...I've managed to pull it off once, I think, in decades. It's doable with houses, barely, but if you're locking up the game because you have 'all' the hotels, you've got the game locked up anyway.
Last edited by Doom on Thu May 13, 2010 6:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
If you must have multiple things on the WoF, I would prefer a roll that happens end-of-turn and starts with one thing at the beginning of a character's story life and moves up from there.
Ugh, no thanks. I've seen far too many systems tainted by the "low level = newbie player" problem, where they assume players can't / shouldn't handle options until they get past the first few levels.
The problem is, even once you know the system well, DMs might still choose to start their campaign at level 1. And then you get to be bored (tactically, at least) for a month or more, for the benefit of hypothetical newbies that might not even exist in the current group.
Doom314 wrote:Wow, it's rather tough for that situation to come up in Monopoly...I've managed to pull it off once, I think, in decades. It's doable with houses, barely, but if you're locking up the game because you have 'all' the hotels, you've got the game locked up anyway.
The point is that you can buy up enough houses to make it impossible for your opponent to go from 2 houses -> hotel because according to the rules you have to have 4 houses before having a hotel (not just the equivalent amount of money). I think.
Ice9 wrote:The problem is, even once you know the system well, DMs might still choose to start their campaign at level 1. And then you get to be bored (tactically, at least) for a month or more, for the benefit of hypothetical newbies that might not even exist in the current group.
Either you have a discord between the power level between new and old players or you have a system incompatible with new players?
What do you suggest?
I don't want a system that starts with five choices and never changes from there, either.
I don't want a system that starts with five choices and never changes from there, either.
-Crissa
No one starts draw poker with 2 cards or even 4 cards. A poker hand is five cards. A game can provide more choices than that, though much more than 7 card becomes incredibly unwieldy, but if it seriously provides less than that I'd rather just toss it and play poker.
hogarth wrote:The point is that you can buy up enough houses to make it impossible for your opponent to go from 2 houses -> hotel because according to the rules you have to have 4 houses before having a hotel (not just the equivalent amount of money). I think.
I also don't like poker, even though I'm fairly good at it. I tend to always keep my face emotionless and expressionless, even when not playing poker, so I'm very hard to read. I guess there has to be some benefit to social retardation, right?
And Monopoly isn't a game, it's a form of torture that somehow slipped past the Hague.
Crissa wrote:Either you have a discord between the power level between new and old players or you have a system incompatible with new players?
What do you suggest?
Real simple answer: fuck the new players. If they can't read the books first and get an idea of how it works so that they're not crazy confused at the table, I don't want them there anyway.
Seriously, the goal is to play with the same people you usually game with, not to invite the kids who play a Naruto + Final Fantasy + Dragonball + Bleach systemless game. So there's no need to dumb things down for people.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.
Or you could start off new players at level 1 where they have fewer choices. That way when they get used to their options the game can stack more atop of them.
The biggest problem with your complaints is that you're operating under the assumption that all games have to start at level 1, therefore you need to have enough options to stimulate someone who has a handle on this. Fuck that, for experienced players start 'em at level 3 or 4 or 5 or something. We need to get over this stupid idea that all campaigns need to start at level 1. No, from now on campaigns should generally start at level 3 or something and the previous two levels should be used as 'beginner' levels. Or if people have such a boner for starting at level 1 you can create some 'apprentice' levels A1 and A2 where you have reduced stuff. Whatever.
Goddamned D&D sacred cows.
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Fri May 14, 2010 1:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
I wasn't aware starting at level 1 was a Sacred Cow of D&D. I thought it was a Sacred Cow of RPGs in general .
Expansion packs exempted.
Seriously though, that's why there are games for different people. Crazy complicated games like D&D and "Just roll the fucking dice already - you'll be bankrupt wherever you land anyway" Monopoly.
Monopoly is really only interesting if you play with the possibility of trades between players, creating an interesting sort of social dynamic. If you play it otherwise, it's just a boring piece of crap.
RandomCasualty2 wrote:Monopoly is really only interesting if you play with the possibility of trades between players, creating an interesting sort of social dynamic. If you play it otherwise, it's just a boring piece of crap.
I thought trades were allowed as part of the core rules? That's how we play it.
It's essentially impossible without trades, if you have more than two people.
Even with trades, the fun drops of fast. After a few games, people get so paranoid about nobody trades anymore...at least with me.
Kaelik, to Tzor wrote:
And you aren't shot in the face?
Frank Trollman wrote:A government is also immortal ...On the plus side, once the United Kingdom is no longer united, the United States of America will be the oldest country in the world. USA!
I still think the "make level 1 simple for new players" thing is BS. Because not only will experience players sometimes be level 1, but new players don't always start at level 1. Seriously, if a new player joins a group that's currently at 10th level, should they use a level 1 character? Of course not. And no, the group shouldn't reset to level 1 every time new people are introduced either.
Why the hell would you tie complexity to power level anyway? So if a DM with experienced players wants to run a gritty low-level game everyone gets to be bored? Or if a DM with newbie players wants to run a high-power "heroes of legend" thing everybody is confused?
No, fuck that. If you want an "ease into the game" mechanism, make it separate from level. For instance, you could start with an "archetype" that gives you just 1-2 powers and some static bonuses. And then whenever you felt ready, at the start of the campaign or during play, you could trade in some of those bonuses for more powers, until eventually you had a fully customized character.
One option could be for the new player to make a level 1 player and play a few test sessions with the DM, and then level it to 10 before joining the group, but this can be hard to work into schedules.
Regarding complexity and power level, you have to figure out a good way to handle the two. If the game is just as complex at level 1 as at level 10, then it might likely mean you're running a game of bigger numbers, which gets boring. If you want level 10 to be more than bigger numbers, then you have to open up new options, which seems like it would lead to an increase in complexity. This complexity might not show up during game play (maybe everyone has 5 moves no matter what), but it will show up during the leveling process, when the player has more and more to choose from.
Ice9 wrote: Why the hell would you tie complexity to power level anyway? So if a DM with experienced players wants to run a gritty low-level game everyone gets to be bored? Or if a DM with newbie players wants to run a high-power "heroes of legend" thing everybody is confused?
So what do you get for going up in levels, if not more choices of actions? Just another +1 or +10% damage, like an AD&D fighter?
.
