FrankTrollman wrote:Yes. Because while there are places you can go in Eberron that have katanas as available weapon drops, just as there are places in Greyhawk with laser pistols as available weapon drops, it is unreasonable to expect the other players will stay in those places exclusively or even go there at all. The other players want to take revenge on the Drow or go hunt Frost Giants or some shit, and while it is possible that they will agree to your suggestion to go fight shadow samurai, the class had better be designed to the much more likely standard that they won't.
Except that it was explicitly in the context of a book coming out with a samurai class, so it'd be paired with weeaboo setting content. Don't be willfully stupid. Of course samurai don't fit well into non-weeaboo game.
They don't fit into a non-weeaboo-friendly game for a legion of reasons and the lack of katanas to loot is the least of those reasons. So can we agree that samurai are stupid in a non-samurai-appropriate setting and just accept that I meant to be talking about samurai-appropriate settings and that an argument about what constitutes a samurai-appropriate setting is a waste of our time?
Because I seriously don't care about weeaboo shit that much. I should have just said "swashbuckler".
It doesn't matter if the weapons are placed or not.
-editedit-
This has been a breakdown of communication. I am talking about a system where people get their gear from some source other than taking it from the still-warm corpses of their enemies, or alternately doing on a once-or-twice-per-slot-per-career basis.
Not a Lago-style slot machine, not a 3e-style muddle, not a 4e-style letter-to-Santa system.
How would you implement signature weapons in such a system? What would you consider a player's reasonable expectations for signature weapons in such a system? Would you consider them desireable? Why or why not?
No. I'm making both arguments. Because both things are true.
Careful about conflating the arguments unhelpfully.
I agree that it's not practical to have a system with both slot machine payoffs and signature weapons. They are exclusive. Given that, any benefit of slot machine payoffs diminishes signature weapons, and any benefit of signature weapons diminishes slot machine payoffs.
However, it is perfectly possible to have a system with neither slot machine payoffs nor signature weapons, if they are both flawed. Given that, a flaw of slot machine payoffs does not argue for a system that includes signature weapons, and a flaw of signature weapons does not argue for a system with slot machine payoffs. Also, the flaw of slot machine payoffs and signature weapons both that they don't work with each other doesn't argue for one or the other, simply a system that only has one or the other with no preference for either.
[*] The player demanding that the character find things that are supposed to be rarely if ever found in the setting is wholly unreasonable. If they do find it, that breaks the fourth wall and destroys the verisimilitude of the game world.
This only argues that you have signature weapons
or arm people from slot machine payoffs, not that one of the two is superior. If you don't (or only very rarely) get your gear from killing people, then it's not a problem to find a dire flail between zero to two times in your life if you are a dire flail specialist.
[*] The fact that a character uses a particular weapon is not particularly interesting. While it can be supported in a non-verisimilitude destroying fashion (scaling weapons, specializing in ubiquitous weapons, personal item forging, or being in a setting that does not have weapon upgrades like the modern world), it still isn't particularly interesting. And it should never be allowed to substitute for a character's personality or life goals.
It's not interesting because it's not interesting. Also, it shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of other things, in the face of all the people who are offering dozens of examples of how it doesn't get in the way of things and can actively help some people and how symbols do lead to implications for people who aren't shitheads who confuse symbols for structure.
Mileage is going to seriously vary on this one, granted, but c'mon, put some meat on this.
[*] Item wishlists are a very bad way of doing things. Because they destroy the verisimilitude of the setting and because they destroy the joy of discovery, and because they destroy the facade of impartiality of the MC leading to resentment.
Again, slot machine payoffs
or signature weapons. But people are going to make wishlists whether you want it or not, and GMs are going to want to give people things on their wishlist, be that wishlist perceived or actual, for reasons ranging from outright demands to perceived pressure.
Where is this facade of impartiality coming from?
[*] Character choices have to matter. If you don't do something, you don't get a pat on the back for having done it by the MC. Because that is patronizing and insulting.
This is is
yet another slot machine payoffs
or signature weapons dilemma, (
and I don't really recall you ever giving a satisfying explanation why the Lightning Axe couldn't have just been a Lightning Sword for the sword guy but I don't actually care about some hypothetical bullshit example). Yes. They don't work together. This isn't a separate argument, it's a supporting point for the same argument.
Now, random items do work as a decent solution for some of those problems.
You said that slot machine payoffs don't work with signature weapons three times, and that signature weapons are boring and shouldn't be allowed to interfere with interesting roleplay once. Ditching random items and improving/gearing up by taking people's shit would also solve all of these problems save the one about signature weapons posing some sort of obstacle to roleplay (and the passing comment about the joy of discovery, I suppose).
But it's not really the core of any of my arguments.
But fuck all that, I'd be more interested in the core of your arguments than whatever chaff you're going to throw up.
-edit- Shit, I understand where the breakdown in communication is. I replaced "Christmas presents" with "slot machine payoffs." I meant to explicitly refer to the rewards from a Lago-style what-the-loot-table-gives-you-is-what-you-get system, not a wishlist system. Is this any clearer?
I wish in the past I had tried more things 'cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea