Why did they scrap Orcus?

[K]

K,

Your point seems to be predicated on the idea that the players can eventually kill the Icons.

My impression is the opposite.

As a player, I would expect to be unable to meaningfully advance goals.

No, my point is that the Icons exist to spawn plot hooks. Defeating them isn't even a meaningful goal in the context of a campaign and so their plot immunity is equally meaningless.

Read the lists in the sample characters and you'll see that most of the Icons aren't even enemies. They are just agents who throw intrigues your way, some of them even being allies.

[Chamomile]

That's great for the specific type of game that's intended to go on forever and never meaningfully advance its main plot. But I've never heard of anyone who actually ran a game that way. Even the guys who were making it up as they went made it up in the direction of a final confrontation with a main villain. I'm sure these things happen, but it's absurd to say they're the majority.

[K]

That's great for the specific type of game that's intended to go on forever and never meaningfully advance its main plot. But I've never heard of anyone who actually ran a game that way. Even the guys who were making it up as they went made it up in the direction of a final confrontation with a main villain. I'm sure these things happen, but it's absurd to say they're the majority.

Check out what the icons actually do. The actual text is "The High Druid is fascinated by you." and "The Elf Queen doesn't like you."

Neither one is a campaign villain and they aren't even trying to kill you. They are just recurring characters who are going to aid and/or fuck with you, so who cares if they can't be killed?

[deaddmwalking]

There are plenty of situations where if someone fucks with my character, I'll want to find a way to kill them.

Or maybe at least escalate the conflict.

Fundamentally, I just object to their powers being nebulous and undefined. It's an invitation for DM fuckery. It might not happen, but if it does, there's nothing there that can really deal with it.

And of course DM fuckery can always exist - but to me, this feels like it's actively encouraging it, and that's not something I care for.

[MGuy]

There are plenty of situations where if someone fucks with my character, I'll want to find a way to kill them.

Or maybe at least escalate the conflict.

Fundamentally, I just object to their powers being nebulous and undefined. It's an invitation for DM fuckery. It might not happen, but if it does, there's nothing there that can really deal with it.

And of course DM fuckery can always exist - but to me, this feels like it's actively encouraging it, and that's not something I care for.

+1

[Wrathzog]

It's not really encouraging DM Fuckery. All it does is make it somewhat predictable and in a way that you can influence.
It's basically a contract between the DM and the Player. Everyone knows that Jim put THE LICH KING Negative 10 on his character sheet. No one should be surprised when zombies come knocking on your door asking for a cup of brains. Jim wanted a campaign with a lot of undead in it. Well fuck you Jim, you got it.
But when agents of THE ELF QUEEN show up and no one has her on their character sheet, then the DM is the only one at the table with a say on what their motivations are. it is a mystery.
I don't see how the second situation is any better than the first.

and Honestly, I would love something like this as a DM. I'm lazy and my players are bad about coming up with back stories. This solves both of those issues as the campaign basically just writes itself and character back stories can be inferred from their relations with certain Icons.

[Darth Rabbitt]

There are plenty of situations where if someone fucks with my character, I'll want to find a way to kill them.

Or maybe at least escalate the conflict.

Fundamentally, I just object to their powers being nebulous and undefined. It's an invitation for DM fuckery. It might not happen, but if it does, there's nothing there that can really deal with it.

And of course DM fuckery can always exist - but to me, this feels like it's actively encouraging it, and that's not something I care for.

+1

+2

That's why the Lady of Pain gets on my nerves.

[OgreBattle]

There are plenty of situations where if someone fucks with my character, I'll want to find a way to kill them.

Or maybe at least escalate the conflict.

Fundamentally, I just object to their powers being nebulous and undefined. It's an invitation for DM fuckery. It might not happen, but if it does, there's nothing there that can really deal with it.

And of course DM fuckery can always exist - but to me, this feels like it's actively encouraging it, and that's not something I care for.

+1

+2

That's why the Lady of Pain gets on my nerves.

If it was a Lord of Pain, I wouldn't be bothered so much.

[ScottS]

Because it's D&D, there's game-specific butthurt involved when you put a bad guy in front of the party that they can't kill. I don't think it's a bad idea in itself (obviously it's been used in stuff like Vamp, SR etc.), but in D&D it's putting the average fucktarded PC in the position of wanting to fight his game-abstracted disads/flaws, which I assume isn't the intent. Fluff needs changed but that's all that's wrong.

[virgil]

There are plenty of situations where if someone fucks with my character, I'll want to find a way to kill them.

Or maybe at least escalate the conflict.

Fundamentally, I just object to their powers being nebulous and undefined. It's an invitation for DM fuckery. It might not happen, but if it does, there's nothing there that can really deal with it.

And of course DM fuckery can always exist - but to me, this feels like it's actively encouraging it, and that's not something I care for.

+1

+2

That's why the Lady of Pain gets on my nerves.

That always confused me with some of the disagreements with Planescape, was the disapproval of the Lady. It's one thing to worry about DMs using undefined NPCs that are arbitrarily more powerful than the party, it's another to use an NPC who is explicitly described as a non-active entity except for her one exception; which is keeping the vague status quo of a single city (still can influence/control the whole thing, just don't claim ownership or have armies).

DMs that jerk around the party with the Lady are going to do so with everything; up to and including Elminster-level innkeepers.

[Darth Rabbitt]

+1

+2

That's why the Lady of Pain gets on my nerves.

That always confused me with some of the disagreements with Planescape, was the disapproval of the Lady. It's one thing to worry about DMs using undefined NPCs that are arbitrarily more powerful than the party, it's another to use an NPC who is explicitly described as a non-active entity except for her one exception; which is keeping the vague status quo of a single city (still can influence/control the whole thing, just don't claim ownership or have armies).

DMs that jerk around the party with the Lady are going to do so with everything; up to and including Elminster-level innkeepers.

Fair enough.

[ModelCitizen]

That always confused me with some of the disagreements with Planescape, was the disapproval of the Lady. It's one thing to worry about DMs using undefined NPCs that are arbitrarily more powerful than the party, it's another to use an NPC who is explicitly described as a non-active entity except for her one exception; which is keeping the vague status quo of a single city (still can influence/control the whole thing, just don't claim ownership or have armies).

DMs that jerk around the party with the Lady are going to do so with everything; up to and including Elminster-level innkeepers.

The Lady of Pain was fine in the boxed set when she was just an impassive force of nature. You know up front that "wants to destroy Sigil" isn't a viable character concept so you play something else and never have to deal with her. The metaplot shouldn't have given her new ways to fuck with the PCs though - i.e. kicking all the factions out of Sigil or poisoning Indeps for no reason.

[FatR]

Here's the system I propose:

I prefer a simpler solution - when successfully hit with an extended SoS roll another save at each "turn ends" phase, until you roll high enough to shake it off. SoL effects are the same but become permanent if you fail X attemts to save. Alternatively effect upgrades from paralysis to petrification and so on after failing X attempts to save.

[FatR]

That always confused me with some of the disagreements with Planescape, was the disapproval of the Lady. It's one thing to worry about DMs using undefined NPCs that are arbitrarily more powerful than the party, it's another to use an NPC who is explicitly described as a non-active entity except for her one exception; which is keeping the vague status quo of a single city (still can influence/control the whole thing, just don't claim ownership or have armies).

1)As already noted, the Lady was actually used in the metaplot to fuck with things. The temptation is too strong and actual authors aren't immune.

2)Sigil is the only part of the Planescape you can meaningfully influence, because the rest of the setting is not only generally run by other statless assholes, but is literally infinitely vast, so that any claim you can stake has no impact on it, unless your GM drops a world-changing artifact in your lap. So having an invincible entity that locks it into a status quo makes me feel like this setting is not meant for playing in it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I prefer a simpler solution - when successfully hit with an extended SoS roll another save at each "turn ends" phase, until you roll high enough to shake it off. SoL effects are the same but become permanent if you fail X attemts to save. Alternatively effect upgrades from paralysis to petrification and so on after failing X attempts to save.

I had more prosaic effects in mind when I made my proposal; like blindness or disease or nausea.

While there isn't much difference most of the time between being turned into a cave slug or a statue for several hours and permanently, there is a difference between being deafened or shaken for several hours and permanently. If you want to model that kind of game -- which I personally do, but I'll understand if you don't -- you need to have some sort of duration between 'for the duration of an adventuring day' and 'permanently'.

[hogarth]

Luke ultimately beats Vader, Aang ultimately beats Ozai, and Frodo ultimately beats Sauron (sort of). The Lich King and Archmage and etc. have no stats and thus cannot ultimately be defeated. That's an important and significant difference.

Did you see where K said:

If the PCs actually do get big enough to kill the Lich King, you can just stat him up and end the campaign after the win.

?

[Lago PARANOIA]

As far as statless NPCs that want to personally fuck you over, I'm okay with it subject to one or more of the following caveats:

[*] You're not supposed to use your personal ass-kickery to solve problems. In the story of the Z Fighters versus the Green Lantern Corps, your goal is to sneak behind enemy lines and spy on the opposition or to make sure that the supply bureaucracy is running smoothly.

[*] The PCs understand that they're doomed from the very start; the actual goal is not to defeat the Dark Lord, because you can't, but to go the distance. The real question is whether you take down his favorite generals along with you or whether your corpses get kicked into a ditch by a random legion of evil. Like Call of Cthulhu.

[*] The Dark Lord is supposed to be statless because the stats are to be procedurally, randomly, or incorrigibly (as in, the DM personally tailors the Dark Lord for your party) generated when it gets to that point in the game and the statlessness is a storytelling gimmick instead of an actual gameplay mechanic. Like Prak Anima's R'lyeh Piercing Copper Drill.

[virgil]

1)As already noted, the Lady was actually used in the metaplot to fuck with things. The temptation is too strong and actual authors aren't immune.

2)Sigil is the only part of the Planescape you can meaningfully influence, because the rest of the setting is not only generally run by other statless assholes, but is literally infinitely vast, so that any claim you can stake has no impact on it, unless your GM drops a world-changing artifact in your lap. So having an invincible entity that locks it into a status quo makes me feel like this setting is not meant for playing in it.

For #1, the Faction War involved an adventure that actually did mess with the status quo, but the party is comparatively low level, and the big movers/shakers were just mazed by the Lady in the end for being involved in open war. It's akin to having a war-based adventure when the party starts level 1, it's over by the time they're high enough to fight the General. I have no idea what this is about her poisoning the Free League though, which is kind of surprising for as much as I know about Planescape.

For #2, this has been brought up repeatedly, and I just cannot empathize with it. Without plot-device, you can go forth and reshape worlds or whatever the rules can actually support, which is everything shy of being a power; and if you're in an area/world without a power laying claim, which there is, you could get away with even more and allow for level-appropriate opposition. It's a multiverse-spanning setting, and pouting over how the setting doesn't support becoming a force to personally reshape the multiverse just seems so very petty. "Why should I play in the Forgotten Realms if you won't let me literally become Frieza and blow it up?" That's what it looks like.

[deaddmwalking]

A big part of a role-playing game is an exploration of 'character agency'.

In this world, I'll be lucky if I'm remembered three generations from now.

But in a D&D world, I can build a fief and turn it into a kingdom. I can put a mark on the game map that can last.

But if the game world is designed so any prints are washed away like sand castles at the turning of the tide, my accomplishments in character lack meaning.

It's all an illusion, anyway, since the game world isn't real - but it's an important illusion. If your actions don't matter to the setting then you're a character in a story, not a player in a game.

[K]

But in a D&D world, I can build a fief and turn it into a kingdom. I can put a mark on the game map that can last.

There is no part of DnD that lets you do that. No rules and no fluff.

At best, there are some rules about building a stronghold or assembling some followers, but nothing in them says that anything lasts or that they allow nation-building at all.

If you said that there should be, I would agree. Unfortunately, there aren't.

[Lago PARANOIA]

At best, there are some rules about building a stronghold or assembling some followers, but nothing in them says that anything lasts or that they allow nation-building at all.

If you said that there should be, I would agree. Unfortunately, there aren't.

I'm with you on the whole Lady of Pain thing, but I strongly disagree with this.

There aren't explicit rules for playing PCs that are CEOs of a AA corp in Shadowrun, either. The settings and rules establish or infer what a CEO is, what they do, and how they would be represented in game. While there's no smoking gun that says that Shadowrun supports PCs playing CEOs, it comes a damn sight closer to supporting this vision than, say, Mouseguard. The leap is so small that at the very least a GM or game designers owes the playerbase an explanation as to why the rules don't generically support this.

Not saying that the rules a priori should or should not generically support PC-ran CEOs in Shadowrun or any game, but all game requests outside of the stated playspace (and by implication, the ease of honoring the game requests) are not equal.

[Korwin]

And the Icons shit is just straight disempowering. First level characters should not have a mark on their character sheet that explains how more than one of the highest level NPCs in the game want to fuck with them.

-Username17

Going a little back into the thread.
I dont see the disempowering here, since the player choosed his relationsship with the icon (at least I think so).

[Username17]

And the Icons shit is just straight disempowering. First level characters should not have a mark on their character sheet that explains how more than one of the highest level NPCs in the game want to fuck with them.

-Username17

Going a little back into the thread.
I dont see the disempowering here, since the player choosed his relationsship with the icon (at least I think so).

If you have to choose one of the NPCs for the DM to skull fuck you with, it still sucks. It's kind of like Simon the Wanderer. [NSFW]

-Username17

[Korwin]

Then dont choose an idol as enemy but as an friend.
What I read about 13 Age suggest it costs the same.
Right if you want Trouble with an idol it costs you points you could spend to buy an friendly relatetionship with an idol.

But I got the impression its only an slightly different flavor for the same mechanical thing.

[Endovior]

Then dont choose an idol as enemy but as an friend.
What I read about 13 Age suggest it costs the same.
Right if you want Trouble with an idol it costs you points you could spend to buy an friendly relatetionship with an idol.

But I got the impression its only an slightly different flavor for the same mechanical thing.

Wait... really? As in, you have the option to, and are encouraged to, spend points that could be spent on allies that aid the party, on enemies which cause trouble instead? That's madness.