Shitty character concepts need to die

[darkmaster]

Charles Atlas super powers give people super powers they make a character fantastic not I repeat NOT magic. The fact is everyone wants their character to be cool. At low level people who want to play sword guys can play Conan, or I don't know Inigo Montoya. At high level they can play superman, a version of which literally hit the universe so hard that it brought people back from the dead and eventually broke a hole in it.

[Kaelik]

Charles Atlas super powers give people super powers they make a character fantastic not I repeat NOT magic.

Okay... So you don't want any fucking Phlebotium in your character, you just want Phlebotium.

Another one of those.

[OgreBattle]

I blame this on batman and christianity.

In a world setting where 'monk' isnt a seperate character class but the natural result of getting so good at something you acheive greater understanding of the universe, then you can have someone punch so hard he becomes a Buddha.

There isnt so much a divide between mundane and mystic as it is just different levels of understanding, and high level characters have that deeper understanding cause their kungu is good.

[darkmaster]

No, I want to distinguish between "magic" and "phlebotium". Like rectangles and Squares, all magic is phlebotium but not all phlebotium is magic. Superman's has at various times either been unable to fly, or capable of literally juggling planets, and everywhere in between. But he is not magic, his phlebotium is "alien physiology" a barbarian might be "shiftlessness" a fighter might have "great hair" or "manly scar" it doesn't fucking matter the point is that fantastic comes in more flavors than just magic.

[Kaelik]

No, I want to distinguish between "magic" and "phlebotium". Like rectangles and Squares, all magic is phlebotium but not all phlebotium is magic. Superman's has at various times either been unable to fly, or capable of literally juggling planets, and everywhere in between. But he is not magic, his phlebotium is "alien physiology" a barbarian might be "shiftlessness" a fighter might have "great hair" or "manly scar" it doesn't fucking matter the point is that fantastic comes in more flavors than just magic.

And my point is that alien physiology is totally just magic when it comes in fantasy games and sci-fi when it comes in sci-fi games.

It is called "Half-Fiend" in D&D. On the other hand, "shiftlessness" and "manly scar" and "great hair" are not any kind of phlebotium at all and they suck dick and make the entire game worse if you even try to claim they are the source of flying.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, see, Superman's powers are totes arbitrary and it is actively obfuscating if you describe his powers as not being supernatural or magical, because that implies he is normal, rather than fantastic, which he isn't.

[K]

The Cool to Suck Ratio for MTP is devastating. Entire sections of the game like illusions in s.X DnD can't be used without a conversation with the DM lasting at least a half hour, most of the time resulting in that DM MTPing up a version of illusions that nerfs it into uselessness.

If we want to go down that road there are a lot of parts of D&D that just need to go away. How's the grapple rule's cool to suck ratio? How about the Fighter? How about the survival rules?

Let's face it, MTP is what holds a game together. Because, honestly, the DM setting up a campaign is magical tea party. It is nothing but the DM saying, "Hey, this is what's gonna happen! I can assign some rules to it but uh overall it's just pure bullshit given some structure with the rules because that pure bullshit is what I think will be neat."

Hell, even the rules are MTP because they're purely arbitrarily assigned in order to challenge the party. Unless you're running a hexcrawl where everything is pregenerated in which case, wow, there are Roguelikes that do it better.

I think you could create adventure design guidelines that would only improve people's games with the advantage over a video game being that you get unlimited amounts of original content. The only strength of an TTRPG over a CRPG is the original content, not the flexibility to not have rules and play MTP.

But yes, a lot of existing DnD (4e, 3.x, whatever) needs to go away. The skill systems have never worked. Most spells are both overly complicated and too vague. Three fourths of the classes can't compete with the remaining classes.

Improving on any version of DnD basically requires making a fantasy adventure game with none of DnD's baggage that wouldn't feel like DnD any more. DnD game design is iconic because of the "it so bad, it's good" principle.

[darkmaster]

Except that superman is a guy who exists in a world where magic is real and is very specifically not magic. He is so not magic magic is actually one of the few things that really hurts him. I'm not arguing that superman is normal, quite the opposite superman is fantastic he's just not magic.

K put forth that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This is true, it just doesn't matter, because the source of someone's power is just an arbitrary descriptor we assign to that person. If all Gigax took away from Gandalf was that he wore a pointy hat then we'd be arguing whether or not the stabby types should be able to measure up to the power of "pointy hat" with their own descriptors.

[Kaelik]

Except that superman is a guy who exists in a world where magic is real and is very specifically not magic. He is so not magic magic is actually one of the few things that really hurts him. I'm not arguing that superman is normal, quite the opposite superman is fantastic he's just not magic.

Oh don't be a fucking idiot. He was invented in a world that didn't have magic, so his alien physiology was a really bullshit sci-fi source, and then later he has jammed into a "continuity" with literally everything else made by a publishing company.

That does nothing to change that the only reason he isn't magic is because he was invented in a non magic world, just like Blizzard making both Starcraft and Warcraft doesn't mean that Krull is science fiction or that Protoss are magic, even if they suddenly start doing cross continuity work.

This does nothing to change the fact that Superman's power source of "alien physiology" is already accepted in D&D fantasy, and leads clearly to the ability to do cool shit.

Having a scar does not. And if you try to make "having a scar" into a source for the ability to do fly and do high level things, then you fundamentally make the game less enjoyable to everyone who isn't in the mood for your tremendous piece of shit joke game.

[Foxwarrior]

Are you a big fan of StarCraft 2 and Warcraft 3, K? They have great level editors.

Also, why hasn't anyone noticed Orion's post about definitions? If you want to keep both halves of a tactical combat RPG, isn't it nice to realize that the type of balance you want in the out of combat half is fundamentally different from the balance you want in the in combat half?

[darkmaster]

Good job ignoring the part of my post that makes your argument invalid. Let me make things clearer. Everything you just wrote, all the words you just put down, they have no meaning until the people who read it give it meaning. If you'd grown up in a word where wizards got their power from "pointy hats" and fighters got their abilities from "having scars" you wouldn't even fucking blink at the idea. My whole point is that the source of a character's power is completely fucking meaningless until we make it mean something.

To recap, "magic" the word, doesn't mean anything at all until you make it mean something, so too everything else that has ever been said ever. So we could seriously say anything instead of magic and assign it to a character type and you have the power source for that character archetype. So if a fighter gains the ability to cut holes in the cosmos by swinging his sword so fast that it catches at the fabric of the universe then it's fine because those words only mean what we tell them to mean.

[Whipstitch]

Magic does have a meaning. Some connotations just get emphasized or even redefined for the purposes of a work, be it a novel, comic book or a table top game. That fact doesn't make it any less retarded when people talk about normal humans shooting chi blasts as if it is normal by common standards.

[K]

Are you a big fan of StarCraft 2 and Warcraft 3, K? They have great level editors.

Yeh, I'm used to people flipping out and telling me to go play video games when I demand good rules and an actual game with rules when I RPG.

It's pretty much the reason that RPGs have been getting worse for about a decade with shittier and shittier rulesets garnering smaller and smaller audiences.

Eventually tabletop gaming will just be guys on The Forge with their pure MTP games being given out for free to audiences of tens of people. I guess I'm fine with that since iconic DnD only seems to be useful for ironic t-shirts these days.

[Kaelik]

Good job ignoring the part of my post that makes your argument invalid.

That is because the part I ignored was meaningless drivel that doesn't do that.

If you'd grown up in a word where wizards got their power from "pointy hats" and fighters got their abilities from "having scars" you wouldn't even fucking blink at the idea.

Except that it is fundamentally impossible for that world to exist. I, and everyone else in the world, know what having scars and wearing pointy hats does. Which is why it could only be stupid comic relief that would allow that as a power source.

So we could seriously say anything instead of magic and assign it to a character type and you have the power source for that character archetype.

Wrong, you can assign anything that you can drag into a plausible connection that doesn't sound like a fucking joke. When you pick something completely unjustifiable as a power source, you make everything sound like shit.

So if a fighter gains the ability to cut holes in the cosmos by swinging his sword so fast that it catches at the fabric of the universe then it's fine because those words only mean what we tell them to mean.

Except that you are fucking wrong. They mean what other people already know they mean.

Which is why people are totally willing to accept a Fighter cutting through to another dimension because of his chi, or his understanding of the dimensional fabric, but they will not accept it when you tell them he does it because he has a cool scar.

[darkmaster]

You're missing the fucking point Kaelik, and I can only assume you're missing it because you don't like the implications. The point is that these terms are arbitrary and based our culture's biases and collective consciousness and there is exactly nothing that actually stops our culture from thinking pointy hats instead of magic because both these terms are just meaningless strings of sound until someone makes them mean something. And if you don't believe me just remember the English language is alive and changing all the time, and it's not just new words meanings of words change over time too. Another example would be exactly, in the traditional since it meas that what you're saying is perfectly accurate, but in recent years it has become fashionable to use exactly in hyperbolic terms, the hyperbole becoming more widely used than the traditional meaning and thus actually changing the meaning of the word. Or if you want evidence of words being a matter of culture you don't even have to leave the forum just look at those stupid threads complaining about not being able to say [EDITED] to mean cigaret.

Just because the current culture couldn't imagine using "pointy hat" instead of "magic" doesn't make your argument valid it's just the excuse you're using to be ignorant.

[OgreBattle]

But yes, a lot of existing DnD (4e, 3.x, whatever) needs to go away. The skill systems have never worked. Most spells are both overly complicated and too vague. Three fourths of the classes can't compete with the remaining classes.

Improving on any version of DnD basically requires making a fantasy adventure game with none of DnD's baggage that wouldn't feel like DnD any more. DnD game design is iconic because of the "it so bad, it's good" principle.

Did you ever start on such a Fantasy Heartbreaker not-D&D project? Like what Frank's doing with Shadowrun.

[Kaelik]

The point is that these terms are arbitrary and based our culture's biases and collective consciousness and there is exactly nothing that actually stops our culture from thinking pointy hats instead of magic because both these terms are just meaningless strings of sound until someone makes them mean something.

What you are saying might mean two different things. One of them is meaningless, and the other is wrong.

So let's start with meaning one: "Collection of sounds." So, "Pointy Hat" could be what we call the act of waving our hands around and chanting, and "Magic" could be what we call the type of large sharp adornment goes on the head.

But that is meaningless, because they do not mean those things, so talking about that is a waste of time.

The second thing you could mean is that we could have culturally evolved into the society that has myths about people wearing pointy hats being able to do amazing things, and occasionally moving their hands around for unrelated aesthetic reasons.

But that is just false, we could not develop that culture, because wearing a pointy hat is a passive constant activity, and gesturing and chanting are actions. So we actually cannot treat hat wearing as the action needed to cast fireball.

Now second to that stupid example is the far more important point that even if it were theoretically possible for such a culture to exist, who gives a shit. It is possible for there to exist a culture that praises killing all the jews above all other things. But since this is not that culture, if you make a game where that is treated as the moral good you will be called a nazi bastard.

And likewise, even if some other theoretical culture could exist that did focus on hat pointing and scars, this is not that world, and you saying that we should design games that are not fun for people in this world so that hypothetically people in alternate dimensions could enjoy them is fucking stupid, and you should eat all the dicks for even suggesting it.

[darkmaster]

Wrong, the real point is that all of this is arbitrary. In order to have any real meaningful conversation about the terminology of ultimately arbitrary mechanical effects imposed over an ultimately arbitrary setting you have to understand that the terms in question are ultimately arbitrary as well. If you can't understand that then you cannot contribute to this conversations and should just leave. If you can then by all means keep reading.

Given that all of these terms are arbitrary, meaning only what they are told to, what you actually call a power source is meaningless you could say pointy hats, you could say magic, you could say frumpy loo-loo, it doesn't fucking mater. Thus you can flavor powers however you like and assign them any power source you like and it doesn't even mater because all of that shit is meaningless except as packaging.

Mutants and Masterminds does this really well, all powers, all everything, are just packets of game mechanics. In the case of powers these mechanics are unflavored and you add whatever descriptors you feel like and away you go. If you have Teleport (punching) you punch so hard that you make hole to wherever you're going and that's fine, it doesn't even mater because all descriptors are is packaging.

[Winnah]

I'm sure that the Bush Administration would agree that the terminology of an act should be left to the actor to define.

That way, torture is only torture if the torturer says it is. Otherwise, it's Enhanced Interrogation, which is totally not torture, because the torturer said so.

By the way, fuck you, you crypto fascist pig.

[Kaelik]

Given that all of these terms are arbitrary, meaning only what they are told to, what you actually call a power source is meaningless you could say pointy hats, you could say magic, you could say frumpy loo-loo, it doesn't fucking mater.

No, the only meaning they have is what we give them and what they already fucking have to the people who already exist and will play the game.

Which means it is meaningful what you claim something's power source is, because if you call their power source frumpy loo-loo you are directly and intentionally making the game less fun for the vast majority of people who might be willing to play it, you fucking retard.

Stop being such a fucking dumbshit by purposefully advocating for making the game less fun for literally no fucking gain.

[Username17]

Given that all of these terms are arbitrary, meaning only what they are told to, what you actually call a power source is meaningless you could say pointy hats, you could say magic, you could say frumpy loo-loo, it doesn't fucking mater. Thus you can flavor powers however you like and assign them any power source you like and it doesn't even mater because all of that shit is meaningless except as packaging.

Stop being Humpty Dumpty.



This viewpoint is outright false. It does matter what you call things, because communication only happens if you use words in the way your audience expects them to be used. It is the listener, and not the speaker, who determines what information is conveyed.

So if you're someone stupid like Darwinism who thinks that their entirely nonsensical personal definitions of words are the "real ones", you're wrong. If you're someone stupid like darkmaster who thinks that they can grab words off the shelf and manhandle them into new meanings, you're also wrong.

Words have meanings. They can also change their meanings and new words can be coined. But this process is not easy, guaranteed, or particularly under the control of any single person. It is not an effect that you can or should rely upon.

-Username17

[ishy]

It's magic in the sense that Frank and Kaelik are using the word, where it's a supernatural thing, is a source of Phlebotinum and is functionally identical to "magic" magic. But it isn't magic in the sense that it's actually called "magic" on your character sheet/in the rulebook or in the sense of it being something that gets stopped by an "anti-magic" field.

Allow me to show you that the part that I bolded in your post is wrong.

Variant: nonmagical Psionics
Under this variant rule, psionic powers aren’t magical at all,

[Crimlock]

"...the written word, amounts to a non-sensical arrangement of sounds or letters without a consensus that assigns 'meaning.' And building from the meaning of what we hear, we order reality. Words themselves are innocuous; it is the consensus that gives them true power."
Gloria Naylor's "The Meaning of a Word"

So, you cannot jump into an estabilished community's verbiage (magic being the word here, and the definition meaning anything beyond the mundane) without first attempting to understand what they mean, and instead demand that they change their language to better suit your understanding. You will just come off as a rambling idiot. Certain advocators of the "change what magic means" on this topic, have used the establish acronym MTP without as much as a double take. Think about it.

“Do not argue with an idiot they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” Mark Twain
Anyone who attempted to argue the definition of magic with the people trying to change the established consensus's definition have fallen into this trap. The world's established definition doesn't apply when using slang verbiage within in group to convey an idea.

tL:dr a words meaning is established by a group of people, and if you jump into a groups conversation without knowledge of this you will sound like a crazy hobo. And don't argue with that crazy hobo, cuz the shit he's talking about makes sense to him and to a portion of other crazy hobos

[Chamomile]

All these new posters, lately. Where did we get linked? Apparently at least one of them is a goon, but some of them are turning up to disagree with the goon, so I'm not sure it's SA.

[Crimlock]

A lurker friend linked to me, and I lurked... And it's been a great thread. Really enlightening on the structure of game mechanics. It's just the argument of the definition of magic between veri and kaelik was so dumb it produced a magical headache effect that drew me out of lurking, once I recovered.