The Gaming Den

Also: if the DM being seen as unfair and showing favoritism is such a big issue that we cannot let him pick treasure for us, how can we let him decide what monsters fight us, and how? Should we demand open rolls there too, and random tables?

Frank: The DM, being human, is incapable of being truly impartial, and must settle for being fair.

That makes no sense. I'd rather have a DM trying his best to make all players happy than a DM washing his hands off the whole thing and rolling randomly.

If I want that kind of impartiality I play a computer game, not a tabletop game.

Fuchs wrote:That makes no sense. I'd rather have a DM trying his best to make all players happy than a DM washing his hands off the whole thing and rolling randomly.

If I want that kind of impartiality I play a computer game, not a tabletop game.

Wait, did I miss something?

"Settling for fair" makes no sense. Just because you can't be perfect doesn't mean you should not try. What good is being fair if players are not having fun?

I can fogive a DM a lot of mistakes, but I'd be angry if he does not even try to make the players happy.

Fuchs wrote:The idea that one needs random treasure to avoid players getting angry at the DM is really, really stupid.

(see 30+ years of DM vs. player arguments)

random treasure was the decision of most of those arguments to prevent favoritism or "hate" towards specific players.

the DM being impartial is a GOOD thing.

your method is the complete opposite end of the spectrum to give in to the players and play favoritism to all.

where is the game in that? why play if everything is handed to you and your choices are meaningless?

you are jsut sitting around telling bedtime stories about fake adventures because everything is spoonfed.

Fuchs wrote:"Settling for fair" makes no sense. Just because you can't be perfect doesn't mean you should not try. What good is being fair if players are not having fun?

I can fogive a DM a lot of mistakes, but I'd be angry if he does not even try to make the players happy.

Frank says a DM must be impartial. I assert this isn't possible. All he can do is try to be as fair as possible to the party given the circumstances.

As you pointed out, rolling treasure randomly isn't fair, because the dice, quite on their own, could favor one party member over the others. If the DM intentionally doesn't correct in the hopes of trying to maintain some illusion of impartiality, all he's doing is screwing over the party in an entirely different way.

I'm not sure where you and I are in disagreement here, Fuchs.

The only disagreement I see is that being fair is not the goal, the goal is that all players have fun.

And the best way to have fun is to be fair. I think you and I are talking past each other, Fuchs.

To reiterate my point: Frank says that treasure must be rolled randomly to preserve DM impartiality. I say it doesn't do that. If the dice cause one person in the party to be favored over the others and you allow it, you are favoring that player and using the dice as an excuse. If the dice fault one member of the party over the others and you allow it, you are punishing that member for nothing and using the dice as an excuse.

Desdan_Mervolam wrote:Frank says a DM must be impartial. I assert this isn't possible. All he can do is try to be as fair as possible to the party given the circumstances.

As you pointed out, rolling treasure randomly isn't fair, because the dice, quite on their own, could favor one party member over the others. If the DM intentionally doesn't correct in the hopes of trying to maintain some illusion of impartiality, all he's doing is screwing over the party in an entirely different way.

I'm not sure where you and I are in disagreement here, Fuchs.

The part you missed is where Fuchs is a scenery chewing mad man who refuses to take "no" or even "maybe later" for an answer and wants everything he wants to be delivered to him immediately and he will throw a temper tantrum if it is not.

However, on your point: you have it backwards. Fairness is impossible. Impartiality is easy. Roll some fucking dice, roll them in the open even. Boom, you're impartial. Fairness? How the fuck are you going to manage that? Even if everyone gets their ultimate artifact set, someone will get theirs first and that is not fair.

Ultimately there has to be a reason for the unfairness. If things are unfair because as the DM you so willed it, then you're really telling the players that you have decided that things are going to be unfair and how they are going to be unfair and that every single unfairness is because you decided to favor one player over another - maybe you'll like them better next time.

That is why dice and charts are so damn useful. They divert blame for the inherent unfairness of things away from the DM and towards the dice or the charts. Because things are going to be unfair. And if they aren't unfair because of an impersonal element, they are unfair because of the vindictiveness of some person. And if you're the DM, that's you.

We've all been in games where the DM throws massive bullshit power items to his girlfriend or best friend or some shit, and it's really teeth grindingly annoying. But even when it's not that blatant, the reality is that every time there is a wishlist situation it is like that to some extent. It's not even possible for treasure to be apportioned fairly, so if the treasure is being given to players deliberately, the DM is being deliberately unfair. With all the resentment that deserves.

-Username17

All I know is that random treasure is a great way to get yourself loaded down with plenty of vendor trash. Even more so than looting the +1 armors from each of the two dozen guards.

Shadow Balls wrote:All I know is that random treasure is a great way to get yourself loaded down with plenty of vendor trash. Even more so than looting the +1 armors from each of the two dozen guards.

That's true. But it's also a good illustration of the point of this thread. People think they don't want to get vendor trash, but not getting vendor trash makes them unhappy.

If you only get one magic weapon, you could claim that it is "good", but you can make an equally strong case that it is "crap". Because it's the only thing you have, it is therefore both the best and the worst item you can use. On the other hand, if you get a bunch of gear that you could use and one piece of gear that is objectively much better, then the best item is by definition and comparison "good".

You can see this in action in 4e, where players get a +4 Flaming Sword and curse about how shitty it is because they have nothing to compare it to but their ideals of what could have dropped instead. The move from AD&D to 3e came with much less assumed treasure dropping and a much higher assumption of market fungibility. And the result was that none of the equipment players had felt like it was "good" because there were no other items to contrast them with.

The vendor trash is by definition trash, but not getting any vendor trash means that whatever you do get feels like trash. Great wealth is absolutely meaningless without contrastable poverty.

-Username17

The thing is, if you get vendor trash and can't sell it, it IS wasted potential. That means every argument you've just made applies to the opposite viewpoint.

Now if you can sell that vendor trash and buy useful items with it, then you will. And you can claim that makes magic items less special or whatever. But then they never were anything other than a tool of the murdering hobo trade.

And that means that the option that doesn't spam you with junk is the better one.

The problem with 4th edition isn't that whole wishlist thing but a combination of the system being shitty, vendor trash selling for 1/5th instead of 1/2th, and the system assuming that you have x stats at y level even more stringently than previous editions.

I said several times that players should get what they want eventually, Frank. Meaning, at a point it's still of use.

You must have been traumatized by some really bad group once, for going so off base with your assertions what people are like to actually laud random treasure as better than a DM doing his best to drop fun stuff.

Here's a hint: Not everyone plays with sociopaths. Most play with friends, and they play together.

Again: People do not play as you say.

Desdan_Mervolam wrote: Frank says a DM must be impartial. I assert this isn't possible. All he can do is try to be as fair as possible to the party given the circumstances.

As you pointed out, rolling treasure randomly isn't fair, because the dice, quite on their own, could favor one party member over the others. If the DM intentionally doesn't correct in the hopes of trying to maintain some illusion of impartiality, all he's doing is screwing over the party in an entirely different way.

Okay, no. That's not what a fair game is. Fairness is everyone having an equally good chance of good things happening. It doesn't mean that everyone will have something good happen to them, that's the nature of randomness and gambling in general.

A poker game is fair if everyone gets a random shuffle.

You aren't preaching for fairness, you want equality, and those two things are different.

Koumei wrote:Josh: clearly you should randomly roll your next level.

Limiting that to the classes in your sourcebook (which is in itself a heuristic pruning of the possibility space) yielded a result of Assassin.

This is an alternative which I had not even considered based on my own heuristics for character advancement - and that could be a poor decision, so I should evaluate the random result more in-depth.

So adding a level of Dungeonomicon Assassin to a Dungeonomicon Monk 1/Snowscaper 4 gives no BAB increase (and due to fractionals a setback on increasing Snowscaper BAB), It gives one fewer HP than a level of either Snowscaper or Monk. With the Tome save progressions, it gives +1 fort, +1 ref, +0 will - compared to Monk 2's +1 to all or snowscaper 5s'+0 to all saves. It adds 2 more skill points than either of the options (and a broader class skill list, which for some reason I have been following, even though the MC does not care about class skills).

Level 1 of assassin gives me repeating and handcrossbow proficienies I don't care about, as the character already carries a musket she hasn't used once in two whole levels. It also gives me proficiency with light martial weapons that are not swords and not piercing weapons and one XWP of choice. In tome with +1 XWP per BAB, this is a minor consideration at best.

On to the actual class abilities: Assassin 1 gives me four spells known from: Detect Poison, Detect Magic, Read Magic, Ghost Sound, Disrupt Undead, Touch of Fatigue, of which I get to use two per day. Since I'm already packing a 4d6+4 ranged touch attack that ignores cold resistance and immunity as well as SR disrupt undead is subpar enough to be useless, leaving me only one meaningful choice of spell to eliminate. All in all, this spellcasting is of minimal utility. However I do feel compelled to point out the insight of one of my players last night - namely that of Koumei's Disgaea sourcebook classes, the Assassin is the only necromancer choice - eventually getting things like command undead and animate dead. So an assassin level opens up the chance to use scrolls of skeleton command and zombie making - which isn't terribly feasible without some more levels sunk into Assassin or Storm Blade- but which is interesting and kinda in-genre for N! verse settings.

Assassin 1 also gives me poison use, which could be used to add a potential status effect or ability damage to the dual sword attacks already adding pall of frost and frozen heart damage to each hit. This looks nice on paper, but the amount of enemies who get actions where such status effects or stat reductions matter after I get a full swording attack againt them has so far been very close to zero.

Assassin 1 gives personal immunity, which lets me pick 3 favorite blade toxins from the DMG and more importantly lets me tie the white mage in the next in-game drinking contest.

Then the big deal, a +3d6 death attack. However this takes a full round to setup, which means I'm giving up a +8 ranged touch 4d6+4 coldfire attack against anyone inside 110' (single move + close range) or a 150' charge for dual swords (yay tome 2wf!) at +12/+12 (counting charge) for 1d10+5 slashing and 1d6+5 cold / 1d6+3 slashing and +1d6+5 cold. So death attack is only a win when a target
A> has a high touch AC
or
B> has a high total AC and is more than 110' away
or
C> is more than 150' away.

This is an online game, run mapless, so precise distances are unlikely to come up, thus I feel safe in disregarding cases B and C. - This leaves only case A. And in case A, I already have

Snowscaper ability wrote: Brittling (Su): At level 2 the Snowscaper may concentrate her will upon a person or object within medium range, and chill the target. This always hits, and does 1d6 cold damage, and makes the target lose their Dex bonus to AC for one round (two if the target is Cold-vulnerable). Objects have their hardness halved for 1d4 rounds; this goes for any creature which also has a Hardness score.

which auto-hits and removes Dex and Dodge bonuses from the target, letting the rest of the party gank anyone who isn't rocking Size, Deflection, Armored in Life or Bullshit bonuses to touch AC.

However, there's some interesting combo-ing between Death Attack and Brittling. Brittling removes Dex to AC, which would help with Death Attack setup, aside from the general one round duration being too short against opponent's who aren't cold-vulnerable. The actual combo works the other way around - using Brittling itself AS the death attack - in which case it's an auto-hit for extra damage and status ailments. However, this hinges upon Brittling counting as an attack - which is a questionable-at-best interpretation - it does "always hit"which could imply that it is an attack roll - but it is a supernatural ability without an attack roll, which probably makes it more akin to magic missile- which is a damage spell, but not an "attack". And honestly, even if I could con Koumei into allowing that, it's still round of setup + standard action in following round to autohit for 4d6+4 damage out to medium range. Compared to the chance to move 75' and make a +8 ranged touch attack dealing 4d6+4 out to 35' beyond that in each of those two rounds, that's downright subpar.


Getting the better saves, better HP, +1 BAB, +1 AC and useless-for-this-character-in-this-game abilities of rain of flowers and abundant leap is just a better overall deal than that whole assassin level.

tl;dr; Heuristics 1, Random Roll: 0

Swordslinger wrote:You aren't preaching for fairness, you want equality, and those two things are different.

True. Although I must stress a caveat: those things are only different if the DM is not selecting the outcomes. If the DM is selecting what you get, then there is no chance involved and fairness and equality become the same thing. Equality is an unachievable goal, so the instant you intervene in the outcomes such that fairness is no longer different from equality, then fairness becomes unachievable as well.

Note that this is equally true for every outcome. If you fudge monster saves or enemy damage output you are no longer using fair dice and you cannot maintain a fiction of a fair and even playing field. Now that you've put yourself in the business of fudging outcomes, you have to give equal outcomes in order to be fair. Which is basically impossible.

Fuchs wrote:Here's a hint: Not everyone plays with sociopaths. Most play with friends, and they play together.

That word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Sociopathy isn't really a defined word these days, as most of the things people talked about have been moved into Antisocial Personality Disorder. ASPD is three or more from this list:

• failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
• deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
• impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead;
• irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
• reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
• consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
• lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

OK. You have listed two behaviors as being consistent with Sociopathy:

• Player One tells the group that he wants the party to go fight a ghost samurai so that he can get a shadow katana. Player 2 suggests that the party go fight frost giants instead. The party chooses to go fight frost giants by vote.
• Player One tells the DM that despite the fact that the party is going to fight Frost Giants and not the ghost samurai that they had agreed would drop a shadow katana, that a shadow katana should drop for him to use anyway. The DM tells him no, because it was already established where the shadow katana was and the characters did not go there.

OK, you actually would have a pretty good case for Antisocial Personality Disorder if you were talking about player one! The other players? Not so much. The player asked for a shadow katana to be made available, the DM put one into the world, and the players decided that they would rather do something else. The player then attempted to bypass the democratic process and the integrity of the world, which is really fucked up.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

• Player One tells the group that he wants the party to go fight a ghost samurai so that he can get a shadow katana. Player 2 suggests that the party go fight frost giants instead. The party chooses to go fight frost giants by vote.
• Player One tells the DM that despite the fact that the party is going to fight Frost Giants and not the ghost samurai that they had agreed would drop a shadow katana, that a shadow katana should drop for him to use anyway. The DM tells him no, because it was already established where the shadow katana was and the characters did not go there.

Is there a reason you keep repeating this shit even after Fuchs has repeatedly said this is NOT what he is suggesting/talking about?

Fuchs's position is better summed up by:

• Player One tells the group that he wants the party to go fight a ghost samurai so that he can get a shadow katana. Player 2 suggests that the party go fight frost giants instead. The party chooses to go fight frost giants by vote.
• Player One obligingly goes along with the group to fight frost giants. In the depths of their icy lair, they find foreign mercenary who is there to establish some kind of deal with the frost giants, and he brought along his blazing comet katana (just in case the frost giants proved treacherous), and in the course of the fighting he dies and player one still gets a nifty sword.

or even better, for the second item:

• Player One goes along to fight frost giants, and a good time is had by all. 2 adventures later, they end up fighting a Storm Ninja, and his Lighting Katana is claimed by Player One.

You're a smart guy, Frank, I don't see why this should be hard to grasp after he's said it multiple times.

FrankTrollman wrote:
OK, you actually would have a pretty good case for Antisocial Personality Disorder if you were talking about player one! The other players? Not so much. The player asked for a shadow katana to be made available, the DM put one into the world, and the players decided that they would rather do something else. The player then attempted to bypass the democratic process and the integrity of the world, which is really fucked up.

-Username17

You really must play with sociopaths who like to fuck over other players if you actually believe people play RPGs that way. Generally all players - apart from the sociopathic assholes - want everyone to be happy, which means they like it when they can do what they want and stuff still drops for everyone.

So, yeah, if a player actually gets bent about another player getting a nice fire katana from fire giants after the group declined to go on a quest to get a frost katana, then we've discovered a grade-1 asshole.

It does sound like Fuchs and Frank are arguing slightly different points... now.

I don't think Fuchs has actually withdrawn this statement, though, which is what really seems to have guided Frank to new heights of irritation.

RadiantPhoenix wrote:It does sound like Fuchs and Frank are arguing slightly different points... now.

I don't think Fuchs has actually withdrawn this statement, though, which is what really seems to have guided Frank to new heights of irritation.

I asked him several fucking times if he was really that fucking retarded, and he doubled down on his stupid every fucking time. That is really what he is saying. If the players decide to not do the katana sidequest, he feels it is the DM's duty to obviate that decision and give the katana as a participation trophy. And he accused both the players who opted to do some other sidequest than the fucking katana sidequest and the hypothetical DM who would abide by the decision to not do the sidequest by having the sidequest not get completed of being sociopaths. Repeatedly. Often in two or three posts in row just to make sure that only a complete fucking basket case couldn't figure out that Fuchs' position really is that fucking extreme and retarded.

-Username17

Shadow Balls wrote:The thing is, if you get vendor trash and can't sell it, it IS wasted potential.

1.) Not necessarily. Most people would consider getting a Ring of Water Walking or a Bag of Tricks vendor trash/booby prize when they were still lugging around mundane swords, but it's not exactly a waste. There could still be a situation where those things were helpful.

2.) Vendor trash is too much of a snarl world. Depending on the pickiness of the player it could mean anything from 'a lodestone' to 'a +4 frost bastard sword when I wanted a +4 icy burst bastard sword'. You need to be more specific.

3.) What kind of wasted potential? The magical item lottery was free. It's not like a real lottery where you are out money for not winning. You started out at nothing and for the price of nothing you got nothing. What kind of greedy bastard would you have to be to be mad that you didn't win a jackpot instead of 10 dollars for free?

Shadow Balls wrote: The problem with 4th edition isn't that whole wishlist thing but a combination of the system being shitty, vendor trash selling for 1/5th instead of 1/2th, and the system assuming that you have x stats at y level even more stringently than previous editions.

Are you trying to tell us that wishlists were good in principle, they just weren't fungible enough?

FrankTrollman wrote:True. Although I must stress a caveat: those things are only different if the DM is not selecting the outcomes. If the DM is selecting what you get, then there is no chance involved and fairness and equality become the same thing. Equality is an unachievable goal, so the instant you intervene in the outcomes such that fairness is no longer different from equality, then fairness becomes unachievable as well.

So to summarize: in your earlier post where you said "Enemy equipment would be drawn up in reference to whatever the enemies actually were", you were "selecting the outcomes" and therefore you were throwing fairness out the window?

hogarth wrote: So to summarize: in your earlier post where you said "Enemy equipment would be drawn up in reference to whatever the enemies actually were", you were "selecting the outcomes" and therefore you were throwing fairness out the window?

Is this supposed to be some kind of faux-clever trap? DMs throw fairness out the window all of the time. The only games where it's possible to be fair all of the time are boring Eigen Plot pablum. All of the enemy encounters, skill challenges, and treasure arrays are seeded so that everyone gets theoretically equal screentime. And even if that was able to be achieved, sometimes that's just plain not desirable; if Little Newbie Trevor is competing for screentime against min-maxer Brian the DM either has to be unfair or let Brian dominate.

hogarth wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:True. Although I must stress a caveat: those things are only different if the DM is not selecting the outcomes. If the DM is selecting what you get, then there is no chance involved and fairness and equality become the same thing. Equality is an unachievable goal, so the instant you intervene in the outcomes such that fairness is no longer different from equality, then fairness becomes unachievable as well.

So to summarize: in your earlier post where you said "Enemy equipment would be drawn up in reference to whatever the enemies actually were", you were "selecting the outcomes" and therefore you were throwing fairness out the window?

No. The entire point of persistent enemies with persistent equipment is that the DM is not selecting outcomes. There are Dark Creepers over there. They have some stuff. There are Gnolls over in that other direction, they have different stuff. The party can choose to go after one or the other and get different stuff. The players are choosing the outcomes rather than the DM.

And yeah, if the players don't scout and just run in and murder whatever they run into in a random direction, they are choosing a random box and getting what amounts to randomized treasure. But the point is that the players could scout out the opposition and vary their tactics or their targets based on magic items they were perceived as having. And if they did that, the treasure the DM wanted to hand out wouldn't wave particle itself into the hands of whoever the party ended up fighting. Because the DM is not selecting the outcomes.

-Username17