enjoying a game dispite it's flaws?

[JonSetanta]

Actually I never realized how stupid Wish was until Frank n Keith pointed it out.
Or maybe it was because campaigns with my friends crapped out before we could be exposed to Wish in its full broken-ness...

[Prak]

1190068838[/unixtime]]Actually I never realized how stupid Wish was until Frank n Keith pointed it out.
Or maybe it was because campaigns with my friends crapped out before we could be exposed to Wish in its full broken-ness...

see, this is something I know about... my longest runnign game is the one we're currently doing and it's about four or five sessions long now, and we need to get another session in, but that might be difficult to schedule...

also, I'm not trying to promote the Oberoni Fallacy in my sig, least not from my understanding of it, because I'm not suggesting there's no problem because we can house rule it, I'm suggesting, I guess, a gentlemen's agreement to not abuse the flaw in question.

I recognize that every system has it's flaws, such as turning Cain into a lawn chair, but the great thing about games, is that you can agree to not fucking do that.

also, what I was talking about in the first post, was enjoying a game prior to learning it's flaws, and suddenly the game has lost it's luster... as much as I like the K and Frank rules, maybe I should just go back to doing the normal rules and solve flaws with said gentlemen's agreement for a time...I don't know, but it seems like this site has made me more conscious of flaws, and that it's ruining the game for me... but then I never really had that awesome dm, least not as far as D&D goes, and I'm DM more often than my friends, because I've got nothing else to do I guess... so I seldom get to be in the player's seat... meh, I'll get my girlfriend to read the DM's guide, maybe then I'll get to play more often...

[JonSetanta]

No it wasn't the content of you sig but that it's just plain freakin BIG

[Voss]

Actually, winning half the time isn't the balance point of CR. Because that implies that you lose half the time as well. Most people don't want to play *that* game. Its more winning if you put forth an effort (that 25% of your resources thing), or winning a 'challenging' combat. Cakewalks are bad, but so is rolling up new characters every other encounter.

[JonSetanta]

About those resources: have Frank n K written anything about how to compare 'cast at-will' abilities to expendable resources?

This might seem like a stupid question but what I mean is that 25%-resources-used-per-encounter doesn't mean anything to me if the resources never vanish.

How would one also compare Fighter/melee Warrior to slotted spellcaster? Measure the amount of HP they have left?

[Bigode]

Voss, it should be, IMO, that a sole character wins 50% spending almost all resources (since both sides are supposed to be equal, and could be even a mirror match) and loses 50%, but a party always wins because either it's 4v1, or because it's more diverse and well-played (if it's not, screw them).

Sigma: after obtaining a wand of CLW, it's pretty ridiculous to talk about resource expenditure for fighters, but they suck enough that talking about them winning at all's ridiculous too. On a more useful note, that's why, gasp, WotC claims to have realized that putting different people on different resource paradigms' bad, and put everyone on all three.

[Koumei]

Turning Cain into a lawn chair?

[TarlSS]

For some reason whenever I come to this forum I get the overwhelming sense that you guys hate all RPGs ever.

Is there some kind of sense of accomplishment you achieve in taking the latest supplements and trashing them? I'm not sure why this forum hasn't stopped talking about WOTC products already.

I've run several D&D campaigns and used Wish and monks and wizards and clerics with people who knew what they were doing, yet I've never had particular problems that were inherent in the mechanics- frankly the only troublesome difficulties I've had were your standard 'you're a jerk' problems.

I read this board frequently yet only feel a sense of alienation- do the majority of you truly derive no enjoyment because of the numerous flaws in the system?

It's very sad. Despite your in depth and hardhitting analysis, my attempts in using your proposed fixes (The Frank and K's various Tomes) simply result in failure. I think D&D is a superior product because I have fun with it, but the ever increasing caterwauling in this forum over the years causes me to cringe.

These days I have to wade through tides of verbal abuse to find the nuggets of insight that attracted me to this forum in the first place.

That really isn't fun. It's like a somber adult stepping into a child's game of let's pretend and telling them to grow up. Sometimes, yes, you should look beyond the flaws.

[virgil]

Actually, I'm fairly certain a number of people here reserve their actual joy in roleplaying for when they do it. Or do you honestly think that we're caricatures?

As for the insight, the insight I got the majority of the time was from Frank & K themselves (I say majority, not entirely). There are several people here that seem to do nothing more than line up to give the ol' Frank Fellatio or to try feel important by giving their own little rants that amount to naught but verbal diarrhea.

With the fact that D&D is finished (until 4E gets released), K being effectively gone, Frank not being anywhere near as active as he used to, and no particular RPG to really stir the community at large, the forums are probably going to be less awesome.

[Koumei]

I enjoy playing the games. I'll often enough run into something that could do with some bitching about later on, but it doesn't turn me off playing altogether, and rarely leaves an impact on that session.

But since reading the Tome stuff (along with things made by others who are inspired by the Tomes) and playing those games, I have enjoyed it a lot more. So I imagine we bitch about the games a lot, but really do enjoy playing them, and sometimes we work out good changes as a result of the bitching.

But seriously, what's this about Cain being turned into a lawn chair?

[Voss]

Not sure where Cain comes from, but with original Mage rules it was very easy to turn vampires into lawnchairs. All you needed was 3-5 (depending on how the Storyteller, and where transforming fit, I forget, its been a while) dots in the Matter sphere, since you're turning one type of non-living matter into another. With Prime 2, you could make it permanent.
Someone turned it up to 11 with Cain, though it probably still works.

[Catharz]

1190092194[/unixtime]]For some reason whenever I come to this forum I get the overwhelming sense that you guys hate all RPGs ever.

That's exactly right. After all, why would we ever spend all this time writing up RPG material if we didn't hate it?

[JonSetanta]

1190095820[/unixtime]]

1190092194[/unixtime]]For some reason whenever I come to this forum I get the overwhelming sense that you guys hate all RPGs ever.

That's exactly right. After all, why would we ever spend all this time writing up RPG material if we didn't hate it?

QFT

[Voss]

Aww, its the mandatory 'You can't be cynical or critical' post. You must accept that everything is good without question, and just hope that people aren't feeding you shit. You definitely shouldn't sniff and see if you smell fecal matter.

Its reminds me of the good days of RPGcodex. Before the dark times. Before the Elder Scrolls Fans.

[JonSetanta]

Tarl took the blue pill.

[Voss]

There is something with nothing but flaws.

[JonSetanta]

A mountain of broken game mechanics is still a mountain, and standing on top of it still gives a nice view.

[PhoneLobster]

Even a starving camel is larger than a horse.

Wait. I hate camels.

And how stupid does a camel have to be to starve I mean it eats basically everything which can be found basically anywhere.

And I'd prefer a functioning well fed horse even if it were smaller.

Anyway, smaller might be better, I have no desire for large ungainly and camel shaped transportation.

Stupid fricking camel.

What were we supposed to be talking about again?

[Crissa]

Well, many broken parts of games can be skipped be excising those parts from the game. Too many attacks unbalances the game? Take it out. Etc. That doesn't make the game itself balanced, but fixes the momentary campaign - many WotC posters can't tell the difference between a good campaign and a good game, tho.

-Crissa

PS: Warlocks in WoW aren't overpowered: you have to out-live your opponent to score a win. The mere fact that Warlocks kill you is overshadowed by the fact that they can't really stop you from killing them first. 1vs1 combat isn't balanced in almost any combination of the nine classes. Terrain also matters more than one might expect in a computer game as well - armored classes win in arena, ranged classes rule in battlegrounds, and healing classes are nearly unkillable on the open world (although they usually can do little else).

Is it balanced if Joe always kills Jane if Jane doesn't flee, but that Joe cannot ever kill Jane if she does choose to flee? But if Joe chooses to flee from Jack, he cannot...

[Koumei]

PhoneLobster:



I was wondering the exact same thing.

[JonSetanta]

1190105573[/unixtime]]PhoneLobster:



I was wondering the exact same thing.

Shh he's a furfag, don't talk to him... Something about sex with obese horses.

[Username17]

here, let me put it this way: "There may be flaws in a system, but that's one thing you can very safely turn a blind eye to, because if no one looks for the breaking points in a game, they won't cause a problem."

This is false. However, there is a very simlar statement which is true:

"There are flaws in any system, and you cannot very safely turn a blind eye to them, because if no one looks for the breaking points in a game, then when the game breaks noone will know what is causing the problem."

-Username17

[Prak]

1190095628[/unixtime]]Not sure where Cain comes from, but with original Mage rules it was very easy to turn vampires into lawnchairs. All you needed was 3-5 (depending on how the Storyteller, and where transforming fit, I forget, its been a while) dots in the Matter sphere, since you're turning one type of non-living matter into another. With Prime 2, you could make it permanent.
Someone turned it up to 11 with Cain, though it probably still works.

Cain was the first vamp in OWoD, so I was exaggerating a bit, but the idea is the same...

"There are flaws in any system, and you cannot very safely turn a blind eye to them, because if no one looks for the breaking points in a game, then when the game breaks noone will know what is causing the problem."

-Username17

you're not getting what I'm saying... I'm saying you can safely turn a blind eye to game flaws because if you don't see the flawed rule, you can't use it and thus it can't become a problem. If you don't see the open-endedness of wish, like I didn't until I learned about it from your stuff, then you can't use wish to break the game. If you don't know about the candle of invocation then you can't buy one and break the game by making an efreet your bitch. If you don't know that a rogue can, apparently, choose an epic feat as it's special ability bonus feat, then you can't grab epic spellcasting, burn a candle of invocation and break the game. If you do know that stuff but decide not to be a Wyland/Yutani jackass and drag the monster out of the dark to do your bidding, you don't break the fucking game.

[Crissa]

...And no one will step in the gap in the bridge because no one saw it coming and couldn't jump into it.

-Crissa

[Prak]

1190189654[/unixtime]]...And no one will step in the gap in the bridge because no one saw it coming and couldn't jump into it.

-Crissa

sure, shoot holes in my theory... but it's hard to ignore something right in your path. When the monster presents itself, you either kill it or reform it.