De canistro textrinum

[Foxwarrior]

In specific and super specific, I guess I see your point, and more creatures need to have Trace Teleport or something.

In general, I think you're conflating "I don't want you to succeed, so I'll scramble to make you fail" with "that's a nice plan and all, but you forgot to consider this variable which had already been set in stone before you came up with the plan." Edit: Maybe because, once you've started sandbagging in the plot layer, you can't meaningfully set player-unknown variables in stone any more.

[ModelCitizen]

In super specific, teleporting is not an ability that I'd consider nerfing. It doesn't add much to a monster's ECL.

Personally I'd love to get rid of scry-teleport tag, which would probably require nerfs on the teleport side. Greater Teleport should be limited to "to the entrance of the dungeon" and the like (yes it can be read that way now, but the rules need to be more clear), and it should be super easy to ward your home/campsite/airship against teleportation so you don't have to rely on DM pity not to get ganked in your sleep.

The current rules for proofing against remote ganking are complete DM authority wank. They're designed to protect a level 15 BBEG wizard from the level 9 PCs but leave the PCs completely at the DM's mercy. You need level 8 Mind Blank to block level 4 Scrying and level 5 Nightmare. Pretty much any dungeon can be teleport-proofed by placing it arbitrarily in "the Underdark" or for no reason at all (see Tomb of Horrors), but there's no good way for PCs take a place they care about and make it teleport-proof (yes Dimension Lock is a thing, but it sucks). This is all somehow balanced by the fact that the DM can't teleport-gank the PCs without ending the campaign, so the BBEG wizard never does the thing the players know damn well that he should do. The current situation sucks coming and going. It's counter-immersive just so the DM can stroke his dick to the idea that he *could* kill the PCs anytime he feels like it.

[K]

In specific and super specific, I guess I see your point, and more creatures need to have Trace Teleport or something.

In general, I think you're conflating "I don't want you to succeed, so I'll scramble to make you fail" with "that's a nice plan and all, but you forgot to consider this variable which had already been set in stone before you came up with the plan." Edit: Maybe because, once you've started sandbagging in the plot layer, you can't meaningfully set player-unknown variables in stone any more.

Going from theoretical power to actual power requires a fair amount of DM MTP, and therein lies the question of whether the DM is fucking with PC agency for funsies or because it makes a better story.

Here is an example: the PCs defeat a monster with at-will charm monster and take some important item and kill all it's minions, but the beast escapes with his life.

Now, the obvious answer is "well, it has an at-will charm effect, so it should be able to recruit some fools and come at the PCs." The problem is that this contains a number of DM assumptions and handwaving so great that it's basically as if the monster didn't have the power at all.

Where is the monster finding these new minions? How did it find them? How much time is it going to take to recruit them and, more importantly, transport them? How often are these monsters going to suddenly make saves and escape or turn on the monster, maybe warning the PCs or getting it's own allies to take out the monster in the process?

Answering all of those questions is DM MPT. He is basically exercising his plot powers to handwave all of those problems away so that he can create a cool revenge scenario where the monster gets a chance at revenge. It's not substantially different than if the DM decided that the monster didn't have an at-will charm monster and instead just had some allies that it called on to hunt down the PCs.

Almost all the of the "non-combat" powers make those kinds if assumptions, and that's why they are no different than simple DM action. The only question is whether the DM has decided to let the PCs get their rewards or he feels that they need more fucking with.

The related problem where a scenario like "we thought we could lock up the monster in the crypt, but it had teleport" is the same quality of problem. Nine times out of ten the issue is not that PCs locked a known teleport monster into a crypt, but that the DM decided for the sake of the plot that the monster had a teleport item hidden in it's shoe.

In the one out of ten scenario where the monster legitimately was known to have teleport, then let the monster use it or not as you wish. I could easily think of many reasons why an intelligent monster who just lost a battle would not want to chase PCs who have just defeated it so handily, but it matters little if you bone the PCs for their oversight if they knew the monster had teleport.

[hyzmarca]

Where is the monster finding these new minions? How did it find them? How much time is it going to take to recruit them and, more importantly, transport them?

Presumably, it's going to walk around the wilderness and make rolls on the random encounter table until it's satisfied or runs into something that can eat it.

[Red_Rob]

The main point of the Charming monster coming back with a posse is that is what the players will expect if they have seen the monster in action. Once they know it can mind control people and has escaped, they are going to expect it to round up a herd of minions and attempt to get it's revenge.

To me, the important part is defining these things beforehand and letting the players interact with the world without changing things in response to their actions. If you start playing Schroedingers bad guy then nothing the players do makes any difference. If the party feels like they can actually get something worthwhile by researching enemies, scouting and spying or using divinations then they have an incentive to interact with the gameworld, rather than simply ploughing through "the adventure" because it all woks out the same in the end anyway.

[K]

The main point of the Charming monster coming back with a posse is that is what the players will expect if they have seen the monster in action. Once they know it can mind control people and has escaped, they are going to expect it to round up a herd of minions and attempt to get it's revenge.

And yet, anyone can show up with a horde of minions and get revenge by any number of means that don't include that spell.

Or they can't if the DM decides that even with charm monster, the monster doesn't have the logistical support or information gathering to get a bunch of charmed monsters to the PCs. Finding level-appropriate things to charm, tracking down the PCs, and getting them to the PCs are not default assumptions by any means.

o me, the important part is defining these things beforehand and letting the players interact with the world without changing things in response to their actions. If you start playing Schroedingers bad guy then nothing the players do makes any difference. If the party feels like they can actually get something worthwhile by researching enemies, scouting and spying or using divinations then they have an incentive to interact with the gameworld, rather than simply ploughing through "the adventure" because it all woks out the same in the end anyway.

Deciding that you want to run a research-heavy game is entirely your choice, but I find that those games tend to involve entire sessions of tactical debates and little actual playing. Shadowrun plays that way because of the high-lethality and it gets super-boring.

It's the least interesting way to get people to interact with the game world. It's far more fun to meet recurring NPCs, find neat magic locations, kill monsters, find treasures, or even buy in-game real estate. Planning out and researching assaults is just a lot less fun than doing assaults and it takes up a lot more time than doing assaults.

In the real world, you would totally do it because there are no ECL limits on your adventures and you have tons of downtime, but in a game there totally are limits and players shouldn't live that way because you only get to play a few hours a week and should maximize fun.

[Stubbazubba]

The main point of the Charming monster coming back with a posse is that is what the players will expect if they have seen the monster in action. Once they know it can mind control people and has escaped, they are going to expect it to round up a herd of minions and attempt to get it's revenge.

What, you never killed a spider in a barn or a basement and expected an army of them to come get revenge on you, despite your knowing that spiders are solitary creatures and couldn't organize themselves like that? No? Just me?

The point is, as K pointed out, the monster doesn't need to be able to mind-control people to get a bunch of buddies together and come for revenge. The PCs can also take their bets on which will come back for more and which won't, killing/imprisoning the former and releasing the latter (if they feel like it, depending on the tone of the game). So if the PCs see a monster using an at-will charm monster, that actually doesn't mean that it is more likely to come back with friends; what goes into that judgment is "How afraid of us is he after we defeated it?" and "Is it sentient/prideful enough to hold a grudge?" Then, whether the friends he brings are mind-controlled minions or every one of his cousins or whatever, him having that out-of-combat ability doesn't change the story going on. It's his personality you have to judge, not his abilities.

If the party feels like they can actually get something worthwhile by researching enemies, scouting and spying or using divinations then they have an incentive to interact with the gameworld, rather than simply ploughing through "the adventure" because it all woks out the same in the end anyway.

No, they have an incentive to interact with the game rules, not the world. Major difference. When the PCs intimidate the monster and make it promise to never return to these lands or die, and thus make it less likely to come back, that's interacting with the world. Casting a spell to get a list of the BBEG's prepared spells is just interacting with the rules.

[Wrathzog]

To me, the important part is defining these things beforehand and letting the players interact with the world without changing things in response to their actions. If you start playing Schroedingers bad guy then nothing the players do makes any difference.

Ideally, the players wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Also, you can probably just hand out information to characters if they have high enough numbers in their knowledges. Why force them to make a roll for something their character probably knows off hand.

[Red_Rob]

from the other thread:

@rob, k
There are a bunch of crazy stories about aircraft too, but I can still distinguish many by sight and have an idea of their capabilities. It's not that hard. Why would monsters be different?

I'm guessing the reason you know so much about aircraft is due to having read up on the subject, and possibly having travelled to air shows. Now put yourself in a world without the printing press, the motor engine or the telephone. What opportunities would you have to learn about things that neither you nor your immediate circle had personally experienced?

There's a reason that wizards are associated with scrolls and books, and that's because in medieval times books were rare, mysterious objects. Every book had to be copied out by hand, and as a result the knowledge contained within was seen as akin to magic by the common people, 90% of whom could barely read. Tales of wizards learning mystical secrets from books are around because that's how people who actually read books were seen.

D&D adventurers can't simply check out "Ye Olde Book of Monstres" from the local library and read up on what an Otyugh likes to eat. Even the books that were written were full of misinformation and garbled facts, that were then repeated to others and garbled still further. Where do you think all the mythical creatures that D&D stole from real historical bestiaries came from? Someone dies of bird flu after feeding the chickens, and so the story goes round about a killer chicken, and after a few retellings you have the Cockatrice. Accurately judging a creature's abilities from the information you can get hold of in a fantasy world is going to be very hit and miss.

Now, Sages are people who are paid to sort the truth from the fabrication, so they may be able to give you a reasonable idea (for a fee!), and of course high level divination spells can give you (fairly) accurate information. But the man on the street is pretty clueless as to the actual creatures wandering around outside his village. He simply shivers at tales of Aboleths and Jabberwockies around the campfire and thanks the Gods he's not stupid enough to risk his life going out to see for himself!

[fectin]

But D&D simply isn't medieval. It has a similar tech level, sure, but Tomes (et al) have already made a very convincing case that they aren't equivalent. Further, while I'll readily admit that "stab a dude: pick locks better" is an abstraction, it's also the physics D&D operates on in a very real way. +10 on a knowledge check would be a big fucking deal in the real middle ages; in DnD /every/ wizard has that at level six.
At low levels, everything is zombies (big stats, no surprises) or troglodytes (tiny stats, one trick). By the time you crawl out of that particular rut, you are at a level where you absolutely should be familiar with most of the things you face, and have heard of the rest. If that violates your sense of "realism," Dnd may not be the right game for you (because it isn't 'realistic' to start with).

[Red_Rob]

Now that's a different proposition to the one you started with. Characters that have invested skill points in Knowledge skills and can make appropriate skill checks can absolutely know about things. I mentioned above about seasoned adventurers and sages being two groups that do have the full skinny - for just this reason.

But that is quite different to your original point that "everyone in the D&D world should know about the monsters" and you being able to quote weaknesses from the MM means it's fair game for your Orc barbarian to just know that Tanari are weak to silver whilst Baatezu are weak to Cold Iron (or whatever). Whether it's worth the hassle in game to try to seperate player knowledge and character knowledge like that is a seperate issue, but it is not a given that any random Joe knows anything accurate about most of the creatures in the D&D world.

[Mistborn]

I leave, I come back and what do you know everyone is still frozen fast. Thought rereading this thread has caused me to realize how breathtakingly dishonest nocker has been in this thread. Apparently though I'm a badwrong wargaming swine because my players can make the NPCs their bitches by rolling dice at them. My PC's have never had a problem with shallow diplomacy rules but if they did I would not start brewing the magic tea. I would write more expansive social rules.

This is all a meaning less bullshit tangent engineered by nocker because he is a basketweaving cocksucker who's position is indefensible. Roll that beautiful footage.

From that point on, it'd be a lie to say the game kept the same objectivity. Sure, there are moments when what "should" happen next is not clear, and then people are suddenly back into a purely "fair encounters" mindset but pretty soon another storyline develops and probability gets the short end of the stick to allow it.

When the DM has a favorite player and you chose to keep playing with them, you don't even have to worry about optimizing more than the DM's pet. In fact, as you just found, doing that is a liability. What you do in these situations is to behave, in character, as if the DM's pet is the show's protagonist (which is already true). You'll notice that in a lot of shows, the sidekicks seem to have more fun than the protagonist, and now you can be a sidekick. Truly, the party shouldn't ever be in real danger, because the DM won't kill the favorite guy. And if you play a support character that helps the protagonist to perform better (bard, support cleric, enchanter) you're basically immortal in that campaign.

Experienced basketweaver DMs don't want their campaigns to end in the first adventure, so SOMETHING MAGIC will happen that will keep your clown party alive in every encounter that should by the rules trucidate you. Trust me. It's crazy fun.

DMs that play lose with the rules and feel threatened by class abilities usually tend to care a lot about creating stories and role playing, by some perverse materialization of Stormwind Falacy. Therefore, engage aggressively in roleplaying too. By the end of the first adventure, your character should have at very least: One love interest (be sure this one has levels and/or money and/or some other kind of power), one friend and one "friendly rival" (be sure the DM intends this one to die later) chosen from what you have determined, are DM favorite NPCs. While these NPCs are alive, your character is pretty much immortal.

[quote="nockermensch]Kids playing cops and robbers have to adjudicate everything. This is a lot of work. In a RPG with more people playing, having to do that would simply cut down the fun. Therefore, I want the legacy material of D&D that me and my group tend to consider cool and iconic (races, classes, spells, wacky polearms, you name it) AND I want to discard whatever parts of the same material that I feel that detract from the fun. This kind of having the cake and eating it too is a completely possible position in this situation. Case in point, I want games where somebody casts Bigby's Crushing Hand and people gasp at the badassness just implied, but then if the story demands there's some appropriate asspull that destroys the hand. You can only break expectations if you build them first.[/quote]

To recap nockers ideas are incompatible with playing D&D because his "playstyle" is to throw out the rules as soon as they get in the way of his masturbation story. The reason why I have repeatedly questioned the value of having any real D&D in his D&D flavored storywank is like Frank has said if you only use the rolls/rules that advance your storyline then 100% of rolls/rules are meaningless due to the conclusion ("story") being predetermined.

Now nocker how about you explain to us why you are even bothering with D&D.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

That's cute what you did there, Misty. Can't answer what's being said to you, so you leave the board for a few days and come back and claim a victory you have not earned.

It's absolutely adorable. It doesn't work, but it's adorable. Why don't you go back and start responding to posts where you left off?

[Mistborn]

I leave, I come back and what do you know everyone is still frozen fast. Thought rereading this thread has caused me to realize how breathtakingly dishonest nocker has been in this thread. Apparently though I'm a badwrong wargaming swine because my players can make the NPCs their bitches by rolling dice at them. My PC's have never had a problem with shallow diplomacy rules but if they did I would not start brewing the magic tea. I would write more expansive social rules.

Stay frosty my friend

[nockermensch]

Bla bla bla forced meme.

<snip awesome opinions>

Now nocker how about you explain to us why you are even bothering with D&D.

Man, that quote-mining was so good, you're reusing it on my thread.

Misty, it's you that have to explain why you're still trying to win on a game that's not made for this. If your out of combat game experience is so shallow that that absurd ruling you have about diplomacy never caused a riot, then why don't you guys play hero quest or warhammer 40k or warmachine or any of the countless board and wargames where you can actually win and legitimally feel good about it?

You're rigging a roleplaying game to work like a poor man's MMO and you think people should give you e-highfives for that. This is sad, man.

[Stubbazubba]

Did you seriously just make the same post twice in two different threads, Mistborn, neither of which was immediately relevant and was just a flailing attempt to cast nock in a bad light and thereby 'win' your internet arguments?

And would you please, for the love of Pelor, stop with the frozen fast meme? It was not a meme in the first place, and whatever you are doing with it will not make it one.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I leave, I come back and what do you know everyone is still frozen fast. Thought rereading this thread has caused me to realize how breathtakingly dishonest nocker has been in this thread. Apparently though I'm a badwrong wargaming swine because my players can make the NPCs their bitches by rolling dice at them. My PC's have never had a problem with shallow diplomacy rules but if they did I would not start brewing the magic tea. I would write more expansive social rules.

Stay frosty my friend

"It just works, guys! Don't question it!" isn't a valid response. Either answer the points leveled at you or admit that you are wrong. Quit dodging, you just make yourself look like an idiot.

[virgil]

Man, that quote-mining was so good, you're reusing it on my thread.

Bah, his quote-mining is subpar. *I* know how to quote-mine

[Red Archon]

My PC's have never had a problem with shallow diplomacy rules but if they did I would not start brewing the magic tea. I would write more expansive social rules.

Oh dear, oh dear.

[Mistborn]

So back to attacking me again. I'm not going to even bother trying to respond to your inchoherent babble.

nockers position is and has been that the rules and the dice should be thrown out when the get in the way of his masturbatory storyline. If the dice only matter when they advance the storyline then they don't matter period and you are wasting time rolling dice for any reason then to lie to your players.

It's much the same with the rules if the rules are contingent then they are pointless and the only reason to bother with them is to lie to the PCs about what sort of game they are going to have.

I will though explain my rules not rulings stance fully if only in the false hope that people will cut down on the bullshit. I am not inherently opposed to using MTP to deal with edge cases or things not adequately covered by the rules if they are used sparingly. However rules that are consistent and applied universally are the only way for players to be able to make meaningful decisions. Rules are fair, logical and can be projected to future situations people are none of those things. There is no way for the MC to let players argue themselves rules exemptions and be fair or logical about it thus I have a solution. When my players try to play mother may I with me the answer is always going to be no. I don't trust anyone not to play favorites. Not even myself.

People don't seem to realize that story based MTP rulings are a double edged sword. For every dragon that gimps get to kill by pouring boiling hot magical tea on there's going to be more than one instance of "fuck you wizard your not telaporting nowhere you are going to play out the DMs LotR fanfic and you are going to like it". This is because sturgeons law applies doubly so to RPG plots and I've never seen one worth the level of DM wankery needed to keep them from being derailed.

This if the thing nocker's position on the rules and dice is indistinguishable form LotR fanfic DM guy's. He has skillfully managed to keep this from coming to light by attacking others rather than expand his own position. It seems that only myself and Frank recognize what dishonest icicle he is. The rest of you icicles are either too dumb to see him for what he is or you actually agree with his bullshit. Either way I'm disappointed that this sort of cancer is allowed to flourish even in the Den.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

And the point you keep dodging is that all games need SOME MTP in them or all you are playing is a board game, or a particularly silly offline variant of a MMO. The rules don't cover everything, so you don't even have to throw out existing rules to get that.

What if I want to haggle with a questgiver for more money or a merchant for a lower cost? What if I want to talk a third party into joining my cause? It's a fairly common trope in fantasy literature that when a war is brewing, going off to another faction that probably isn't all that friendly with your guys, but has a common enemy with you and get them to help.

What if I want to build a magic item that isn't a stock item, assuming that I have appropriate item creation feats? The magic item creation rules are sketchy at best. Or hell, What if I want to build something that is only partially magical or maybe even totally magical? Inventors are a popular archetype in fiction. but the nonmagical item creation rules are almost no existant!

What if I can't see my enemies directly but they're standing knee-deep in a pool of water? Can I cast lightning bolt on the water with the logic that the pool should conduct that water into the bandits? Do they take full damage? Do they take partial damage? Do they get a bonus to their save, or a negative or neither? Or do you just tell the player to take a crafts class if they want to weave baskets? Because that's sounding like your position and it's a pretty crappy one.

GMs have to be flexible, it helps keep the game fun, and it gives the party a reason to come to your game, instead of staying home and playing more Skyrim or WoW. And having some flexibility is not the same as throwing the rules out every time things don't exactly mirror your vision.

[Mistborn]

And the point you keep dodging is that all games need SOME MTP in them or all you are playing is a board game, or a particularly silly offline variant of a MMO. The rules don't cover everything, so you don't even have to throw out existing rules to get that.

No you're the one that's letting nocker off the hook by not questioning his fappery. Stop enabling basketweavers.

What if I want to haggle with a questgiver for more money or a merchant for a lower cost? What if I want to talk a third party into joining my cause? It's a fairly common trope in fantasy literature that when a war is brewing, going off to another faction that probably isn't all that friendly with your guys, but has a common enemy with you and get them to help.

Once again if the PCs want to haggle then their should be consistent rules for haggling otherwise there is too much opportunity for DM favoritism. As for Diplomancing factions there are rules for getting people to like you already. The way I always run my NPCs is they act according to their personalities weighted against the information they have available. If you want

What if I want to build a magic item that isn't a stock item, assuming that I have appropriate item creation feats? The magic item creation rules are sketchy at best. Or hell, What if I want to build something that is only partially magical or maybe even totally magical? Inventors are a popular archetype in fiction. but the nonmagical item creation rules are almost no existant!

Right now I only allow custom per-day items and continuous items with now this Item only works for fighters named Phil bullshit the item creation rules are fairly coherent and balanced in that case. As for the rest of that. As for the rest is anyone’s day really going to be ruined if I tell them they can't make any custom mundane stuff.

What if I can't see my enemies directly but they're standing knee-deep in a pool of water? Can I cast lightning bolt on the water with the logic that the pool should conduct that water into the bandits? Do they take full damage? Do they take partial damage? Do they get a bonus to their save, or a negative or neither?

This is exactly the sort of thing that should be resolved before an adventure. I say spells work exactly like it says in their description nothing more or less at all times, it's fucking magic I don't have to explain shit.

There's a flip side to that were the wizard dies to his own fireball because the DM thought it would be cool to handle fireballs 2e style without telling the party or decides on the fly it would be logical for solid fog to work differently than the text because he dislikes your face.

Now why don't stop being an icicle and drag some explanation out of nocker for his bullshit

[Kaelik]

No you're the one that's letting nocker off the hook by not questioning his fappery. Stop enabling basketweavers.

This is a D&D forum. There is no moral imperative to fix all games of D&D as soon as possible.

Nocker is a fucking idiot who is wrong. So are you. If someone chooses to focus on one or the other, it is not because they agree with the other one. It is just because they picked one.

As long as you are being stupid and wrong, other people are going to make fun of you. If you would stop being an idiot, IE, by addressing smart criticisms instead of quote mining nocker, people would stop calling you an idiot.

[nockermensch]

And the point you keep dodging is that all games need SOME MTP in them or all you are playing is a board game, or a particularly silly offline variant of a MMO. The rules don't cover everything, so you don't even have to throw out existing rules to get that.

No you're the one that's letting nocker off the hook by not questioning his fappery. Stop enabling basketweavers.

I hope you awaken to the fact that it's your posture that gets on other people's nerves, not mine. I'd wager that mostly everybody in this hobby already MCed or played under a MC with a "rules are made of silly-put" mindset and they had their share of fun and would call that a RPG. These same people would then get weirded out by playing in your bizarre MMOish game.

I know the basketweavers touched you on a bad place and so you're on some kind of internet crusade against them, but get this at once: The basketweaver jerks that ruined your game experience did that because they're jerks, not basketweavers. E-rage is better directed at MC's that have some actual problem, like being control freaks, or not getting the memo that they're not the PC's adversaries. Wake up.

[Kaelik]

I hope you awaken to the fact that it's your posture that gets on other people's nerves, not mine. I'd wager that mostly everybody in this hobby already MCed or played under a MC with a "rules are made of silly-put" mindset and they had their share of fun and would call that a RPG. These same people would then get weirded out by playing in your bizarre MMOish game.

No nocker. You are an idiot and we make fun of you and people who play like you all the time. Especially because people like you play shitty games and "the rules are made of silly putty" games are tremendously unfun and full of stupid people.

We are making fun of Misty because he is dumb for completely different reasons than that he disagrees with you. Because everyone ever should disagree with you.