The Gaming Den

Technically it doesn't have his name in the title.
It has the word nocker. Now it's probably Lord Mistborn's intention to mean nockermensch. But technically he did not say "Nockermensch stay out"
He aso said PL instead of Phone Lobster.. so if someone was caled PiousLiberator.. would he be forced to stay out too?

Also,
If we make a fbmf stay out thread.. would that thread be technically immune to moderating?

Nah. You can't keep people from reading a thread, just posting in it.

So fbmf could still mod the thread, he just couldn't post in it to say what he'd been doing.

Red_Rob wrote:Now, personally I think LM is a terrible person for attempting to create an echo chamber like this, and all it has done is inspire me to add (Lord Mistborn stay out) to every thread I ever start in the hopes that everyone else follows suit, but it is technically a forum rule.

PL is out because it has become impossible to have rational discussions with him.

nocker was almost allowed in since once in a blue moon he actually responds to rational arguments, but he can go fuck himself no since he's making blatant troll posts in a thread he was specifically asked to stay out of.

Fuchs and K have already been allowed back at Franks request.

Remember I've never said that Team Story-First is having badwrongfun at their tables. It's just that it's not the assumed default playstyle of D&D. The fact that Team Story-First advocates dishonesty at the game table is why they're dicks.

While the rest of us sane people are way more in the middle. But I will tell you this, playing D&D as a weekly small skirmish game with no context, story, or actual roleplaying in between is horribly boring.

Playing D&D as an exercise in combat optimization and super-hard gygaxian fuck the players also sucks.

Most people do not find D&D as a US vs GM competition to see if you can survive his crazy shit as something that's actually fun to play.

All roleplaying is more fun when there's interesting roleplaying abjudicated by interesting sub systems, and when combat is more meaningful than "Today we go up against GM superawesome monster #353, along with his entourage."

sabs wrote: stuff

Let me fix your post for you.

sabs wrote: While the rest of us sane people are way more in the middle. But I will tell you this, I find that playing D&D as a weekly small skirmish game with no context, story, or actual roleplaying in between is horribly boring for me.

I also don't like Playing D&D as an exercise in combat optimization OR super-hard gygaxian fuck the players.

Some people do not find D&D as a US vs GM competition to see if you can survive his crazy shit as something that's actually fun to play.

I find roleplaying is more fun when there's interesting roleplaying abjudicated by interesting sub systems, and when combat is more meaningful than "Today we go up against GM superawesome monster #353, along with his entourage."

Here is the part where you should state your idea, instead of simply asserting things and claiming that your opinions are universally true.

sabs wrote:While the rest of us sane people are way more in the middle. But I will tell you this, playing D&D as a weekly small skirmish game with no context, story, or actual roleplaying in between is horribly boring.

Playing D&D as an exercise in combat optimization and super-hard gygaxian fuck the players also sucks.

Most people do not find D&D as a US vs GM competition to see if you can survive his crazy shit as something that's actually fun to play.

All roleplaying is more fun when there's interesting roleplaying abjudicated by interesting sub systems, and when combat is more meaningful than "Today we go up against GM superawesome monster #353, along with his entourage."

That is a really terrible strawman you have there and you should feel ashamed of yourself.

Have you perhaps considered that it's possible to have a story while still staying within the rules of the game? Please drop the false dilemma and then perform fellatio on all the phalli within a hypothetical hogshead.

Stubbazubba wrote:So instead of the product adapting to meet the needs of its market, the market should adapt to the decades-old limitations of the product? You sound like a literal Constitutionalist, and are making the same basic errors they do. You've got some justifying to do: Explain why D&D can't or shouldn't be anything other than what it was "intended" to be by one guy in 1974, or realize that what you said here is a product of your own ignorance, not truth.

Because D&D can't be everything. You can not have a game be a "Game" the way D&D is a game while at the same time being a "Cooperative Storytelling Tool". Now some people are going to ignore the rules and use your game as a cooperative storytelling tool anyway. I don't think it's controversial to question the validity of writing game rules for not playing by the rules of the game

That's all entirely true and completely uncontroversial, but why is your way more correct than Team Story-First's? There are indeed many games coming out today that shift mechanical focus to story mechanisms like plot points and such, in fact some of the most successful things to emerge from the indie movement are like that. So there is a huge market of role-players who want to play games more like that. Furthermore, D&D has marketed itself as just that before, and there are fans of D&D who believe it is any one given thing for them. So why is your puritanical, dated interpretation of D&D superior to theirs, and why shouldn't D&D ever adapt to its market which clamors for an emphasis on story?

Because D&D can't be everything.

I've found D&D to be an RPG that is surprisingly good at being everything. Not as good as the newer specialist games at each one, and not with 4e at all, but 3.5/PF and previous support a wide array of player tastes and styles at the same time.

In part because of the variety of mechanical depth in classes and not having useful rules for social interaction and stuff. You can have someone who doesn't want to deal with math and planning but loves some in-character digression play right alongside someone who loves being the dark-hooded silent Wizard who has planned for everything and will win whatever trouble that digression brings. In a good way.

Red_Rob wrote:nockermensch, just so you are aware posting in a thread that has your name specified in the title is against forum rules.

Now, personally I think LM is a terrible person for attempting to create an echo chamber like this, and all it has done is inspire me to add (Lord Mistborn stay out) to every thread I ever start in the hopes that everyone else follows suit, but it is technically a forum rule.

I vaguely recall that the exclusion title thing was thrown out the day we got the ignore button. I think he's free and clear to partake and on top of that he did do an excellent job calling LM out on his shit that he should be forgiven regardless of the legality of it.

ckafrica wrote:I vaguely recall that the exclusion title thing was thrown out the day we got the ignore button. I think he's free and clear to partake and on top of that he did do an excellent job calling LM out on his shit that he should be forgiven regardless of the legality of it.

No the X stay out thing still exists so you can eat a dick.

Lord Mistborn wrote:

ckafrica wrote:I vaguely recall that the exclusion title thing was thrown out the day we got the ignore button. I think he's free and clear to partake and on top of that he did do an excellent job calling LM out on his shit that he should be forgiven regardless of the legality of it.

No the X stay out thing still exists so you can eat a dick.

Not as an absolute rule.

Though, posting only that image macro probably counts as trolling no matter how true it is, as it doesn't explain why it's the case in any way, shape, or position.

Let's get this back on track. I am an asshole, this is an indisputably true fact but being an asshole is not the same thing as being wrong.

That being said back to what this thread is about.

Theory: RPG fanbases are shit because RPG rules are shit. Since the developers are usually either part of or connected to the fanbase they write shitty rules and pertuate the cycle of shitty games.

Discuss.

RPG Fanbases are shit because we, the players that make them up, are shit. That's all there is to it. There's no need to try passing off the blame.

ishy wrote:What is even the point of having levels if every single class has their own level progression?

- Edit: I thought moving away from this to a unified level progression in 3e was one of the things people loved about D&D. I really see no benefit at all in bringing this back.

compare level 7 apples to level 7 oranges. what information can you get from that? oone is an apple and one is an orange, but what makes them level 7?

compare level 7 apples to level 8 apples. what can you tell from that?

it is the same as comparing class levels of one class to another. it really gives you no information. a "level" in D&D for a class is just another step up of power, it is not a measure compared to the whole of the world, and never will be or work as such. unified does nothing to help compare them as they are still never in "balance".

a fighter is not a thief is not a wizard, is not a cleric. they function differently for different reasons.

or if you dont like fruit, compare a hammer to a screwdriver blindly, without knowing what you are going to do with them, answer which one is objectionably better. it is impossible to quantify based on that information alone.

the player is the unknown factor and unifying levels only can work if EVERYONE agrees that a rogue should be played always and only in the one way, or that every cleric should be the walking med-kit. the problem with that is D&D isnt a game that forces people to play only one way, but allows them to break from playing the racecar going clockwise around the Monopoly board, and SOME people may choose to play the walking med-kit cleric, while others wish to play a divine blaster. the only way to prevent the divine blaster so that every walking med-kit is equal to the next of the "level" is removing things that allow them to be a divine blaster.

then you remove 90% of D&D which is its open ended nature and allowing people to play their OWN game, and forcing them to play WotC or Gygax's game as if at their tables, rather than the players own table.

even then how does a unified class level solution account for a level 7 walking med-kit is "equal" to a level 7 fighter?

the un-unified level progression told you up front, these cannot be directly compared, while the unified level progression falsely tells people that these things are somehow "equal" because they share the same level quantifier...the level number.

shadzar wrote:compare level 7 apples to level 7 oranges. what information can you get from that? oone is an apple and one is an orange, but what makes them level 7?

compare level 7 apples to level 8 apples. what can you tell from that?

That you either live in a completely different world or that you are full of shit. Because neither apples nor oranges have levels.

it is the same as comparing class levels of one class to another. it really gives you no information. a "level" in D&D for a class is just another step up of power, it is not a measure compared to the whole of the world, and never will be or work as such. unified does nothing to help compare them as they are still never in "balance".

a fighter is not a thief is not a wizard, is not a cleric. they function differently for different reasons.

Actually class level does tell you a lot in D&D since it has an actual meaning. For example, I can instantly tell you that a lvl 12 wizard is going to be much better than a lvl 1 fighter in most situations.

or if you dont like fruit, compare a hammer to a screwdriver blindly, without knowing what you are going to do with them, answer which one is objectionably better. it is impossible to quantify based on that information alone.

Wrong. A screwdriver would be better. Since I can use a phone as a hammer.

the player is the unknown factor and unifying levels only can work if EVERYONE agrees that a rogue should be played always and only in the one way, or that every cleric should be the walking med-kit. the problem with that is D&D isnt a game that forces people to play only one way, but allows them to break from playing the racecar going clockwise around the Monopoly board, and SOME people may choose to play the walking med-kit cleric, while others wish to play a divine blaster. the only way to prevent the divine blaster so that every walking med-kit is equal to the next of the "level" is removing things that allow them to be a divine blaster.

So you're saying that you can't estimate if a lvl 1 cleric is stronger than a lvl 12 cleric?

even then how does a unified class level solution account for a level 7 walking med-kit is "equal" to a level 7 fighter?

the un-unified level progression told you up front, these cannot be directly compared, while the unified level progression falsely tells people that these things are somehow "equal" because they share the same level quantifier...the level number.

Not really. The un-unified level progressions tell you that the designers are shit and have no clue what they are doing.

ishy wrote:So you're saying that you can't estimate if a lvl 1 cleric is stronger than a lvl 12 cleric?

Maybe he is, but I bet that you'd have a 50% chance or worse of guessing whether a level 10 cleric was stronger or weaker than a level 12 cleric. (Given that I'd built them for the purposes of this challenge.)

ishy wrote:The un-unified level progressions tell you that the designers are shit and have no clue what they are doing.

actually, they knew what they were doing in that instance. using different xp tables (and wbl in addition) is a method (albeit not an elegant one) for balancing classes, wheter you like it or not.

zugschef wrote:

ishy wrote:The un-unified level progressions tell you that the designers are shit and have no clue what they are doing.

actually, they knew what they were doing in that instance. using different xp tables (and wbl in addition) is a method (albeit not an elegant one) for balancing classes, wheter you like it or not.

while some people dont accept it as you correctly say, others dont understand that the "class balance" wasnt from class to class, but so that the party was balanced against X. where X is whatever obstacle they are up against, depending on their style of play and what the DM uses to fill in the blanks to makes the books become a game. why most modules were rate4d for X level of characters in a party because the un-unified levels meant a level 4 fighter might just have the same "power", or as i prefer "functionality" in THIS module that is rated from "levels 4-8" as the level 8 thief.

but today people try to "balance" classes to have the same amount of spotlight during play, rather than to have the PARTY of PCs able to meet or overcome the obstacle given by the DM....and of course some DMs just dont get that a "level 1" party isnt meant to fight a clutch of dragons, and some players dont realize that jsut because it is there a dragon MUST be fought, and that leaving and coming back when more prepared is a viable option. the players in that case fail to realize the world isnt made to walk through in a straight line or a railroad from encounter to encounter, but to journey around.. do some level grinding, and them come back to the thing you found before when you are ready to deal with it.

like warhammer is if WAS balance3d in anyway other than pet armies.. the dark angels as a whole are balanced against the chaos marines, not that each dark angels is equal to each chaos marine; but that if it was all out between the two each would have equal chance, and the "player choice" is what causes X =/= X as it is a small sample of what SHOULD BE balanced. for D&D, PC party vs World, not individual PC vs anything.

zugschef wrote:

ishy wrote:The un-unified level progressions tell you that the designers are shit and have no clue what they are doing.

actually, they knew what they were doing in that instance. using different xp tables (and wbl in addition) is a method (albeit not an elegant one) for balancing classes, wheter you like it or not.

Yeah sorry, I'll amend my statement.

The un-unified level progressions tell you that the designers are shit and have no clue what they are doing or deliberately (for some reason) fuck things up.

shadzar wrote:like warhammer is if WAS balance3d in anyway other than pet armies.. the dark angels as a whole are balanced against the chaos marines, not that each dark angels is equal to each chaos marine; but that if it was all out between the two each would have equal chance, and the "player choice" is what causes X =/= X as it is a small sample of what SHOULD BE balanced. for D&D, PC party vs World, not individual PC vs anything.

(I can't believe I'm doing this...)

D&D is a game played for fun. Therefore it is right and proper that no one should have to "take one for the team", playing an un-fun role in the name of everyone else's fun at the expense of their own - trap options for single PCs are as nothing compared to trap party configurations, such as might be caused by all players wanting to be able to have a shot at MVP and the game not being designed to allow such a party to have certain basic functions like healing.

Unless you're proposing that D&D as she is played should have multiple PCs per player, which apparently wasn't all that inaccurate - and certainly improved the timbre of my group's SIFRP campaign. Or maybe we just minmaxed a whole lot more with two characters each to split tasks between.

no idea what SIPRF is but....

the problem is these "trap options" dont always exist as people see them. the designers of the cleric didnt expect EVERYONE to want to be a walking med kit, but came to the hard conclusion that many since have made.. "do we need divine AND arcane magic?"

what else could they really give the cleric to have a traveling healer so the party could go further from civilization that has a healer at the temple?

even from the beginning the WANTS of the people outweighed the needs of the game, and what the designers were wanting to add. D&D was supposed to be a single game in a LARGE line of games, but it took off like a bat out of hell and they kept adding more because people wanted it. the rogue was NEVER intended to exist, because ALL PCs were the grave-robbers as adventure and treasure was what the game was about as opposed to historical re-enactment of the mini-wargames. ridding mass combat from the game to remove armchair general to where one player controlled and ONLY had to worry about one of the people in the "army".

the more that got added, the bigger the beast became to tame, and the "trap options" were jsut the fact that people couldnt plan for what the PLAYERS of the game would devise as the lines of communication were fewer and further between.

200 employees at TSR, snail mail.. opening and reading each letter. combine that with con data, and the designers own wishes for the game THEY wanted to try to make and be able to play, without making something they dont enjoy even playing....

didnt someone make a list of the races per edition or classes and define their purpose, or was it jsut a list of bitching about what they didnt understand?

maybe someone could make a list of the FUNCTION of each class int he editions and see how they changed from being made for one edition to the next, and try to decipher why the change occured in cases like polymorph druid from what was. then you will see where the "trap options" came from and IF it was intentional, or jsut something the designers made for players, but had little to no interest in themselves.. like the lack of interest designers had for 4e such that it lasted only 4 years before they dumped it, and made 4.5 halfway through its life-cycle.

and YES, multiple PCs per player was NOT unheard of. 4-6 players is what many modules suggested, while others suggest a larger party of PCs. DragonLance had about 11 PCs depending on which part you were at. 11 players would have been a mess to run a game for, TRUST ME. while 5 players playing 2 characters each would have given each player more time and less work for the DM.

but this doesnt make the Cleric a walking med-kit, it was the players wanting the cleric to only do that in D&D and even MMOs, that failed to understand and CREATED the trap for other players, not that the game created it.

ergo, in the case of the walking med-kit cleric forced thinking 4e created silly things like Healing Surge and Second Wind and such to tell the idiot players of non-Clerics, to fuck off and let the cleric play something how they want since the other players only wanted them instead of hiring the NPC Healer from town to come with them. and probably things in 3.x that gave healing options to all classes so the cleric could do something other than just be a walking med-kit. CLW Wandss maybe?

Except that the puppy was a dog. But the industry, my friends, that was a revolution. Knibb High football rules!

what the flying fuck shadzar.

I'm pretty sure my D+D box includes a thief class. It also includes an elf class (because wtf?). Arguing the thief wasn't original to the game is so bonkers that you must enjoy a solipsistic existence. You clearly aren't talking about the same game that anyone else is, nor any game which is objectively verifiable in reality.

The existence of thieves was *required* for the genre because *Bilbo Baggins was a fucking burglar in the hobbit*. FUCK!

squirrelloid wrote:The existence of thieves was *required* for the genre because *Bilbo Baggins was a fucking burglar in the hobbit*. FUCK!

Sorry try again next time with your head out of your ass and an education.

Volume 1 - Men & Magic wrote:There are three (3) main classes of characters:
Fighting-Men
Magic-Users
Clerics

Fighting Men includes the characters of elves and dwarves and even hobbits.
Magic-Users includes only men and elves. Clerics are limited to men only.

And how is the thief not a fighting man? Those are general categories, which have subcategories (ie, the actual classes) within them. Hint: the Hobbit class is a Thief class.

Next you're going to claim the original box didn't provide for locked doors and traps either.