The Gaming Den

Ya know, I actually took a moment to think about what his argument is, and really, he's basically claiming that FIBA and Calvinball aren't really so different because ultimately they're only held together by social convention.

You can refuse to take anything from anyone for any or no reason, and still not be wrong. It doesn't matter if you're offered shit or delicious candy. You wouldn't be wrong if you'd ignored Frank before you started posting because you thought he was a prick already, and you might as well have. Just know that not taking shit from people here will eventually leave you with precious few to take anything from.

Your position about playing the DM and the book is wrong because you fail to differentiate between the individual game from the average game. All games are different, yes. All games make different calls, yes. And despite that, all games, on average, play the game in the book so long as the game in the book works sufficiently well. The worse it works at meeting its listed goals, the more divergent table games actually are. It is wrong because you fail to understand the large psychological effect that having a chart or default rules means in the first place. It may not matter to your table, but your table does not matter except in it's tiny contribution as a data point. It matters to a great many others. Your position fails to differentiate between groups that make no changes, minor changes to relatively few things, major changes to relatively few things, minor changes to many things, or major changes to many things and the relative value of default rules to those various groups. Nor does it attempt to deal with the different selections of things within those groupings. It just throws up its hands and declares that people will change things, as if that's a surprise or a reason to do other than write reasonable rules for the things that your game is supposed to cover. Your position about playing the DM and the books is actually wrong in the context of design, because you can't see "the game" for the games.

Worse, it is unhelpful because it pretends to matter but offers no actual prescription for moving forward. It is distraction masquerading as insight. There is an obvious human element to all of these games that can not be extracted. The best that can be done is to average over it and move the fuck on, treating it as the irrelevant artifact of the medium that it is. You can't control every table, and worrying about how they will distort or adapt rules is unproductive. It is also not an argument for writing less rules. Rather the opposite, it is a reason why you should write the best ones that you can for the systems that you care about your game emulating, so that you minimize their need to deviate from the rules and the individual game plays closer to your vision of the average game. People will still change it anyway, and you shouldn't care.

I've already agreed with the second part of your opinion, that differing design criteria does not make a game objectively bad, simply better or worse for meeting some arbitrary use case. Kindly stop conflating those two objections.

Whipstitch wrote:Ya know, I actually took a moment to think about what his argument is, and really, he's basically claiming that FIBA and Calvinball aren't really so different because ultimately they're only held together by social convention.

Yes. That's basically what his argument stems from -- all games can be the same because the DM can do whatever he wants, so rules aren't important. Therefore [words words words] L&D is totally fine in 5e D&D.

Also, people in this thread seem to have forgotten "You are dumb because your idea is dumb" isn't ad hominem. It is the very opposite.

Between RAW and mother-may-I lies the negotiation. Your rules, your splats, and arguments on how something could work within the established verisimilitude are leverage you bring to the GM. The negotiation is GOOD, the GM signing off on something makes it more real. A flying castle built via splats and house rulings is a much more sensible fit into a setting than a Pun-Pun built in a vacuum.

Without the negotiation, all those fun anachronisms just become LOL randum. Flying a dragon through Times Square or dropping a tactical nuke on Raistlin are only interesting when you have some sort of rule framework to establish how those things got there.

I admit I don't have a whole lot of hope here. But the Den has occasionally surprised me in the past, so I'll make my appeal: Can we please just ignore the latest regeneration of the troll king and discuss the actually interesting original topic? I love logistics and dragons, and would love to see discussion of logistics and dragons, and every time I click on this thread I'm hoping someone's said something about logistics and dragons instead of replying to someone who is universally agreed to be completely wrong.

In the interests of that, I posit a question: What rules do we need to have a satisfactory logistics and dragons? Clearly stronghold building is a must-have, but that's pretty vague - what do we need to be able to do with that? Just figure out how much different sized rooms and furniture cost like it's Build/Buy Mode from the Sims? Do we also worry about staff? What about managing towns/cities? Trade routes? Military campaigns, but focusing more on the logistics rather than the mass combat?

Particularly since I'm in the middle of making a high fantasy L&D-focused hack of After Sundown (mostly because After Sundown happens to be the system I'm using a lot right now) I'd be very interested in hearing answers to any or all of these questions.

THIS IS FUCKING DUMB.

Anyways, if I want to play L&D, what game should I play? Keep in mind, I don't want the kingdom to be my character.

I want to be Steven, the ruler of the Fire Kingdom in the Celestial plans, who can punch people so hard they go back in time. I recently got in a fist fight that destroyed a mountain with Kyle, the ruler of the Water Kingdom, and I want to invade his shitty wet kingdom.

What game lets me play DBZ fistfight then lead an invasion?

Is it possible without effectively making two games?

A lot of games are already effectively two games. Most games with a stealth and a combat subsystem are, in a lot of important ways, two different games. All that needs to unite them is a unified character sheet and the ability of one to impact and transition to the other.

Xhieron wrote:So your position is that 5e has no rules, and I'm the one being obtuse? Not having as many rules as 3.5 or as you want doesn't mean the game has no rules, in the specific Logistics sense, whatever the fuck that means, or in any other.

I suggest that in the future, if you do not know what a word means, you refrain from offering an opinion on the quality of something that uses that word as an adjective or noun in the name. (Or probably adverb, and maybe even verb).

So for example, you should probably not comment on the quality of 5e Logistics Rules if you do not know what the word "Logistics" means.

This will probably surprise 5uckers, but some people don't like having to play Mother-may-I with the GM for every little thing, and by "some" I mean most people out there if 4E's abject failure is any reference.

We're no longer is the 70s, player agency already happened, you can't put that genie back in the bottle.

Chamomile wrote:I admit I don't have a whole lot of hope here. But the Den has occasionally surprised me in the past, so I'll make my appeal: Can we please just ignore the latest regeneration of the troll king and discuss the actually interesting original topic? I love logistics and dragons, and would love to see discussion of logistics and dragons, and every time I click on this thread I'm hoping someone's said something about logistics and dragons instead of replying to someone who is universally agreed to be completely wrong.

In the interests of that, I posit a question: What rules do we need to have a satisfactory logistics and dragons? Clearly stronghold building is a must-have, but that's pretty vague - what do we need to be able to do with that? Just figure out how much different sized rooms and furniture cost like it's Build/Buy Mode from the Sims? Do we also worry about staff? What about managing towns/cities? Trade routes? Military campaigns, but focusing more on the logistics rather than the mass combat?

Particularly since I'm in the middle of making a high fantasy L&D-focused hack of After Sundown (mostly because After Sundown happens to be the system I'm using a lot right now) I'd be very interested in hearing answers to any or all of these questions.

IMO - For a satisfactory L&D the kingdom needs to be about as complicated as the character, including its personality. That's true whether it's effectively an NPC or whether the player is effectively running two characters.

So don't overdo the complexity. X resources on defence in this location, Y mobile forces, with maybe one or two special abilities on each. If you include supply at all remember that there will be various ways of bypassing it with D&D type high fantasy.

Some rules on staff/morale to give the kingdom a face would be essential.

I'm sure 4e intended kingdom building to fit into a skill challenge framework if they had a skill challenge that was satisfying to stop fiddling with it.

Like "You have X turns to hit Y successes with skill challenges" then you have a chart of what successes for what skills rolled entails given the level you are at. I figure having a 'gp value' for everything helps with the abstraction.

Is there any tRPG that has a satisfying kingdom building system? ACKS details kingdom generation and spy networks but I haven't tried it out on the tabletop.

OgreBattle wrote:I'm sure 4e intended kingdom building to fit into a skill challenge framework if they had a skill challenge that was satisfying to stop fiddling with it.

Like "You have X turns to hit Y successes with skill challenges" then you have a chart of what successes for what skills rolled entails given the level you are at. I figure having a 'gp value' for everything helps with the abstraction.

Is there any tRPG that has a satisfying kingdom building system? ACKS details kingdom generation and spy networks but I haven't tried it out on the tabletop.

I think both Fantasycraft and Pathfinder made an attempt to flesh out kingdom building.

There's a Japanese system that's all about Logistics and Dragons called Meikyuu Kingdom. Everyone plays a member of a kingdom's ruling body that also goes on dungeon delves. It's being translated I think.

Kaelik wrote:
I suggest that in the future, if you do not know what a word means, you refrain from offering an opinion on the quality of something that uses that word as an adjective or noun in the name. (Or probably adverb, and maybe even verb).

So for example, you should probably not comment on the quality of 5e Logistics Rules if you do not know what the word "Logistics" means.

That's ad hominem. Thanks for the example.

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:Between RAW and mother-may-I lies the negotiation. Your rules, your splats, and arguments on how something could work within the established verisimilitude are leverage you bring to the GM. The negotiation is GOOD, the GM signing off on something makes it more real. A flying castle built via splats and house rulings is a much more sensible fit into a setting than a Pun-Pun built in a vacuum.

Without the negotiation, all those fun anachronisms just become LOL randum. Flying a dragon through Times Square or dropping a tactical nuke on Raistlin are only interesting when you have some sort of rule framework to establish how those things got there.

(emphasis mine)

This actually supports (a form of) the argument a lot better than I did, which is good since I was beginning to think I was talking to a wall. I should have just asked if my critics expected to be able to play Pun-Pun. Nevertheless it looks like the consensus is to move on, so I'll do the same.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

Xhieron wrote:That's ad hominem. Thanks for the example.

This is a new low for the internet. I really expect people to cry ad hominem every time they are insulted, regardless of whether or not it is, but really.

The two essential qualities of an ad hominem is 1) insult, 2) saying someone is wrong about something.

That post has literally neither of those. Like, people get the relationship between those things wrong all the time. And people neglect 2 as an essential part. But never before now have I see someone call something ad hominem when neither an insult nor a statement that someone is incorrect has even occurred.

The GURPS Low-Tech materials have a lot of L&D in them. Like, how many pounds of potatoes do you get out of 100 farming families. And how much of their surplus is taken in tax based on how oppressive the society is. And how much land they need to do it. The problem is they're spread over like six places, and most of them are Pyramid articles. There's also a GURPS Social Engineering I've been meaning to look at.

Pendragon's supplements included a fairly-detailed system for maintaining and improving a fief. No idea if it's any good, though.

Kaelik wrote:

Xhieron wrote:That's ad hominem. Thanks for the example.

This is a new low for the internet. I really expect people to cry ad hominem every time they are insulted, regardless of whether or not it is, but really.

The two essential qualities of an ad hominem is 1) insult, 2) saying someone is wrong about something.

That post has literally neither of those. Like, people get the relationship between those things wrong all the time. And people neglect 2 as an essential part. But never before now have I see someone call something ad hominem when neither an insult nor a statement that someone is incorrect has even occurred.

Yeah, no. You accused me of not knowing the definition of a word in order to diminish the value of my argument. That's an insult, and if you didn't mean to say I was wrong what the fuck were you saying?

Be a douche if you want to, but let's not pretend we're not speaking the same language.

Xhieron wrote:

Kaelik wrote:

Xhieron wrote:That's ad hominem. Thanks for the example.

This is a new low for the internet. I really expect people to cry ad hominem every time they are insulted, regardless of whether or not it is, but really.

The two essential qualities of an ad hominem is 1) insult, 2) saying someone is wrong about something.

That post has literally neither of those. Like, people get the relationship between those things wrong all the time. And people neglect 2 as an essential part. But never before now have I see someone call something ad hominem when neither an insult nor a statement that someone is incorrect has even occurred.

Yeah, no. You accused me of not knowing the definition of a word in order to diminish the value of my argument. That's an insult, and if you didn't mean to say I was wrong what the fuck were you saying?

Be a douche if you want to, but let's not pretend we're not speaking the same language.

HE accused you because you've shown, now repeatedly, that you don't know what it is.

Xhieron wrote:

Kaelik wrote:

Xhieron wrote:That's ad hominem. Thanks for the example.

This is a new low for the internet. I really expect people to cry ad hominem every time they are insulted, regardless of whether or not it is, but really.

The two essential qualities of an ad hominem is 1) insult, 2) saying someone is wrong about something.

That post has literally neither of those. Like, people get the relationship between those things wrong all the time. And people neglect 2 as an essential part. But never before now have I see someone call something ad hominem when neither an insult nor a statement that someone is incorrect has even occurred.

Yeah, no. You accused me of not knowing the definition of a word in order to diminish the value of my argument. That's an insult, and if you didn't mean to say I was wrong what the fuck were you saying?

Be a douche if you want to, but let's not pretend we're not speaking the same language.

Okay guy, you've obviously not been on the receiving end of a proper Kaeliking; so let me break this down for you:
From what you've quoted, he's not insulted you. As a matter of fact, that's about as tea-and-crumpets as he gets. If you happen to feel insulted - or more accurately, feel offended - then you just don't fully appreciate what's going on here. Was he talking down to you? Probably. But he certainly didn't launch an ad hominem attack at you ... that would have looked more like "you are stupid, so you're position is stupid" - that is literally verbatim what he would have said if he was attempting an ad hominem. In the current case, however, he was just being blunt.

And his assessment was reasonably, rationally, and objectively derived from empirical data provided by none other than yourself.
Now stop being a crybaby and move on already. (note: that's not an ad hominem either, because I'm not using that to say anything else - I'm just making a matter-of-fact statement about your demonstrated behavior)

Xhieron wrote:Yeah, no. You accused me of not knowing the definition of a word in order to diminish the value of my argument. That's an insult, and if you didn't mean to say I was wrong what the fuck were you saying?

Be a douche if you want to, but let's not pretend we're not speaking the same language.

Yo dickface. You are completely wrong about literally all of that. I "accused" you of not knowing a word after I quoted the part where you said that you had no idea what we were talking about. If you do know what a word means, you probably shouldn't say that you have no idea what something means.

I did not feel it necessary to attempt to diminish the value of your argument, since it had no value, and others had already pointed that out. I was giving you advice. That is why I phrased it as advice, because it was advice. Believe me, if I want to say your argument is incorrect, I will be very blunt about it.

I lurked a long time before I posted anything here, and I knew when I did that I was going to have to just outright ignore a lot of people judging from what I'd seen before. Kaelik was on that list along with Frank, of course (and judging from the remarks I've seen elsewhere here to the effect that they're just not very nice people in general, I'm not the only one who's come to that conclusion). It turns out the list is longer than I expected, though, so long in fact that I'm wondering in hindsight why it even crossed my mind that there was a community here worth being part of. There is, but I guess it took firsthand experience to understand why it's so small and why in the hundreds of pages I've seen I've only seen a few names, and the volume of active participants has decreased instead of increasing.

But hey, I'm still the new guy, so far be it from me to cast judgment on anyone for being insular or hostile, least of all a bunch of people I've never even met or heard the first word from. I just got here, and on these things I'm still kind of an optimist, so I can hold out hope that there are actually some more folks out there like the handful who've come around and know how to have an argument without descending to vitriol (did you know that you can actually just say you disagree and why? You totally can; no name calling required).

What I won't do is put up with a barrage of insults, from Kaelik, or from anyone else. I tried to be cute and pass it off as a rite of passage or some bullshit with Frank, and I retaliated as good-spiritedly as I could, but I think the locked thread someone posted before is actually a lot more accurate than anyone would admit with a straight face. I suspect most of the people who've stuck around have been on the receiving end of this kind of abuse--I know some have because I can switch tabs and read it right now--and I don't expect any explanation because it's none of my business.

But if that's the cost of being engaged in the discourse here, I'm probably not the first person to point out that it's nonsense or to throw up their hands because it's not worth the trouble trying to do anything about it. Maybe that's because I already know there are actually other places I can go to talk about roleplaying games with strangers on the internet, or maybe it's just because I have better ways to validate myself.

I guess I'm going off a little here (and I've clearly let this get way out of control) because as it turns out I'm not used to being talked down to or insulted. It's not an experience I'm familiar with because whenever someone does I no longer have any civil contact with them. For some reason I've tried to do things differently here, and I've no one to blame but myself.

So my bad.

Kaelik, go fuck yourself. ACOS, you too, buddy, but you might have to wait until Kaelik gets his dick out of your mouth and gives you permission.

Everybody else, peace (and I hope you were entertained, sincerely). See you in another thread (or not, depending on the wind, the mods, and my disposition).

Bro write less and say more.

Tl:Dr "I can't take that people are being mean to me on the internet so I'm going to call them poopy heads and storm off in a huff."

Moving on from disappointedoverbosetroll.

BearsAreBrown wrote:Anyways, if I want to play L&D, what game should I play? Keep in mind, I don't want the kingdom to be my character.
[...]
Is it possible without effectively making two games?

It is certainly possible. I don't have any outstanding L&D games to recommend that fit your specifications sadly but it can surely be done without creating two separate games.

You basically have a power fantasy game and then give the characters a reason for caring about setting up on some land. Controlling location-based mana by building your castles on locations to direct their power to you would be a solid way to go. You don't need to create an entire separate kingdom game, just provide mechanics for how you create kingdoms and what they do for you.

If you wanted a quick kludge for 3.X DnD you can invest gold into castles to turn them into something like slotless rods of metamagic or wondrous items that work for you so long as nobody else messes with em. Gather more and get more boosts. Or possibly they are just laying there waiting to be attuned to and people can fight over the mountain castle of +5 inherent strength modifier, or the undersea city of elemental command (water).