The Gaming Den

The pro-fiat crowd are asserting that the GM should have a detailed catalogue of the likes, dislikes and daily routine of every NPC no matter how minor in order to make an informed decision about how they would react to unexpected encounters with random groups. Actually there are two separate argum...

Indeed. So there is certainly no issue at all with having level 1 demon princes, level 1 tarrasques, level 1 pit fiends, level 1 great wyrms, level 1 titans, level 1 death gods, level 1 liches, level 1 solars, level 1 gods, level 1 greatest heroes of all time, level 1 boners, etc. Level 1 sucks tho...

Hell, I've changed my mind, and I'll even give the Lago the benefit of the doubt. If he'll say that even if JFK was the suavest motherfucker ever (protip, he pretty much was), that Lee Harvey Oswald being far away, hidden, and having come there to fucking kill JFK just means there were so many modif...

Are you being intentionally retarded Lago? The in-game diplomat does not know there is an assassin anywhere near him. (...) He doesn't make his demands known to the assassin because he doesn't spend his whole fucking day yelling out his parley demands on the off chance someone he does not even know...

I suggest reading every mention of "CR 3 vrock" as "CR 1 fire giant." Every argument made so far to justify stealth-nerfing vrocks can be used just as well to justify a two-story-tall burning jotun being killed in face-to-face combat by a couple of house cats. That's really a pr...

Also, Kaelik, is it explicitly stated somewhere that Vrocks are created as adults?

I think it's somewhere in one of the fiendish codices. But I may be thinking of how devils form.

The talking to the shadows is how you're presenting yourself, not the actual 'make a discrete check' trigger. Probably one of the best ways to indicate to someone that you'd like to parley with a potentially hostile person of unknown position is to of course raise your voice and make your demands k...

Aren't most of your arguments there "other people are more intellectually sloppy and apathetic than you, Kaelik", Fuchs? Assigning kaelik's position the tags of intellectually neat and caring is extremely bizarre. Anal-retentive sperging out is a more accurate description of his position....

If "convince wary, potentially hostile people you've just met to negotiate with you" is NOT an action covered by your diplomacy subsystem, but rather one that takes place in ad-hoc "common sense" rulings, you have to explain what the fuck actually is covered by "diplomacy&q...

And that task is a measure of your diplomatic ability, you ass. It really doesn't have to be. That task could be something like "As long as you don't cut down the dryad's tree, she won't be hostile". It could be "Say the secret password, and they won't be hostile". It could be t...

Contrary to some beliefs expressed around here, the MC should be beholden to following the rules to a certain extent. If all rules exist at the MC's pleasure and vary according to his or her medication, then that's just not a game I'm personally interested in playing. Go write your short story and ...

I'm gonna switch sides now and defend Frank's assertion about what a Diplomacy mini-game should be most focused on. In D&D, the opportunity to use Diplomacy in the scenarios you described where you are party to an otherwise peaceful encounter or possibly a third party mediator helping one or an...

We are talking about Dungeons and fucking Dragons. You are in a fucking Dungeon, and there is a fucking Dragon. Bargaining does not fucking happen unless you can keep the combat music from starting. If your abilities can't keep initiative from being rolled, there isn't a social encounter for you to...

Diplomacy, at its core, is an ability whose purpose, whose entire purpose is to keep combat music from starting. If it doesn't have a chance to work before combat music has started, then it is a priori useless. If all diplomacy does is stop combat music, then fuck it. I don't give a shit whether or...

So, what's bad about beefing up under-performing , so that their concept is all the more viable, having better ability to interact with the game, and tell stories with their desired concept again? I would imagine the game would be far more entertaining if everyone has more ability to interact, not ...

Yeah, the "I only use the diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate rules themselves to resolve things with absolutely no MTP" is fucking hilarious. He really does play D&D as a miniatures wargame where the party usually has a 4 to 1 advantage, and then brags about how awesome he is at D&D ...

All of Franks objections go away if you peg it to a monopoly service. Most government services are monopolies. In the US, as a strawman, you could peg a credit to the price of a stamp, or the fee for filing a patent, or whatever. I mean, it's arbitrary as hell, but it's doable. If you really wanted...

Wait, what level 1 dude is summoning Large elementals? I MUST KNOW

Truth. It sounds awesome.

If you making level 1 followers to kill level 1 things you probably want level 1 sorcerer/wizards with precocious apprentice and Fiery Burst for infinite mini-fireballs. PWP though is like I said dealing an average of 35 damage to targers with 50 hp or less. That's probably the maximum you're going...

This is wrong. Very wrong. If you are going to remove problematic things then it has to be symmetric otherwise you're coddling the players. Noone using Scry and Die = not coddling Everyone using Scry and Die = not coddling Only the players getting to use Scry and Die = coddling This isn't had to un...

I specifically said that the ECL+4 encounters are a bad idea because they are supposed to kill the party 50% of the time. As opposed to GC who thinks your a basketweaver if you can't handle ECL+6 encounters. And... now we're back to your position that there is only one correct difficulty level and ...

If they're going to gather reinforcements the PCs are probably going to be finished with what they are doing before they get back and good luck finding a party of murder hobos when they're not prepared for fighting. It's within the rules guidelines for the enemy to be a wizard at the party level +4...

And that is why you are wrong and Lord Mistborn is right. Frank, the thing is... Mistborn's original position wasn't just that you could pick some arbitrary difficulty level and play fairly at that level. His original position was more like that as long as DM's obey the encounter guidelines, they c...

Lago, how much of the social contract and houserules do you expect players to specify either verbally or in writing? And to what level of precision/detail?

Nockermensch's stated position (the one that Mistborn stands in opposition to) is that you should roll the dice until you get a result you don't like, and then retcon that result away and then keep rolling dice like you hadn't just invalidated the entire exercise in dice rolling by fudging the resu...