Search found 737 matches

by Stubbazubba
Sat Jun 06, 2020 12:25 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Kingdoms of Amalur - What did you think of the system?
Replies: 5
Views: 2228

I quite liked the system, it's got some features the Den quite likes (e.g. skill points unlock what are basically skill feats, IIRC). I like the idea of that bottom-up "skill specialization leads to class title/abilities," just because it's novel, but I can't really see how that isn't just...
by Stubbazubba
Sat May 30, 2020 10:06 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: RPG systems that are actually fun as games.
Replies: 71
Views: 19163

Because the other option is to have them not open the door, which either means that they sit there trying again and again (which is quite boring), or just leave. If there was no urgency, no consequence to picking the lock slowly, why did you have them roll in the first place? Just narrate the Take ...
by Stubbazubba
Mon May 25, 2020 12:16 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: 6th Edition Speculation Begins
Replies: 31
Views: 9915

And when they try, it looks like this.
by Stubbazubba
Sat May 23, 2020 11:26 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: 6th Edition Speculation Begins
Replies: 31
Views: 9915

Amazon stats are extremely questionable and subject to a massive amount of both category manipulation, sponsorship, and other chicanery. Numbers of actual units sold would be meaningful, comparative Amazon rankings are extremely dubious. That's why I only cited the annual best seller list of all bo...
by Stubbazubba
Sat May 23, 2020 9:07 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: 6th Edition Speculation Begins
Replies: 31
Views: 9915

My understanding is that an edition's health is largely driven by core book sales. Supplements are gravy on top, but the potatoes is new core book sales. You'd expect a new edition when core book sales drop off. There's no evidence I can see that PHB sales are slowing significantly (coming in at 38,...
by Stubbazubba
Thu May 14, 2020 10:38 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: RPG systems that are actually fun as games.
Replies: 71
Views: 19163

Foxwarrior wrote:in between "rolling dice" and "being presented with a dungeon-themed hypothetical situation and deciding what to do next" there's "roll a die to attack
No, I checked, there is nothing between "rolling dice" and "rolling dice."
by Stubbazubba
Thu May 14, 2020 8:57 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: RPG systems that are actually fun as games.
Replies: 71
Views: 19163

I feel like the difference between the examples you've given, even though they're based on D&D/d20, is that in those games you're not being asked to do the rolling yourself. The player doesn't directly engage with the resolution mechanic itself and the computer does it for you in real time. Yes...
by Stubbazubba
Thu May 14, 2020 10:05 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: RPG systems that are actually fun as games.
Replies: 71
Views: 19163

I'm also gonna push back on the idea that the resolution mechanic is a meaningful game system in an RPG. Look at the CRPGs that ape D&D/d20 almost entirely: early FF games, KOTOR, DDO, etc. The mechanic is deciding what to do in context, in those cases from a menu or mouse/keystroke, and how pre...
by Stubbazubba
Tue May 12, 2020 9:58 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: [High 5e] 5e: HARDCORE MODE
Replies: 39
Views: 12528

Admitting when I'm wrong: DungeonCraft's lazy Susan set-up is an abstract thing, he does not use the grid. That makes it a lot less terrible.
by Stubbazubba
Mon May 11, 2020 8:00 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: [High 5e] 5e: HARDCORE MODE
Replies: 39
Views: 12528

Well, don't just tell us you like it. Explain what it is and why it's such a good idea. It's not. The idea is you keep your map to whatever you can fit on a lazy susan and just add a few evocative terrain pieces, ignoring walls entirely . So long as you're truly just fighting a monster in the middl...
by Stubbazubba
Fri May 08, 2020 12:40 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Musings
Replies: 73
Views: 15295

All I have to say is that there's a specific level of hell for GMs who allow their players to roll a sword dude only to troll them with post-modern Friendship Is Magic morality in the mud middle ages, thus making the only thing their character was built for useless. Eh, you can still have useful fi...
by Stubbazubba
Sun Apr 05, 2020 2:51 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: [OSSR]The One Ring
Replies: 38
Views: 13608

Ancient History wrote:None of the Fellowship of the Ring were asking about shares of the loot at any point.
No, but it played a pretty major role in the travails of Thorin's Company.
by Stubbazubba
Wed Apr 01, 2020 7:00 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: [OSSR]The One Ring
Replies: 38
Views: 13608

The combat rules are 16 pages long and ambitious. It's all narrative and die roll based, no miniatures. No hexes or squares. No move actions. No move actions? How does that work? The One Ring had an abstract positioning system where you were in one of four positions relative to the bad guys, which ...
by Stubbazubba
Fri Mar 27, 2020 8:38 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Turns abstract time, now for abstracting space (grid, zones)
Replies: 6
Views: 2903

The One Ring had an abstract positioning system where you were in one of four positions relative to the bad guys, which it somewhat misleadingly called Stances: Forward, Open, Defensive, and Rearward. The first three were all melee stances, with Rearward being ranged. Stances determined the initiati...
by Stubbazubba
Sat Feb 29, 2020 8:10 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Rest Mechanics
Replies: 25
Views: 9943

There are ways to incentivize continuing instead of resting, instead of just limiting resources in a way players can't control to force a new resting rhythm. The most obvious would be XP: if an XP multiplier applied for more encounters between long rests, then your average group would push through a...
by Stubbazubba
Thu Feb 27, 2020 7:09 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Routine vs Reacting, fast/slow actions
Replies: 10
Views: 5535

The whole point of having actions with an extended activation time is to complicate the enemy's tactics. At best, it's good counterplay . Basically that means one of two things: it's an instantaneous thing that you can repeat, that the enemy just learns to avoid (probably a standard action), or the ...
by Stubbazubba
Sat Feb 08, 2020 10:40 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: How does your Heartbreaker... divide up magic?
Replies: 57
Views: 21016

I like to devide the magic pie around what it feels like to use red magic vs. blue magic, for example. Maybe I'm wrong to favor this, but my best defense for this is that magic can have whatever game mechanics, and you're going to figure that out later anyway - but using magic needs to be a rolepla...
by Stubbazubba
Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:54 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: [D&D 5E] Strongholds and Followers (MCDM)
Replies: 2
Views: 1205

I backed it. It has some good things and some very incomplete things, and several of the options are wildly more beneficial than others, so it's not really ready for primetime plug-n-play experience, it'll take a watchful eye and a further tinkering to make it fully work. Then again, that's true of ...
by Stubbazubba
Sun Nov 10, 2019 6:11 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Pathfinder 2e
Replies: 666
Views: 164711

Playing a homebrewed version of it is still the best D&D experience you can get, almost two decades on. And until there's an industry-wide paradigm shift of the audience at large giving a shit about anything other than brand recognition, that's where we'll be for the forseeable future. Even tho...
by Stubbazubba
Thu Nov 07, 2019 6:59 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Nuts and Bolts Discussion: Hit Points or Something else?
Replies: 35
Views: 6205

Harshax wrote:I like condition tracking, personally. But, reading some replies, can someone point me to the definition of “LMSD”?
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=57291
by Stubbazubba
Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:42 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Pathfinder 2e
Replies: 666
Views: 164711

so in MMA, boxing and so on, putting someone against the corner is usually to your advantage as they can't keep on back pedaling to avoid hits. It can also be to your advantage if you have a wall to lean on as a bugbear is trying to grapple you to the ground. In D&D and Pathfinder though there'...
by Stubbazubba
Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:45 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: "Rules as written" and the current state of RPG design
Replies: 41
Views: 10754

those youtube actors that play dnd5e, do they do a lot of fudging of the rules or are they actually pretty knowledgable and play it as is? Talking just about CR, there is a spectrum. Some of the players do not know how their class features/spells work until the DM walks through it with them on the ...
by Stubbazubba
Sat Sep 21, 2019 4:06 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Stormlight Archive is what Exalted Should have been?
Replies: 37
Views: 9364

MAG is pretty crappy. It was very under-baked, they made a new RNG and had no idea how it was really going to work. Some interesting character/group creation stuff, but the rest of it is pretty lackluster.
by Stubbazubba
Thu Aug 29, 2019 7:21 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Tell me about your Heartbreaker
Replies: 35
Views: 6340

For the longest time my heartbreaker was primarily D&D but drawing heavily from The One Ring with fixed base weapon damage and active, rolled armor vs. critical hits; weapon skills, magic skills, and adventuring skills; basic systems for chases, social, stealth, overland travel, etc. Combat was ...
by Stubbazubba
Thu Jul 18, 2019 7:52 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: D&D 5e has failed
Replies: 1907
Views: 429753

They're starting to talk 6e, or 5.5 or 5th Essentials or something. But unless there is a negative correlation between Starter Kits sold and core books sold, they have no real commercial reason to do so except that this was the idea back in 2012 when they mapped out the timeline of the next edition....