The Gaming Den

PhoneLobster: eat a pile of shit. I asked you repeatedly, nicely, not to use ad hominems, I guess you're just too fucking daft to respond to courtesy. If The Great Fence Builder wants to ban me because I'm calling you out for the gigantic fuckstick you are, I respectfully accept that as it is his fo...

Manxome, yours is the best explanation of what I'm getting at.[br][br]However, if we go back to my original post, you'll note I never said it was irreconcilable, I just said there was a contradiction. I even proposed a couple of half-baked solutions that could deal with the problem in a general mann...

K, what you are proposing sounds a little like Final Fantasy: hit rates don't change much as the game goes along (HPs and damage do), and high level characters in those systems could probably take out thousands of the initial mooks from the start of the game without batting an eye.[br][br]The only p...

You're making a funny assumption here: that I'm a player.[br]Mostly, I just GM.[br][br]EDIT:[br][br]Addressing your points.[br][br]"1) I want skill tests[br]2) I want the possibility of death[br]3) I don't want to die.[br][br]And you use that to declare that 1 and 3 are massive conflicts."...

From personal experience, sometimes it's not hard. The players will not question that "magic healing potion you just happen to find in the nick of time" if it means their character doesn't bleed to death. It's a silent, understood DM mercy. No one says anything the game moves on. The probl...

I actually played a centaur monk once. I made a Reflex save with evasion at one point and my DM was having some trouble describing it. Horse in bullet-time = awkward.

Beyond being a setting consideration, its a system consideration.[br][br]Sure, you can play Toon, or Pokemon, or Final Fantasy, but the dilemma is that most players want some level of grit in their heroic fantasy: where a sword to the gut will kill you.[br][br]At the same time the want to be "t...

K, let me see if I follow your reasoning.[br][br]By high levels, the way to win a battle isn't by "rolling higher numbers" but by dictating the terms of the encounter. Thus, it is pointless to implement a system where you're slowly creating differentials in the "rolling higher numbers...

Skill checks, sure. You roll a dice and it affects the outcome. OK, no problem there. (Well, no, it's still a weird way of determining the outcome of a narrative, but it's such an ingrained part of RPGs I'm not even going to discuss that now)[br][br]I'm talking about skill-testing, where the decisio...

We seem to be talking about two separate things here:[br][br]1. When two roughly equally powerful beings meet in combat, and they are both high level, then combat should change in scale to match the concept of a truly long-lasting confrontation.[br][br]2. When a high level character is fighting a sw...

I like how 95% of the time, this rule change makes no difference to anyone whatsoever. Let's see what has to happen in order for these rules to have an effect on tactical combat:[br][br]1. The players have to be using a square battle map instead of hexes, ruler and string, or some variant of Big Squ...

Interestingly, Toon then serves to support my point (somewhat, maybe, arguably).[br][br]The narrative the players are creating are never disrupted by the skill checks because the failures are constructive with respect to the protagonists (the cartoon characters). The game is thus biased completely i...

K, while you are correct and that undoubtedly describes a dichotomy in the kinds of players that will join a game, my point is that sometimes the need for skill testing makes it difficult to be "a hero", let alone "the hero".[br][br]Josh, perhaps you could provide a few examples ...

Voss, take your ad hominem shit elsewhere. I'm trying to get to the root of something I feel is a real problem and you're not adding anything constructive. Sphere obviously disagrees with me, but he's managed to keep it civil. [br][br]You're right: it is a game. But it's a game where a fair percenta...

Death is not expected at random when I'm trying to tell an epic story about a badass. Leonidas dies AFTER he wounds Xerxes, not by a random crit hit from Mook #5.[br][br]You seem to be on the side of "RPGs are skill testing". If that's so, fine, but you don't seem to get how upsetting #2 i...

Yeah, except it would be the player and not the character Magic Jarring (that should be a verb).[br][br]I like the idea of running A Song of Ice and Fire game like this.[br][br]Leveling up could work something like this:[br]- Some of your mooks are replenished and your maximum mooks increase (your m...

RC, excellent observation. Your point is a subset of what I'm getting at. I've felt the exact contradiction as a player before. I want my character to be doing stuff that feels cool and risky, but if he actually dies/gets crippled I can feel several things:[br][br]1. I'm a dumb-ass and just proved h...

Crissa: dice are not a challenge. They are a tool for randomization. You could argue that the point of good character design is to work against this randomization (much like the goal of a good Magic deck is to minimize the impact of the random aspect) but that would be debating semantics. The dice a...

OK, what I'm seeing here is that basically no one agrees with my conclusion. Which is fine I guess, maybe I was assuming too much about what kinds of games people want to play.[br][br]Just to be perfectly clear though:[br][br]You guys seem to be saying that there's no contradiction between the two g...

Crissa said:
"It really sounds as though you don't like the idea of having a beginning, merely and end. Much like rapa-nui doesn't want an end, just a middle."

Please do not put words in my mouth. Thank you.

K, that's a very good point and I definitely agree. My argument is now extended to include severe character-warping events, not just death. I've never level-drained anyone in my RPGs because I don't know anyone that find that fun.[br][br] Sphere said: [br]"I am stating that a balanced rules sys...

*smack forehead*[br][br] Rapa-Nui wrote several posts ago: [br]"No, I'm happy with the ruleset I'm using for the game I'm running right now, mostly because I have pretty much told the players: I'm not going to kill you. You have FATE points to save your characters from death when you want, and ...

Sphere said: [br][br]"My point is you can."[br][br]No, you cannot. Besides the amazing amount of stupidly broken shit (and I've been disregarding that for the duration of this argument) running the game by the book would result in a narrative that goes something like this:[br][br]Players ...

To make this discussion easier, I will try and boil it down to bullet point form.[br][br]1. In a war game, pieces (characters) do not matter beyond being there to achieve victory. This is skill-testing.[br][br]2. In a book or novel, there is no skill testing, and characters fates matter to the point...

Sphere said: [br]"In regard to the narrative you are defining it like a book. To put it another way, you are trying to tell a predetermined story by forcing the rules, the random elements (dice), and even the role-playing to accommodate to your narrative wishes. You then are ignoring (fudging)...