The Gaming Den

How about this? Superman is a hero all the time, because he is willing to risk the permanent mental anguish of loss of Lois, Jimmy et al for being killed, taken hostage or mind controlled in order to rescue lives and live up to his principles. Or is he a dick for risking their lives? Not sure which....

For some reason I'm imagining that as space on the island runs out, then various blocks are added floating in space, and large suspension bridge type structures are built overhanging the edge, and the surface of the city getting further and further outside the island as time goes by... My problem is...

Okay, this is all getting really hypothetical and argumentative. And petty. Lets try having the same discussion from a different angle. From what I understand, Elennsar's position is: In RPGs, if the PCs by the rules of the game have an overwhelming chance of success then they are not being heroic. ...

Errr... yes, yes it does. Almost by definition. If something isn't random, then it will happen in a certain way. It is inevitable that a nonrandom event will happen in a certain way. So, it is random whether or not I will use the strikethrough tag, because it isn't a given that I will use it. Whaaa...

The best response to that philosophy? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/ is a very funny movie. That film [Groundhog Day] sort of proves my point. Each day is exactly the same and has the same stimuli in the same situation to everyone but Bill Murray. The waitress will always drop the tray, unles...

How about this to confuse you. Theres a way of thinking that everything is predetermined. If things happen in a given way based on physical laws, and people react to stimuli in a certain way, then while it my appear that there can be many possibilities, only one can ever happen. And mental and emoti...

A couple of things: Consider these two statements: During the course of a story , what happens within it can be changed by the authors whims and other peoples suggestions , but the basic plot and whether a character manages to jump over a bottomless pit or not (as an example) is solely down to the a...

Wait a moment. Are you saying that if you are rolling two d6, the chance of getting a 6 on the second is 0 before you roll the first, and then 1/6 after you roll the first? Also, do you really think that players won't worry about the chances of winning the fight after next? I thought that the whole ...

Why don't we try something more destructive than just asking the same questions over and over and sidestepping Elennsar's train of thought. Its obvious he's thinking in a different direction. Oh, wait, I meant constructive. Why don't we make his Artorius, but properly. Here would be the basic ideas ...

Your way of thinking leads to unplayable and boring games. Your way of thinking is bad and you should feel bad. Wait, thats a little harsh. Lets try that again. I can see what your talking about in that it can be easy to neuter challenges and make them no longer challenging. However, trying to make ...

Another thing I've been thinking about is construction and how much is required to build or repair a building. For example, theres various fantasy ideas about a tower on a tiny floating island slightly larger than it'd footprint, or a fortress taking up the whole island, or large bridges... (How muc...

My older, more well read brother was telling me a while back about various contradictions and weird things in science. Unfortunately I don't have any sources and so have no idea how real this is, but supposedly some scientists did some experiments giving evidence that we are currently in a hollow wo...

I thought this up this morning and have been spending part of my day trying to make up rules on the spot for this. I have no idea if it would even work, but I thought I'd put it here and see how badly people rip it to shreds. The basic idea is that instead of a single Diplomacy check to make the oth...

He rolls to hit. The amount he beats his TN to hit (which is adjusted based on the difficulty of his attack) is subtracted from Miles's defense roll, or something to that effect. He hits. Barely. No penalty to our hero. [hr] Roll to feint. If successful, enemy TN to defend is higher. So, the attack...

First of all, thanks for the round by round description. That gives me a much better idea of what your trying to do. However, with what you've said in the last couple of posts, the PCs seem to have an immunity to death when they're starting, e.g: Miles's player looks to the GM and says "Hey, na...

Ok, so you've given us an answer here. Based on the way you structured your answer, combat involves these things: 1. An attack roll. 2. A defense roll. 3. A location hit roll. 4. An armor soak roll. 5. A damage roll. 6. Want to spend a Hero point? 1: Yes. 2: Yes. 3: No. (That's taken care of in the...

What physical and mental characteristics do we need here, and how should they be broken up? You're doing roughly historical (early era) knight types here, so having stats for Strength and Constitution (as D&D names them) are probably advisible. I am not planning at present on using any existing...

Here are some of the things you've said: [hr] Forty fights of consequence. Barring tactics that turn things around, you have to have AT LEAST a 10% chance to lose. (your likelyhood of being able to have those tactics can be anywhere from 100% to 0%, and has to do with you and the details I can't and...

Okay, lets try this. Perfectly possible to lose eight encounters, win five , lose two, win three, and win the campaign. Have to -survive- them all, but not win them all. So, lets say we're playing this campaign. We average up the estimated chances of dying for each encounter. Lets give a random chan...

Notice how I specifically mentioned an average chance of surviving, not winning. This ignores the issue you have of insisting that we're ignoring the times when the PCs neither win or die. I know that it can be difficult to differentiate between what different posters write and details like that, bu...

It does contradict. Either I have a 50% chance of winning in both of the encounters or I don't. I registered just to help argue this point. You should be proud of that. (there were lots of other reasons, I just never got around to it) Lets say we're playing a completely stupid RPG. In it, all the p...