The Gaming Den

Are there mechanics for "how long until I succeed?" for 3.5e, because that's been an issue in games I've been in. To the point where our DM has unabashedly suggested the 2e rule of "two strikes and you're out" for bashing open locks.

it is pretty cool that we have Frank leveraging his Knowing Medicine for this OSSR. good stuff here

Literally just the name yeah

I didn't use an argument from "language is finite so rules are finite" because I'm actually not sure if you can't use finitely many letters to express infinitely many rules. "Fighters get +X to Strength at level 20, where X is an integer". So I went with the fact that rules are s...

Super vague topic here but:

A majority of dialogue here focuses on systems with DMs restricted by rules that serve as a social contract. What alternatives are there to this (e.g. DM-less) and how do they succeed or fail?

Where the fuck are the rules for foreplay

e: nevermind i found it, the 20 minutes for orgasms includes foreplay

excited for the Fuck-Sorceror prestige class

I ignored crits (because crits only double the damage dice and not the static modifiers) and factored in the fact that the floor on the to-hit chance is 5%. I did not consider advantage or disadvantage yet but yeah it's basically just stats juggling to figure out the minutiae and, honestly, I don't ...

That's actually part of my point. If you're thinking of these feats as pure DPR maximizing, you're kind of missing how big that -5 is in this system. Of your two real bonuses (stat and prof), -5 is all of one at its maximum value, and almost half of the total of the two (+11). A 20th level characte...

Is there a reason the cardinality of the set of possible rules is interesting? I think we can agree that it is large, for a particular maximum length of rules text is finite, and for unbounded texts is countable but unreasonable because past a certain point you run out of dead trees to print it on....

So, I agree with Zinegata that people didn't go for 4e because of the math. And it's not because I deny the existence of the marketing campaign. I disagree that people's excitement about "the math just works" is actually about math. Because ask anyone what that means and they'll either giv...

There are infinite numbers between 1 and 2 There are infinite numbers between 2 and 3. Infinity does not just come from discrete rules, but from minor variations on those rules. The ideaspace of all possible housefules is essentially infinity, not because "roll a a billion d one million" ...

Oh, yeah, if you restrict it to "practical mechanics" the domain is even SMALLER. But we can restrict it to "humanly possible" and get finity.

Also, mechanics are gonna be a countable infinity! Because we demand that they're communicable in language.

Even 5e has a decent amount of crunch in their books. The ratio isn't great, but new 5e books do come with new races, spells, feats, and often sub-classes. That said, I also think 4e's marketing campaign, coupled with how godawful it was in play, may have actually seriously diminished the market's ...

This is a one-off post. When we discuss rules and mechanics in TTRPGs we have to assume that there are only a finite number of finite tasks associated with carrying out any given rule or mechanic. So as cool as it is to say "there's infinitely many different schemes for rolling dice", only...

Spend the levels up until you get Animate Dead burying your victims. RP as if you're being respectful to the dead. Mark the locations with crosses/gravestones/whatever people do in your setting. Then go back and dig those fuckers up. The only issue is that your DM might insist that they're Zombies b...

For Skeleton Army, there's a minor thing:

This spell creates an undead servant. Choose a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid within range. Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature.

Where can you find that many corpses or bones?

Yup, no disagreements there. My cursory look at the damage for level 1 Shaprshooter is that it's still more effective. I wrote the program, I just need to organize the information in a useful way. The "taking a feat" thing is less of an issue than one might think because of Variant Human b...

Vornheim looks like just a random setting supplement with a gimmick random table. it's KIND of cool that you can generate a 2nd level wizard with 14 int and 3 HP/Lvl with a single roll but I feel like the need to do the cross referencing makes it so that just rolling 3 different kinds of dice is fas...

yeah i don't like PbtA either, the fucking "succeed with a drawback" thing is just too infuriatingly vague i can't judge Vornheim based on Shitmuffin having been the writer. also bc i haven't seen it. if it's just a supplement that's useful then i don't see the issue i can, however, judge ...

Most games - boardgames and computer games in particular - in fact don't let "people figure that out for themselves", because they understand that players don't necessarily know how to have fun to begin with. More specifically, it is very rare for a player to start playing a game "kn...

Ah, but here's the rub: Modern design does critique how game systems lead to specific game-instantiation states. It is no longer enough to blame the players for "misusing" the system, but the system must in fact actively guide the players into ideal play states. And to know these ideal pl...

I mean, let's not overlook Fighting Style: Archery here. But yeah lemme math it out in a bit, I THINK the calculations I found include accuracy considerations but I can just do it better myself

I'm disagreeing with your specific point that narratives are necessarily fair, because it points to the underlying wrong premise that has caused RPGs to be marginalized despite there being a "Golden Age" of tabletop gaming. Namely, the idea that RPGs would be great if they have solid math...

That's a fair argument. SS / GWF are necessary for the highest DPR builds BUT, well... you're not a caster, so at least you get to do something. My experience is biased here because my DM foolishly gave me magic stuff that gives +2 to Attack rolls and I'm the only one who actually puts out damage (o...