The Gaming Den

My playstyle of offering a general amnesty and conscription to subdued enemies is something I would hardly classify as neo-pacifist; and more along the lines of meta-aggression. Socio-politics and economic development aren't commonly interacted with by most players due to the mobile nature of most campaigns.

However, pacifism in campaigns is as old as OD&D PCs avoiding fights in order to not take unnecessary risks. Additionally, the "end game" in OD&D was implicitly about economic development and socio-political interactions due to PCs gaining a base of operations, and followers; upon reaching level 10.

So; I'm not really sure why people think that such concepts are remotely "new" to RPGs; let alone being "modern" RPG concepts. They've sort of been part of the root of the game.

maglag wrote:

Gnorman wrote:Does Middle Earth really have any traction as a setting in modern day roleplaying?

I mean, 90% of it is just lines of succession and English peasant cuisine. It's not a lot of legs on which to build a game.

Dungeons? Check.

Dragons? Check.

Murder a variety of monsters and and find fantastic bling? Check.

Mix of traps and fantastic neutral/friendly NPCs to interact with? Check.

Of course, I've seen several people claim that modern RPGs should be about neo-pacifists exploring the land and focus should be on economic development and socio-politic discussions.

But I would say that there's still room in the market for good old dungeon delving, save the dragon from the angry princess and carry the treasure back to town to sell in order to get fancy gear.

I understand Middle Earth as a prototypical setting in which one can both dungeon and dragon.

What I don't understand is why, in this year of our lord 2016, anyone would say to themselves "by Jove, you know what fantastic universe I've always wanted to let my warlock/druid/what have you loose upon? ARDA!"

Shit's played, yo. It's such a part of the basic bones of D&D that actually playing in Middle-Earth would kind of be at best boring, and at worst a hideous cliche.

Unless you want to do some First/Second Age shit, and basically be elven warrior-kings in a Heavy Metal video. That I'm okay with. But if it's just hobbit sheriffs and crispy bacon, well, I just don't get the why of it, other than the rather obvious "let's make some money off of a name greater than our own."

(I'm ignoring the shit about neo-pacifists and socioeconomic development, because that was, charitably, a complete non sequitur, and more likely completely fucking stupid.)

Gnorman wrote: Unless you want to do some First/Second Age shit, and basically be elven warrior-kings in a Heavy Metal video.

See, now you're getting the spirit. Hobbit sheriffs would be the early game, but eventually you get your personal Heavy Metal army (of which there's different flavors, Aragorn gets a spectre horde, Merry and Pippin get a freaking treant legion) and late-game you go fight battles where balrogs are being mass deployed in squads a la Silmarion.

Judging_Eagle wrote: However, pacifism in campaigns is as old as OD&D PCs avoiding fights in order to not take unnecessary risks. Additionally, the "end game" in OD&D was implicitly about economic development and socio-political interactions due to PCs gaining a base of operations, and followers; upon reaching level 10.

Even if you wanted to avoid dangerous fights, you would still want to break into monster's homes and stealing their shit, which I believe hardly counts as "pacifism".

And although you did get your personal castle and minions, there were no rules for economic development/nation diplomacy as far as I'm aware. Your castle was a base of operation, your minions were, well, minions to do your bidding, and you didn't need to worry about paying their salaries or mortrages or forming diplomat corps or maintenance or any stuff like that. It was simply your safe home for you to store your loot and bragging rights.

maglag wrote: Dungeons? Check.

Dragons? Check.

Murder a variety of monsters and and find fantastic bling? Check.

Mix of traps and fantastic neutral/friendly NPCs to interact with? Check.

Of course, I've seen several people claim that modern RPGs should be about neo-pacifists exploring the land and focus should be on economic development and socio-politic discussions.

But I would say that there's still room in the market for good old dungeon delving, save the dragon from the angry princess and carry the treasure back to town to sell in order to get fancy gear.

Nope, by your definition, this is all that a game based on D&D's concepts is allowed to have.

Also Middle Earth really doesn't allow you to do those things.

I mean, in either/any of the three relevant timeline(s).

You either take part in the massive war that is going on, there are between zero and one dragons and you aren't allowed to kill it.

There are no monsters at all, there are only people and Dark people and either like six Balrogs at all in the world, or a bunch but they are all in the war, so you can't do shit. In either case, you basically just get Balrogs and nothing else. (Technically there are big spiders too.)

Also, aside from like, one group of trolls ever and a random creepy frogman, no one has magic bling, killing infinity Dark People or Balrogs will never get you shiny bling.

You can see how a lot of that stuff came out of LOTR/Hobbit, but only because the protagonists did it to the last existing Dragon or whatever, not because it was a thing that anyone else could ever do.

Middle Earth is somethig all the neckbeards have a hardon for.

And that's one of many reasons the unwritten marriage between Tolkien and d&d needs to die.

In a fire.

You could do interesting things with a Tolkienian setting, but it would have to be specifically structured for it and would look nothing like D&D.

phlapjackage wrote:

maglag wrote: Dungeons? Check.

Dragons? Check.

Murder a variety of monsters and and find fantastic bling? Check.

Mix of traps and fantastic neutral/friendly NPCs to interact with? Check.

Of course, I've seen several people claim that modern RPGs should be about neo-pacifists exploring the land and focus should be on economic development and socio-politic discussions.

But I would say that there's still room in the market for good old dungeon delving, save the dragon from the angry princess and carry the treasure back to town to sell in order to get fancy gear.

Nope, by your definition, this is all that a game based on D&D's concepts is allowed to have.

It is the Ancient Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries Bahamut the God-Emperor of Dragonkind has sat immobile on the Golden Dungeon of the material plane. He is the master of dragonkind by the will of the dragon gods and master of a million dungeons by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a platinium carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Dragonology. He is the Metal Lord of the vast Imperium of Dragon for whom a thousand draconic souls are sacrificed every day so that he may never truly die.Yet even in his deathless state, Bahamut continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty dragonfleets cross the chromatic dragon-infested miasma of the Astral, the only route between distant dungeons, their way lit by the Dragonmican, the magic manifestation of Bahamut's will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted dungeons. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Metallic Dragons, magic-engineered super-dragons. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Dragonborn Guard and countless dungeon defence forces, the ever-vigilant Planar Dragons and the gem-priests of the Psionic Dragons to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat to good dragonkind from chromatic dragons, half-dragons, vampirc dragons, dracoliches, Lung Dragons, Ferrous Dragons, Elemental Drakes, Feydragons, Spellcasles, Dragonwroughts, Linnorms -- and far, far worse. To be a dragon in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody dungeons imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of love and friendship, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of stable salaries and farming, for in the grim dark future there are only dragons. There is no peace amongst the dungeons, only an eternity of dragons, and the laughter of Tiamat.


(D&D has so many different dragons by now that I could see a setting where dragons are the only living beings as quite viable. You can scale all the way from lowly faerie dragons, dragonborn and spellscales to epic wyrms and everything)

Don't the latter ages of Middle Earth fit perfectly as a 5e D&D setting? It's the same sort of low-power, low-fantasy grade bullshit where you need to blow the DM in order to be anything special*. Seems like a match made in Hell to me.

*: And yes, the blowing-the-DM analogy is perfect here. Gandalf was a Maiar, Aragorn was a King, and Tolkien had a hard-on for hobbits as examples of bucolic English peasants.

RelentlessImp wrote:Don't the latter ages of Middle Earth fit perfectly as a 5e D&D setting?

No. Having a character class that can cast Charm Person - Saruman's signature ability - right out the gate at level 1 is not a good model of Middle-Earth at all.

maglag wrote: It is the Ancient Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries Bahamut the God-Emperor of Dragonkind has sat immobile on the Golden Dungeon of the material plane. He is the master of dragonkind by the will of the dragon gods and master of a million dungeons by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a platinium carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Dragonology. He is the Metal Lord of the vast Imperium of Dragon for whom a thousand draconic souls are sacrificed every day so that he may never truly die.Yet even in his deathless state, Bahamut continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty dragonfleets cross the chromatic dragon-infested miasma of the Astral, the only route between distant dungeons, their way lit by the Dragonmican, the magic manifestation of Bahamut's will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted dungeons. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Metallic Dragons, magic-engineered super-dragons. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Dragonborn Guard and countless dungeon defence forces, the ever-vigilant Planar Dragons and the gem-priests of the Psionic Dragons to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat to good dragonkind from chromatic dragons, half-dragons, vampirc dragons, dracoliches, Lung Dragons, Ferrous Dragons, Elemental Drakes, Feydragons, Spellcasles, Dragonwroughts, Linnorms -- and far, far worse. To be a dragon in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody dungeons imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of love and friendship, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of stable salaries and farming, for in the grim dark future there are only dragons. There is no peace amongst the dungeons, only an eternity of dragons, and the laughter of Tiamat.


(D&D has so many different dragons by now that I could see a setting where dragons are the only living beings as quite viable. You can scale all the way from lowly faerie dragons, dragonborn and spellscales to epic wyrms and everything)

I've actually considered a game named "Dragons Dungeons"; where all the creatures are dragons. Specifically with After Sundown in mind as the breakdown of types, as it has several creature types that could classify as dragons; and those that aren't aren't totally unable to be either specific careers; or simply rare forms of dragon (e.g. Panda-dragons are Bunyip/Selkie/Bersarker (Get of Fenris)).

However; it seemed a bit too much.

How about a dungeon made out of a dragon's petrified corpse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7rbsXNqRtY

OgreBattle wrote:How about a dungeon made out of a dragon's petrified corpse:

Thank you for not linking to mrhappy's guide. God I hate that fucker.

Thank you for not linking to mrhappy's guide. God I hate that fucker.

Care to explain? I would hearken to your account of the ignorance, gaucherie, and repugnant character of this individual.

Chamomile wrote:

RelentlessImp wrote:Don't the latter ages of Middle Earth fit perfectly as a 5e D&D setting?

No. Having a character class that can cast Charm Person - Saruman's signature ability - right out the gate at level 1 is not a good model of Middle-Earth at all.

I thought Charm Person was Wormtongue's thing?

As an aside, why would you ever hire someone named "Grima Wormtongue" to be your advisor? Was that the name he put on his resume?

King Theoden: "Oh thank the gods we have a qualified candidate! The last guy, Snively Knifeintheback, he didn't work out at all."

Hiram McDaniels wrote:

Chamomile wrote:

RelentlessImp wrote:Don't the latter ages of Middle Earth fit perfectly as a 5e D&D setting?

No. Having a character class that can cast Charm Person - Saruman's signature ability - right out the gate at level 1 is not a good model of Middle-Earth at all.

I thought Charm Person was Wormtongue's thing?

Grima was either channeling it or learned it from Saruman. When the party encounters Saruman at Orthanc after his armies are defeated, he nearly charms the lot of them into switching sides. He eventually charms Treebeard into letting him go so he can go wreck the Shire.

Hiram McDaniels wrote:As an aside, why would you ever hire someone named "Grima Wormtongue" to be your advisor? Was that the name he put on his resume?

Wormtongue was an insulting nickname he picked up relatively late in his career, and it wasn't used to his face or in front of the King. Grima was actually pretty awesome in terms of wits and words, and he was a loyal and useful part of Team Rohan for years before he was turned.

Yeah Wormtongue is one of those things where nerds are totally gung ho about literally the jockiest thing ever. I mean, does anyone doubt that Saruman could have turned Eomer if he had captured him? Is there any good reason to think that Eomer is immune to capture?

Basically, you have to root for the "Words are Bad, let's kick people in the face with our manly manness" guy over the "hey, maybe talking and diplomacy and smart financial planning has a place in running the kingdom too guy" for what basically amounts to an accident of circumstance.

The literal bast case scenario is that you should root for Eomer because he's biological aristocracy/royalty, and therefore better. And that's the best case scenario.

Ok the BIGGEST problems with 5E are?
1 Most almost all skills are MTP and hordes of commoners can do pc jobs all the time
2 Warriors and rogues become even less heroic and epic than 3E
3 Casters get even more shit, again,, and there are more of them.
4 Monsters are boring with even more Hit point bloat.

Did I get every thing? Because this looks like a smaller list than Pathfinder had. If there's more designing problems than this what is it (serious question)?

Super crazy stealth rules, which I consider a problem independent from 1 because rules were attempted.

I don't know if comparing pf problems to 5e's by number of issues helps to determine anything. 5e has considerably less content even if you went back to before the expansions. With that being said I believe the RNG is extremely fragile and because of how the abilities and stat upgrades work options are extremely limited.

Redstone, you only have a small list because some of those items are incredibly huge.

#1 is a combination of several problems. Bounded accuracy, failure to create critical rules, and failure of skill rules that were created.

Why not just have a real short list?

1. Shit don't work and has no improvements over a system 15 years old.

5e stealth rules are really really good. They are just hidden.

pragma wrote:Super crazy stealth rules, which I consider a problem independent from 1 because rules were attempted.

Ok noted that will go as five then.

Mguy wrote: I don't know if comparing pf problems to 5e's by number of issues helps to determine anything. 5e has considerably less content even if you went back to before the expansions. With that being said I believe the RNG is extremely fragile and because of how the abilities and stat upgrades work options are extremely limited.

It helps to have a fuck off huge damning list to tell people why you won't play a system. Also WOTC not shilling out new can be both a blessing and a curse depending on how forgiving of homebrew your group is, so it doesn't go on "my groups" list but it does go on "my" list.

No, the biggest problem with 5e is worse than just being "bad" -- I mean, 2e AD&D was "bad" but it was still fun.

5e is just boring. It's not INTERESTING.

The characters can't do anything cool that you couldn't do in HERO QUEST.

The monsters are stupid and the high level monsters don't fire up your imagination or make you come up with campaign ideas just to utilize the cool monsters.

The skill system is only appealing if you have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Stone Giant's cant break down locked doors because all the numbers in the game are totally dumb.

The designers of 5e are on par with Hitler in terms of their negative contributions to humanity. Mearls is a fucker and so are you if you have anything positive to say about 5e.

And since 5e is so shitty, Pathfucker can just keep coasting along with its dumb-fuck fix-nothing fiddle-fuck version of 3e that blows my crusty vag because it's competition sucks so much ass they don't even have to try.

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!