Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both

[Koumei]

Recently discovered that 4chan has a board for traditional games (roleplaying and wargaming). It is made of so much fail. Imagine /b/ crossed with the WotC boards.

Yeah.

Wargaming: Consists of "Imperium: SUPERIOR" (never mind that I agree here), "Hay guys let's hate the Space Marines/Emperor!","We hate Games Workshop!", "We blindly love Games Workshop!" and WoW-style "Baaaaaw, I got nerfed!"

Roleplaying: Consists of retards. There are some who think the Book of Vile Body Piercings and Book of Exalted Furries aren't bad guides for alignment, and that the Vows are an example of being Good. There are also those who think you can play a character from 1-20 without planning ahead and still be useful at all levels. I'd like to see them try that with, say, a character who isn't a full caster.

Then there are those who complain that high level characters have equipment, and can theoretically buy cities (note: Sure you can, should you find a seller, but the city itself doesn't help when the dragon attacks), and who want Wish to be like 2Ed, where the DM is supposed to rape the players.

So much fail in general. I just had to troll it a little. Though they did show the best alignment grid ever:

Upper-Left | Neutral Up | Upper-Right
Neutral-Left | Middle | Neutral-Right
Lower-Left | Neutral Low | Lower-Right

Where you sit on the grid depends on... where you sit on the grid, really.

[Manxome]

Maybe this is being overly-pedantic, but what's the technical definition of an encounter?

Because normally, you don't care; you know generally what it is (enough to have a conversation) and don't sweat the details. But if you're going to have 1/encounter abilities without creating stupid arguments, you need an absolutely clear and inarguable way to say "THIS is where the encounter ends."

So...if reinforcements show up a moment before you kill the last monster in the first group, is it the same encounter? How about a moment after? A minute after? What if they're close enough to harass you with long-range attacks while you engage the first group but don't get close enough to use their main attacks or pose a serious threat until some time later?

If you run through 5 rooms without pausing and kill a monster in each room, was that 1 encounter or 5? What if there's a dungeon-wide alarm blaring and every one of those monsters was actively searching for you the entire time? What if the doors were open and all the monsters had line-of-sight to you the whole time but none happened to look in the right direction until you were close? What if the rooms are in separate dimensions with one-way doors and there's no conceivable way any of the monsters in the later rooms could have known about anything in the prior ones within a year, and only your impatience stopped you from resting?

If you want to use an ability to blast open a door, disable a trap, travel cross-country, etc. what encounter, if any, is that a part of?

It seems to me there's countless subtle permutations that make for good stories but poor boundaries, and creating mechanics that trip over them is probably a Bad Idea. Using the passage of game-time or specific rituals to replenish abilities really sounds far less problematic to me.

Maybe you could have 1/20 rounds abilities or something that equates to "per encounter" most of the time but is less fuzzy?




Also, thought on that "hammer time" idea: a variant that doesn't require explicit agreement/cooperation would be to have abilities that kick in involuntarily when you're in some quantifiable danger; e.g. the first time you're hit by an attack capable of killing you, you go into awesome-mode for 10 rounds or something.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

If the DM gets to tell me when it's hammertime and what monsters we are fighting when it's hammertime and where we are fighting when it's hammertime (as is likely the case when the monsters get to pick the ground to attack from), I might as well leave and go home. I'm not partaking in any part of that story.

Per encounter is crap, per level is double-crap. I like x/day and x/at will. These are things my character will do all day. I consider it reasonable to assume that the wizard can throw <some number> of fireballs before requiring rest or can do it all day without rest. It requires suspension of disbelief to say that he can throw one this battle, one next battle, but then can't throw any more for a month because he has to... um... level up?

Personally, I really like Spheres. You get a few spells that you can use a few of, and if you keep focusing on those you get to use them all day. It makes sense to me that as you gain levels you get better at doing things that you can already do.

[Koumei]

Limit Breaks. Not a bad idea, really.

Also, it sounds like you're after the mechanics used by the Binder: 1/5 rounds (or most breath weapons for that matter, at 1/1d4+1 rounds). They tend to equate to once per encounter, but are still measured in game-time.

When Tome of Battle came out, there was a lot of debate as to what constituted an encounter and whether you could use any abilities outside of combat at all. Examples given included using one of the Diamond Mind tricks to boost your Ref save when encountering a trap, and whether you can use the Shadow Hand ability to dimension door across a chasm if you're not being chased by monsters at the time.

[Manxome]

Keep in mind that lots of versions of Limit Breaks you may have seen in video games are extremely abusable. You probably don't want a game where the player deliberately stays on the brink of death for as long as possible in order to get cool powers (that's broken if he survives and unfun if he dies). You also probably don't want something where the player deliberately goes and lets himself get beat up by mooks to "charge up" his powers before fighting a tough opponent.

[Koumei]

Yeah, that's true. I mean, FF8 was retarded in every aspect, but the "wander around on 1 HP all the time" was noteworthy as an example of how dumb it was. FF7 had you find mooks to slowly slap you up for pitiful damage until you stocked a Limit Break, then wander over to the boss fight on full HP, full MP and with a limit ready to use.

And constantly drugged up on Hypers. Seriously, after saving the world, I'm surprised Cloud and friends didn't get done for drug abuse.

[JonSetanta]

1189711998[/unixtime]]
So...if reinforcements show up a moment before you kill the last monster in the first group, is it the same encounter? How about a moment after? A minute after? What if they're close enough to harass you with long-range attacks while you engage the first group but don't get close enough to use their main attacks or pose a serious threat until some time later?

If you run through 5 rooms without pausing and kill a monster in each room, was that 1 encounter or 5? What if there's a dungeon-wide alarm blaring and every one of those monsters was actively searching for you the entire time? What if the doors were open and all the monsters had line-of-sight to you the whole time but none happened to look in the right direction until you were close? What if the rooms are in separate dimensions with one-way doors and there's no conceivable way any of the monsters in the later rooms could have known about anything in the prior ones within a year, and only your impatience stopped you from resting?

If you want to use an ability to blast open a door, disable a trap, travel cross-country, etc. what encounter, if any, is that a part of?

Arrrrrrr don't hurt my head, Manxome!! Been trying to wrestle that RPG demon for years.
I'm close to giving up on that subject even as WOTC released Tome of Battle, a book with class abilities completely dependent on the definition of an encounter . Anyone have a lecture to give on this or something?


As for limit breaks, does the word 'Musou Attack' ring a bell...

[RandomCasualty]

1189691096[/unixtime]]

Your premise seems to be that tying ability replenishment to levels is a more stable system. I heavily disagree with this. For one, not all DMs level their characters on a schedule of 'you must do this many adventures before you can advance'.

Sure ti is. The whole goal of leveling is that you have to take out 13 1/2 or whatever encounters of equal CR before you advance. That means that every 13 or so encounters you get to use those cool abilities X amount of times.

Then it should be on a schedule of per adventure or even per two adventures rather than per level. Superman flying back in time all of the time to solve problems is dumb. Superman flying back in time to stop a kitty from being stuck in a tree because his player is about to level and hasn't used it yet is equally dumb.

Well the problem with per adventure is this...

An adventure can be of undefined length.

Lord of the Rings, could be an adventure, and that includes the balrog, Helm's Deep, The siege of Gondor and the assault on the gates of Moria (plus a bunch of other orc/nazgul encounters).

Sometimes there are big megaquests that are designed to take you through several levels all in one adventure. I mean, imagine getting boned by playing the World's largest dungeon in a per adventure set up.

This is why I tend to say that X/level is a slightly more fair version of X/adventure. X/adventure is more story-oriented, but it also can really hose you if your DM feels like throwing some super long adventures at you.

[Manxome]

Yes, we all know the real reason they

killed off Aeris

was that using Fury Brand (level 2 limit) to charge both allies' level 4 limits would be broken.

At least FF8 was fairly consistent in its brokenness. Being able to always use your limit by walking around at 1 HP isn't even that broken in comparison to no-cost abilities that fully heal allies or resurrect and fully heal allies, spells that let you always use your limit at full health, items that make your entire party invulnerable, spells that explicitly auto-win any fight (including boss fights), etc.

[Koumei]

Everything was wrong with FF8. Monsters level up better than you do, so the way to be strong is NOT level up, and card every monster you ever see, to junction it to your stats, so that you have Low Level, High Stats. Half the time the only reason you use "Summon" is so that the GF takes the hit for you, you never cast spells because you junction them to your stats, you get money by wandering around, not by fighting... the whole thing is backwards.

God I hated that game.

Anyway, yes. Um. Yeah, Aeris had the best Limit Breaks by far. I actually earned her ultimate one just for the purpose of swindling the "Beta" attack from the fucking Midgar Zolom. Which I then used to auto-win every battle for a very long time.

I'm a big fan of Musou-usage in Dynasty warriors, even if the single most broken character (Ling Tong) is best off only using it as an auto-succeed counter to break out of enemy combo attacks. His C4 is so much better. But for other characters, always bust out the Musou for that extra entertainment.

Dynasty Warriors is what I see high level melee combat being all about: Obliterating tens of enemies at once, wiping out armies by the hour, then clashing with equally awesome people for epic confrontations with random explosions on the sidelines.

But Musou in D&D would be more or less the same as the problem with Limit Breaks, where you stock it up on mooks, then unleash it against bosses.

[Koumei]

Oh, and please, regarding Aeris: Spoilers!:biggrin:

[RandomCasualty]

1189716502[/unixtime]]Everything was wrong with FF8. Monsters level up better than you do, so the way to be strong is NOT level up, and card every monster you ever see, to junction it to your stats, so that you have Low Level, High Stats. Half the time the only reason you use "Summon" is so that the GF takes the hit for you, you never cast spells because you junction them to your stats, you get money by wandering around, not by fighting... the whole thing is backwards.

God I hated that game.

Yeah, the story was alright, but the game mechanics sucked ass.

All I remember is spending every battle sitting there forever draining magic from monsters. Because if you didn't do that, you'd get totally owned. You got more hp from junctioning Curaga to your hp than you ever would from just pure leveling.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I loved FF8, but for the exact reasons you guys hate it, I liked the fact that it was easy enough to break the game that even a man of my limited intellect could break it. I didn't know at the time, but looking back, that's probably how Frank feels all the time. And it is a good feeling.

[JonSetanta]

One of my fav Musou was Pang Tong, but I usually played Zhao Yun...

Samurai Warriors 2 is one of the best games of that type IMHO (mindless buttom mashing melee fests) and the characters each represent what D&D warriors could aspire to become, and what Tome of Battle warriors don't quite come close to achieving.
Kotaro Fuma, for instance, would wipe the floor with any 3.5 Monk if he were somehow converted to 3.5 stats, just from his moves, speed, and capability alone...
I think the FnK Monk comes close but not quite.

[MrWaeseL]

Ahahaha you guys like JRPGs. How's enjoying games created for 13 year-olds treating you?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Your mom was good last night.

[Lago_AM3P]

Ahahaha you guys like JRPGs. How's enjoying games created for 13 year-olds treating you?

I dunno. I enjoy earth-tone blankets and soft music and those were created for ZERO YEAR OLDS! I'm such a child.

[JonSetanta]

1189725223[/unixtime]]Ahahaha you guys like JRPGs. How's enjoying games created for 13 year-olds treating you?

From one 'Channer to another, here's a bit of advice:

FAIL


Tho, he's young and probably tried quite a few 'JRPGs' by now. That's an educated guess, since no self-respecting geek hasn't at least tried any one of the FF series...
Hypocrite much?

Otherwise, it's treating us very well. Thanks!

[Catharz]

1189728191[/unixtime]]
From one 'Channer to another, here's a bit of advice:

FAIL

I've never been of 4channel myself, but I found this on Google:

# Do not talk about /b/
# DO NOT talk about /b/
# We are Anonymous
# Anonymous is legion
# Anonymous never forgives

[Edit] Remember that anonymous image boards are horrible for a reason. Please don't start posting their animu "mems" here [/Edit]

[JonSetanta]

I never mentioned that site *ahem*

[Cielingcat]

The word, Catharz, is "meme."

[Voss]

Well, since I haven't been a FR fan since I was in my teams and someone thought that whole 'Time of Troubles' thing was a good idea, this mostly makes me giggle, but, here:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t ... [br][br]FR falls down and goes boom!
Again!
Now with 1500% more teenage melodrama!

[Neeek]

1189716502[/unixtime]]

I'm a big fan of Musou-usage in Dynasty warriors, even if the single most broken character (Ling Tong) is best off only using it as an auto-succeed counter to break out of enemy combo attacks. His C4 is so much better.

Ling is probably the most fun character to play, but there are at least three who are better that I can think of off the top of my head (Lu Bu, Zuo Ci and Ma Chao).

[Koumei]

Sigma: Yeah, Samurai Warriors 2 was good. My favourites were the Demon-Warlock-Japanese-Cao Cao (also known as Oda Nobunaga), Saika (biggest tool ever) and Nene. I ended up maxing her out completely.

I also liked DW Empires though, because of the "Don't be a dickhead" tactic, where you tell all your generals to hide in the main camp. That way, they don't die, the camp doesn't get captured, and you get to do all the fun stuff yourself. Guan Yu had a bad habit of winning the level for me if I didn't hurry up, before I started using that. Though Ling Tong wins for brokenness, my favourites were Guan Yu, Cao Cao, Zhuge Liang and Xiahou Dun.

MrWaeseL: It's treating me the same way I treated your mum last night.

Catharz: I often find anonymous boards are handy for a reason. There are few registration-based boards where the users don't piss me off. Part of the problem with the WotC boards is that a few particularly loud individuals have everyone felating them and agreeing with anything they say based only on the fact that "______ said it and he's always right!"

For that matter, the same thing happens here, *I'm* guilty of making the assumption that K and Frank are speaking from experience and correct any time they post stuff, and always look forward to seeing the next person Ceilingcat slags off. Though it's possible that the picture is just very cute.

But in anonymous boards, you can only judge any given post by its own merit. You can't be biased by the poster. Mudkips and Bridget could certainly be seen as annoying, but they don't really have anything to do with the anonymous nature.

[Koumei]

1189754036[/unixtime]]
Ling is probably the most fun character to play, but there are at least three who are better that I can think of off the top of my head (Lu Bu, Zuo Ci and Ma Chao).

Nah, Ma Chao and Lu Bu just have the awesome damage and reach (and Ma Chao's awesomeness is also fairly linked to whether or not he's riding a horse at the time - so the initial charge before leaping off and going apeshit).

Zuo Ci is also pretty awesome, just with his ability to constantly juggle people, hit them rapidly, hit heaps of people at once and all that.

But Ling Tong has only one tactic: C4 (attack-attack-attack-charge attack). This tactic can also be called "winning the game", so it's okay that it's the one thing he can do. His nunchucks are fast, so the first three attacks usually hit and it doesn't matter if they don't, because the next attack clears a wide area around him, doing damage AND knocking everyone down.

I saw a friend clock 5,000 KOs in one level just using him.