Amazing mechanical solutions

[Cyberzombie]

No good GM will Bear you, right. Sounds a bit like no true Scotsman to me.

Well, not exactly. It's not a no true scotsman, it's just an inherent flaw of RPGs.

The GM in any game has a tremendous amount of power. A D&D DM can throw overwhelming opposition at you until you die. He can have a balor randomly encounter a party of low level PCs and slaughter them. Every edition of D&D has had this flaw, and yet we don't call it unplayable. Instead we just label bad GMs as bad GMs.

If the DM isn't interested in telling a story and is instead just out to make the PCs lives miserable, the only thing the PCs can do is quit. That's a simple fact of all GMed RPGs. It doesn't matter if you're playing AW, D&D or Shadowrun. If the DM really wants to screw you over, you're going to get screwed. Some RPGs are just more transparent about it.

[Dean]

Fuck you Cyberzombie. Fuck your perfect is the enemy of good and the DM is god bullshit. If I sit down at a table and the DM says "Unlimited Balors attack" what would happen that night is I'd tell him to fuck off and we'd play without him. Me and the rest of the players would just play another game or the same game with my character on auto-pilot while I DM'ed. I've done it before and I'd do it again.

This is exactly a no true scotsman fallacy. It is exactly that. Equating the fact that most RPG's don't expressly mandate pre-balanced encounters to an RPG with incomplete rules for action resolution is obviously dishonest and you must be aware of that.

[TheFlatline]

If the DM isn't interested in telling a story and is instead just out to make the PCs lives miserable, the only thing the PCs can do is quit. That's a simple fact of all GMed RPGs. It doesn't matter if you're playing AW, D&D or Shadowrun. If the DM really wants to screw you over, you're going to get screwed. Some RPGs are just more transparent about it.

Not necessarily. There was a running joke that a Vampire game I played in lasted, technically, like well over 10 years. Some MC would burn out, turn bitter, or the LARP group would get arrested for "staking" someone to death with a nerf arrow on the statue of the city founder at 1am on a Saturday Night (true story), and the players would take their characters, setting, and shit that they liked and go start another game. I'm aware of 7 or 8 splinter games off of that infamous LARP session.

The DM doesn't have a proprietary ownership of the setting, rules, or characters.

[Kaelik]

I suggest you read the rules book yourself and take your own conclusions. And, if possible, read some actual play. After that, if you keep your opinion, I will respect that.

That is a lie, since several people, including Frank, have in fact read the rules and come to that conclusion, and every time they tell you, you show absolutely no respect for their opinions and call them liars. So if he does read the rules and have that opinion, you will show no respect and call him a liar, just like you always do.

Kaelik, finally a coherent and reasonable critic. Yeah, I can respect that. I know I behave like that a bunch of times.

I went back and edited it to include a bunch of insults. Did the addition of insults make the critique change in meaning? No, so therefore it must be just as reasonable. Did the changes make it harder to understand my point? No, therefore it is just as coherent.

The lesson you should learn from this, you idiot, is that I presented many other reasonable and coherent critiques of your stupid positions before, but you are too fucking stupid to figure it out because your brain shuts down and stops evaluating the meaning of the sentence when you see someone insult you, because you are stupid. That is a failure on your part, not the part of the person who correctly points out that you are a fucktard.

[OgreBattle]

Welcome to The Gaming Den

[tussock]

A D&D DM can throw overwhelming opposition at you until you die.

Just to nitpick, in addition to deanrule87's point, D&D has rules for the appearance of monsters in the game of D&D, and other rules allow players to avoid a great deal of them in various ways, including things like going back to town and asking for help.

So all you're really saying is that GMs can ignore a bunch of rules and setting assumptions to get the desired results. Which is different to a thing where there are no exact rules for things and only abstract settings and the results can only ever match the GMs' desires.


And there are totally rules-light games that allow players to predictably respond to threats and wilfully progress adventures, so it's not just a volume-of-rules thing.

[Whipstitch]

Deaddm, how trustful is the opinion of someone who thinks Unknown Armies - a simplification of CoC percentile roll-under (one of the more simple and transparent resolutions, really) - is confusing and broken while finding Shadowrun 4e - with its myriad non-unified subsystems and variable modifiers tables - ok ?

Psst, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: posting like anyone here thinks SR4 is a perfect snowflake of brilliant game design makes you seem like a total dingus. We understand that the SR4 subsystems are collectively a dumpster fire. The only reason you don't see people post about that shit more is because we beat that dead horse beyond recognition a long time ago and because we don't have anyone here naive enough to insist the ramming rules actually worked A-OK.

[Cyberzombie]

Fuck you Cyberzombie. Fuck your perfect is the enemy of good and the DM is god bullshit. If I sit down at a table and the DM says "Unlimited Balors attack" what would happen that night is I'd tell him to fuck off and we'd play without him. Me and the rest of the players would just play another game or the same game with my character on auto-pilot while I DM'ed. I've done it before and I'd do it again.

And you could do the same thing to "fix" the bear issue in Apocalypse World or whatever system you're criticizing.

The solution to bad DMs never comes from a rulebook.

[MGuy]

Fuck you Cyberzombie. Fuck your perfect is the enemy of good and the DM is god bullshit. If I sit down at a table and the DM says "Unlimited Balors attack" what would happen that night is I'd tell him to fuck off and we'd play without him. Me and the rest of the players would just play another game or the same game with my character on auto-pilot while I DM'ed. I've done it before and I'd do it again.

And you could do the same thing to "fix" the bear issue in Apocalypse World or whatever system you're criticizing.

The solution to bad DMs never comes from a rulebook.

A bad GM choosing to ignore the rules is one thing. Having a rule that essentially leaves all things on the whim of the GM is another. The former has no bearing on how good a given rule is the latter is a bad rule because it is either the same as having no rule at all or worse. So no you don't get to say to use 'bad GMs' as either a thing to promote or oppose a rule because bad GMs are bad GMs. The whole 'infinity bears' thing is bad because the rule says 'GM makes it up' AND the writers actually wrote the bear thing as an example of how the rule is supposed to be used.

[silva]

A D&D DM can throw overwhelming opposition at you until you die.

Just to nitpick, in addition to deanrule87's point, D&D has rules for the appearance of monsters in the game of D&D, and other rules allow players to avoid a great deal of them in various ways, including things like going back to town and asking for help.

So all you're really saying is that GMs can ignore a bunch of rules and setting assumptions to get the desired results. Which is different to a thing where there are no exact rules for things and only abstract settings and the results can only ever match the GMs' desires.

Apocalypse World also has rules for what the PCs should encounter and how. But the critics around here opted to ignore it in their criticism. In fact, AW rules for what the GM can throw at yhe players are so much more tightly structured than D&D (see fronts) that make the later look an MTP game in this aspect.

[silva]

Fuck you Cyberzombie. Fuck your perfect is the enemy of good and the DM is god bullshit. If I sit down at a table and the DM says "Unlimited Balors attack" what would happen that night is I'd tell him to fuck off and we'd play without him. Me and the rest of the players would just play another game or the same game with my character on auto-pilot while I DM'ed. I've done it before and I'd do it again..

Do you realize thats the exact reaction anyone would have in any game ? What makes you think AW players tolerate that kind of nonsense (Balors falling from yhe sky) instead of saying the GM fuck you the same way you do ?

[Previn]

In fact, AW rules for what the GM can throw at yhe players are so much more tightly structured than D&D (see fronts) that make the later look an MTP game in this aspect.

Well let see... pg.135, ok... right under the picture of the woman breast feeding (yes seriously, no it makes no sense to have that picture there).

No, fonts are not in any way more structured for guiding encounters in *world games. It's seriously only 10 pages, just over 2000 words total of actual 'rules.' about 1/3rd of which are in fact just lists of stuff. And it in no way prevents BEARS even just using the sample fonts (infect BEARS along the river!). Nothing about fonts limits what the GM can throw at players. A font is just a plot outline and backstory notes.

Incidentally, the picture following this section is 2 topless women embracing... because nipples. Again, nothing to do with the actual rules section it's with. Or after.

[deaddmwalking]

Deaddm, how trustful is the opinion of someone who thinks Unknown Armies - a simplification of CoC percentile roll-under (one of the more simple and transparent resolutions, really) - is confusing and broken while finding Shadowrun 4e - with its myriad non-unified subsystems and variable modifiers tables - ok ?

I'm not a fan of roll-under systems. If your skill is 50 and your task is harder than normal, do you represent that as a bonus to your roll (adding numbers makes you more likely to fail) or as a penalty to your skill?

Point is, it's not my favorite system. So, bad example.

I dont have a problem if someone points to something in a game thats broken.

You may want to amend this statement, because it appears that you do have a problem with people pointing out things that 'don't work'. You have not demonstrated that they 'do work' when this criticism has been brought up.

I have a problem when someone declares a game broken because some aspect of it do not behaves in accord to someone preferred playstyle.

If you think that is what is happening, you should ignore the criticism. If someone says 'I hate ice cream because I'm lactose intolerant', you can ignore their opinion if you're not similarly lactose intolerant. It doesn't mean you will necessarily like ice cream, but it does mean that if you don't like it, it'll usually be for different reasons.

See Franks assessment of Apocalypse World and you will se what Im talking about here - none of the "problems" he points to ever showed up in mine or any other table Ive seen, not in default AW nor in its multitude of hacks, from Dungeon World to Tremulus to Monsterhearts.

Except in the examples provided by the rules. Can you not see how that would be relevant?

Either bears existed as a potential problem, or they didn't. The die roll 'creating' bears that did not exist before violates expectations of causality. Some people may not have a problem with that - others do. For all your whining about 'different play styles', you seem unwilling to accept that people would consider your favorite games 'trash' because they are incompatible with their preferred play styles. Nobody has to be be nice about you liking things that they don't. Whether it's FATE or FATAL or Magic Tea Party, people can be dismissive of your game without impacting your enjoyment of it one iota - but when they provide reasons for disliking it, you can't pretend that they just 'shit on everything you like'. That's not what they're doing. They're explaining why they don't like it.

And if the REASONS apply to the people reading the criticism (ie, the reason is 'this game doesn't function) and the person reading the criticism shares the same value (I like games that function), then the criticism is going to mean something to them. Much more than a impassioned defense that consists of 'I like it and why are you being so MEAN - don't you ever say anything nice about ANYTHING'.

Because the folks making the criticism do say nice things about mechanics that they like.

Fuck you Cyberzombie. Fuck your perfect is the enemy of good and the DM is god bullshit. If I sit down at a table and the DM says "Unlimited Balors attack" what would happen that night is I'd tell him to fuck off and we'd play without him. Me and the rest of the players would just play another game or the same game with my character on auto-pilot while I DM'ed. I've done it before and I'd do it again..

Do you realize thats the exact reaction anyone would have in any game ? What makes you think AW players tolerate that kind of nonsense (Balors falling from yhe sky) instead of saying the GM fuck you the same way you do ?

The truth is, a good GM can make any game fun. But if you're looking for a game (as a GM or a Player), you're best off with a game that provides the tools that help make the game fun. Especially if your players want to be empowered to make meaningful choices, they're going to have to have some understanding of the way the world works. Game rules provide a common-framework to understand not only what is possible, but how likely something is. Any GM can 'modify' the rules, but when it creates conflict with player expectations, the game can suffer. Now, perhaps we can agree that 'good GMs' never diverge from 'reaonable player expectations', but again, whether you're a GM or a player, having a ruleset that helps codify those expectations tends to be helpful.

If I explain that a game is set in Dragonlance, that is going to have different expectations than if the game is set in my homebrew - and in so much as players are familiar with the source material, I don't have to do as much explanation when using an established setting. The game might be BETTER in my custom setting, but it requires MORE WORK to communicate what my setting is like.

Rules are similar - having a shared ruleset means less time explaining how things work. For lots of games (and gamers), that's a big plus. Can you imagine playing a rules-lite game with no established expectations with any four random Gaming Den Posters?

[fectin]

If your ruberick for evaluating games says that FATAL is a good game, I reject your ruberick as worthless. People have successfully played and enjoyed FATAL.

[Kaelik]

Apocalypse World also has rules for what the PCs should encounter and how. But the critics around here opted to ignore it in their criticism. In fact, AW rules for what the GM can throw at yhe players are so much more tightly structured than D&D (see fronts) that make the later look an MTP game in this aspect.

Remember how you explicitly say that you know jack nor shit about D&D but you talk about it like you do anyway? I remember.

The DMG has over 70 fucking pages telling DMs what they can throw at the players, including the goddam EL charts that specifically give percentages of each EL. These rules more tightly stricture what DMs can throw at PCs than the shitty front rules that do basically nothing to limit the expected opposition.

[silva]

Kaelik, I wasnt referring to just encounters, which are the only thing D&D (with the exception of OD&D) cares about. Im referring to things like "ok, Im using my last lockpick for opening this door... what do I find behind ir ?". Another locked door exactlu like the one before, only this time youre out of lockpicka.

See? Thats nonsemsical. But there is notjing in the rules of D&D that disallows a GM for doing it.

[Kaelik]

Kaelik, I wasnt referring to just encounters, which are the only thing D&D (with the exception of OD&D) cares about. Im referring to things like "ok, Im using my last lockpick for opening this door... what do I find behind ir ?". Another locked door exactlu like the one before, only this time youre out of lockpicka.

See? Thats nonsemsical. But there is notjing in the rules of D&D that disallows a GM for doing it.

Well lockpicks not being disposable certainly prevents it. But in addition, fucking locked doors are also fucking subject to the goddam fucking 70 pages of encounter design rules.

But you are right, nothing in D&D prevents you from having a locked door behind a locked door, because nested locked doors are not actually a problem.

So once again, all that shit where you talk about how D&D "only" cares about encounters, but defines encounters to be literally everything that ever happens ever at any time to the PCs, is you talking about a game you know nothing about.

[silva]

Yup, there is nothing in the rules preventing 100 hundred locked doors in tandem. What is there is the GM and players common sense. And this a requirement for any rpg, even the better structured ones.

[fectin]

Aside from 3.x having baked in rules for breaking down the door, or chopping it down, or going through the wall next to it, or blinking via spell, scroll, or potion, making the door invisible and looking through, or teleporting in via one of over a dozen ways, or becoming ethereal and walking through, or bypassing that door, or summoning a tiny creature to scout, or finding the key via locate object, or scrying/clairvoyeuring, or using mage hand/prestidigitation/telekinesis to open the door from the other side, or having an unseen servant open it for you, or teleporting the door away, or melting the lock, or picking it without lockpicks, or bluffing someone on the other side into opening it, or tunneling through the floor, or flying in through the ceiling, or polymorphing it into a vampire, or shattering it, you can just have the wizard burn a scroll of open lock.

[silva]

Deadm, perfect post, and I agree entirelly with it.

The only point I disagree with is equalling "I dont like what this games tries to do" with "this game is crap". A competent reviewer, in my opinion, should be able to differentiate that, and project which playstyles should be pleased by that game and which ones shouldnt.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Forget it guys, even when we win, he wins.

[Kaelik]

Yup, there is nothing in the rules preventing 100 hundred locked doors in tandem. What is there is the GM and players common sense. And this a requirement for any rpg, even the better structured ones.

There is nothing preventing the players from having to fight a Kobold either. But that is fine, because there is no problem with that at all.

[Heisenberg]

Edge

Anything that makes any player and/or the narrative itself less of a slave to dice luck at any time is awesome. Also, I like the idea of beads/tokens/little whoso-whatsits that you can hold onto and chip in.

[Dean]

Hey Cyberzombie. You're response to my thing was the same ill thought out shallow response as Silva's, almost word for word. You have downgraded yourself to *world troll caliber posting. Check your opinions.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

The only point I disagree with is equalling "I dont like what this games tries to do" with "this game is crap". A competent reviewer, in my opinion, should be able to differentiate that, and project which playstyles should be pleased by that game and which ones shouldnt.

Why do you feel people aren't respecting divergent play styles? In the very discussion that gave forth BEARS, comparisons were drawn to other titles that cater to the storygaming niche, like Baron Munchausen. The criticisms were not done in a vacuum.

Part of what won me over about this forum was reading the review of 4e systems done by the posters here. Part of what creates the "4rry" mentality is that, on other forums, criticism of its mechanics tends to boil down to "ITS TOO MUCH LIKE THOSE NEWFANGLED VIDEO GAMES I DON'T LIKE!!!!" Here, people were deconstructing them on their own terms, and how they fail to be the game 4e wanted to be, rather than failing to be iterative upon previous D&Ds.

This forum is about the only place you'll get what you described, criticism on games based on the demographic they're designed for. The big purple just bans you for "edition warring". Other forums might have Monard scream at you while his fanboys join the chorus.