Low Fantasy Gaming RPG

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Psikerlord
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Low Fantasy Gaming RPG

Post by Psikerlord »

Hi all,

I'm new here, didnt know this forum existed in fact until just now. Thought I would take the opportunity to introduce the Low Fantasy Gaming RPG (full disclosure: I wrote it!).

It's a free PDF book - https://lowfantasygaming.com/

Or $6 USD via Lulu - http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lul ... 16505.html

By way of summary, it's a d20 based d&d like variant with a low magic/GM rulings bent. If you're familiar with d20 fantasy games, it differs as follows:

• 5 classes only: Barbarian, Bard, Fighter, Rogue & Magic User.

• 12th Level Maximum eliminates the most powerful magic, and keeps the mightiest monsters scary.

• Roll equal or under attribute (with modifiers) to resolve uncertain actions, making every attribute point matter.

• Willpower and Perception attributes replace the Wisdom attribute.

• Skills provide access to a Level based Reroll Pool.

• Diminishing Luck attribute that replaces saving throws, and powers some martial exploits.

• Minor, Major and Rescue Exploits (on top of damage, not in lieu) provide creative combat options and moments of greatness.

• Dangerous Combat: dropping to zero hit points is serious –

o Cure spells work more slowly (1d3 minutes) on subjects reduced to zero hit points.
o Long term Injuries & Setbacks trigger at zero hit points (assuming the adventurer isn’t dead).
o Players test to see if a downed adventurer is dead only after combat has ended.

• Party Retreat and Chase rules allow the GM to throw whatever makes sense at the party, without worrying about “balanced” encounters.

• 5 minute Short Rests allow all classes to recover hit points and class abilities quickly, encouraging the party to push on rather than camp.

• Dark & Dangerous Magic tests, making all spell casting inherently dangerous. No at-will or resurrection magic. Magic users are less reliant on spells, using one handed weapons and light armour.

• Rare magical items, with obvious and discreet properties, that unlock as their owners level up.

• Online Play Support: a customized character sheet is available for online play at https://roll20.net/

• Rules as Guidelines. The GM is the final authority on all LFG “rules”. Everything herein is a guide only, and should be tailored to fit the preferences of the GM and players.

Cheers
Last edited by Psikerlord on Fri Nov 11, 2016 1:28 am, edited 3 times in total.
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phlapjackage
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Post by phlapjackage »

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

An aside - it seems that there is a big movement in TTRPG-culture nowadays to advertise games as "GM-rulings focused" and how the GM has the final authority and the rules are only guidelines and yadda yadda yadda. How and why did this happen? Is it a backlash against D&D3 and other games like that that are very rules-focused? Optimizers swung the culture one way, and now this is a counter-swing?

I find it very strange, as it seems like something that doesn't need to be said. Of course rule0 still applies. Of course a game should be tailored to fit the group preferences. These are things that should be apriori understood about any TTRPG. Including these statements in your game document could be a good reminder, but actively advertising your game like this?

On the gripping hand, now (to me) it's just code for "the rules aren't very good and we didn't spend a lot of time to make sure the rules are good, so it's up to the GM to patch things themselves that they paid money for".
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Re: Low Fantasy Gaming RPG

Post by momothefiddler »

Psikerlord wrote: o Cure spells work more slowly (1d3 minutes) on subjects reduced to zero hit points.
[...]
o Players test to see if a downed adventurer is dead only after combat has ended.
Sounds like an incentive to stretch the fight with the last mook out for three minutes while you wait for your buddy to get back up.
Snark aside, a glance over your summary makes me suspect this forum isn't your ideal audience, to put it gently, but I'll take a look at your rules PDF if you want my actual thoughts on it. If this is just an ad, well, it's probably in the wrong subforum and I don't have any money so you don't care what I think anyway.
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Re: Low Fantasy Gaming RPG

Post by PhoneLobster »

Psikerlord wrote:Low Fantasy
I should have stopped reading right there when you put one of the biggest red flags for "terrible rpg rules" right into the title.

But I didn't.

Now I was GOING to point out all the other red flags in your "selling points" that seem like giant self contradictions and giant bad ideas.

BUT I got hung up on the "it's d20 but with the following changes" thing.

Because the changes are pretty bullshit I thought looking at the short list of points.

But then I was like "IS it d20 with changes or is he just using that as bad short hand to say "it's D&D but..."?"

So I looked in the PDF.

The PDF tells me its "based on the 1d20 Open Gaming License" which I am going to have to say does NOT clarify matters.

What even further confuses matters is that you have a section telling players "familiar with 1d20 based fantasy role-playing games" how your game differs that DOESN'T tell you how the rules are different in all sorts of ways to d20, but instead is the same list of sales pitch points you just pasted here.

Then when I went to look at the rules there are all sorts of other, often fundamental differences to the basic mechanics of the game that are NOT mentioned at all in your sales pitch. Your inexplicable attribute bonus conversion table alone where the +0 range gets to be twice as big but placed such that the +/- 1s fall onto odd rather than even attribute points and make the whole thing not easily reducable to a very simple equation like in d20 for instance. Or what I will describe as "whatever is going on" with surprise rounds and the whole thing where initiative appears to be a flat 1d20 unmodified for everyone.

At this point I'm like "1d20 is that a typo or is there ACTUALLY a system out there that stuck a 1 in front of "d20 open gaming license".

Scraping the bottom of the internet the best I got was the "Basic 1d20 RPG Story System" which I'm not paying to look inside of to see if THAT is what your system is "based on".

I have criticisms of your ideas even from your sales pitch. I've seen glimpses of potential horrors a many in the pdf.

But I cannot get past this flagrant failure to describe the basic starting point of what this even really is. Saying you were inspired in part by old school gaming doesn't let you get off utterly failing on the basic point of "this game uses this rules set with these changes, experienced players of the base rules set need only check those bits out and are then ready to go!"
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Looking at the monster section of the PDF; which is probably the best way to truly gauge how close to "low magic" any rpg approaches; a reader would be confused that this isn't low fantasy, or low magic at all.

Just looking at the monster section makes it obvious this is a D&D clone, and one just as high in magic as any other out there. Green Slimes, lemures, centaurs, gargoyles, & gelatinous cubes; are just the low level stuff. Shades, giant eagles, elementals, xorns, genies, hydras, dragons, balors, & tentaclespawn (Illithids) show that it's all typical bait-and-switch of claiming a system is "low magic", when really it's a horror game with highly magical enemies; that the roots of the OSR movement have been infatuated with since the 1980's.

If you want actual "low magic"; look at Pendragon, or something that actually delivers on the promise of low magic.
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Fri Nov 11, 2016 5:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Psikerlord »

Judging__Eagle wrote:Looking at the monster section of the PDF; which is probably the best way to truly gauge how close to "low magic" any rpg approaches; a reader would be confused that this isn't low fantasy, or low magic at all.

Just looking at the monster section makes it obvious this is a D&D clone, and one just as high in magic as any other out there. Green Slimes, lemures, centaurs, gargoyles, & gelatinous cubes; are just the low level stuff. Shades, giant eagles, elementals, xorns, genies, hydras, dragons, balors, & tentaclespawn (Illithids) show that it's all typical bait-and-switch of claiming a system is "low magic", when really it's a horror game with highly magical enemies; that the roots of the OSR movement have been infatuated with since the 1980's.

If you want actual "low magic"; look at Pendragon, or something that actually delivers on the promise of low magic.
I guess that depends on how "low magic" you want to go - I consider all that low level stuff as low magic - the high level stuff obviously less so, but if a setting has just one genie, or dragon, etc I still consider it low magic. Quite different to hosts of dragons, etc, which I classify as high magic.
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Re: Low Fantasy Gaming RPG

Post by Psikerlord »

momothefiddler wrote:
Psikerlord wrote: o Cure spells work more slowly (1d3 minutes) on subjects reduced to zero hit points.
[...]
o Players test to see if a downed adventurer is dead only after combat has ended.
Sounds like an incentive to stretch the fight with the last mook out for three minutes while you wait for your buddy to get back up.
Snark aside, a glance over your summary makes me suspect this forum isn't your ideal audience, to put it gently, but I'll take a look at your rules PDF if you want my actual thoughts on it. If this is just an ad, well, it's probably in the wrong subforum and I don't have any money so you don't care what I think anyway.
Yes I am genuinely interested in your views, it's not just an ad! I understand different strokes for different folks, of course, but even if you dislike most of it, you might find some useful mechanic in there you can take away to your own game, etc.
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Re: Low Fantasy Gaming RPG

Post by Psikerlord »

PhoneLobster wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:Low Fantasy
I should have stopped reading right there when you put one of the biggest red flags for "terrible rpg rules" right into the title.

But I didn't.

Now I was GOING to point out all the other red flags in your "selling points" that seem like giant self contradictions and giant bad ideas.

BUT I got hung up on the "it's d20 but with the following changes" thing.

Because the changes are pretty bullshit I thought looking at the short list of points.

But then I was like "IS it d20 with changes or is he just using that as bad short hand to say "it's D&D but..."?"

So I looked in the PDF.

The PDF tells me its "based on the 1d20 Open Gaming License" which I am going to have to say does NOT clarify matters.

What even further confuses matters is that you have a section telling players "familiar with 1d20 based fantasy role-playing games" how your game differs that DOESN'T tell you how the rules are different in all sorts of ways to d20, but instead is the same list of sales pitch points you just pasted here.

Then when I went to look at the rules there are all sorts of other, often fundamental differences to the basic mechanics of the game that are NOT mentioned at all in your sales pitch. Your inexplicable attribute bonus conversion table alone where the +0 range gets to be twice as big but placed such that the +/- 1s fall onto odd rather than even attribute points and make the whole thing not easily reducable to a very simple equation like in d20 for instance. Or what I will describe as "whatever is going on" with surprise rounds and the whole thing where initiative appears to be a flat 1d20 unmodified for everyone.

At this point I'm like "1d20 is that a typo or is there ACTUALLY a system out there that stuck a 1 in front of "d20 open gaming license".

Scraping the bottom of the internet the best I got was the "Basic 1d20 RPG Story System" which I'm not paying to look inside of to see if THAT is what your system is "based on".

I have criticisms of your ideas even from your sales pitch. I've seen glimpses of potential horrors a many in the pdf.

But I cannot get past this flagrant failure to describe the basic starting point of what this even really is. Saying you were inspired in part by old school gaming doesn't let you get off utterly failing on the basic point of "this game uses this rules set with these changes, experienced players of the base rules set need only check those bits out and are then ready to go!"
OK thanks for your feedback Phonelobster, LFG isnt your cup of tea then! By d20 based I just meant it is based on the d20 OGL, nothing more than that. The list of differences wasnt meant to be comprehensive, good point, I will indicate such in future to avoid confusion. Thank you and I appreciate you taking the time to check it out, I know everyone is busy.
Last edited by Psikerlord on Fri Nov 11, 2016 6:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Psikerlord »

phlapjackage wrote:Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

An aside - it seems that there is a big movement in TTRPG-culture nowadays to advertise games as "GM-rulings focused" and how the GM has the final authority and the rules are only guidelines and yadda yadda yadda. How and why did this happen? Is it a backlash against D&D3 and other games like that that are very rules-focused? Optimizers swung the culture one way, and now this is a counter-swing?

I find it very strange, as it seems like something that doesn't need to be said. Of course rule0 still applies. Of course a game should be tailored to fit the group preferences. These are things that should be apriori understood about any TTRPG. Including these statements in your game document could be a good reminder, but actively advertising your game like this?

On the gripping hand, now (to me) it's just code for "the rules aren't very good and we didn't spend a lot of time to make sure the rules are good, so it's up to the GM to patch things themselves that they paid money for".
I know that "GM is the final boss" of his game is obvious to many, but I think enshrining it in an overt way, in the book itself, crystallizes that intention, which I consider desirable (for new players, if no-one else).
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Re: Low Fantasy Gaming RPG

Post by PhoneLobster »

Psikerlord wrote:OK thanks for your feedback Phonelobster, LFG isnt your cup of tea then!
Nope. Stop. Enough of that. You do NOT get to come into a place like this present your product then say "Oh, it looks like you might say critical things? Gee but it's not for the critics so bye bye!".

You do not get to passively aggressively reduce and dismiss all criticism to people who "aren't into this cup of tea" or "just don't get it" then just walk away like there isn't something wrong with your rules.
By d20 based I just meant it is based on the d20 OGL, nothing more than that.
You know, even now, what do you even think you mean by that?

I'm pretty sure I know what you mean to say... but...

You realize that the OGL is a license not a rules set?

Is it based on the d20 rules or not? Is the d20 SRD in any way useful for understanding or using your game? Does your game have anything at all to do with d20 or just the OGL from d20?

Ultimately I suspect what you did was put together rules without any direct reference to the actual SRD from how you half remember the SRD mixed up with how you half remember earlier editions of D&D mixed up with house rules you can't remember are yours, someone elses, or parts of those SRDs.

I mean for fucks sake if this is d20 rules based WHY do you not use the default d20 attribute modifiers chart/progression everyone actually knows? Precisely what reason ON EARTH is there for you to stick that weird kink in the middle that you did? What reason could POSSIBLY be good enough to throw away the basic familiarity and compatibility with your supposed base system that everyone knows?

But aside from the utterly inexplicable nature of the specific change. Things like that are nothing but random arbitrary senseless departures from familiar rulesets. Things like that utterly eliminate the entire point of pointing at the d20 SRD and saying "This is an extension of those rules". When you are trying to leverage a familiar system, either for popularity or to help introduce and teach players, or even just to reduce how much material you have to write yourself, there is a high threshold for fundamental rules changes from the base game that you have to meet before a change pushes you backwards instead of forwards by any rational metric of success.

And it's not the only thing like that in there, it's just the one I found in the first five seconds, I was finding things like that at an alarming rate. Assuming that trend continues that is a big deal. It suggests the biggest problem with your (still muddled) claim this is based on d20 rules (other than whole 1d20/OGL thing) is that basically it isn't based on them, or at least not nearly close enough for that claim to be useful in understanding what your rules even are for a potential player OR critic.

It also kinda suggests maybe you have a bit of a weak grasp on what your rules are compared to other rules out there including the ones you think they are based on.
The list of differences wasn't meant to be comprehensive, good point, I will indicate such in future to avoid confusion.

The problem wasn't that it wasn't comprehensive, the problem is that it wasn't even really a list of differences. It was a point by point summary (of mostly bad ideas) you think form a good sales pitch to get someone to play your game.

It's fine to HAVE such a sales pitch, even excellent if you were selling something better, but misrepresenting it as a primer for gamers familiar with one of the most well known game systems out there is a bad idea.

If you are going halfway and misrepresenting what is secretly a sales pitch for why your system is better than one of the most popular systems out there then it failing to be both honestly represented and comprehensive gets even worse because THAT makes it a god damn bait and switch.

And the thing is it WOULD have been a good idea to have an actual honestly represented fairly comprehensive list of differences, or a short list of important things to go and read to learn the vital differences for players who know d20. But you CAN'T really have that because what you have written seems too different to d20 for that to be a way to learn your system. Your "for gamers familiar with d20" instructions SHOULD read "forget everything you think you know and read every last part of my system from scratch because ANYTHING ANYWHERE could be and frequently is different in crazy ways for no reason!".

While it might take some explaining to get you to understand why other giant red flags in your material are things which are more than just "cup of tea" issues I don't think you get to weasel out of something basic like "this lacks the useful rules heritage/compatibility you claim it has" with "I guess it just isn't your thing".
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Fri Nov 11, 2016 7:27 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by phlapjackage »

Psikerlord wrote:I know that "GM is the final boss" of his game is obvious to many, but I think enshrining it in an overt way, in the book itself, crystallizes that intention, which I consider desirable (for new players, if no-one else).
But that's not what I said. I agreed that mentioning this in the book, especially for new players, might make sense. However, my point is that when you go to a place to advertise your game, and this "GM rulings!" idea gets put forward not once, not twice, but thrice (maybe more?) in the list of features for your game...well then, that shows you're aggressively trying to sell a game based in large part on the premise of "the rules don't matter, and probably have many problems, but that's ok because we told you so and it's up to the GM to fix the game for his group even though he paid money for this".

Do you see the difference?
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Post by momothefiddler »

Can I ask the thought process behind letting players use each other's arrays, but then penalizing them for it? I'm also curious about your changes to attribute bonuses, abbreviating Perception "Perc", putting "Unique Feature" with its two paragraphs of explanation in each class as a class feature rather than putting it in once and pointing out that it applies to everyone at every 3rd level, making nat 20s autocritfails but nat 1s not auto-anything, naming a spell "Invisibility 10ft Radius"...
I appreciate the inclusion of the Party Bonds table and the fact that everyone gets a codified leadership ability at 10, fluffed towards their class.
I'm not so excited about dwarves' literal ability to sniff out gold coins. Maybe... don't do that. The rest of this review/read/whatever I'm doing is kinda casual but seriously.
Exploits as a whole are kinda cool, Rescue Exploits especially so.
Are you aware that your math leads to better-than-even chances that someone will get a Dark & Dangerous Magic effect by their 5th spell in a given adventure? I ask because the way you have it set up it doesn't sound like it's supposed to be that bad, design principles of whether it should exist at all aside.
Yeah, I'm tired of going through this, so I won't take a look at the second half, at least any time soon. Got through the "PHB" parts as far as I could tell, though. One last note: you're pitching this as "OGL" but the 5e DNA shows through on, like, every other page. Who's your target audience, and how are they not gonna be put off by that?
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Re: Low Fantasy Gaming RPG

Post by Psikerlord »

PhoneLobster wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:OK thanks for your feedback Phonelobster, LFG isnt your cup of tea then!
Nope. Stop. Enough of that. You do NOT get to come into a place like this present your product then say "Oh, it looks like you might say critical things? Gee but it's not for the critics so bye bye!".

You do not get to passively aggressively reduce and dismiss all criticism to people who "aren't into this cup of tea" or "just don't get it" then just walk away like there isn't something wrong with your rules.
By d20 based I just meant it is based on the d20 OGL, nothing more than that.
You know, even now, what do you even think you mean by that?

I'm pretty sure I know what you mean to say... but...

You realize that the OGL is a license not a rules set?

Is it based on the d20 rules or not? Is the d20 SRD in any way useful for understanding or using your game? Does your game have anything at all to do with d20 or just the OGL from d20?

Ultimately I suspect what you did was put together rules without any direct reference to the actual SRD from how you half remember the SRD mixed up with how you half remember earlier editions of D&D mixed up with house rules you can't remember are yours, someone elses, or parts of those SRDs.

I mean for fucks sake if this is d20 rules based WHY do you not use the default d20 attribute modifiers chart/progression everyone actually knows? Precisely what reason ON EARTH is there for you to stick that weird kink in the middle that you did? What reason could POSSIBLY be good enough to throw away the basic familiarity and compatibility with your supposed base system that everyone knows?

But aside from the utterly inexplicable nature of the specific change. Things like that are nothing but random arbitrary senseless departures from familiar rulesets. Things like that utterly eliminate the entire point of pointing at the d20 SRD and saying "This is an extension of those rules". When you are trying to leverage a familiar system, either for popularity or to help introduce and teach players, or even just to reduce how much material you have to write yourself, there is a high threshold for fundamental rules changes from the base game that you have to meet before a change pushes you backwards instead of forwards by any rational metric of success.

And it's not the only thing like that in there, it's just the one I found in the first five seconds, I was finding things like that at an alarming rate. Assuming that trend continues that is a big deal. It suggests the biggest problem with your (still muddled) claim this is based on d20 rules (other than whole 1d20/OGL thing) is that basically it isn't based on them, or at least not nearly close enough for that claim to be useful in understanding what your rules even are for a potential player OR critic.

It also kinda suggests maybe you have a bit of a weak grasp on what your rules are compared to other rules out there including the ones you think they are based on.
The list of differences wasn't meant to be comprehensive, good point, I will indicate such in future to avoid confusion.

The problem wasn't that it wasn't comprehensive, the problem is that it wasn't even really a list of differences. It was a point by point summary (of mostly bad ideas) you think form a good sales pitch to get someone to play your game.

It's fine to HAVE such a sales pitch, even excellent if you were selling something better, but misrepresenting it as a primer for gamers familiar with one of the most well known game systems out there is a bad idea.

If you are going halfway and misrepresenting what is secretly a sales pitch for why your system is better than one of the most popular systems out there then it failing to be both honestly represented and comprehensive gets even worse because THAT makes it a god damn bait and switch.

And the thing is it WOULD have been a good idea to have an actual honestly represented fairly comprehensive list of differences, or a short list of important things to go and read to learn the vital differences for players who know d20. But you CAN'T really have that because what you have written seems too different to d20 for that to be a way to learn your system. Your "for gamers familiar with d20" instructions SHOULD read "forget everything you think you know and read every last part of my system from scratch because ANYTHING ANYWHERE could be and frequently is different in crazy ways for no reason!".

While it might take some explaining to get you to understand why other giant red flags in your material are things which are more than just "cup of tea" issues I don't think you get to weasel out of something basic like "this lacks the useful rules heritage/compatibility you claim it has" with "I guess it just isn't your thing".
OK well I will just respectfully disagree with you, and leave it at that.
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Post by Psikerlord »

momothefiddler wrote:Can I ask the thought process behind letting players use each other's arrays, but then penalizing them for it? I'm also curious about your changes to attribute bonuses, abbreviating Perception "Perc", putting "Unique Feature" with its two paragraphs of explanation in each class as a class feature rather than putting it in once and pointing out that it applies to everyone at every 3rd level, making nat 20s autocritfails but nat 1s not auto-anything, naming a spell "Invisibility 10ft Radius"...
I appreciate the inclusion of the Party Bonds table and the fact that everyone gets a codified leadership ability at 10, fluffed towards their class.
I'm not so excited about dwarves' literal ability to sniff out gold coins. Maybe... don't do that. The rest of this review/read/whatever I'm doing is kinda casual but seriously.
Exploits as a whole are kinda cool, Rescue Exploits especially so.
Are you aware that your math leads to better-than-even chances that someone will get a Dark & Dangerous Magic effect by their 5th spell in a given adventure? I ask because the way you have it set up it doesn't sound like it's supposed to be that bad, design principles of whether it should exist at all aside.
Yeah, I'm tired of going through this, so I won't take a look at the second half, at least any time soon. Got through the "PHB" parts as far as I could tell, though. One last note: you're pitching this as "OGL" but the 5e DNA shows through on, like, every other page. Who's your target audience, and how are they not gonna be put off by that?
So the small penalty for using the another's stat array is to prevent the arrays being identical, with the original roller gaining a small benefit.

Better than even chance after the 5th spell sounds about right, the intention was to get at least one DDM effect per adventure.

Glad you like the exploits.

OGL incorporates much of 5e these days, and yes that is intentional, for example the adv/disad mechanic.

Thanks for taking the time for commenting Momothefiddler, I do appreciate it.
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Re: Low Fantasy Gaming RPG

Post by PhoneLobster »

Psikerlord wrote:OK well I will just respectfully disagree with you, and leave it at that.
Wow what a fucking cowardly passive aggressive shit hole you are.

This and your rules are going nowhere good.
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Post by shlominus »

i also like exploits. seems like a interesting idea. maybe a few example target numbers for the more common moves would improve the rule, so gms have something to base heir rulings on and players know what to expect.

i have to agree that "rules as guidelines" as a core principle won't be very popular here. prepare for colorful language. :)
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Post by hogarth »

momothefiddler wrote:[..] naming a spell "Invisibility 10ft Radius" [..]
That's the real name of a 1E D&D spell, so you can blame Gary Gygax for that one.

Let me check the "GM boner" checklist:
* magic is dangerous
* stingy with magic items
* "low magic"
* "gritty" healing rules
* powerful bad guys are supposed to make players run away

Not bad; I can feel the boner rising from here.
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Post by Dogbert »

Not only this forum is hardly the target demo for this product, I must ask: What does this product offer that neiher of Dungeon World or 5E do? Because those two are the current standard for viking hats (the target demo for this book).

Furthermore, did you re-write the whole Monster Manual or otherwise bumped the CR of each monster accordingly? Because CRs assume a Balanced Party with magic and the respective WBL.

P.S: Kudos to Hogarth for reminding me of that thread.
Last edited by Dogbert on Sat Nov 12, 2016 2:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Psikerlord »

shlominus wrote:i also like exploits. seems like a interesting idea. maybe a few example target numbers for the more common moves would improve the rule, so gms have something to base heir rulings on and players know what to expect.

i have to agree that "rules as guidelines" as a core principle won't be very popular here. prepare for colorful language. :)
Glad you found something you liked, and yes lol re: GM rulings
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Post by Psikerlord »

Dogbert wrote:Not only this forum is hardly the target demo for this product, I must ask: What does this product offer that neiher of Dungeon World or 5E do? Because those two are the current standard for viking hats (the target demo for this book).

Furthermore, did you re-write the whole Monster Manual or otherwise bumped the CR of each monster accordingly? Because CRs assume a Balanced Party with magic and the respective WBL.

P.S: Kudos to Hogarth for reminding me of that thread.
DW is from my limited understanding much more narrative based, combat is very different. 5e is basically high magic, with more hit point/damage inflation, not to martial exploits, luck mechanic, Party Retreat mechanic, etc. They're very different beasts in play, even with the same OGL style base.

Re Monster CR, there isnt any beyond eyeballing it with HD and the abilities a monster has. The formal Party Retreat rule allows the GM to throw whatever makes sense at the party, rather than worry about "balanced encounters". This is an intentional design choice (which of course will not be for everyone).
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Post by Koumei »

Psikerlord wrote:This is an intentional design choice (which of course will not be for everyone).
Indeed. For instance, it will not be for people with functioning brains.

You may have some neat ideas here and there, but overall it's buried in a giant mound of shit, much of which is just factually bad for a game rather than being a matter of taste, and at this stage I can't tell if you're just here from some other community with a really elaborate trolling exercise.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.
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Post by codeGlaze »

Be careful with the Lobster.
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Post by TiaC »

codeGlaze wrote:Be careful with the Lobster.
You know, for all that I usually disagree with Phonelobster and find him frustrating to argue with, in this case he's entirely in the right. It is a pretty big problem if your game claims to be based on another system while changing every aspect of that system. There is such a thing as objectively bad design, not everything is just a matter of taste. Psikerlord is being a passive-aggressive little shit.
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Post by codeGlaze »

TiaC wrote:
codeGlaze wrote:Be careful with the Lobster.
You know, for all that I usually disagree with Phonelobster and find him frustrating to argue with, in this case he's entirely in the right. It is a pretty big problem if your game claims to be based on another system while changing every aspect of that system. There is such a thing as objectively bad design, not everything is just a matter of taste. Psikerlord is being a passive-aggressive little shit.
TBH I didn't read the rants past a couple paragraphs, primarily because I'm aware of what they'll be by now.

I'm not really interested in playing defense, I was just trying to give the new guy a heads up.

Beyond that I disagree with the assertion of passive aggressiveness. Psiker seems to be trying to tread lightly in a new place in actively trying to avoid or disarm arguments. Which I can certainly understand at this point. In reading his general-internet tone he seems to be a default-nice person who loves the TT hobby.

That being said, he has walked into a wolf den wrapped in bacon.
While I believe there is conceptual space to create an LFG RPG, this is not how.

I do understand wanting a setting where magic is more special than common; as well as where sphinxes and dragons are rare. But that can be done without regressive design.
Shit... Take standard levels 4 through 10, stretch them into 20 and swap out wizards with beguilers and you're most likely halfway there.
Last edited by codeGlaze on Sat Nov 12, 2016 7:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TiaC »

codeGlaze wrote:Beyond that I disagree with the assertion of passive aggressiveness. Psiker seems to be trying to tread lightly in a new place in actively trying to avoid or disarm arguments. Which I can certainly understand at this point. In reading his general-internet tone he seems to be a default-nice person who loves the TT hobby.
Responding to criticism with "let's agree to disagree" has never not been passive aggressive. It's a low-effort way to condescendingly dismiss both an argument and the person making it without engaging either.
virgil wrote:Lovecraft didn't later add a love triangle between Dagon, Chtulhu, & the Colour-Out-of-Space; only to have it broken up through cyber-bullying by the King in Yellow.
FrankTrollman wrote:If your enemy is fucking Gravity, are you helping or hindering it by putting things on high shelves? I don't fucking know! That's not even a thing. Your enemy can't be Gravity, because that's stupid.
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