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301

RPGs / I have to change the subject line as now I actually need to pee...

« on: August 05, 2009, 02:24:31 PM »

2nd post.
2 cents.

If you want to have fun playing a role-playing game, play with people you like. Systems are optional. I have enjoyed and hated every system I have played. It all came down to the people and the story. Broken mechanics and things you don't like can be side-stepped or outright ignored. One thing every rpg I have ever played has always stated in the game is "do whatever is fun, and if a rule isn't working, don't use it."

I'm currently running two systems - pathfinder (I'm a fan of what they have changed from 3.5) and 4e (I'm still learning, and I like a great many things, but if I hear "twin-strike" one more time I might vomit...).

I am enjoying Pathfinder as it is comforatble and I have essentially had 7 years of 3.x to get used to it.

I am enjoying 4e because man can I whip up encounters quickly, and everyone gets to do something, every round.

New systems are always tough. They are like new cars. You test drive them, and they smell nice, and look nice, but it isn't until you get them home that you realize they don't have as many cup holders as your old car, and the place where you keep your change on the dash isn't there anymore... but the new car is so fast! And smells nice... and there are no food stains from where the kids... never mind. You get my point.

One thing I can agree with whole-heartedly is that the stock adventures suck ballz. I tried running the forgotten realms something-of-war path and the first adventure was one of those completely disconnected dungeons where the family crypt has fungus and drakes and the gnomes live there too... it's like something reached into the monster manual and just ripped out pages at random and said, yeah, since we don't have favoured terrain any more, this will work and people can suspend enough disbelief to enjoy this... yeah, that's it. Garbage. Absolute garbage. Even dungeons should make some sense. Undead and orcs don't live happily only a room apart from each other without some sort of controlling shaman or magical trinkets or wards that keep them apart. It's like, "Morning Ralhp," and "Morning Sam..." and let's just clock in and out like we do this every day and nothing is unusual about the situation.

I do find for 4e it is a bit of a challenge to handle all of the old mundane stuff that 3.x could do, like profession checks and craft checks. I end up defaulting to whatever a character does best for the most part and hoping everyone buys into it "yes, acrobatics does help you steer a ship at sea, why wouldn't it?"

Anyway, enough blathering from me for one post. Just play whatever, as long as you play and have fun.

302

RPGs / Re: Anecdote Megathread

« on: August 05, 2009, 12:54:41 PM »

I have been enjoying the RPPR podcasts for a couple of months now, and I too enjoy the anecdotes. With that said, I figure my first post should be one of my own. I will post several, but this one I feel deserves to go first. It comes about from one of my best friends for almost 2 decades.

We had been campaigning for a few years by this point and were middling level, just really starting to fight demons. We were working in a city on the border of Tethyr and Amn called Riatavin, trying to restore some order to the area as the city was in a struggle after ceding to Tethyr from Amn. One of our compatriots, a half-elven ranger who I will not name to protect his identity... had broken off during a patrol looking for an assassin as I recall and encountered several minor demons. He fought off and chased a group of the little ones and was pursuing them when he encountered some of the noble city guard. Since we were all sworn special constables of the city, he enlisted the two human guards to head down into the sewers with him to finish fighting these demons.

The trusting human guards immediately followed him into the dark and scary sewers to battle unknown demons, so bold and brave were they. Since they were both armed with swords and shields, our archer ranger held the torch so that they could see in the dark, lonely, scary sewers. As humans, their eyes were not as good in the darkness as the bold half-elf's.

So off they go traipsing through the fetid darkness, whence they encounter a somewhat larger and scarier demon. The brave and loyal and trusting human guards immediately engage the foul creature, counting on the support of the brave hero of the city. The brave hero who shoots the demon to no effect with his rather normal arrows. The brave hero who realizes that he can not readily harm the demon. The brave and good-aligned hero who sees another demon approaching from the other direction. The brave hero who takes the torch and flees up out of the sewer... leaving the two brave and trusting and loyal human guards to be swallowed by the absolute darkness of the sewer that would quickly be their bloddy grave.

To this day, I still won't let him carry the torch.