Moderator: Edi
Right now I'm rumming a highly modified WEG SW game in which a Star Destroyer mark II is stranded in Romulan space. :-)Ladysekhmet wrote:I'm just curious if anybody here role-plays. I've seen the posts by the Battletech fans, anybody play anything else? What's the best and worst systems?
Hmm, willing slaves are good thing, though I am engaged. Sorry. I forget sometimes that I'm one of the few females who is into roleplaying, sci-fi, and fantasy. Shame, really, what else is there to be interested in?--On and entirely different topic; Ladysekhmet if you like people fawning all over you consider posting in the "Are there any chicks here" thread. The ratio is quite favorable and you will probably have willing slaves in no time...
I was being facetious. I would narrate it like this for a character with 4 hitpoints: "The Kobold swings his mace and connects with your skull, you brains are sent splattering all over the guy standing next to you." With 10 hitpoints: "The kobold swings his mace at your head, but you duck and he scores a glancing blow. You are dazed for a second." Rounds are a minute each, so a lot can happen there. With 100+ hitpoints and high-level fighter abilities: "The kobold swings his mace but you sidestep the blow, slightly straining your left pinkie in the process. You retaliate, killing him and the other five attackers in a single blow." Or, more seriously: "The kobold swings his mace and hits, but your reflexes enabled you to take the blow on your shoulder instead of your skull." Of course, I don't know that I would bother with that kind of narration for every hit.Eleas wrote:You always maintain this, Graime, but I feel I have yet to understand why anyone would want their characters to shrug off a sword thrust. How exactly does one narrate that? "Yeah, John, the kobold swings his mace and you block it neatly with your temple." Even in the new LOTR movie, the heroes take damage and bleed like hell when they're hit.
Ladysekhmet wrote:Hmm, willing slaves are good thing, though I am engaged. Sorry. I forget sometimes that I'm one of the few females who is into roleplaying, sci-fi, and fantasy. Shame, really, what else is there to be interested in?--On and entirely different topic; Ladysekhmet if you like people fawning all over you consider posting in the "Are there any chicks here" thread. The ratio is quite favorable and you will probably have willing slaves in no time...
BTW, D&D is a blast to play, I just don't think it makes a good universal system, and I really don't like it when one system overwhelms the market. ...And I'm pissed about not being able to find original 5 rings stuff anywhere anymore.
It means exactly the same thing as an inflated dodge score in other systems. In D&D you have hit point inflation, in GURPS you have skill inflation, in WEG SW you have skill inflation. All make it take longer to die.Eleas wrote:Anyway, your logic is flawed in more than that respect. Consider a dragon. A dragon has a lot of hit points. What does this mean? That it can soak up a lot of solid hits that penetrated his armor because of bulk. A high-level hero has lots of hit points. What does that mean? That he can dodge a lot. How logical is that?
How on earth does keeping track of a single number slow the game down? The advantage of hitpoints are that they allow for attrition to be meaningful without having to kill the character.Fourth point. Why have such great amounts of hit points? For a system that aims to be fast, that's a pretty precise way to keep track of damage. Who needs to know that the character has 66 of 70 hit points? All D&D would really need is a few states: unhurt, wounded, severely wounded, incapacitated, dying and dead. The rest is meaningless information. That slows the game down... and it doesn't give you anything. For Christ's sake, you get far greater granularity from damage in WEG SW, and they don't even use hit points.
It's obvious that you haven't even looked at the 3rd edition rulebook if you think that the classes are "stifling".So Prestige classes do what normal classes should have done, but don't do. Whoopee. Are you aware that there is nothing you mentioned in the above text that wouldn't be helped by the removal of classes from the system?
ROTFLMAO!!! This is comical in its utter stupidity. Let's break down your argument in simple points:
1. Prestige classes allow slight customization of a character, away from the stifling normal classes.
That is only true if you completely ignore skills and feats. Or are you telling me that someone who specializes in mounted combat is identical to someone who speializes in wielding two weapons?2. A system without prestige classes would make every character similar to every other character of the same class.
How is D&D combat slow? The mechanics are extremely simple.Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. At least they want combat to be fast and interesting. Of these three, d20 barely manages fast.
D&D is high fantasy. If you don't want high fantasy there are plenty of other systems out there.You seem to labor under strange misconceptions. Why does a game have to follow the d20 model? Why couldn't tough creatures be simulated by them having high armor boni or great Defense values? Why couldn't you let heroes win over such creatures (if you want to have anything as wildly overdramatic as a hero standing alone against a thirty-ton armored magic-using fire-breathing highly intelligent killing machine) by using luck, skill, fortune points or any of the other myriad methods that distinguish d20 from better systems?
And what about people who actually _want_ to be able to kill dragons?Utterly, completely wrong. Try going up against a kobold in FUDGE, just to take an example. Since that one is Scale -1, probably with Damage Resistance: Poor or Mediocre, it will easily die. Now, do the same against a dragon, Scale 9 or 10. The worst you're likely to inflict is a scratch.
You've just described two _completely_ different situations. In one, the players knew beforehand what they wanted and simply put it together. In the other, the players are for some reason complete newbies that can't put a character together in their head.D20:
"OK guys, you're going to play Jedi Masters. I'm gonna give you level... thirteen, okay?"
"Wow, cool." *draws up character as normal. wonders if he can jot down attack bonus for Jedi Guardian level 13, but doesn't know if he wants to multiclass. raises level to two. jots down attack bonus. jots down fort save. jots down ref save. jots down will save. jots down defense bonus. jots down reputation. jots down Exotic weapon proficiency (lightsaber). raises level to three. jots down attack bonus...*
Hit points are an abstraction. If you are incapable of abstract thought then you shouldn't be roleplaying.Eleas wrote:So you have to employ GM fiat for it to make any kind of sense? Or does high hit points mean you're exceptionally good at dodging? Do these reduced hit points do anything for the game mechanics except force you to interpret them and give them meaning?
I for one couldn't really care less for those choices. Why on earth would someone even _care_ about blowing life into static numbers. The DM provides the story, the players do the work.The problem here is that it plays out like a script. In other games you can choose what to do - do you cut high or swipe low, do you fight defensively or offensively? In d20, you merely have your automatic attack, plus of course secondary attacks that also make no sense. You have no real choices, unless given that by mr fixit, the gamemaster, who frenetically has to blow life into static numbers. In one of our old games we used to bemoan the standard "I attack, I parry, I attack, I parry" dance. In d20, it's "I attack, I attack, I attack, I attack." Hardly an improvement.
And that would be nothing more than your opinion. Here's mine: The system is exceptionally easy to use in combat, and all relevant rules can be memorized in about 30 minutes.It's not simplistic. A simplistic system would be a system where hit points equal Constitution, half Constitution gives you -2 on all actions, 3/4 gives you -4 and loss of all results in unconscious. d20 is simply weird and cumbersome.
But if you don't care about such things, then it works fine.Eleas wrote:You miss my point entirely. In d20, high hit points doesn't tell you more than "the critter has this chance of avoiding being killed by attacks". In WEG, high Strength tells you that your body can soak up a lot of trauma, and dodge tells you how good you are at avoiding being hit entirely. In d20, taking damage can merely mean you avoided an attack. Not taking damage can mean your armor deflected a blow, or that the hit missed, or that you shrugged and the beam hit a tree. There's just no way to tell, unlike in other, better systems.
I thought I already agreed that d20 doesn't work for anything other than the D&D setting.In d20 SW, it's not even meaningful to say you want to dodge. Sure, you can hide behind an object, but dodging attacks makes no difference whatsoever. And why should it? Dodging is represented by vitality! This means, of course, that there's no way to choose between fighting offensively or defensively. Shame, no?
Hitpoints are the only number a character has that changes with any regularity.Aha. So the only number you guys keep track of is hit points? I somehow doubt that. Here's a hint, Graeme - by reducing meaningless complexity and keeping meaningful complexity, the game will be faster. The hitpoints were merely an example of a single detail that could be made better.
I _don't_ want trauma, shock and exhaustion. I want heroes, not normal people with better skills.There are, once again, far more elegant and simple systems out there. Look at NeoTech / Eon if you want a good combat system that combines trauma, shock and exhaustion.
Do either of the above systems result in a single hit to a high-powered character likely leaving them with reduced abilities, and thus even more likely to be hit and die?Look to FUDGE if you want a system for attrition that actually works well.
Ahh, but the discussion _was_ about D&D 3rd ed., as that's what I was talking about when you replied to me in my first message.The discussion was not about D&D 3rd ed. I simply stated that I felt the d20 system, as seen in its SW incarnation, sucked mechanics-wise. It was Skelron who used "d20" and "D+D" interchangably, and I made the mistake of echoing that.
Classes define what your character has learned, and what they are concentrating on and are therefore better at learning. There are very few outright restrictions on classes. Wizards and clerics for example, can use any weapon they feel like, they just won't be as good with them as with weapons they have practiced with by virtue of being a wizard or cleric.Anyway, explain how they used classes in this marvelous never-before-seen fashion, and the benefits thereof?
Character creation is something that is only likely do be done very rarely, unless you make killing players a high priority."Barely manages fast" doesn't translate to "is slow", Graeme. I freely grant you that the game is very fast in battle and when resolving tasks. My issues are with the speed of character creation.
Do either of those systems make it possible for characters to become equals to the legendary people in the Silmarillion? Can they expect to survive for a time against things like the great wolves or Morgoth?I'm sorry, Graeme, but you're being infantile. MERP is also high fantasy, and so is Rolemaster. It then follows that if you don't like either, you dislike high fantasy... right?
I don't just want tough creatures, I want tough _characters_.Wrong, of course. I dislike d20 because the system blows on the beaufort scale, not because I don't like high fantasy. When I want high fantasy, I'll simply use Västmark, which is slicker by far. I gave other methods than the stupid inflated hit points idea with which one could simulate tough creatures, and you therefore conclude I dislike high fantasy, and that is just stupid.
And I suspect that if the Dragon got in a single hit the character would either be dead or on their way there. Is that correct or not?Why, they are easily able to, if they're good enough at avoidance and sword and shield. FUDGE is very customizable and the GM can decide whether he wants people to be high-powered or not. It's a pretty common feature in games these days. I'm surprised you haven't encountered it before.
No.Wrong. That was the example of a pair of SWRPG newbies I led vs a more experienced group of players of which I am a part. In this example I gave the group an objective, to create a Jedi Master. I gave them a finished starting character. I gave them extra experience / skill. That's it. The two groups both started from scratch. And the advantage was actually held by the d20 group, as they had prior role playing experience.
Do I even have to tell you which group finally gave up?
What system? Just read the rules and tables once or twice and apply them from memory.Newsflash, but the fact that a highly experienced d20 fan has constructed a method to speed up a system says bad things about that system.
I can't believe that you don't plan out characters beforehand in a skill-based system.Graeme, I could also do this, with prestige classes and everything. But why the hell would I want to be forced to do that when a skill-driven system would solve everything without a fancy homebrew "character plan"?
Why do you care what they meant?Eleas wrote:An abstraction, yes. For what? Hit points mean anything - wounds, weariness, dexterity, body mass, favor of the gods, luck... frankly, I prefer to spend my role playing time actually role playing, as opposed to figuring out what a loss of five hit points really meant.
No, I'm saying that it's a good thing. Why would you need anything more than static numbers for your imagination to work off of? Maybe it's the wargamer in me, but I enjoy simulated combat between groups of numbers.Uh, yeah, that's what I said. In d20 you merely have static attacks, static combats. You seem to be agreeing with me in saying that's a bad thing.
Providing the story and what you described are one and the same in my mind.Btw, what kind of mantra is that? "The players do the work"? BS. As a game master, one has to work as hard as the players and then some. To always be three steps ahead, to advance metaplot and plot, to describe and create mood... that's the real work. Improvisation. Not merely "providing the story". I could have a computer do that.
D&D is a good system for people who like rules-heavy systems. I wouldn't play it exactly the way it is written anyways. I would use it solely as a combat system.Silly. A system's merits aren't measured by how well someone who's played its earlier incarnation a thousand times picks it up. A good system provides maximal detail for a minimum of rules. A good system allows improvisation and tweaking. A bad system is rules-heavy but gives low detail, or rigidly prevents you from doing what you want like d20.
That's not what I meant, and I'm not sure how to describe what I actually meant.Actually, even when you play diceless free form, you structure your play. I choose to employ rules and dice to further structure my game. However, your implication that structured play needs d20 in order to work is stupid beyond description.
Most of my reasons I've stated, but of course, there is a bit of partisanship involved - I'm just in the skill camp, not the level camp." Then name a system that is both simpler and bno more deadly to the characters, while maintaining the same atmosphere and having as much source material.Eleas wrote:Sure. Then it works, but is unnecessarily complex. There are many things that could be changed.
And so? Numbers that don't change don't tend to be a problem to keep track of.Yes, but not the only number you have to keep track of, which was my point.
And more deadly, which is a bad thing."I _don't_ want trauma, shock and exhaustion. I want heroes, not normal people with better skills."
I know, that was just an example of the level of detail you could expect from such slow char creation. Västmark's level of detail is slightly higher than SWd20 but comparable. Its characters take about 5-10 minutes to create without prior experience, and the battles, while easily as fast as the ones in SWd20, are infinitely more detailed.
So in other words, yes, it does result in that scenario unless you add other game mechanics."Do either of the above systems result in a single hit to a high-powered character likely leaving them with reduced abilities, and thus even more likely to be hit and die?"
That also depends on the GM. The method for FUDGE I would use is simply to have high defense boni and then use FUDGE points should the hero ever get hit. A hero would realistically have a lot of those.
There's your basic philosophy difference. I don't think that every combat should be interesting. For a high-level character, most _should_ be walkovers.Another more reliable method involves giving the high-power hero higher Scale on damage resistance. That way, he would be difficult to kill by realistical means, but I believe that's what you wanted, right?
I actually prefer the first method, as it would make you hoard the FUDGE points, making every combat interesting. I mean, you could use that point to prevent damage from the Master Swordsman you're facing, but if you do that instead of taking a chance, maybe you won't have the points needed later on to take on the dragon?
No problem. You put a couple of skill points into perform every other level. You won't be as good as a bard you specializes in that skill, but you can learn it."Classes define what your character has learned, and what they are concentrating on and are therefore better at learning. There are very few outright restrictions on classes. Wizards and clerics for example, can use any weapon they feel like, they just won't be as good with them as with weapons they have practiced with by virtue of being a wizard or cleric."
And what if you're, say, a warrior with a hobby, like playing the flute?
Skills learned on level up are a base number plus the int modifier, You earn one feat every three levels by default, a bonus every other level for fighters, every five levels for wizards."Character creation is something that is only likely do be done very rarely, unless you make killing players a high priority."
Character creation is done frequently when I play, as we have many new players. Also, character creation comes into play when improving skills.
Those aren't really tough characters though, those are just lucky creatures."I don't just want tough creatures, I want tough _characters_."
...which can be gotten in other games in better ways, IMO.
I thought you didn't want GM fiat to be the way the campaign was run."And I suspect that if the Dragon got in a single hit the character would either be dead or on their way there. Is that correct or not?"
Incorrect, if you as a GM don't wish it. Simply raise the Scale of the Hero, one offhand rule I can remember among many.
Does Gimli worry about a single Goblin rushing him? After all, he kills them easily enough that he keeps count as a game.Akm72 wrote:Eleas I just have to say how much I support your position. It's so rare that I meet someone who understands how weak the whole D&D system is.
A couple of the things I really hate about it;
It's just sooooo undramatic. A high-level character can look at an enemy with a low-damage weapon and say; "hell, that's only going to do a couple of hit-points. Stab me, see if I care." and combat should NEVER be boring, even if your enemy only has a half-brick in a sock.
Natural 20 is an automatic hit. 5% of those attacks will hit you no matter what. That's been in there since the first printing of 2nd ed.Also the nature of the system used to be (it's been years since I played it so it may've changed) that if you reached high enough level it could become impossible for a low-level monster to make a successful attack on you. So it can become possible for a single high-level character to take on and beat an entire ARMY of low-level monsters, which is simply crap in so many ways.
Yet when reading (or watching) Lord of the Rings, you never get a feeling that the characters are indestructable - they have to put a lot of effort into killing even fairly low-level monsters like orcs and goblins.Does Gimli worry about a single Goblin rushing him? After all, he kills them easily enough that he keeps count as a game.
Fair enough, I stand corrected.Natural 20 is an automatic hit. 5% of those attacks will hit you no matter what. That's been in there since the first printing of 2nd ed.
Yes, Gimli can kill a goblin easily. You also get the impression that if Gimli makes a tiny little mistake he gets a goblin spear between his ribs, not a scrath on the arm.Graeme Dice wrote:Does Gimli worry about a single Goblin rushing him? After all, he kills them easily enough that he keeps count as a game.Akm72 wrote:Eleas I just have to say how much I support your position. It's so rare that I meet someone who understands how weak the whole D&D system is.
A couple of the things I really hate about it;
It's just sooooo undramatic. A high-level character can look at an enemy with a low-damage weapon and say; "hell, that's only going to do a couple of hit-points. Stab me, see if I care." and combat should NEVER be boring, even if your enemy only has a half-brick in a sock.
And how many % of your hit points do they cause?Graeme Dice wrote:Natural 20 is an automatic hit. 5% of those attacks will hit you no matter what. That's been in there since the first printing of 2nd ed.Akm72 wrote: Also the nature of the system used to be (it's been years since I played it so it may've changed) that if you reached high enough level it could become impossible for a low-level monster to make a successful attack on you. So it can become possible for a single high-level character to take on and beat an entire ARMY of low-level monsters, which is simply crap in so many ways.
Yes, they can, but it van take a very large amount of work.Eleas wrote:"Then name a system that is both simpler and bno more deadly to the characters, while maintaining the same atmosphere and having as much source material."
You seem to confuse system with setting, Graeme. A system's the mechanics. Campaign Worlds are not bound by the system's rules; they can be adapted to almost any good system.
A skill based system is going top have it's own set of numbers that need to be used though, isn't it?"And so? Numbers that don't change don't tend to be a problem to keep track of."
You still have to add them up, Graeme, which was my point. The more numbers, the more operations, the more time it takes.
I wasn't aware of that. Is the system available in English?"And more deadly, which is a bad thing."
Graeme, let me be blunt here. You're affecting knowledge about a system you know nothing about. Västmark is far less deadly than D&D. Know why? Because it's impossible to kill a main character there unless the GM rules it. There are no "dead" results, the hit points cannot reach zero, you have no save vs death, Elvis cannot leave the building, etc.
It doesn't require it."There's your basic philosophy difference. I don't think that every combat should be interesting. For a high-level character, most _should_ be walkovers."
Why? And in what way does that require a system with unnecessary / obsolete mechanics?
If you want magic you take a level of class that spends time learning it and forego the benefits of your other class for that level. For this fighter, he could take a level of wizard if his intelligence was 11 or sorceror if his charisma was 11, or cleric if his wisdom was 11. He would gain the abilities of a first level member of that class, and add those to his already existing abilities."No problem. You put a couple of skill points into perform every other level. You won't be as good as a bard you specializes in that skill, but you can learn it."
Magic, then?
I have no experience with d20 SW."Skills learned on level up are a base number plus the int modifier, You earn one feat every three levels by default, a bonus every other level for fighters, every five levels for wizards."
A bit different in d20 SW.
Pretty close. Take the example of a 20th level D&D fighter with appropriately chosen feats for his favourite weapon, the greatsword."Those aren't really tough characters though, those are just lucky creatures."
No, a character with a high defense bonus is not lucky, he is capable. If he uses FUDGE points, that just means he's extending himself and using up inner resources. Let me see if I understand you correctly. You define "lucky" characters as characters able to avoid mountain-flattening punishment. You want "tough" characters, able to take mountain-flattening punishment. But at the same time, you say that you, as a GM, will describe such an event
as the character avoiding the blow. Is that correct?
