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Jakinbandw
2019-04-15, 11:49 AM
I saw the other thread and realized that while I don't get to play much, I have quite a few things that terrify me when my players ask them.

"So are the walls magic or mundane?"

"I'm an illusionist!"

"So that's an arcane spell their casting right?" (in a game where the player was the god of magic)

"Hmm? What's going on?"

"So there's only one entrance to the monster lair right?"

Quertus
2019-04-15, 11:57 AM
"I lost my character sheet."

"Hold on, let me look up how my basic abilities work / how do I calculate that again?"

"I wasn't paying attention."

"While we're waiting, there's a bedroom right there..."

"I've played this module before."

hotflungwok
2019-04-15, 12:08 PM
"My turn? Ummmmmmmmmm..."

The Kool
2019-04-15, 12:22 PM
"I'm sorry, what?" *looking up from something distracting* "can you please tell me everything that happened since my last turn?"

"Why do you need my character sheet? I can just tell you what it is. Okay, fine, you can look at it... I'll have to find it first... here's some scribbles, but it's old, and there's been changes since then..."

Cygnia
2019-04-15, 12:22 PM
(when asked "What does your character choose to do?")


"...

...

...

...

...

...

..."

Pipquake
2019-04-15, 12:39 PM
Hi I created the other thread because I GM a lot:

"My character could easily kill your character."
"I attempt to steal x from y player character."
"I attempt to seduce <insert any creature>."

Knaight
2019-04-15, 12:48 PM
"My work/school schedule shifted to [game night], can we reschedule?"

Cygnia
2019-04-15, 12:50 PM
Or, after you've e-mailed/called/texted 2 weeks in advanced trying to get everyone's bloody schedule confirmed so you can run the Epic Final Battle, "Oops, I forgot! Can't make it today".

After everyone else has already arrived. :smallfurious:

Max_Killjoy
2019-04-15, 12:53 PM
"Hobgoblins are kinda my kink."

Tohron
2019-04-15, 01:01 PM
* This new build is awesome, I found it on a Char Op forum!

* You allow *obscure splatbook here* right?

* I throw the Explosive Runes grenade at the BBEG!

* My Vampire uses Iron Heart Surge to put out the sun!

The Kool
2019-04-15, 01:02 PM
"It says right here on D&D Wiki..."

Cygnia
2019-04-15, 01:07 PM
*snoring*

(Context: every year there's a guy who insists on buying a seat at a popular game at the local con -- and EVERY YEAR WITHOUT FAIL, he falls asleep)

Imbalance
2019-04-15, 01:17 PM
"My character is a nudist."
Followed by:
"We should cosplay."

Rynjin
2019-04-15, 02:10 PM
(when asked "What does your character choose to do?")


"...

...

...

...

...

...

..."

I feel this deeply in my soul.

"I'm a Gnome!"

"I'm gonna play Berdaul this game."

(So for context, a friend of mine reuses characters a lot. Some are good, some are bad. Berdaul is one of the bad ones most of the time. In his original form Berdaul was a Dual Cursed Blinded/Deafened Oracle.)

Kaptin Keen
2019-04-15, 02:36 PM
I lost my character sheet.

.. directly followed by 'but don't worry, I can play him from memory'.

Yea right! :p

Mastikator
2019-04-15, 02:37 PM
"Oh it's my turn? Okay so what can I do?"

Malphegor
2019-04-15, 02:49 PM
Wizard: “Ah, wait, I had a plan, but he just basically did... Okay hang on a minute... <hums> checking my spells, checking my spells, learning to play a wizard well”
Also wizard: “Come on hurry up with your turn so I can have mine!”

Barbarian: “I jump off the cliff.” (actually I always want to hear this. Barbarians have health to spare, they can take it, and it leads to someone crafting them hang gliders when it becomes a regular thing)

Cygnia
2019-04-15, 02:54 PM
"Oh, it'll be TOTALLY fine that I bring my baby to your (non-childproof) house at the last second for the game!"

(Baby then proceeds to nearly choke on a ten-sider) :smallfurious:

DuctTapeKatar
2019-04-15, 04:07 PM
"This is Drillbit, my dark elf ranger who dual-wields shamshirs, and is also a prince of dark-elf-land, and is a good guy."

"Does the ring still work if I put it on my toe?"

I am guilty of this one: "I set <flammable object> on fire using my flaming sword/prestidigitation."

Arbane
2019-04-15, 04:26 PM
Barbarian: “I jump off the cliff.” (actually I always want to hear this. Barbarians have health to spare, they can take it, and it leads to someone crafting them hang gliders when it becomes a regular thing)

Ive had two different Pathfinder characters who did this - a Witch with the Flight hex (at-will Feather Fall) and an Oracle with high HP and Boots of the Cat (minimum fall damage). :smallbiggrin:

These struck fear and loathing into the hearts of GMs in the Nineties, maybe not so much now:
"Can I play a Kender?"
"I wanna be a ninja."

And always:
"I'm going to be Chaotic Neutral."

Segev
2019-04-15, 04:49 PM
From a game of Iron Kingdoms, the Rhyn looked down at the iron lich preparing to cast a spell up at our position on the top of a 3-story building, after his player looked up from reading through the rulebook for both IK and 3.5e D&D for the last hour (during which the rest of us had taken a combat round): "I'm about to do something so stupid, there are no rules for it in the Player's Handbook."

Quertus
2019-04-15, 04:52 PM
"Oh, it'll be TOTALLY fine that I bring my baby to your (non-childproof) house at the last second for the game!"

(Baby then proceeds to nearly choke on a ten-sider) :smallfurious:

Had an idiot do that at my table, with the same result. Except I think it was a d20.


"Can I play a Kender?"

Oh, **** that!

NRSASD
2019-04-15, 05:44 PM
Actually just happened right now:

"Hey DM, can you leave the table? We need to scheme."

Arbane
2019-04-15, 05:48 PM
From a game of Iron Kingdoms, the Rhyn looked down at the iron lich preparing to cast a spell up at our position on the top of a 3-story building, after his player looked up from reading through the rulebook for both IK and 3.5e D&D for the last hour (during which the rest of us had taken a combat round): "I'm about to do something so stupid, there are no rules for it in the Player's Handbook."

Did it work?

King of Nowhere
2019-04-15, 05:57 PM
anything showing that some of them still havent' mastered the basics even though we've been adventuring for three years

anything showing that some of them aren't paying much attention to the plot or worldbuilding

Lacco
2019-04-16, 01:42 AM
GM: "It's your turn. What do you do?"
Player1: "Ummm... ok. Where is the enemy? How many? What are they wearing? What...? How...? ..."
GM: Provides detailed information.
Player 1: "I attack the closest one."
GM: "Ok, this and this happens. Your turn player 2! What do you do?"
Player 2: "Umm... where is the enemy? How does the battlefield look...? What is this guy wearing? And this one? And what weapons...?"

hotflungwok
2019-04-16, 08:01 AM
"My water just broke."

Kesnit
2019-04-16, 08:15 AM
Hold on, let me look up how my basic abilities work / how do I calculate that again?

Many years ago, I was in a 2nd ed. D&D game with a kid who was 12. No matter how many times we walked him through THAC0, he never got it. We even gave him note card with the calculations, and he still couldn't do it.


"I'm sorry, what?" *looking up from something distracting* "can you please tell me everything that happened since my last turn?"

We had a player in our current Pathfinder game who did this. She'd play on her phone until her turn, then ask for a recap, then go through the PHB to find a spell to cast. (She was playing a prepared caster, but was not actually preparing spells. Instead, she just viewed the list as her "prepared" list and picked one.)


"My water just broke."

OK, this is something you don't want to hear a player say. However, you can't blame the player for saying it!

The Kool
2019-04-16, 08:44 AM
We had a player in our current Pathfinder game who did this. She'd play on her phone until her turn, then ask for a recap, then go through the PHB to find a spell to cast. (She was playing a prepared caster, but was not actually preparing spells. Instead, she just viewed the list as her "prepared" list and picked one.)

That sounds... rough. Though I can maybe one-up you... The player I'm thinking of once admitted to playing an entire Gambit match in Destiny 2 while waiting for another problem player to be done derailing the session with his rules argument. Can't entirely blame him though, and it would be difficult to tell him no laptop as he keeps an incredibly elaborate character sheet on there, complete with spreadsheets and calculations in addition to the character's extensive journals and spellcasting details and spell reference text... Which actually don't seem to bog down his turn when he's paying attention, to be fair.

MrStabby
2019-04-16, 08:51 AM
"My water just broke."

Nearly had this last year - it was an hour and a half after the session ended. It was all online though so wouldn't really have been as dramatic.


For P&P:

"What's the wi-fi code?"
"Oh, I guess I didn't actually have water breathing prepared today" - 40 min into the underwater cave system
"I think it will be fun to play a pacificst"
"It's what my character would do"

That House
2019-04-16, 09:21 AM
These ones I’ve never had happen:
“I burn down the village”
“I cast wish”

These ones happened, and it was terrifying:
“I hide. *rolls, does the math* that’s a 37 to hide. Is that good enough?” (Expertise rogue with a proficiency ioun stone and a cloak of elvenkind, got kind of boring)
“I attack the ancient red dragon for *rolls, math, rolls, math, rolls, math ten minutes pass* 275 damage” (death knight paladin with a lot of bs stuff)

Resileaf
2019-04-16, 09:29 AM
Many years ago, I was in a 2nd ed. D&D game with a kid who was 12. No matter how many times we walked him through THAC0, he never got it. We even gave him note card with the calculations, and he still couldn't do it.


To be fair, THAC0 is a pretty ridiculous system.

hotflungwok
2019-04-16, 09:30 AM
Nearly had this last year - it was an hour and a half after the session ended. It was all online though so wouldn't really have been as dramatic.
This actually happened in a group I used to play with. First time having a game called on account of childbirth. Her character had just been smacked by a vampire and lost 2 levels, we joked that she was having the baby to try and get out of it.

bc56
2019-04-16, 09:45 AM
"How many meat chunks can you make out of one chicken?"
"Can I multiclass into X?"

Lord Torath
2019-04-16, 09:48 AM
To be fair, THAC0 is a pretty ridiculous system.It's actually pretty easy and kind of elegant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?585692-Thac0), especially if you were used to descending AC from wargaming.
THAC0 is basically the DC of your attack roll. The enemy's AC is a bonus to your attack roll. So if your THAC0 is, say, 18, that means you need to roll an 18 or higher to hit. If the enemy has an AC of 3, that means you get a +3 bonus to your attack roll, and thus only need to roll a 15. Really good AC actually goes negative, becoming a penalty instead of a bonus.

Resileaf
2019-04-16, 10:08 AM
It's actually pretty easy and kind of elegant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?585692-Thac0), especially if you were used to descending AC from wargaming.

Well assuming you have no idea what wargaming is, like me, the system looks more convoluted than it needs to be. I don't see how 3.0 AC is any less 'elegant', as all THAC0 seems to do is add more calculations than necessary.
Or more acurately, 3.0 AC removes unnecessary calculations.

Themrys
2019-04-16, 10:08 AM
"My water just broke."

Hey, assuming you play at home, that's like the second best situation to say those words in. I could imagine much, much worse.

Having to re-schedule the game is annoying, though.


I haven't been a DM for hilariously horrible players, but I myself have said things that were likely annoying.


- "My character doesn't drink alcohol" (Very first time playing pen&paper, I hadn't quite grasped the difference between self and character, and was blissfully unaware that the adventure pretty much hinged on everyone drinking wine.) Followed by "Which of those numbers is relevant to whether I can resist the temptation to drink? Ah, yes, that's like the highest one on my character sheet ..."
I have since learnt that the DM is but a flawed human being, as are we all, and it is sometimes kinder to just play along with their premade plot than to force them to invent a new one.

- "So do I roll the d20 or the d6 here?"

- "Hey, not so fast. I am not really annoyed that this peasant woman not-so-subtly advertises her son as my potential husband. Is he good looking? How large is the farm he's gonna inherit? I am all ears!" (Me, not realizing when DMs are trying to make a throwaway joke)

- "I want to play a paladin" (In a group that already contains a thief)

- "I haven't figured out what my paladin's principles are. I will make it up as I go along."

Segev
2019-04-16, 10:19 AM
Did it work?He jumped off the building, daggar first, and did, in fact, hit on his attack roll. The DM added falling damage to both of them, and the Iron Lich massively failed his Concentration check (which included a -2 circumstance penalty for "What the heck!?" factor)...so yes.

Also, ever since then, every now and again, something will remind my friends or I of that and we'll sing, o/~ Come all, without! Come all within! You'll not see nothing like the Flying Rhynn! o/~


Well assuming you have no idea what wargaming is, like me, the system looks more convoluted than it needs to be. I don't see how 3.0 AC is any less 'elegant', as all THAC0 seems to do is add more calculations than necessary.
Or more acurately, 3.0 AC removes unnecessary calculations.It's essentially the same thing, save that they switched the DC to being AC and the bonus to being BAB (rather than the DC being THAC0 and the bonus being AC). The reason they did it is precisely what you mention: it's clearer to people who aren't familiar with mid-1900s wargaming.


- "My character doesn't drink alcohol" (Very first time playing pen&paper, I hadn't quite grasped the difference between self and character, and was blissfully unaware that the adventure pretty much hinged on everyone drinking wine.) Followed by "Which of those numbers is relevant to whether I can resist the temptation to drink? Ah, yes, that's like the highest one on my character sheet ..."
I have since learnt that the DM is but a flawed human being, as are we all, and it is sometimes kinder to just play along with their premade plot than to force them to invent a new one. Eh, I blame the DM more than the player here, anyway. Even if he made a mistake of requiring every PC to take a particular action AND fail to notice...whatever...to trigger his plot, he should have been able to give the teetotaling PC "fruit juice" with whatever was needed in it.


"Hey, not so fast. I am not really annoyed that this peasant woman not-so-subtly advertises her son as my potential husband. Is he good looking? How large is the farm he's gonna inherit? I am all ears!" (Me, not realizing when DMs are trying to make a throwaway joke)This is RP gold! Why's this a problem?

Okay, it's derailing the session? Then say, "Oh, well, we'll table this for now and handle it in a mini afterwards, okay?"


"I want to play a paladin" (In a group that already contains a thief)Only an issue if the players can't be mature about working together to make it work.


"I haven't figured out what my paladin's principles are. I will make it up as I go along."...okay, THIS one's a problem. Paladins' principles aren't that complicated to come up with; this suggests a desire to game the system. Which is really lame, since paladins aren't really that powerful in the first place, so it's not like simply asking for a refluff of the mechanics to not need the princples is a big deal.

Quertus
2019-04-16, 10:23 AM
Actually just happened right now:

"Hey DM, can you leave the table? We need to scheme."

Best. Scenario. Ever.

I once ran a game where the players were busy plotting. And we were out of snacks/drinks. I realized that all of the players were essential to the conversation... but, as GM, I wasn't. So I made the snack run, came back, and asked, "what did I miss?".


Many years ago, I was in a 2nd ed. D&D game with a kid who was 12. No matter how many times we walked him through THAC0, he never got it. We even gave him note card with the calculations, and he still couldn't do it.


To be fair, THAC0 is a pretty ridiculous system.


It's actually pretty easy and kind of elegant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?585692-Thac0),

I mean, I've gamed with numerous college-educated adults who could not get THAC0 after months or even years of play.

I've taught multiple 7-year-olds to play 3e with mechanical competence.

I don't think that they're even comparable.

2e may be the best edition of D&D, but I'll admit, 3e made a few improvements.


- "My character doesn't drink alcohol" (Very first time playing pen&paper, I hadn't quite grasped the difference between self and character, and was blissfully unaware that the adventure pretty much hinged on everyone drinking wine.) Followed by "Which of those numbers is relevant to whether I can resist the temptation to drink? Ah, yes, that's like the highest one on my character sheet ..."
I have since learnt that the DM is but a flawed human being, as are we all, and it is sometimes kinder to just play along with their premade plot than to force them to invent a new one.

Kinder? I'm not sure. I'm into tough love, where you teach the GM the hard way, rather than letting them make the same mistakes, over and over again.

The Kool
2019-04-16, 10:25 AM
Well assuming you have no idea what wargaming is, like me, the system looks more convoluted than it needs to be. I don't see how 3.0 AC is any less 'elegant', as all THAC0 seems to do is add more calculations than necessary.
Or more acurately, 3.0 AC removes unnecessary calculations.

3e presents it more cleanly, but the calculations are roughly the same level of complexity.

AD&D: [roll] + [bonus] >= [difficulty]
3e: [roll] + [bonus] >= [difficulty]

In AD&D, the bonus is the target's AC and any magic weapon bonuses you might be wielding. The difficulty is your THAC0.
In 3e, the bonus is your BAB, plus ability modifier, plus feat bonuses, plus weapon bonuses, plus anything else that might apply. The difficulty is the target's AC.

The advantage to using the 3e method is that the player can see all their modifiers, and calls out a number, no need to know anything about the target. The disadvantage is that the calculation is actually more complex! So many more things modify the result.
The advantage to using the AD&D method is that you have fewer numbers to add together and can clearly see your target, so you know right away if you succeeded or not. The disadvantage is that the DM has to tell you the AC, which they might not like to do... and if they don't it gets complex.

If you truly dislike THAC0, you can scrap it with two changes, the end result will work exactly the same as later editions.
Your 'BAB' is 20 - THAC0. For example, with a THAC0 of 16, your BAB is (20-16=) +4.
All AC totals are 20 - [old AC]. For example, AC of 3 becomes (20-3=) 17. AC of -2 becomes (20-(-2)=) 22.

Resileaf
2019-04-16, 10:37 AM
3e presents it more cleanly, but the calculations are roughly the same level of complexity.

AD&D: [roll] + [bonus] >= [difficulty]
3e: [roll] + [bonus] >= [difficulty]

In AD&D, the bonus is the target's AC and any magic weapon bonuses you might be wielding. The difficulty is your THAC0.
In 3e, the bonus is your BAB, plus ability modifier, plus feat bonuses, plus weapon bonuses, plus anything else that might apply. The difficulty is the target's AC.
I don't think you're fairly presenting 3e's attack bonus, considering the only calculations you have to make is your total bonus ahead of time. You don't have to calculate every round that your bonus is +3 for BAB, +3 for strength, +1 for weapon focus, +1 for masterwork weapon, you write on your sheet +8 and you modify it when you change equipment or level up. The only things that change your attack bonus are situational, like spells or special abilities, which I assume THAC0 is modified the exact same way on the sheet or situationally.


The disadvantage is that the DM has to tell you the AC, which they might not like to do... and if they don't it gets complex.

That seems like the main part of the problem there. XD


If you truly dislike THAC0, you can scrap it with two changes, the end result will work exactly the same as later editions.
Your 'BAB' is 20 - THAC0. For example, with a THAC0 of 16, your BAB is (20-16=) +4.
All AC totals are 20 - [old AC]. For example, AC of 3 becomes (20-3=) 17. AC of -2 becomes (20-(-2)=) 22.
Not that the advice is unappreciated, but the closest I'll ever get to AD&D is Baldur's Gate, and that game makes calculations for you. XD

Lord Torath
2019-04-16, 10:54 AM
It's actually pretty easy and kind of elegant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?585692-Thac0), especially if you were used to descending AC from wargaming.
Well assuming you have no idea what wargaming is, like me, the system looks more convoluted than it needs to be. I don't see how 3.0 AC is any less 'elegant', as all THAC0 seems to do is add more calculations than necessary.
Or more acurately, 3.0 AC removes unnecessary calculations."My way's better!"

"No, my way's better!"

"No, mine!"

"Mine!"

{scrubbed}*

{scrubbed}

{scrubbed}

{scrubbed}

"Fine."

"Fine."

Okay, I think we've exhausted the THAC0 conversation now. :smallbiggrin:

Back on topic: "It wouldn't be here if we weren't supposed to steal it!"

* Not that I really think either of us would stoop to scrub-worthy material here.

Cygnia
2019-04-16, 10:57 AM
This actually happened in a group I used to play with. First time having a game called on account of childbirth. Her character had just been smacked by a vampire and lost 2 levels, we joked that she was having the baby to try and get out of it.

The player that had the baby who nearly choked on a ten-sider at my house did not know she was pregnant. She then wanted to know how much XP she was getting for the kid.


"It's what my character would do"

And, of course, said players then get bent out of shape when they then have to deal with the consequences of their actions from NPCs/other PCs who are then doing what THEIR character would do in reaction to such situations. :smallmad:

Resileaf
2019-04-16, 10:58 AM
You know what, I do actually have something that happened in my game last weekend.

"What are my total bonuses to attack and damage already?"

This was the finale of the campaign against the final boss, mind you.

Quertus
2019-04-16, 11:13 AM
The player that had the baby who nearly choked on a ten-sider at my house did not know she was pregnant. She then wanted to know how much XP she was getting for the kid.
:

I'm sorry, at what point did she not know that she was pregnant? When she went into labor? Or when the child choked on a die? :smallconfused::smallamused:

NRSASD
2019-04-16, 11:16 AM
Best. Scenario. Ever.

I once ran a game where the players were busy plotting. And we were out of snacks/drinks. I realized that all of the players were essential to the conversation... but, as GM, I wasn't. So I made the snack run, came back, and asked, "what did I miss?".

Yeah it was great : ). I'm just flattered that my party of 7 people, all with varying degrees of scientific backgrounds, find my campaign interesting enough to analyze it so thoroughly that they feel the need to discuss it as a group but withhold the conversation from me.

Wizard_Lizard
2019-04-16, 11:19 AM
Me(DM):Hey, you weren't there last session, and since we're such a small group, we had to cancel, are you going to turn up today?
Player: eh, probably not

At the session

Me: Ok, so (insert player name here) isn't going to turn up, but we'll be fine with only you guys...
Other players: bye.

My thoughts: I spent literal hours coming up with this story!!!
My outer self: ok, bye... :(

Cygnia
2019-04-16, 11:26 AM
I'm sorry, at what point did she not know that she was pregnant? When she went into labor? Or when the child choked on a die? :smallconfused::smallamused:

The former.

Wizard_Lizard
2019-04-16, 11:29 AM
also, pretty much EVERY TIME I say roll a (Insert stat here) throw the conversation goes like this...
Player:Ok so what stat is that.
Me:points to character sheet, points out relevant stat. (for example Dex 12)
Player: Rolls a D12
Me:No, roll a D20.
Player: But my sheet says 12!
Me:That's your score
Player:Rolls D20 (for example rolls a 15)
Player: I got a 27!
Me:are you sure?
Player:Yes!
Me: Looks at dice: No. You got a 16
Player: But I added my score!
Me: You don't add the score! You add the modifier!
Player: What's the modifier?
Me: Groans, points at the number.

BOOM! half the session has gone
ON ONE TURN!

The thing is, this happened more than once, with THE SAME GROUP! WITH THE SAME PERSON!

Themrys
2019-04-16, 01:36 PM
@wizard lizard: That's impressive.

I thought I was horribly confused by the system, but I don't think I ever managed to get that confused. Multiple times in a row.




Eh, I blame the DM more than the player here, anyway. Even if he made a mistake of requiring every PC to take a particular action AND fail to notice...whatever...to trigger his plot, he should have been able to give the teetotaling PC "fruit juice" with whatever was needed in it.

This is RP gold! Why's this a problem?

Okay, it's derailing the session? Then say, "Oh, well, we'll table this for now and handle it in a mini afterwards, okay?"

Only an issue if the players can't be mature about working together to make it work.

...okay, THIS one's a problem. Paladins' principles aren't that complicated to come up with; this suggests a desire to game the system. Which is really lame, since paladins aren't really that powerful in the first place, so it's not like simply asking for a refluff of the mechanics to not need the princples is a big deal.

Teetotaling PC was played in a short game that was based on a pun on "spirits", there being actual spirits in the wine. I don't think it would have worked as well with fruit juice. The situation was saved, somehow (I think my char just tagged along with his drunk comrades) but it would probably have been funnier if I had just taken the hint.

Annoying peasant woman was meant to be a throwaway joke and yeah, I think I was derailing the plot, and playing things after they have, in-game, already taken place, confuses me. And would not have occurred to me at the time, anyway.


Slowly evolving paladin is mostly because I am uncreative as hell and would only be able to come up with very standard stuff like honesty, honor, duty, and so on, which of course he follows anyway, (which I didn't mention because that's kinda like saying your wizard is good at magic) but when the thief of the group mocked his goddess, I discovered that his faith also places great emphasis on controlling one's anger.

After reading a couple of horror stories, I am sure the sentence would be a massive red flag to DMs and players who don't know me, what's why I quoted it here. (Why do those people play paladins if they enjoy torturing prisoners, like to be greedy and will save their own necks first? Why? There's many other classes where that sort of thing would be good roleplay. I mean, yes, I may have been guilty of playing a vegetarian teatotaller dwarf, but there's stereotypes and there's requirements.)

Segev
2019-04-16, 01:43 PM
Teetotaling PC was played in a short game that was based on a pun on "spirits", there being actual spirits in the wine. I don't think it would have worked as well with fruit juice. The situation was saved, somehow (I think my char just tagged along with his drunk comrades) but it would probably have been funnier if I had just taken the hint. Fair enough.


Annoying peasant woman was meant to be a throwaway joke and yeah, I think I was derailing the plot, and playing things after they have, in-game, already taken place, confuses me. And would not have occurred to me at the time, anyway. I think of it as the story/camera/whatever cutting away to the next scene, and then later giving us a flashback to tell us what happened thereafter, when it's about to become (or has just been made) relevant. It's a way to let things like this that are possibly cool RP play out, but not interrupt the flow of the game for everyone else.


Slowly evolving paladin is mostly because I am uncreative as hell and would only be able to come up with very standard stuff like honesty, honor, duty, and so on, which of course he follows anyway, (which I didn't mention because that's kinda like saying your wizard is good at magic) but when the thief of the group mocked his goddess, I discovered that his faith also places great emphasis on controlling one's anger. Ah. See, "standard stuff, mostly," would be sufficient for me as a DM, and I'd grant leeway into adding on to it if it seemed like good RP and made the game better (and put the kibash on anything...disruptive or unfitting).


After reading a couple of horror stories, I am sure the sentence would be a massive red flag to DMs and players who don't know me, what's why I quoted it here. (Why do those people play paladins if they enjoy torturing prisoners, like to be greedy and will save their own necks first? Why? There's many other classes where that sort of thing would be good roleplay. I mean, yes, I may have been guilty of playing a vegetarian teatotaller dwarf, but there's stereotypes and there's requirements.)Yeah, I don't really get it, either. Paladins aren't even a powergamer class, so it's not like they're doing it to cheat their way into phenomenal abilities they couldn't otherwise get that let their abusive interpretations of a code make them more powerful than they should be. Play an evil cleric, or a black knight as a fighter or barbarian, or a hexblade, or...

There are options that are just plain better for what you want to do, so why twist the not-all-that-great class when you don't need to?

Elvensilver
2019-04-16, 02:07 PM
"I have rolled a [whatever], let me just add the modifiers...... "
"let's ignore the evil cult and build a trauma station for its victims instead!"
"What? Charges? The item had limited charges?! But I built my whole character around it!"

King of Nowhere
2019-04-16, 03:17 PM
also, pretty much EVERY TIME I say roll a (Insert stat here) throw the conversation goes like this...
Player:Ok so what stat is that.
Me:points to character sheet, points out relevant stat. (for example Dex 12)
Player: Rolls a D12
Me:No, roll a D20.
Player: But my sheet says 12!
Me:That's your score
Player:Rolls D20 (for example rolls a 15)
Player: I got a 27!
Me:are you sure?
Player:Yes!
Me: Looks at dice: No. You got a 16
Player: But I added my score!
Me: You don't add the score! You add the modifier!
Player: What's the modifier?
Me: Groans, points at the number.

BOOM! half the session has gone
ON ONE TURN!

The thing is, this happened more than once, with THE SAME GROUP! WITH THE SAME PERSON!
but is the player still so confused after three years? because that described one of my players pretty welll.

though in all fairness, in the last year she managed the distinction between score and modifier. she simply have no idea which one is applied where.

Furthermore, despite her complete ignorance of the mechanics, every time she fails a roll she will look her whole character sheet to see if she missed a bonus. of course, having no idea what her stuff actually does (me and another player with good skill take care of her leveling up), she asks for everything. and after three years of campaign with generous loot, that's a lot of dumb questions. It goes like

"I can't have failed the saving throw against disintegrate! I have dexterity"
"that makes you less likely to be hit, but the enemy succeeded the touch attack"
"but I have the cloak of resistance +5"
"that was already factored into your save bonus"
"but I have spellcraft!"
"that's irrelevant for this"
[rifles through papers]
"hey, here it says that this staff gives me a +2 to ray attacks"
"yes, the ones you make. It does not protect"
"but i took spell focus!"
"not relevant for this"
and it could go on for a while...






After reading a couple of horror stories, I am sure the sentence would be a massive red flag to DMs and players who don't know me,
there's very little one can post here that could not be taken as a red flag by someone reading it out of context.

Karnitis
2019-04-16, 04:17 PM
I had a very inappropriate player in one campaign - we all enjoy adult humor now and again, but that was his entire character.

"Can I put the ring of enlargement on my ****?"

"How big is my ****? Well, I'm a gnome, so I'll roll a d6 + CON."

DM: How do you want to do this?
PC: I want to whip his balls off!

[encounters a Treant]
How big are his berries? // I'm going to whip them off // I'm going to bottle them and make liquor out of them

[encounters sick, injured kid in a village]
here, take a shot of my holy liquor, it will heal you
rest of my group: YOU CAN'T GIVE VODKA TO A CHILD AND PROMISE IT WILL HEAL HIS MISSING LEG

Themrys
2019-04-16, 04:51 PM
[encounters a Treant]
How big are his berries? // I'm going to whip them off // I'm going to bottle them and make liquor out of them


But ... males don't have berries? If a plant species has the two sexes on different plants, then the males don't bear fruit.:smallconfused:

Velaryon
2019-04-16, 07:57 PM
"Can I play this cool class I found online?"

"Which die do I roll again?" (after more than 5 sessions)

Lord Torath
2019-04-16, 09:05 PM
But ... males don't have berries? If a plant species has the two sexes on different plants, then the males don't bear fruit.:smallconfused:I suspect "berries" is slang for testicles, as in "twig and berries".

Wizard_Lizard
2019-04-17, 03:25 AM
but is the player still so confused after three years? because that described one of my players pretty welll.

though in all fairness, in the last year she managed the distinction between score and modifier. she simply have no idea which one is applied where.

Furthermore, despite her complete ignorance of the mechanics, every time she fails a roll she will look her whole character sheet to see if she missed a bonus. of course, having no idea what her stuff actually does (me and another player with good skill take care of her leveling up), she asks for everything. and after three years of campaign with generous loot, that's a lot of dumb questions. It goes like

"I can't have failed the saving throw against disintegrate! I have dexterity"
"that makes you less likely to be hit, but the enemy succeeded the touch attack"
"but I have the cloak of resistance +5"
"that was already factored into your save bonus"
"but I have spellcraft!"
"that's irrelevant for this"
[rifles through papers]
"hey, here it says that this staff gives me a +2 to ray attacks"
"yes, the ones you make. It does not protect"
"but i took spell focus!"
"not relevant for this"
and it could go on for a while...




there's very little one can post here that could not be taken as a red flag by someone reading it out of context.

Too be fair on the players, they are quite new to the game (Only been playing for a couple of weeks), but even still...

Knaight
2019-04-17, 04:41 AM
The thing is, this happened more than once, with THE SAME GROUP! WITH THE SAME PERSON!

I'd put at least some of the blame here on the system itself - both in terms of character sheet design as a reference document and in terms of having score and modifier as two different things being a dubious design decision to begin with.

Wizard_Lizard
2019-04-17, 03:18 PM
I'd put at least some of the blame here on the system itself - both in terms of character sheet design as a reference document and in terms of having score and modifier as two different things being a dubious design decision to begin with.
I guess so, but I have explained it to them.

Themrys
2019-04-17, 03:48 PM
I suspect "berries" is slang for testicles, as in "twig and berries".

Maybe, but he was talking about a Treant, and although I am new-ish to DnD, I doubt there are rules on what sort of sex organs they have. I would totally have told that player: "It is a male. He doesn't have berries. You can rip off his male blossoms and cover yourself in pollen if you are into that, though."

Pretending to not understand their dirty humour is one of the ways I deal with annoying guys like that.

Resileaf
2019-04-17, 09:39 PM
"The enemy succeeds its will save against your spell."
Long, drawn-out sigh, like it's absolutely unbelievable that an enemy would succeed on their saves.

Kane0
2019-04-18, 12:26 AM
"Just like the simulations"

NRSASD
2019-04-18, 06:40 AM
"Just like the simulations"

Hah. Ok I confess, that made me laugh

Lord Torath
2019-04-18, 07:47 AM
Maybe, but he was talking about a Treant, and although I am new-ish to DnD, I doubt there are rules on what sort of sex organs they have. I would totally have told that player: "It is a male. He doesn't have berries. You can rip off his male blossoms and cover yourself in pollen if you are into that, though."

Pretending to not understand their dirty humour is one of the ways I deal with annoying guys like that.Ah. Well done, then! :smallamused: I tend to say "Yeah, I don't want to hear about that sort of stuff. Save it for your fan-fic."

Along those lines:

"I want to seduce the waiter/waitress. Let's fully roleplay out my encounter!"

AMFV
2019-04-18, 08:42 AM
Ah. Well done, then! :smallamused: I tend to say "Yeah, I don't want to hear about that sort of stuff. Save it for your fan-fic."

Along those lines:

"I want to seduce the waiter/waitress. Let's fully roleplay out my encounter!"

The best way to counter that is to commit completely and then give the waiter/barmaid/treant enough disturbing content that they NEVER try that again. Then again, I'm a construction worker who has eight years of military experience, so I can probably out-perv anybody.

Cygnia
2019-04-18, 08:59 AM
From a Champions game a friend told me about that was supposed to be Four Color...

"Using my paramedics skill, I slit his tendons subtly."

GM: "You're being FILMED BY A NEWS CREW!"

"I kill them too."

Themrys
2019-04-18, 09:13 AM
The best way to counter that is to commit completely and then give the waiter/barmaid/treant enough disturbing content that they NEVER try that again. Then again, I'm a construction worker who has eight years of military experience, so I can probably out-perv anybody.

That's not ideal, unless you are alone with that person, or know everyone else at the table well enough - your trying to out-perv someone could easily make other players even more uncomfortable. And of course you have to be correct in your estimation that you can out-perv them, or you'll only encourage such actions.

Well, okay, I'd totally do it with the treant. "You find no berries, but when you touch his blossoms, the treant looks very happy ..." Plant sex doesn't make the average person uncomfortable, but there's a chance the castration-obsessed weirdo has a problem with consensual homosexuality and is weirded out sufficiently to not try it again. :smallamused:


With someone wanting to roleplay his seduction of the waitress, I'd probably tell him I won't do that, period, but if I was still young and optimistic enough to try and deal with it ingame, I'd rather take the approach of making it sickeningly sweet, counting on perverts usually not being romantics. "She's totally into you, but she wants to be wooed. Since you rolled a natural 20, you know you should go buy her flowers. You saw that the market has a variety of wild and cultivated flowers on your way here, which do you want to buy?"

The Kool
2019-04-18, 09:14 AM
One of my favorites, actually, though I could see why other DMs would take issue with this:

*becoming increasingly twitchy in a tense political intrigue scene, then blurts out:* "I stab him."
DM: *sigh* "Everyone roll for initiative."

same player, earlier: "So we're trying to cause a distraction, and rile the town up against the tyrant lord and his guard? Why don't we... set fire to the town... and blame it on the guard!"

Jay R
2019-04-18, 10:48 AM
"I want to seduce the waiter/waitress. Let's fully roleplay out my encounter!"

Here is Shamus Young's take on it. (https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=951)

2D8HP
2019-04-18, 11:07 AM
"...You can rip off his male blossoms and cover yourself in pollen if you are into that, though....".


..."Using my paramedics skill, I slit his tendons subtly."

GM: "You're being FILMED BY A NEWS CREW!"

"I kill them too."


"You find no berries, but when you touch his blossoms, the treant looks very happy ..."

...Since you rolled a natural 20, you know you should go buy her flowers. You saw that the market has a variety of wild and cultivated flowers on your way here, which do you want to buy?"


Here is Shamus Young's take on it. (https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=951)


This thread just keeps getting better! :biggrin:

Segev
2019-04-18, 11:50 AM
The best way to counter that is to commit completely and then give the waiter/barmaid/treant enough disturbing content that they NEVER try that again. Then again, I'm a construction worker who has eight years of military experience, so I can probably out-perv anybody.


That's not ideal, unless you are alone with that person, or know everyone else at the table well enough - your trying to out-perv someone could easily make other players even more uncomfortable. And of course you have to be correct in your estimation that you can out-perv them, or you'll only encourage such actions.Yeah, pretty much this. The only losers in that scenario are the other players. And maybe you, if you wanted to keep them around.


Well, okay, I'd totally do it with the treant. "You find no berries, but when you touch his blossoms, the treant looks very happy ..." Plant sex doesn't make the average person uncomfortable, but there's a chance the castration-obsessed weirdo has a problem with consensual homosexuality and is weirded out sufficiently to not try it again. :smallamused:An extremely small chance. Generally people who'll cross to non-humanoid sexuality are well beyond caring if you call their paramour "male" or "female," beyond possibly pedantry.


With someone wanting to roleplay his seduction of the waitress, I'd probably tell him I won't do that, period, but if I was still young and optimistic enough to try and deal with it ingame, I'd rather take the approach of making it sickeningly sweet, counting on perverts usually not being romantics. "She's totally into you, but she wants to be wooed. Since you rolled a natural 20, you know you should go buy her flowers. You saw that the market has a variety of wild and cultivated flowers on your way here, which do you want to buy?"Yeah, that's pretty naive, as it relies on the assumption that the perv is willing to play along rather than just getting creepier about forcing the issue. Whether directly or by increasingly mind-control-like uses of mechanics. And he's probably mostly into it for describing his behaviors in lascivious detail, which means that letting the RP continue at all is feeding the troll.

The best responses to this are either "no, we're not playing that" or "and then the scene fades to black." And that's assuming you want to keep playing with the individual.

RedMage125
2019-04-18, 02:14 PM
I think the THAC0 thing got made to sound a lot more simple than it ever was in practice. Some classes, like Warrior classes (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger), improved their THAC0 (read as: it decreased) every level. Others i.proved much slower. Then you had the potential attack modifier from a good Strength score, which, if they were a warrior class, there were 7 different iterations of an 18 strength. Then there was Weapon Specialization if they spent 2 proficiency slots, which gave a bonus to hit and damage, in addition to granting an extra attack every other round, or every round, after a certain point. And then some magic weapons gave different bonuses to attack rolls than they did to damage rolls. After adding all these modifiers to your d20 roll, the DM (who rarely revealed the target monster's AC) would add or subtract the monster's AC to that number, then give compare that to your THAC0. If you met or exceeded that number, you hit. Once you got more experienced, it became simpler to simply add up all your modifiers, compare to your THAC0 and tell the DM how much you beat your THAC0 by. He could then mentally add or subtract the target's AC and tell you if you hit or missed.

And god help you if your DM used some of the optional rules that modified the target's AC based on what kind of armor they were vis what kind of damage type you dealt (chainmail was 2 points of AC worse against bludgeoning, for example).

I learned to play on 2e back in high school, and after a year, I abandoned AD&D in favor of systems with less byzantine mechanics. Until 3e came out. Having simple, streamlined addition and unified mechanics made those mechanics less of an obstacle to gameplay.

On topic:
I have also had players not paying attention, and it drives me up the wall.

But one of my worst I witnessed when I was a fellow player at the table. Had a big heavy guy who only played hot elf chicks, and literally tried to seduce every Male NPC for some kind of benefit (price reductions, etc). And while the rest of us rolled on the table, he would sit further back in an easy chair, roll a d20 on a book he held close to his chest, declare "critical threat", snatch up the die, and do the confirmation roll on almost every attack.

Even though I recognize that his problem was that he was a sleaze and a cheater, and that those were problems with him as an individual, I still cringe just a little when people say "I want to play a character of the opposite gender (than myself)". The bad impression he made was that bad.

Segev
2019-04-18, 02:43 PM
Even though I recognize that his problem was that he was a sleaze and a cheater, and that those were problems with him as an individual, I still cringe just a little when people say "I want to play a character of the opposite gender (than myself)". The bad impression he made was that bad.

To be fair, I've seen females play female characters who wanted to try to seduce anything in pants for any social advantage she could get. It usually wasn't actually a problem, just a quirk that revealed an escapist fantasy of these young ladies. Some were attractive IRL, others weren't, but it's clear it's something they either wished they could do or something they felt would let them powergame, depending on their reasons for playing RPGs. (This was in college; there were very few women compared to men, but oddly, the ratio of girls playing RPGs was higher than the ratio of girls in general at that school. This could be simply by virtue of usually having at least one in any group, and that being above the threshold of the ratio, which wasn't even 1:4 when I started going to college. Engineering school. Known for, if you're a girl, "the odds are good, but the goods are odd.")

I therefore rarely assume it's just because the player is a guy if I see a female PC behaving that way. Girls have fantasies of being attractive and seductive, too.


My most memorable instance was online (remember, I try not to play girls IRL because my own voice makes it hard for me to believe myself when I speak for my character if she's female), where I was playing an attractive and mildly flirty girl (we were teens at Prof. X's school for the gifted). Nothing beyond laying a hand on an arm or invading personal space, mainly because for some reason, she TERRIFIED the other PCs by virtue, I think, of NOT being a shy, retiring violet. The rest almost universally were, and I was told by the DM later that he'd been privately informed by several other players that their characters were convinced mine was a bully who would physically beat them up. She never even intimated violence, and just tried to invite them to do things other than sit in the common room and watch TV. It was rather surreal. I'm not really all that social a person, myself, and I was trying an unusual archetype of a character personality, but godlings, that was weird.


On "things my GM definitely didn't want to hear me say," though, I was playing a pilot in a Robotech game (Paladium system), and we were facing the GM's overpowered plot-NPC who was supposed to be plot-captured later in the plotline (I learned this later). What we knew, IC and largely OOC at the time, was that this Zentradi was wiping the floor with us and was a major threat to our base's security in the region. So, my PC, believing himself expendable compared to the rest of the party and the mission, got into a dogfight with her and waited for her to launch an attack at him. In Paladium, you can dodge up to three missiles, but if 4+ are coming, the attack becomes undodgeable. Despite this, she'd been launching rail gun shots and 1-2 missile salvos, usually hitting us anyway because our dodging wasn't nearly as good as her accuracy.

Also, if you choose to forego all defensive options, you can do a counterattack. Counterattacks may not be defended against unless you have auto-dodge, because you're already attacking the person counterattacking you. She, of course, had auto-dodge. I discovered this after one counter-attack, which did no damage to her, while my failure to defend meant I almost went down just by virtue of bieng hit in various locations.

I persisted, however, because I had a plan. Even if I hit her, she probably had way more hp than I did. However, the next time she attacked, the GM asked me if I was defending this time. I grinned, and said something I could tell he was not happy hearing:

"No. I counterattack, firing all two dozen missiles I'm carrying at once."

The rules permitted no defense for either of us, and that much damage coming at her almost could not fail to take down even a Zentradi officer pod. Sure, I was going down, too, but I could likely go down soon, anyway, unless the GM fudged to save me, simply because she had us that badly outclassed.

King of Nowhere
2019-04-18, 02:55 PM
"No. I counterattack, firing all two dozen missiles I'm carrying at once."


wait a moment, sorry for going on a tangent here, but I have to ask:

if 4+ missiles cannot be dodged, and you CAN fire all your missiles at once, then what mechanical benefits are there to not do it at every combat? why fire 1-2 missiles and go the dodge game instead?

The Kool
2019-04-18, 03:07 PM
wait a moment, sorry for going on a tangent here, but I have to ask:

if 4+ missiles cannot be dodged, and you CAN fire all your missiles at once, then what mechanical benefits are there to not do it at every combat? why fire 1-2 missiles and go the dodge game instead?

Overkill, I presume. Limited resources. Numerous foes. But I could be wrong, it could be suspension of disbelief.

Segev
2019-04-18, 03:16 PM
wait a moment, sorry for going on a tangent here, but I have to ask:

if 4+ missiles cannot be dodged, and you CAN fire all your missiles at once, then what mechanical benefits are there to not do it at every combat? why fire 1-2 missiles and go the dodge game instead?


Overkill, I presume. Limited resources. Numerous foes. But I could be wrong, it could be suspension of disbelief.

Limited resources and multiple foes, mostly. I'm sure the game designers had "willing suspension of disbelief" in there, too, and really didn't grasp optimal strategy, so the fact that any strategy that doesn't involve firing 4 missiles every time is a losing one.

Paladium is a notoriously...badly balanced...system.

DMThac0
2019-04-18, 03:48 PM
"...but the PHB says XYZ so you can't do that..."

"I sit in the farthest booth, in the shadows, with my hood up..."

"What's the name of (person, animal)" only because it's always in reference to a throw away

The Jack
2019-04-18, 07:09 PM
"Hobgoblins are kinda my kink."

Mods! mods! Moooooooooooods!!

He's bullying me.

Cygnia
2019-04-18, 08:09 PM
"I powerbomb the priest into the baptismal font!"

Cluedrew
2019-04-18, 08:27 PM
In Paladium, you can dodge up to three missiles, but if 4+ are coming, the attack becomes undodgeable.Oh, not quite. (https://megadumbcast.podbean.com/e/pg-87-on-second-thought-****-the-one-immutable-law-of-missiles-week-15/)

I want to say something else for the thread's main topic, but everything I could say has already been covered. "[Yet another rules question]" has been done as has "[Unexpected sexual encounter]" and "[I wasn't paying attention]" or similar "[Not showing up for no reason but pretending I do]" and so on. For the last I really wish people would tell me if they have lost interest in the game instead of just vanishing. Maybe stay for one more session to help their character bow up.

I meant to say bow out, but if that involves blowing up I am OK with this.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-04-18, 08:30 PM
"I knock him down with the jar of soup." It worked.

Or, same player, "I eat the mushroom." Context: the mushrooms were like single charges of a wand of wonder. And this was during a negotiation with a no-humor death knight.

Player was chaotic enough to make a slaad look like a modron from her perspective.

Luccan
2019-04-18, 11:59 PM
One for me today: I was helping a player build a Paladin for a different game (they had never played before, so they wanted my advice). I was talking about the first session with our current group that I had DMed (and the only one I have DMed that she has played in). It wasn't all that long ago and she doesn't often get to play at all, so it was something of a unique experience.

"Are you sure I was there for that?"

She remembered literally one thing from that game, something of a joke that came about from the barbarian leaping daintily across a stream. I really need to set a limit on inebriation level for the game.

Elvensilver
2019-04-19, 04:32 AM
"That is nearly impossible. I've done the math, and given standard commoners and experts binomial distributed between the levels 1 and 4, probability of saves, the diehard feat, and the ratio of dwarfes in the population, there is a 86% chance that someone survived the dragon attack. So, I ask again: do we find somebody alive?"

Talion
2019-04-19, 05:28 AM
"Did we just invent war crimes? Or is this more a 'crimes against humanity' sort of thing?"

"For my next witness, I call the bear."

"If I slingshot around a star while going ftl, does the gravity give us an additional speed boost?"

"I take a shortcut through the cluster of black holes."

"Can we market the water we pumped out of the swamp in this guy's backyard as 'Artisan Water' on the desert planet?"

"So, what exactly happens if I just happened to have rolled a total of -20 on my cooking skill for making a sandwich?"

"Is the odor from my character's lack of hygiene foul enough to cause the enemy to retreat?"

"How many people are in my army again?"

I seem to have a talent for chaos at the table.

Hunter Noventa
2019-04-19, 08:06 AM
Limited resources and multiple foes, mostly. I'm sure the game designers had "willing suspension of disbelief" in there, too, and really didn't grasp optimal strategy, so the fact that any strategy that doesn't involve firing 4 missiles every time is a losing one.

Paladium is a notoriously...badly balanced...system.

My group played a Palladium Robotech/Macross game a while back. It ended with us head-butting an spaceborne eldritch abomination with our frankensteined spaceship that was basically a Macross Quarter with an entire half of another ship welded into where its head went in humanoid mode, and then we fired all the cannons on there into it. Good times. Unbalanced times, but good times.

On topic, I'm pretty sure the DM in our current campaign is sick of hearing 'I animate the corpse of <insert large monster here>' which has included ogre spiders, mega raptors, a purple worm, and most recently a blue dragon.

RedMage125
2019-04-19, 08:45 AM
Paladium is a notoriously...badly balanced...system.

Completely agree. Which is why it makes me sad that RIFTS and TMNTAOW are such rich games conceptually. But the mechanics...

Segev
2019-04-19, 09:46 AM
Oh, not quite. (https://megadumbcast.podbean.com/e/pg-87-on-second-thought-****-the-one-immutable-law-of-missiles-week-15/)
Could I get an executive summary? I am not in a position to listen to any streaming audio right now, and have limited inclination to do so without knowing what it is I'm being asked to listen for. (I can't skim audio for specific content.) Just telling me where I'm wrong would be even more helpful; I am no expert on the rules of Paladium, and not only was I going on what the GM said when he ran it, but I may be misremembering details.

The important bit was that, per the rules as I understood them and he seemed to run them, launching all my missiles at her at once meant she pretty much couldn't dodge and would take "blast her pod out of the sky" damage from them.


Completely agree. Which is why it makes me sad that RIFTS and TMNTAOW are such rich games conceptually. But the mechanics...
Yeah, and for all its faults, Rifts really does do a good job of integrating fluff and mechanics. Not GOOD mechanics, but they're integrated well. Trying to translate to other systems is...even messier. I know a guy who runs everything he can in GURPS, and he did run a Rifts game in it. It was even easier to break. ^^; I played what would've been, in the base game, a Mind Melter with a focus on telemechanics and telemechanical possession, and hoo boy did that get out of hand fast. I had to deliberately restrain myself by pretending to be a cyborg to keep from unfairly dominating a lot of encounters.

Cluedrew
2019-04-19, 10:26 AM
Could I get an executive summary?Sure, I'm also going from memory here but as I recall there is nothing wrong with your memory. Just buried away is a special aerial combat maneuver that A) allows you do dodge missiles and B) trashes turn order and the attacks per round system just because. So this isn't so much a correction as a "oh but you underestimate the madness of Paladium".

Furthermore I believe the combat maneuver is not available to giant robots, so it probably should of worked even if you were using rules from this other rulebook.

Segev
2019-04-19, 11:12 AM
Sure, I'm also going from memory here but as I recall there is nothing wrong with your memory. Just buried away is a special aerial combat maneuver that A) allows you do dodge missiles and B) trashes turn order and the attacks per round system just because. So this isn't so much a correction as a "oh but you underestimate the madness of Paladium".

Furthermore I believe the combat maneuver is not available to giant robots, so it probably should of worked even if you were using rules from this other rulebook.

Ah, thanks for the added info. Yeah, Paladium is... well, if you think 3.5 is a mess of splatbooks, rules written by people who didn't know other rules already existed to cover the same thing, and wonky interactions that require careful DM interpretation....

I have never met 2 GMs who run Paladium combat's initiative system the same way. Admittedly, I've only played with 3, but still. I'm guessing the reference is to "tilt dodging," which isn't auto-dodge but does let you throw away your next N actions to try (and probably fail) to dodge everything shot at you while doing it, if you're in an airplane-like flying vehicle.



On topic: "I'd like to bring my conversion of a Paladium build of my favorite fiction setting character into your game!"

King of Nowhere
2019-04-19, 12:10 PM
"I rolled a natural 20 on X"
Where X can be gather information, knowledge, diplomacy, or any other skill that can ccompletely skip a large part of the quest.

My party has a knack to roll 20 on such moments. A particularly egregious time, we were looking for a pirate and, with the 20, we noticed a guy walking down the street with a jolly roger folded under his arm...




"If I slingshot around a star while going ftl, does the gravity give us an additional speed boost?"


that one is easy. The most speed boost you can get from a slingshoot is the speed of the star compared to your destination. A star moves in the interstellar medium at a few tens of kkilometers per second. If you travel FTL, you are going hundreds of thousands of kilometers per second. So any speed boost that you could get from gravitational slingshot while ftl is completely negligible.

on the other hand, you could use a black hole to change your trajectory by a lot; and you wouldn't even have problems with centrifugal force ripping your ship to pieces, because gravity applies a uniform acceleration on everything.
On the other other hand, going close enough to a black hole to perform said manuever would still be deadly, because gravity is so strong that the difference in gravity between one side of the ship and the other would still be enough to rip the ship to pieces.

bc56
2019-04-19, 12:14 PM
"Can I bring in my character from [other game]?"

"Can I start my character with [magic item]?"

"When are we going to level up?"

Although the last one is just annoying, not much of an actual problem.

Jama7301
2019-04-19, 12:18 PM
that one is easy. The most speed boost you can get from a slingshoot is the speed of the star compared to your destination. A star moves in the interstellar medium at a few tens of kkilometers per second. If you travel FTL, you are going hundreds of thousands of kilometers per second. So any speed boost that you could get from gravitational slingshot while ftl is completely negligible.

on the other hand, you could use a black hole to change your trajectory by a lot; and you wouldn't even have problems with centrifugal force ripping your ship to pieces, because gravity applies a uniform acceleration on everything.
On the other other hand, going close enough to a black hole to perform said manuever would still be deadly, because gravity is so strong that the difference in gravity between one side of the ship and the other would still be enough to rip the ship to pieces.

We have vastly different definitions of "Easy".

Segev
2019-04-19, 12:46 PM
The most speed boost you can get from a slingshoot is the speed of the star compared to your destination.

Do you have a citation or math to back that up? This goes against my instincts and some experiments I've done in various physics models, though it's possible the models were imperfect. I ahve not done the math to prove it, but my simulation-based experience suggests to me that you can gain speed relative to the body around which you're slingshotting, leaving its gravity well with greater speed relative to it than you entered.

Cluedrew
2019-04-19, 01:08 PM
I'm guessing the reference is to "tilt dodging," which isn't auto-dodge but does let you throw away your next N actions to try (and probably fail) to dodge everything shot at you while doing it, if you're in an airplane-like flying vehicle.I listened to it. That is mentioned (although from the second hand description, it doesn't cost any actions) but this is "evasive maneuvers". Which by the rules under tilt dodge it ends the whole round if successful.

That wasn't a typo, apparently the rules for evasive maneuvers are under the tilt dodge heading as a cross reference. Maybe they were supposed to be for tilt dodge. At this point who knows. (Certainly not me, all of my Paladium knowledge comes though that podcast.)

And something on topic "I roll [skill]." Although here the painful bit is what is not said, as in what is the character doing to cause you to need to roll that skill.

Segev
2019-04-19, 01:13 PM
And something on topic "I roll [skill]." Although here the painful bit is what is not said, as in what is the character doing to cause you to need to roll that skill.

Funny mental image:

"You enter a room filled with loot, making the smell of the now-dead monsters in the room prior almost forgotten by the glittering piles of treasure."

"I roll seduction!"

"...there's...there's nothing in there to seduce? Do I want to know what you're doing?"

Knaight
2019-04-19, 01:49 PM
on the other hand, you could use a black hole to change your trajectory by a lot; and you wouldn't even have problems with centrifugal force ripping your ship to pieces, because gravity applies a uniform acceleration on everything.

Gravity doesn't apply a uniform acceleration on everything. The force of gravity is F = -GmM/r2, which notably has a distance term. For actual objects that aren't points r is not constant, and thus the force of gravity varies. The difference in these forces of gravity acts to stretch an object, and are known as tidal forces (the point approximation being F = 2GmM/r3). Most of the time these forces are negligible and can be ignored, but around the time you're talking about FTL slingshotting out of black holes? Not so much.

Theoboldi
2019-04-19, 02:06 PM
"I don't want to interact with the other players."

Thankfully it's rare, but I cannot stand players who are unwilling to engage in the social aspect of the game. It's incredibly selfish to just assume the GM will run a side show with the NPCs for you, when they've already got a full game that they have to play with the party. Not to mention that it's rude towards all the other players who enjoy and want to have some amount of inter-party interaction and roleplay.

Seriously, find someone willing to run a solo game if that's what you want. Don't try and change a party-based game into it. In general I don't get people who try to join games that are clearly advertised as something they don't like, but this particular type makes me more mad than anything else. :smallannoyed:

Cygnia
2019-04-19, 02:13 PM
Oh, we had one of those gits in a 7th Sea PBEM a year or so ago. Absolutely REFUSED to interact with the party in any way even when called out on it. Heck, he even took it as a personal insult when asked to be a bit more social in the OOC forum.

He ended up bailing to no one's surprise. He was the living embodiment of this comic (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/peanuts/images/e/e1/19710731.gif/revision/latest?cb=20140216035428)

Theoboldi
2019-04-19, 06:04 PM
Hah, that comic is actually perfect. It's exactly the kind of feeling a player like that gives a GM.

I recall the loner who joined one game I ran actually explicitly told me that he wanted to get a familiar so he could roleplay with an NPC under his control instead of with the other players.

To add a little dash of hypocrisy, that same loner soon after told me that they had blocked one of the other players because he thought the other player was deliberately not interacting with him.

No, I am not kidding. Worst player I've ever met, to this date, and the only one I have ever had to kick from a game.

Guizonde
2019-04-19, 06:39 PM
crud i've said that freaks out the dm's:

"ok, how can i weaponize this thing? nevermind, got it."

"uh, guys, can i borrow your dice? i don't have enough for my damage roll."

me:"i take my pants off and throw them at the bad guy's head. hope that counts as a surprise action."
dm:"even if you didn't do it litterally, it would."

"so, how dangerous are we talking about? my whacky hijinks level of dangerous or just world war 3 levels of dangerous?"

"dude, it's totally not overkill! it's just a low-yield atomic bomb!"

"i wonder how many victims i can frag before they're onto us."

"me first!"

"do insults count as a free action? if so, i'm forcing a willpower check on the @#~¤$%*!!"

"can i have a live goat and 5lbs of gunpowder? i've got a plan."

*giggles, turning into my apparently very joker-like laugh*

"ok, i've got a new character concept: the character will handle like a cross between the joker and bugs bunny."

"i can't handle this level of scheming while i'm sober."

"ok, first, we'll need to steal a ship..."

"how dead does that thing need to be to solve the plot? i hope the answer is "very", because i'm angry at it."

"guys, i think i broke the dm again..."

"do i have "hatred: plot" or do i need to destroy it more before i unlock it?"

*happy dance* "i'm gonna enjoy this!"

things vn's player said that any who dm'd for him dread to hear:

"i'm sorry, i'm too stoned to listen, what did you guys say?"

"look, it's not necrophilia if it's just the head we're talking about."

"uh, what am i supposed to roll again?" (spoiler: not a doobie, dingus!)

things vb has said that chilled even me:

"i bathe in victim juice and burst into interpretive dance. does the crowd love me yet?"

"i eat the scout's shoe to piss him off."

"what does a human of my size and weight deal in terms of damage? uh-huh, and when throwing myself off a building? interesting."

"it's not murder, officer! i gave him aspirin!"

things korinn's player has said that actually cancelled a story arc and/ or caused grievous mental injury to the dm:

"i can legit dominate dragons, so we have the means to carpet bomb the town."

"if we apply physics, i hit with a force of 6 kilotons. bare-handed."

"nope." (while forcing a reroll on yet another of the dm's nat 20's...)

"hahaha, that's funny. but..."

"look, the rules say..."

"i'm too tired for this crap. i'll let guizonde handle it."

King of Nowhere
2019-04-19, 10:01 PM
Do you have a citation or math to back that up? This goes against my instincts and some experiments I've done in various physics models, though it's possible the models were imperfect. I ahve not done the math to prove it, but my simulation-based experience suggests to me that you can gain speed relative to the body around which you're slingshotting, leaving its gravity well with greater speed relative to it than you entered.
I don't have a mathematical model, but when a spacecraft makes a turn around a planet, it's basically as if it were bouncing against it, as if the planet was a giant baseball bat.
Now, imagine a very fast ball and a very slow baseball bat; the ball would bounce off the bat, it would change direction (which wouldn't happen significantly with a spacecraft because a star doesn't have enough gravity to retain something ftl) but it would not get faster. It's fundamentally an elastic collision, and that math is workable.

Gravity doesn't apply a uniform acceleration on everything. The force of gravity is F = -GmM/r2, which notably has a distance term. For actual objects that aren't points r is not constant, and thus the force of gravity varies. The difference in these forces of gravity acts to stretch an object, and are known as tidal forces (the point approximation being F = 2GmM/r3). Most of the time these forces are negligible and can be ignored, but around the time you're talking about FTL slingshotting out of black holes? Not so much.
Yes, and I did specify exactly that in the last two lines of my post.

Lord Torath
2019-04-20, 08:25 AM
When sling-shotting around a planet, your initial and final speeds are the same (assuming you're not using thrust for anything but attitude control). Your potential energy as you enter its sphere of influence is converted to kinetic energy as you approach perigee (point of closest approach and maximum speed) and then back into potential energy as you leave. The only thing you get from a slingshot is a change in direction relative to the planet you're sling-shotting around.

Now if that planet is moving relative to the sun, you can actually gain or lose a bit of speed relative to the sun (depending on which direction you go around the planet). But as King of Nowhere said, the velocity of a planet relative to the sun is very slow compared to the speed of light (generally - depends on the sun and the planet), so the boost to speed you will get relative to the sun is negligible. It'd be sort of like standing in an airlock and physically throwing rocks out the back of your spaceship. With your arm. Yes, each rock you throw is technically accelerating your ship, but it's not going to be noticeable (unless you have a really light, slow ship).

John Campbell
2019-04-24, 06:15 PM
To be fair, THAC0 is a pretty ridiculous system.

THAC0 is exactly like BAB, except you subtract the d20 roll instead of adding it.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-04-24, 08:18 PM
When sling-shotting around a planet, your initial and final speeds are the same (assuming you're not using thrust for anything but attitude control). Your potential energy as you enter its sphere of influence is converted to kinetic energy as you approach perigee (point of closest approach and maximum speed) and then back into potential energy as you leave. The only thing you get from a slingshot is a change in direction relative to the planet you're sling-shotting around.

Now if that planet is moving relative to the sun, you can actually gain or lose a bit of speed relative to the sun (depending on which direction you go around the planet). But as King of Nowhere said, the velocity of a planet relative to the sun is very slow compared to the speed of light (generally - depends on the sun and the planet), so the boost to speed you will get relative to the sun is negligible. It'd be sort of like standing in an airlock and physically throwing rocks out the back of your spaceship. With your arm. Yes, each rock you throw is technically accelerating your ship, but it's not going to be noticeable (unless you have a really light, slow ship).

The one weirdness is that you can convert the planet's angular momentum (around it's own axis and around the sun) into linear momentum for yourself. This is how a pair of dancers can spin and then fling one person out at high speed. Effectively, you slow down the planet's rotation a smidge and boost yourself. Or slow yourself down by doing it in reverse. Have to hit it just right, but we do it all the time to get to the outer planets. We can't launch one going fast enough, and the probes can't carry that much delta-V. So they take the long way, using planets as speed boosts. Sure, it's not much relative to light speed, but then again, not much is. Voyager 2 more than doubled its speed several times--first around Jupiter, then Saturn, with smaller boosts at Uranus and Neptune.

CF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist

Knaight
2019-04-24, 11:32 PM
THAC0 is exactly like BAB, except you subtract the d20 roll instead of adding it.

Which can get weird in terms of bonuses (e.g. +X armor actually reducing a number).

Lord Torath
2019-04-25, 07:40 AM
When sling-shotting around a planet, your initial and final speeds are the same (assuming you're not using thrust for anything but attitude control). Your potential energy as you enter its sphere of influence is converted to kinetic energy as you approach perigee (point of closest approach and maximum speed) and then back into potential energy as you leave. The only thing you get from a slingshot is a change in direction relative to the planet you're sling-shotting around.

Now if that planet is moving relative to the sun, you can actually gain or lose a bit of speed relative to the sun (depending on which direction you go around the planet). But as King of Nowhere said, the velocity of a planet relative to the sun is very slow compared to the speed of light (generally - depends on the sun and the planet), so the boost to speed you will get relative to the sun is negligible. It'd be sort of like standing in an airlock and physically throwing rocks out the back of your spaceship. With your arm. Yes, each rock you throw is technically accelerating your ship, but it's not going to be noticeable (unless you have a really light, slow ship).
The one weirdness is that you can convert the planet's angular momentum (around it's own axis and around the sun) into linear momentum for yourself. This is how a pair of dancers can spin and then fling one person out at high speed. Effectively, you slow down the planet's rotation a smidge and boost yourself. Or slow yourself down by doing it in reverse. Have to hit it just right, but we do it all the time to get to the outer planets. We can't launch one going fast enough, and the probes can't carry that much delta-V. So they take the long way, using planets as speed boosts. Sure, it's not much relative to light speed, but then again, not much is. Voyager 2 more than doubled its speed several times--first around Jupiter, then Saturn, with smaller boosts at Uranus and Neptune.

CF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assistQuite right. My second paragraph mentioned that, but dismissed it as negligible - which it is when you're talking about FTL speeds. I could have been more clear. Thanks for clarifying!

Malphegor
2019-04-25, 09:04 AM
"How many blast discs can we fit inside its mouth, while it sleeps?"

Cygnia
2019-04-25, 09:06 AM
"You DID read my character's 86 page background, right?"

Saintheart
2019-04-25, 09:46 PM
"Can I borrow someone's calculator for a minute?"

malachi
2019-04-26, 07:55 AM
"Does he have any drugs?"

"Oh, it's my turn? I think I'll... hold on, need a bathroom break."

*silence*

After describing something spooky that was only supposed to matter for atmospheric purposes: "I go to investigate." *spends 2 hours messing around in the one-shot*

Lacco
2019-04-26, 08:21 AM
Few days ago: "My girlfriend (who can be easily described as clingy, needy and anti-social) does not understand RPGs, or why I waste my time with them instead of being with her, asked me if I have to stop playing them if my character dies... isn't she hilarious?"
Today: "She wants to try RPGs and came with this idea for invisible ninja-assassin. Lacco, can she play with us?"

===
Context: Weekend gaming at remote weekend cottage. No wifi, no signal, no shops, no nothing.
We all agreed upon playing a medieval fantasy RPG for the whole weekend.

P1: I forgot my character sheet, but I mailed a copy to you before we left.
P2: I brought my bag full of airsoft guns, let's try them out!
P3: And I brought my mechwarrior game!
P4: Can we play Shadowrun instead? I don't have my character sheet for that, but...

NRSASD
2019-04-26, 09:35 AM
Few days ago: "My girlfriend (who can be easily described as clingy, needy and anti-social) does not understand RPGs, or why I waste my time with them instead of being with her, asked me if I have to stop playing them if my character dies... isn't she hilarious?"
Today: "She wants to try RPGs and came with this idea for invisible ninja-assassin. Lacco, can she play with us?"

===
Context: Weekend gaming at remote weekend cottage. No wifi, no signal, no shops, no nothing.
We all agreed upon playing a medieval fantasy RPG for the whole weekend.

P1: I forgot my character sheet, but I mailed a copy to you before we left.
P2: I brought my bag full of airsoft guns, let's try them out!
P3: And I brought my mechwarrior game!
P4: Can we play Shadowrun instead? I don't have my character sheet for that, but...

Blech. That sounds decidedly unfun.

John Campbell
2019-04-26, 04:44 PM
Which can get weird in terms of bonuses (e.g. +X armor actually reducing a number).

Yeah, I'm not going to say that having lower AC be better was a good plan - I remember everyone I introduced to the game ever being confused by that. But I get really sick of people pretending that THAC0 was some arcane mystery beyond the ken of mortal man. It's subtracting a number between 1 and 20 from another number between 1 and 20. This is not rocket surgery. I was playing with it when I was 8.

It was actually way easier in play than 3.5, because AD&D didn't have anywhere near as many situational modifiers that got piled on top of the base numbers to keep track of and apply on the fly. It was basically just base THAC0, applicable Str/Dex modifier, and any magic weapon bonus, and you precalculated that and wrote it on the character sheet by the weapon, and 95% of the time, that was the number you used. There wasn't any of this, "Oh, this is my third iterative attack, so it's at -10, and I'm using Rapid Shot, so that's a -2, but I'm within 30', so +1 from Point Blank Shot, and it's my favored enemy, so that's another +4..."

PastorofMuppets
2019-04-27, 08:04 AM
“ I have an idea and it will either be brilliant or kill us all”

How can I make _____ from movie/anime in this system?

So this mayoral election coming up, how hard would it be for our bard to win it? We have plenty of money and violence to motivate the voters.

I’m going to take Swashbucker as my rogue type.

Bohandas
2019-05-04, 10:47 AM
Not that the advice is unappreciated, but the closest I'll ever get to AD&D is Baldur's Gate, and that game makes calculations for you. XD

You still need to understand what your stats mean thougn


"if we apply physics, i hit with a force of 6 kilotons. bare-handed."

As in 13440000 pounds of force or as in the equivalent of 6 kilotons of TNT?


also, pretty much EVERY TIME I say roll a (Insert stat here) throw the conversation goes like this...
Player:Ok so what stat is that.
Me:points to character sheet, points out relevant stat. (for example Dex 12)
Player: Rolls a D12
Me:No, roll a D20.
Player: But my sheet says 12!
Me:That's your score
Player:Rolls D20 (for example rolls a 15)
Player: I got a 27!
Me:are you sure?
Player:Yes!
Me: Looks at dice: No. You got a 16
Player: But I added my score!
Me: You don't add the score! You add the modifier!
Player: What's the modifier?
Me: Groans, points at the number.

BOOM! half the session has gone
ON ONE TURN!

The thing is, this happened more than once, with THE SAME GROUP! WITH THE SAME PERSON!

To be fair, the modifier system is almost as stupid as THAC0. They should had the modifier be exactly one half your score and made all the DCs 5 points higher.

Knaight
2019-05-04, 12:50 PM
To be fair, the modifier system is almost as stupid as THAC0. They should had the modifier be exactly one half your score and made all the DCs 5 points higher.

Or they could just adopt the industry standard of having a score you directly use instead of the score being a statistic used to derive the modifier which is what's actually rolled. Everything about that smacks of inelegant design.

Guizonde
2019-05-04, 12:58 PM
As in 13440000 pounds of force or as in the equivalent of 6 kilotons of TNT?


probably kilograms of force, the pc in question was some kind of warforged behemoth that could go at about 150kph on a charge and weighed in at around 4.5 metric tons. he sank a galleon by throwing my locomotive on it. it was that kind of game. speaking of which, directly in reference to that game:

"wait, do you really mean no restrictions? at all? *giggles*"

"well, it was supposed to be a hypothetical build, but what the hell, i'll play it!"

and finally mine:

me:"i want to play the easter bunny that throws bombs at people instead of chocolate eggs!"
dm: *blank stare*
another player: i've got you covered on the giant rabbit.
the player of the above behemoth: done deal on the bombs. do you want them in carpet-bomb flavor or atomic-yield flavor?
me: yes, please.
dm: *1,000 yard stare*

Cygnia
2019-05-04, 01:19 PM
"Um, can someone make my sheet for me? I forgot to do it..."

Knaight
2019-05-04, 01:59 PM
probably kilograms of force, the pc in question was some kind of warforged behemoth that could go at about 150kph on a charge and weighed in at around 4.5 metric tons. he sank a galleon by throwing my locomotive on it. it was that kind of game. speaking of which, directly in reference to that game:

What exactly do you mean by kilograms of force? Kilograms aren't a force unit at all, and if you're going to use them as a force unit that usually means treating them as 10 N, at which point the "kilograms of force" is hitting someone with 60 N. Actual real world boxers can throw 5000 N punches pretty reliably, and they aren't 4500 kg or moving 150 km/hr.

This suggests that 6 kilotons refers to kilotons of TNT. At that point force absolutely has to be used metaphorically, as kilotons of TNT is an energy unit.

Absol197
2019-05-04, 02:28 PM
"I think it will be fun to play a pacificst"

I'm actually playing a pacifist character right now (I even describe her as a "pathological pacifist" as her extreme empathy makes her feel the pain if every creature nearby, so she's basically incapable of hurting anything). The GM loves the character.

However, there are some important caveats: it's a solo game, so her pacifism doesn't interfere with the rest of a group, and the difficulties of a person dedicated to peace in a world filled with violence and conflict (Star Wars game) are part of the theme of the game.

Basically, what I'm getting at is that pacifist characters work... when the GM is running a game for the characters instead of a character- agnostic plot, and the GM and player(s) collaborate on making it work.

...so yeah, most groups probably don't want to hear that particular line :smallbiggrin: .

1Pirate
2019-05-04, 03:15 PM
"The SORCERER KING, most powerful build ever!"

Frozen_Feet
2019-05-04, 04:32 PM
What exactly do you mean by kilograms of force? Kilograms aren't a force unit at all, and if you're going to use them as a force unit that usually means treating them as 10 N, at which point the "kilograms of force" is hitting someone with 60 N. Actual real world boxers can throw 5000 N punches pretty reliably, and they aren't 4500 kg or moving 150 km/hr.


As kiloton can be interpreted as "thousand thousands", "six kilotons of force" can be fairly straightforwardly interpreted as 6000 kilo-Newtons.

RedMage125
2019-05-04, 06:08 PM
"The SORCERER KING, most powerful build ever!"

I'm not a violent person, but I might ACTUALLY yeet somebody into traffic for that.

Quertus
2019-05-05, 12:38 AM
To be fair, the modifier system is almost as stupid as THAC0. They should had the modifier be exactly one half your score and made all the DCs 5 points higher.


Or they could just adopt the industry standard of having a score you directly use instead of the score being a statistic used to derive the modifier which is what's actually rolled. Everything about that smacks of inelegant design.

This could possibly be it's own theory-crafting thread.

IMO, just as "+x to Y" is boring, so, too, is the modern "use your modifier your stat" boring. Elegant? Sure. But this modern focus on sterile elegance has made for less viscerally satisfying games. Rolling those 3d6, and getting an 18 for Strength? Then rolling percentiles, and getting a "99"? I remember that. But these modern systems? Something's missing. Something red.I doubt anyone else even remembers that scene

Lord Torath
2019-05-05, 07:43 AM
What exactly do you mean by kilograms of force? Kilograms aren't a force unit at all, and if you're going to use them as a force unit that usually means treating them as 10 N, at which point the "kilograms of force" is hitting someone with 60 N. Actual real world boxers can throw 5000 N punches pretty reliably, and they aren't 4500 kg or moving 150 km/hr.Sadly, I have just had a customer in the middle east reject a piece of equipment because the label we provided listed the operating load in pounds-force and kilonewtons. They will not accept the equipment until we change the units to kilograms-force. I died a little inside when I heard that. :smalleek::smallmad::smallfrown:

Agent-KI7KO
2019-05-05, 08:02 AM
Due to picking up a new flaw where my Interdimensional Scholarly Bard has seen so much **** that she believes everything at face value, my latest DM has banned a changeling party member from impersonating me ever again.

He went AFK to get groceries and came back to 90 minutes of weirdness in the chat, my bard suffering from existential crisis of being told she is a fake, and the other party members just too horrified to do anything.

Frozen_Feet
2019-05-05, 08:16 AM
Sadly, I have just had a customer in the middle east reject a piece of equipment because the label we provided listed the operating load in pounds-force and kilonewtons. They will not accept the equipment until we change the units to kilograms-force. I died a little inside when I heard that. :smalleek::smallmad::smallfrown:

That's silly, since you can get "kilograms of force" by just multiplying kilonewtons by 100. (Since 1 kg under Earth gravity = ~10 N and 1 kN = 1000 N) Hardly the most annoying unit conversion to do in your head, nowhere near the obnoxiousness of meters-to-feet or pounds-to-kilograms or miles-to-kilometers.

Guizonde
2019-05-05, 09:30 AM
What exactly do you mean by kilograms of force? Kilograms aren't a force unit at all, and if you're going to use them as a force unit that usually means treating them as 10 N, at which point the "kilograms of force" is hitting someone with 60 N. Actual real world boxers can throw 5000 N punches pretty reliably, and they aren't 4500 kg or moving 150 km/hr.

This suggests that 6 kilotons refers to kilotons of TNT. At that point force absolutely has to be used metaphorically, as kilotons of TNT is an energy unit.

i would ask the guy in question if i could, but instead i'll just go out on a limb and go with tnt. i meant to say something else, but hey, don't blame me, i suck at physics. for me "force" "power" and "energy" are interchangeable terms, and we took it to mean it figuratively anyway. he's the only sciencey one of the group, the rest of us are all social science alumni. we're talking about a character that threw a locomotive, we're already breaking physics pretty badly just by stating that. for a pathfinder game, he basically punched with the effect of a disintegration spell with no save against pretty much any target.

The Kool
2019-05-06, 07:24 AM
That's silly, since you can get "kilograms of force" by just multiplying kilonewtons by 100. (Since 1 kg under Earth gravity = ~10 N and 1 kN = 1000 N) Hardly the most annoying unit conversion to do in your head, nowhere near the obnoxiousness of meters-to-feet or pounds-to-kilograms or miles-to-kilometers.

Easy to derive, yes. I would personally die a little inside for someone bastardizing the beautiful metric system like that, because 'kilograms-force' and 'pounds-force' are approximations based on assumptions... not actually fixed definitions.

hotflungwok
2019-05-06, 08:51 AM
"RED HERRING! It's the RED HERRING! We have to go after the RED HERRING right now! Everyone let's go get the RED HERRING!"
"What about OBVIOUS PLOT HOOK?"
"No, that's probably just a red herring. RED HERRING is what we really need to do, it's way more important. Let's go!"
"Yeah, RED HERRING! I've had my eye on that RED HERRING for a while now, let's take it down!"
"I've always suspected it was really the RED HERRING all along. I'm heading toward the RED HERRING."
"Me too!"
"All of us are going after the RED HERRING."
Sigh.

The Jack
2019-05-06, 09:24 AM
But sometimes the Red Herring is way more interesting than the plot hook, and what would their characters do? Eh?

Segev
2019-05-06, 10:23 AM
"RED HERRING! It's the RED HERRING! We have to go after the RED HERRING right now! Everyone let's go get the RED HERRING!"
"What about OBVIOUS PLOT HOOK?"
"No, that's probably just a red herring. RED HERRING is what we really need to do, it's way more important. Let's go!"
"Yeah, RED HERRING! I've had my eye on that RED HERRING for a while now, let's take it down!"
"I've always suspected it was really the RED HERRING all along. I'm heading toward the RED HERRING."
"Me too!"
"All of us are going after the RED HERRING."
Sigh.

Ironically, this is one of the rare situations where I think playing with Quantum Ogres might be acceptable. Ideally, the RED HERRING will actually have something interesting in its own right going on, but if the players are making a largely-uninformed decision, repurposing stuff the DM has already made to work with the RED HERRING is useful.

Still, be very careful with this technique, because "any choice the PCs make is the right one" is no less agency-destroying than "any choice the PCs make is the wrong one." Especially if the "right" choice in this case takes them after something they weren't interested in, and you're warping the more interesting-sounding RED HERRING into something they didn't want.

Judgment calls, here.

Cikomyr
2019-05-06, 11:48 AM
Ironically, this is one of the rare situations where I think playing with Quantum Ogres might be acceptable. Ideally, the RED HERRING will actually have something interesting in its own right going on, but if the players are making a largely-uninformed decision, repurposing stuff the DM has already made to work with the RED HERRING is useful.

Still, be very careful with this technique, because "any choice the PCs make is the right one" is no less agency-destroying than "any choice the PCs make is the wrong one." Especially if the "right" choice in this case takes them after something they weren't interested in, and you're warping the more interesting-sounding RED HERRING into something they didn't want.

Judgment calls, here.

If my players worked, schemed, had a great time and struggled to get to the RED HERRING, then they deserve the reward of being right.

If they just casually picked one, and it turns out its the wrong pick, then they picked a real red herring.

It's all about fun and sacrifice in the end.

Resileaf
2019-05-06, 12:13 PM
If my players worked, schemed, had a great time and struggled to get to the RED HERRING, then they deserve the reward of being right.

If they just casually picked one, and it turns out its the wrong pick, then they picked a real red herring.

It's all about fun and sacrifice in the end.

At the very least, you can have the red herring become a step to the real villain. Something like "He was there to distract you from [obvious plot hook] so you wouldn't suspect the real villain."

Guizonde
2019-05-06, 02:57 PM
"hey guys, i've got a *completely nsfw* character concept, think it'll fit in?"

"my new character is called grimdark the unforgiving. we're still playing besm, right?"
(partly inspired by my group, who rolled up thomas the tank (warforged destroyer of worlds), blooddrake the half-fiend vampire, cruor the cannibal barbarian, cerberus the werewolf, and my very own grandpapy bunny, duke of easter-rhine, lord of caerbannog. to be fair, he was an arms merchant)

the very worst thing a player can say, though is:

"i find the story boring."

Cikomyr
2019-05-06, 08:49 PM
Me(finally revealing the main crux of the entire campaign) : "and the pirates have systematically attacked human trade lanes, giving an enormous advantage to the elf traders. This is causing a lot of economical and sociological hardship in Marienburg"

Players: "hey! I have an idea! Let's design the first steam ship to give human trade ships an advantage!!"

And so the story turned from a prospective pirate - hunting storyline to one about securing funding to the shipwrights, and hiring a Dwarven engineer to design the steam engine.

Craziest turn of story I ever lived through.

The Jack
2019-05-07, 11:53 AM
I might be an especial problem because I massively prefer to be instigating things and I don't like to go meta and assume the player'll give us a sequence of balanced encounters. I'll make railroad friendly characters, but generally my experience with GMs is that they're not good at motivating players/characters to go along the path they desire and generally overestimate how rigid their story needs to be.

Sometimes, following the story just seems like a bad idea for our party; The risk/reward doesn't seem right, none of our characters have a vested interest in X, we see a fantastic opertunity the GM didn't plan for, We don't trust the questgiver and want to kill him (This one happens far too much, and 2/3 times the GM was playing the dude straight too)

GM's need to go loosey-goosey with their storylines. It needs breathing room and there should never be a -one true way- to do things. You need to be prepared for the players to say 'bugger that' and work out fresh hooks to get back on track when they're done with their excursion.

The Kool
2019-05-07, 05:16 PM
GM's need to go loosey-goosey with their storylines. It needs breathing room and there should never be a -one true way- to do things. You need to be prepared for the players to say 'bugger that' and work out fresh hooks to get back on track when they're done with their excursion.

I've been working on this for years. It's actually quite challenging, but I've figured out how to explain it too.

ExplodingRat
2019-05-07, 11:35 PM
"I roll to pickpocket."
-The chaotic neutral rogue, for the 15th time.

Guizonde
2019-05-08, 03:52 AM
"I roll to pickpocket."
-The chaotic neutral rogue magpie, for the 15th time.

fixed that for you. boy are they annoying. i much prefer looters and thieves over magpies. at least they get caught less often to less disastrous unwanted chase sequences.

Malphegor
2019-05-08, 05:54 AM
"I am <X position of nobility that apparently doesn't matter if I'm away from my nondescript estate for many years of adventuring>".

I get it, you want to be king arthur, you wanna be a magical space princess whose father is Darth Vader, you want to be someone with power who already has a place in the world, but it kinda... breaks any and all immersion to have that stuff from the getgo as a preestablished character choice, since it leads to questions like 'how are those positions working if you're not there doing the duties required of those positions' 'what exactly does Lord of the Cheddar actually mean' and 'why are you even adventuring if you're so well esteemed with some rich somebodies?'

It can be done well, but I've always felt a backstory of 'well um I graduated Wizzard school and am currently on gap year" or "I am a sell sword. you guys bought my sword's services", or even "I touched a tomb, and the spirit within liked me, the taste of my soul's chap stick", are nice, simple backstories that gain depth through play, rather than start off with depth that the DM has to wrangle into an already confusing world.

Like, be a murder hobo and get a home, not start off with a home and then become a murder hobo because tropes of the genre.

edit: part of this is sour grapes because I tend to start with simple characters when I'm a player but people I know try to be really rich and nuanced from the start- it's a marathon, not a sprint, guys.

Quertus
2019-05-08, 06:40 AM
"I am <X position of nobility that apparently doesn't matter if I'm away from my nondescript estate for many years of adventuring>".

I get it, you want to be king arthur, you wanna be a magical space princess whose father is Darth Vader, you want to be someone with power who already has a place in the world, but it kinda... breaks any and all immersion to have that stuff from the getgo as a preestablished character choice, since it leads to questions like 'how are those positions working if you're not there doing the duties required of those positions' 'what exactly does Lord of the Cheddar actually mean' and 'why are you even adventuring if you're so well esteemed with some rich somebodies?'

It can be done well, but I've always felt a backstory of 'well um I graduated Wizzard school and am currently on gap year" or "I am a sell sword. you guys bought my sword's services", or even "I touched a tomb, and the spirit within liked me, the taste of my soul's chap stick", are nice, simple backstories that gain depth through play, rather than start off with depth that the DM has to wrangle into an already confusing world.

Like, be a murder hobo and get a home, not start off with a home and then become a murder hobo because tropes of the genre.

edit: part of this is sour grapes because I tend to start with simple characters when I'm a player but people I know try to be really rich and nuanced from the start- it's a marathon, not a sprint, guys.

It's only a marathon if it lasts long enough. Many games fall apart before attaining marathon status. Which has led me to hate the "zero to hero" path - **** starting out at zero, I want to start as King, or, better yet, as a god.

However, I have a perfectly reasonable explanation why a "Lord" would be out adventuring - much like in Corpse Bride, they have the status, but lack the corresponding wealth. Adventuring is to pay the bills. As to their day job, well, "The Lord is away on a hunting trip" is something many of my characters have heard before.

Also, Robin Hood is kinda a D&D archetypical character concept…

The Kool
2019-05-08, 07:34 AM
"I am <X position of nobility that apparently doesn't matter if I'm away from my nondescript estate for many years of adventuring>".


I am Richard, Chief Warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, Lord of the Thirteen Hells, Master of the Bones, Emperor of the Black, Lord of the Undead,

and the mayor of a little village up the coast.

*Hands over travel brochure* Very scenic during springtime. You should visit sometime.

If you've read the comic, this is a beautiful example of how it can be done well. That was page 3. If you haven't read it, I recommend you do so.

Brookshw
2019-05-08, 08:28 AM
That's silly, since you can get "kilograms of force" by just multiplying kilonewtons by 100. (Since 1 kg under Earth gravity = ~10 N and 1 kN = 1000 N)

Discussions of realworld physics in a fantasy setting are right up there on my list of things I don't want to hear.

The Kool
2019-05-08, 08:34 AM
Discussions of realworld physics in a fantasy setting are right up there on my list of things I don't want to hear.

But that's how we figured out that my player could kill a man just by standing on his chest and jumping! Not landing, mind you. The jumping itself created enough force to kill him. Once we noticed how heavy the character was, and how high he could jump straight up from standing still, we had to do the math.

Dire Moose
2019-05-08, 11:09 AM
These are all real-life examples:

“Can I be a weretiger? There’s a way to play one that’s balanced in this game.”

“Can we get firearms in this game?”

Player: Can I play a Warlock?
Me: Ok, as long as it isn’t broken.
(some time later, note that this is not an Evil campaign)
Player: My class requires me to worship a Demon Lord.

“I’d like to play (insert character class that requires there be an organized group of other members of this class in the campaign world that I obviously didn’t include).”

“I’m playing a 400-pound transgender halfling named Mort Periwinkle II.”

Player: I’m from Narnia, and I’m trying to get back.
Me: Narnia doesn’t exist in this universe.
Player: Well, right, it’s another universe on the other side of the wardrobe.
Me: No, there is no Narnia in this world at all. Your character can’t be from Narnia.
Player: Ok, maybe he just THINKS he’s from Narnia.
Me: There is no concept of Narnia in this universe. It doesn’t exist.
Other Player: He’s willing to play that character; why can’t you just let him?

Me: Tell me about your character.
Player: Well, I had a bet going with the koalas, and I had this camel air-dropped to me from the desert...

Me: How does Friday sound for the game?
Player: I can make it then.
(a few days later)
Me: You’re coming on Friday, right?
Player: Friday? Ummm... I gotta work.

(while at a banquet at a nobleman’s castle)
“I light a table on fire with my Everburning Torch.”

jindra34
2019-05-08, 11:25 AM
But that's how we figured out that my player could kill a man just by standing on his chest and jumping! Not landing, mind you. The jumping itself created enough force to kill him. Once we noticed how heavy the character was, and how high he could jump straight up from standing still, we had to do the math.

See this is generally why GM's get nervous about people physicsing in games. Because maybe the variables aren't what we know them as.

RedMage125
2019-05-08, 11:34 AM
See this is generally why GM's get nervous about people physicsing in games. Because maybe the variables aren't what we know them as.

Reminds of a meme I can't find right now to share, but the caption was "Why you shouldn't let engineers play D&D", and it was an arrow rigged with a little cage holding open a Bag of Holding (mostly folded, open just slightly), with a folded up portable hole in front of it, with a safety to keep them from touching. When fired at a target (one would only need to touch it), the portable hole gets pushed into the bag of holding. Instant Kill or banishment for anything it hits.

The Jack
2019-05-09, 10:05 AM
These are all real-life examples:

“Can I be a weretiger? There’s a way to play one that’s balanced in this game.”

“Can we get firearms in this game?”


Player: I’m from Narnia, and I’m trying to get back.
Me: Narnia doesn’t exist in this universe.
Player: Well, right, it’s another universe on the other side of the wardrobe.
Me: No, there is no Narnia in this world at all. Your character can’t be from Narnia.
Player: Ok, maybe he just THINKS he’s from Narnia.
Me: There is no concept of Narnia in this universe. It doesn’t exist.
Other Player: He’s willing to play that character; why can’t you just let him?



This is stuff you should accommodate and make compromises on. Unless you're with a first time player, there's good ways to do everything here.



Player: Can I play a Warlock?
Me: Ok, as long as it isn’t broken.
(some time later, note that this is not an Evil campaign)
Player: My class requires me to worship a Demon Lord.
Did you reason with them that it doesn't? There's no lawfully enforced power dynamic between warlock and patron. A cunning warlock could've forced a demon into a deal.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-05-09, 10:36 AM
This is stuff you should accommodate and make compromises on. Unless you're with a first time player, there's good ways to do everything here.


Did you reason with them that it doesn't? There's no lawfully enforced power dynamic between warlock and patron. A cunning warlock could've forced a demon into a deal.

1. Only if playing an insane character is an option. Setting consistency is something some of us care about; wacky hijinks don't fit all campaigns. And that has all the hallmarks of a wacky hijinks player.

2. No mortal, especially a starting character, can force a Demon Lord into a deal. Because Demon Lords only keep deals if they feel like them. Again, setting consistency is a thing.

Luccan
2019-05-09, 01:00 PM
This is stuff you should accommodate and make compromises on. Unless you're with a first time player, there's good ways to do everything here.

The Narnia thing is just a flat-out "no" if you aren't playing a game related to Narnia. It holds a huge implication if it is real and if you aren't playing on Earth post 1950s, they wouldn't have a concept of Narnia anyway. And even then, that still doesn't make such a character appropriate to the game. Similarly, a weretiger is not automatically appropriate to a game just because you could play a balanced one.

The Jack
2019-05-09, 01:19 PM
Look, I'm as big of a setting-nazi as anyone, but I could work with any of those issues

(I've assumed the player wasn't literally asking for C.S lewis's Narnia but rather some analogue, and I'd guide the player into that thought if they were too close. I was thinking along the lines of 'delusion' for a Narnia equivelent, and would've settled for -An existing plane in the setting, such as the feywild, or something we could've came up together)

Guns; I always love myself some early black powder. If there's full plate there's probably powder. If the player insisted on something modern.. I'm sure I could convince them otherwise or fall back on magic.


Weretiger- If it wasn't appropriate for the setting; Delusions.



2. No mortal, especially a starting character, can force a Demon Lord into a deal. Because Demon Lords only keep deals if they feel like them. Again, setting consistency is a thing.
In Base DnD your warlock patrons are of typically of lesser rank than demon lords. Hags and lower celestials are fair game, so a demon lord is unnecessary overkill.

Binding demons to do your biding's a staple. Maybe I just read the right books as a kid (Bartimaeus was a swell read) but shifting power dynamics between mortals and the entities they strive to keep under control will always be more interesting than 'HAIL EVIL LORD BSNGAWJFGLAFGJ, I PRESENT TO YOU MY LOVE'

PhoenixPhyre
2019-05-09, 01:25 PM
Look, I'm as big of a setting-nazi as anyone, but I could work with any of those issues

(I've assumed the player wasn't literally asking for C.S lewis's Narnia but rather some analogue, and I'd guide the player into that thought if they were too close. I was thinking along the lines of 'delusion' for a Narnia equivelent, and would've settled for -An existing plane in the setting, such as the feywild, or something we could've came up together)

Guns; I always love myself some early black powder. If there's full plate there's probably powder. If the player insisted on something modern.. I'm sure I could convince them otherwise or fall back on magic.


Weretiger- If it wasn't appropriate for the setting; Delusions.


A lot of things depend on the setting. But Narnia is it's own thing. And saying you want to be from there is a hard no. I might negotiate something that has some similarities, but the setting comes first. And there's nothing even remotely similar in my setting.

Gunpowder and guns are a hard no as well. My setting has no such thing and will never have such a thing, no matter how advanced "technology" gets. Because modern science has no place there at all. There is no such thing as chemistry (as we know it) in my setting. No atoms, no molecules, no chemical reactions at all. There is only anima, with various (mostly-elemental) aspects.

Being delusional about being a weretiger is not a valid character, because weretigers are actual things and they can test for that. You don't get to be a Sanctioned Adventurer (a thing in my setting) if you're delusional about such things.



In Base DnD your warlock patrons are of typically of lesser rank than demon lords. Hags and lower celestials are fair game, so a demon lord is unnecessary overkill.

Binding demons to do your biding's a staple. Maybe I just read the right books as a kid (Bartimaeus was a swell read) but shifting power dynamics between mortals and the entities they strive to keep under control will always be more interesting than 'HAIL EVIL LORD BSNGAWJFGLAFGJ, I PRESENT TO YOU MY LOVE'

Sure, you can bind demons. But not as a level 1 character. And never a demon lord. Demons, particularly, don't keep promises. And the pact is between Patron (with more power) and warlock (with less/no power), not the reverse. If the warlock already has enough power to bind the patron, the patron can't help them at all, because they're already beyond them.

And pacts aren't about slavish devotion either. That's a cleric's role. It's about "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" or other case-by-case, quid pro quo "power for service", eyes-wide-open deals.

RedMage125
2019-05-09, 02:03 PM
And pacts aren't about slavish devotion either. That's a cleric's role. It's about "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" or other case-by-case, quid pro quo "power for service", eyes-wide-open deals.

Yes, this.

I have seen too many warlocks played like priests. In one game I was in recently, a GOO-lock would seriously go around asking if people were interested in hearing the "Good Word of Great Cthulhu" (not joking at all).

It makes no sense. Like you said, it's quid pro quo. Although, I do sometimes enjoy seeing that trope broken, as long as it still makes sense for the class. Had a guy back in 4e made a Fiend-lock. He was part of a cabal of Sehanine worshippers who bound a powerful archfiend in a ritual. Every participant in the ritual stole a fragment of the fiend's power (they were all fiend-lock's). So they went about adventuring, using that fiend's power for Good. As they gained in power (levelled up), they were siphoning off more and more of the fiend's power, thus weakening it. However, if they were to be killed, that warlock's share of power would return to the fiend, potentially giving it enough to break its bonds. So they all went into self-imposed exile from their home, trying to avoid each other, so the fiend's minions could not locate them as easily. It was a great take on a fiend-lock, and it gave me a plot hook for further down the line (i.e. enough of the PC's fellow locks were killed that the fiend has broken free, and is now coming for HIM, muahahahahaha).

Vulsutyr
2019-05-09, 02:44 PM
No I’m not paying that price; I’ll steal it later.

What’s the difference between Chaotic and Evil?

I should be proficient in that. My character would have read about it.

What do you mean, he didn’t give it to me for free? I rolled a 22 for persuasion!

Natural 20 on the Dex save! That means no damage right?

Knaight
2019-05-09, 04:21 PM
Look, I'm as big of a setting-nazi as anyone, but I could work with any of those issues.

Then your setting happens to accomodate them particularly well (not that "they're delusional and think they're this thing they aren't" is much of an accomodation). That a game system can technically support something is not an obligation for everyone who GMs with it to include it. Fortunately, I play mostly generic systems and so none of my players operate under that impression.

Bohandas
2019-05-10, 02:58 AM
Look, I'm as big of a setting-nazi as anyone, but I could work with any of those issues

(I've assumed the player wasn't literally asking for C.S lewis's Narnia but rather some analogue, and I'd guide the player into that thought if they were too close. I was thinking along the lines of 'delusion' for a Narnia equivelent, and would've settled for -An existing plane in the setting, such as the feywild, or something we could've came up together)

It could definitely be done with existing materials. IIRC the leader of the NG guardinal celestials is a knockoff of Aslan already

Malphegor
2019-05-10, 06:22 AM
It could definitely be done with existing materials. IIRC the leader of the NG guardinal celestials is a knockoff of Aslan already

If it helps, in Forgotten Realms there is a deity named Nobanion, who is a lion, amongst whose many names is Aslan, and apparently entered the Realms via magical interdimensional portal pools much like the portal pools in the Narnia books. Apparently he just turned up and went 'sure you can worship me if you want, I'm now one of your local pantheon why not', because that be how Aslan rolls, yo.

Cikomyr
2019-05-10, 06:49 AM
Sorry for barking back to a previously discussed topic, but couldn't you say that Feywild is the DnD equivalent of Narnia?

Liked, the secret magical world, home of fantastic creatures and people, that has its own parallel world and mythology, and where time is spent differently?

****, Narnia has a whole storyline about the symbolically struggle between Winter and Summer. Come on people.

Have the character originate from the Feywild and he got accidentally in the world. Make it hard to go back.

King of Nowhere
2019-05-10, 07:00 AM
Regarding pacts with demons, there are a variety of tropes there, but you don't have to accomodate them all.

In the story "children of the nameless" there is a demonologist that makes pacts with demons promising his soul in exchange for servitude. Then he finds ways to weasel out of the contracts. Since he's nice to the demons, they don't resent it too much.
That story would be a great ispiration if you want to be a warlok who tricked a demon into service

Cikomyr
2019-05-10, 07:10 AM
Regarding pacts with demons, there are a variety of tropes there, but you don't have to accomodate them all.

In the story "children of the nameless" there is a demonologist that makes pacts with demons promising his soul in exchange for servitude. Then he finds ways to weasel out of the contracts. Since he's nice to the demons, they don't resent it too much.
That story would be a great ispiration if you want to be a warlok who tricked a demon into service

Vampire the Masquerade's Montréal source book had the story of a guy who double-booked his soul to 2 Demons, and managed to get away Scott free because of the ownership dispute

Maybe not "Scott free". He was being actively hunted, but that still made a fun concept.

Segev
2019-05-10, 08:46 AM
The fundamental difference between warlocks and clerics in both 3e and 5e rests in the nature of the relationship between the power granted and the service of the character to the patron. Warlocks get power and have little dependency on the patron thereafter. Patrons therefore tend to give that power to people they think will either keep coming back to the well, or who they believe will naturally use it for ends of which the patron approves. There's also an implication that the warlock isn't consistently channeling the patron's power; he's been fundamentally altered by the patron.

On the other hand, there's also the suggestion that warlocks, even more than clerics, can be a focus of the attention of their patrons. Clerics have to pray to draw their deity's attention, and that's not guaranteed beyond the granting of the rote miniature miracles known as "spells" that they prepare. Warlocks are marked in a way that lets their patrons notice them, if the patron is the sort to do that. (Mechanically, there's no rules here; it's all about the fluff->narrative mechanics the warlock's player works out with the GM.) Other patrons don't even realize the warlock exists; the warlock just got tainted by the backwash of their presence or power (5e Great Old One warlocks have this as one openly-suggested possibility).

The nature of the relationship between warlock and patron is more nebulous, but therefore also more open to different stories.

So the player need not "enslave" a demon. He could have made a bargain with one, and is dreading the day he's called due. He could be planning to betray his patron when asked to pay up. He could have been tainted by a demon's touch when he was possessed once, and though the demon is gone, the residue of power remains. There are a number of ways to justify it without having to be outright loyaly beholden to a demonic force.

Cikomyr
2019-05-10, 09:24 AM
I think it was WebDM who proposed what I think is one of the most interesting potential take on Clerics:

What if not everyone can become a cleric? What if only certain gifted individuals can actually channel and reach the Deity's divine power?

Suddenly, those individuals who can channel divine power become a rare and precious commodity for Gods; since these individuals are the only ones through which they can influence the mortal world. A single Divine Channeler can perhaps be tempted and sought after by multiple deities, each want his services and the opportunity he represents.

In that sort of situation, being a cleric is less being a submissive servant to an extraplanar entity, and more about being a Herald of the entity of your choice.

RedMage125
2019-05-10, 09:30 AM
The fundamental difference between warlocks and clerics in both 3e and 5e rests in the nature of the relationship between the power granted and the service of the character to the patron. Warlocks get power and have little dependency on the patron thereafter. Patrons therefore tend to give that power to people they think will either keep coming back to the well, or who they believe will naturally use it for ends of which the patron approves. There's also an implication that the warlock isn't consistently channeling the patron's power; he's been fundamentally altered by the patron.

On the other hand, there's also the suggestion that warlocks, even more than clerics, can be a focus of the attention of their patrons. Clerics have to pray to draw their deity's attention, and that's not guaranteed beyond the granting of the rote miniature miracles known as "spells" that they prepare. Warlocks are marked in a way that lets their patrons notice them, if the patron is the sort to do that. (Mechanically, there's no rules here; it's all about the fluff->narrative mechanics the warlock's player works out with the GM.) Other patrons don't even realize the warlock exists; the warlock just got tainted by the backwash of their presence or power (5e Great Old One warlocks have this as one openly-suggested possibility).

The nature of the relationship between warlock and patron is more nebulous, but therefore also more open to different stories.

So the player need not "enslave" a demon. He could have made a bargain with one, and is dreading the day he's called due. He could be planning to betray his patron when asked to pay up. He could have been tainted by a demon's touch when he was possessed once, and though the demon is gone, the residue of power remains. There are a number of ways to justify it without having to be outright loyaly beholden to a demonic force.

This is also good.

Back in 3.5e (WAY before D&D introduced us to the concepts of "patrons" and "pacts" for warlocks, I had a 3.5e Warlock in Eberron (that still kind of used that concept), named Jherek. He was a child of the Aashta family of House Tharashk (human side). His parents, like many in the Shadow Marches, were part of a Cult of the Dragon Below. His conception was tainted through a ritual the cultists did, and the cultists believed him to be special to them. The magic they did twisted his heritage, so instead of manifesting the Mark of Finding, he manifested an Aberrant Dragonmark. And when he came of age, his warlock powers began to manifest, and his parents tried to bring him into the cult, who wasted no time in hailing him as their "dark messiah". Jherek was horrified. He wanted nothing to do with them, and so he fled east, becoming an adventurer. He was Chaotic Neutral (because warlocks had to be either Chaotic or Evil in 3.5e), not because of an apathy to Good, but because he believed he was already damned. His powers came from an infernal source, they were dark and terrifying, and even his dragonmark was something lethal and vicious. He tried to use those powers to fight evil as best he could, but never really focused any interest on helping people, because he believed that there was nothing he could do to save his soul, believing it had been tainted before his birth. His family was trying to find him, but they were also keeping the reason he ran away kind of hush-hush, because they didn't want to be outed as cultists.
We toyed with the idea that he was possessed by a dormant Rakshasa, that was basically getting stronger as he did, until it could leave him. It would have been kind of cool if we had gotten to explore that idea, as I had some meta-game notions of getting it exorcised by the CotSF, and then fighting it. Such a thing might have made him realize he could find redemption (now imagining a warlock whose Eldritch Blast looks like silver fire).
So yeah, kind of a tangent, but basically the character's parents were the ones who made the pact, and he received the benefits. I think in 5e terms, he would absolutely be a Fiend-Pact warlock. One who never made a deal with a fiend, or enslaved one, but rather was the product of an infernal compact that someone else made, trying to make a "dark messiah" and getting a strong-willed individual who rejects that path.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-05-10, 09:38 AM
I think it was WebDM who proposed what I think is one of the most interesting potential take on Clerics:

What if not everyone can become a cleric? What if only certain gifted individuals can actually channel and reach the Deity's divine power?

Suddenly, those individuals who can channel divine power become a rare and precious commodity for Gods; since these individuals are the only ones through which they can influence the mortal world. A single Divine Channeler can perhaps be tempted and sought after by multiple deities, each want his services and the opportunity he represents.

In that sort of situation, being a cleric is less being a submissive servant to an extraplanar entity, and more about being a Herald of the entity of your choice.

I do a combination--Clerics are chosen by a god, but not all mortals can be chosen as such.

Basically, most people don't have the talent to open spell slots without thousands of hours of meditation, training, and practice per slot, and the prevalence of this talent decreases exponentially for higher level spell slots. So while 10-15% can open a first level slot without too much difficulty, opening a 2nd level may only be practical for 6% and a 9th for 1 in a million. Untalented individuals can be gifted with powers, but they're more like daily SLAs/direct intervention. They can't shift them around, can't cast each one more than once per day, etc. So one of the major players in one nation is the High Priestess of Ytra, goddess of Justice. She has no weapon training, doesn't wear armor, can't cast most spells. But she has certain gifts by virtue of her position, including the authority to summon an avatar of Ytra. And unless you're a god yourself, anyone in the presence of Ytra's avatar cannot lie by commission or omission. Trying to force the issue is invariably and messily fatal. And yes, this bypasses/ignores even such effects as mind blank. The ritual to perform this summoning is long and arduous and so it is only invoked in the most dire of cases.

On the flip side, once you're a registered Cleric (registered with the Great Mechanism that handles power distribution throughout the universe), you have a limited drawing right on your own accord. Channel divinity and Divine Intervention (along with levels 4+ of spells) require sponsorship, however. It's very rare that even a disgraced cleric will be withdrawn from the register entirely--instead some other god will take up sponsorship.

And you might not even know that your sponsor has changed. There's a whole sub-faction with clerics who think they're worshiping the goddess of the hearth, home, and domesticity, but are really getting power from the god of trickery and practical jokes. Because their dogma (burn the heretic, kill the mutant, etc) doesn't mesh with her non-violent, peace-loving nature. But they are clerics, and clerics are a hot commodity.

Max_Killjoy
2019-05-10, 09:53 AM
The fundamental difference between warlocks and clerics in both 3e and 5e rests in the nature of the relationship between the power granted and the service of the character to the patron. Warlocks get power and have little dependency on the patron thereafter. Patrons therefore tend to give that power to people they think will either keep coming back to the well, or who they believe will naturally use it for ends of which the patron approves. There's also an implication that the warlock isn't consistently channeling the patron's power; he's been fundamentally altered by the patron.

On the other hand, there's also the suggestion that warlocks, even more than clerics, can be a focus of the attention of their patrons. Clerics have to pray to draw their deity's attention, and that's not guaranteed beyond the granting of the rote miniature miracles known as "spells" that they prepare. Warlocks are marked in a way that lets their patrons notice them, if the patron is the sort to do that. (Mechanically, there's no rules here; it's all about the fluff->narrative mechanics the warlock's player works out with the GM.) Other patrons don't even realize the warlock exists; the warlock just got tainted by the backwash of their presence or power (5e Great Old One warlocks have this as one openly-suggested possibility).

The nature of the relationship between warlock and patron is more nebulous, but therefore also more open to different stories.

So the player need not "enslave" a demon. He could have made a bargain with one, and is dreading the day he's called due. He could be planning to betray his patron when asked to pay up. He could have been tainted by a demon's touch when he was possessed once, and though the demon is gone, the residue of power remains. There are a number of ways to justify it without having to be outright loyaly beholden to a demonic force.

The 5e Warlock is very flexible, IMO. There's no need for an actual patron at all, despite the default fluff. The abilities could come simply from Things Not Meant To Be Known, or stolen power, or eldritch bloodlines, or bound spirits, or...

(Then again, Cleric can be flexible with the addition of drawing power from "philosophies" and "ideals" that enough people believe in to give metaphysical weight.)

Segev
2019-05-10, 10:02 AM
This is also good.

Back in 3.5e (WAY before D&D introduced us to the concepts of "patrons" and "pacts" for warlocks, I had a 3.5e Warlock in Eberron (that still kind of used that concept), named Jherek. He was a child of the Aashta family of House Tharashk (human side). His parents, like many in the Shadow Marches, were part of a Cult of the Dragon Below. His conception was tainted through a ritual the cultists did, and the cultists believed him to be special to them. The magic they did twisted his heritage, so instead of manifesting the Mark of Finding, he manifested an Aberrant Dragonmark. And when he came of age, his warlock powers began to manifest, and his parents tried to bring him into the cult, who wasted no time in hailing him as their "dark messiah". Jherek was horrified. He wanted nothing to do with them, and so he fled east, becoming an adventurer. He was Chaotic Neutral (because warlocks had to be either Chaotic or Evil in 3.5e), not because of an apathy to Good, but because he believed he was already damned. His powers came from an infernal source, they were dark and terrifying, and even his dragonmark was something lethal and vicious. He tried to use those powers to fight evil as best he could, but never really focused any interest on helping people, because he believed that there was nothing he could do to save his soul, believing it had been tainted before his birth. His family was trying to find him, but they were also keeping the reason he ran away kind of hush-hush, because they didn't want to be outed as cultists.
We toyed with the idea that he was possessed by a dormant Rakshasa, that was basically getting stronger as he did, until it could leave him. It would have been kind of cool if we had gotten to explore that idea, as I had some meta-game notions of getting it exorcised by the CotSF, and then fighting it. Such a thing might have made him realize he could find redemption (now imagining a warlock whose Eldritch Blast looks like silver fire).
So yeah, kind of a tangent, but basically the character's parents were the ones who made the pact, and he received the benefits. I think in 5e terms, he would absolutely be a Fiend-Pact warlock. One who never made a deal with a fiend, or enslaved one, but rather was the product of an infernal compact that someone else made, trying to make a "dark messiah" and getting a strong-willed individual who rejects that path.Yep, that's a pretty classic 3.5e "non-evil" Warlock, honestly. Nice backstory! Works in 5e, too, as you noted.


The 5e Warlock is very flexible, IMO. There's no need for an actual patron at all, despite the default fluff. The abilities could come simply from Things Not Meant To Be Known, or stolen power, or eldritch bloodlines, or bound spirits, or...

(Then again, Cleric can be flexible with the addition of drawing power from "philosophies" and "ideals" that enough people believe in to give metaphysical weight.)Heck, the Hexblade "Patron" almost isn't one, anyway. And the Great Old One Patron has flavor text suggesting an option where the "Patron" doesn't even know the Warlock exists, and the Warlock is just tainted by or tapping the "Patron's" power when he advances.

Removing the Patron entirely really blurs the line between Warlock, Sorcerer, and Wizard, flavor-wise. Warlocks are designed to, at a minimum, represent a sort of archetypal emulation of their Patrons. I suppose a UA-style "avatar path" model would be the rough equivalent to clerics who worship "philosophies."

Max_Killjoy
2019-05-10, 10:38 AM
Yep, that's a pretty classic 3.5e "non-evil" Warlock, honestly. Nice backstory! Works in 5e, too, as you noted.

Heck, the Hexblade "Patron" almost isn't one, anyway. And the Great Old One Patron has flavor text suggesting an option where the "Patron" doesn't even know the Warlock exists, and the Warlock is just tainted by or tapping the "Patron's" power when he advances.

Removing the Patron entirely really blurs the line between Warlock, Sorcerer, and Wizard, flavor-wise. Warlocks are designed to, at a minimum, represent a sort of archetypal emulation of their Patrons. I suppose a UA-style "avatar path" model would be the rough equivalent to clerics who worship "philosophies."

The sorcerer and warlock mechanics could easily be interchanged, in terms of "I was born with this" vs "I acquired this". IIRC, the sorcerer default even includes the possibility of acquiring the sorcerous powers through contact/exposure, and the warlock includes the possibility that one of their ancestors made a pact and they inherited the power.

There's a sidebar in XGTE, I think, that mentions standard clerics who don't worship deities, but rather serve ideals or philosophies. Several of the Domains would work fine with venerating ideals vs specific deities.

RedMage125
2019-05-10, 10:53 AM
There's a sidebar in XGTE, I think, that mentions standard clerics who don't worship deities, but rather serve ideals or philosophies. Several of the Domains would work fine with venerating ideals vs specific deities.

This just made me think of all the cleric domains, to see if any of them wouldn't work with an ideal.

They all more or less do, but some are funnier than others:

Light: I venerate the idea of Light, because darkness sucks and I can't see in it (non dark vision race, obviously)
Trickery: I venerate the idea of recieving people, playing tricks, and generally being a d**k. "For the lulz!"
Nature: I just venerate Nature and draw power from it. But I'm totally not a druid.
Arcana: I revere arcane magic, but I'm not smart enough to be a wizard, but because I think it's so cool, I get magic anyway. Whose dumb now, nerds?

Those ones just made me giggle.

Bohandas
2019-05-10, 11:53 AM
Vampire the Masquerade's Montréal source book had the story of a guy who double-booked his soul to 2 Demons, and managed to get away Scott free because of the ownership dispute

Maybe not "Scott free". He was being actively hunted, but that still made a fun concept.

That was also an episode of Spongebob Squarepants IIRC. Mr.Krabs sold his sould to like 20 different demons and ghosts.

Dire Moose
2019-05-11, 01:17 AM
Some of that was my fault as I was encouraging silliness. I didn’t expect THAT MUCH silliness though.

The Narnia guy was a first-time player who only lasted one session and also asked if he could use a stuffed duck as his character instead of a miniature.

Galithar
2019-05-11, 01:32 AM
Some of that was my fault as I was encouraging silliness. I didn’t expect THAT MUCH silliness though.

The Narnia guy was a first-time player who only lasted one session and also asked if he could use a stuffed duck as his character instead of a miniature.

If it fits on the mat properly! Just be aware that your character name no longer matters, you are "Ducky"

Kyutaru
2019-05-11, 01:54 AM
"I run away." *abandons the party*

"I charge the dragon head on!"

"I attack the merchant and take all his wares."

"I use Persuasion to convince the king to make me his heir."

"I cast Mordenkainen's Disjunction."

5crownik007
2019-05-11, 01:58 AM
"Wait, what? Who do I shoot?"
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."
"How much damage do I do again?"
"So what exactly do I need to roll?"
"Alright, so I shoot him in the skull and I do 6d6 times three damage and I have 3 armour divisor." (shooting the BBEG who wasn't supposed to die yet)

King of Nowhere
2019-05-11, 08:01 AM
Some of that was my fault as I was encouraging silliness. I didn’t expect THAT MUCH silliness though.

The Narnia guy was a first-time player who only lasted one session and also asked if he could use a stuffed duck as his character instead of a miniature.

looks like he had some strange preconceptions on what rpg entails...

Cikomyr
2019-05-11, 08:05 AM
Some of that was my fault as I was encouraging silliness. I didn’t expect THAT MUCH silliness though.

The Narnia guy was a first-time player who only lasted one session and also asked if he could use a stuffed duck as his character instead of a miniature.

Was he trolling, or just a strange expectation of what the game and setting was like?

Cause just go Feywild next time.

The Jack
2019-05-11, 09:07 AM
Unless they've been lookin at a legion of first time player guides, or they're incredibly boring, All first time players have **** character ideas.

Cikomyr
2019-05-11, 10:23 AM
Unless they've been lookin at a legion of first time player guides, or they're incredibly boring, All first time players have **** character ideas.

I try to make an effort for first time players, as long as they are genuine. Like; they might have a strange expectation of what's possible, what's expected , what's "best". Of that there is such a thing as a "best character"

My mom picked up D&D a month ago at the age of 58.

"I want to play an elven princess, who can fight and cast magic, and I want her to have a Dragon pet that holds the soul of her former lover who was executed for having a relation with me"

"Sure. Here's the Fighter class, you will be an Eldritch Knight with the Noble background. I will give you the Ritual Caster feat to start, so you know the spell Conjure Familiar. Well use the Pseudodragon stats for the familiar's stats. We'll say you are the one who rescued your lover's soul and stored it in the Familiar"

The hurdle of first time players is to get what's so cool and engaging about role-playing. So making sure their initial concepts are not rejected outright, but instead tooled.

Max_Killjoy
2019-05-11, 10:50 AM
I try to make an effort for first time players, as long as they are genuine. Like; they might have a strange expectation of what's possible, what's expected , what's "best". Of that there is such a thing as a "best character"

My mom picked up D&D a month ago at the age of 58.

"I want to play an elven princess, who can fight and cast magic, and I want her to have a Dragon pet that holds the soul of her former lover who was executed for having a relation with me"

"Sure. Here's the Fighter class, you will be an Eldritch Knight with the Noble background. I will give you the Ritual Caster feat to start, so you know the spell Conjure Familiar. Well use the Pseudodragon stats for the familiar's stats. We'll say you are the one who rescued your lover's soul and stored it in the Familiar"

The hurdle of first time players is to get what's so cool and engaging about role-playing. So making sure their initial concepts are not rejected outright, but instead tooled.

That's awesome.

RedMage125
2019-05-11, 01:55 PM
I try to make an effort for first time players, as long as they are genuine. Like; they might have a strange expectation of what's possible, what's expected , what's "best". Of that there is such a thing as a "best character"

My mom picked up D&D a month ago at the age of 58.

"I want to play an elven princess, who can fight and cast magic, and I want her to have a Dragon pet that holds the soul of her former lover who was executed for having a relation with me"

"Sure. Here's the Fighter class, you will be an Eldritch Knight with the Noble background. I will give you the Ritual Caster feat to start, so you know the spell Conjure Familiar. Well use the Pseudodragon stats for the familiar's stats. We'll say you are the one who rescued your lover's soul and stored it in the Familiar"

The hurdle of first time players is to get what's so cool and engaging about role-playing. So making sure their initial concepts are not rejected outright, but instead tooled.

I second Max. You have a cool mom.

Cikomyr
2019-05-11, 02:09 PM
I second Max. You have a cool mom.

Yes. But oh man she was so unsure of herself. Was almost bailed out because she thought she was going to "make the team lose", without grasping how an RPG goes about playing, and what's "winning"

So whatever she would have told me, I'd have rolled with it and found a way to make it work. Because I wanted her to build the confidence in herself that I knew she needed to enjoy the game.

At the moment, she is still unsure of herself about how to play outside combat, since her zone of confidence are games like Hero Quest and Gloomhaven. So again, I try to get her in a zone of comfort where she will gain sufficient mumentum to break out of.

PhoenixPhyre
2019-05-11, 02:20 PM
At the moment, she is still unsure of herself about how to play outside combat, since her zone of confidence are games like Hero Quest and Gloomhaven. So again, I try to get her in a zone of comfort where she will gain sufficient mumentum to break out of.

I hope you're British and the bold is intentional :smalltongue:

But seriously, that's good advice for all new or unsure players. Let them do cool stuff. Find ways to do this while still keeping the system intact, so they don't get in bad habits.

The Jack
2019-05-11, 08:14 PM
I hope you're using standard international English and the bold is intentional :smalltongue:

I just wanted you to know how much I hate that particular dialect change. U's are underated.


Seriously though, I want new players, and I want players that push boundries, but new players don't know where those boundries are. I've spent years wanting to profusely apologise to the GM of my first VTM game, simply because I didn't live up to the standards of a Ventrue. My first and only 3.5 character was divisive (with a bad gm, so I don't think much of that) and I look back on much-better but still early games with a critical look.

Now, In my big headedness, consider myself great to play with (though it has been noted that I can seem intense). If you know what kind of setting/game you're in and what the expectations of you are, and can work your concept around that, you can't really go wrong (with relatively normal people).

RedMage125
2019-05-11, 09:10 PM
Now, In my big headedness, consider myself great to play with (though it has been noted that I can seem intense). If you know what kind of setting/game you're in and what the expectations of you are, and can work your concept around that, you can't really go wrong (with relatively normal people).

That's okay, I consider myself a great DM. But that's because I started only because I had this idea of what a perfect campaign I would want to play in would be like (start small and local, moving into saving the world, finding out at mid levels that the stuff you did at level one actually WAS related to the master plot), and I eventually started writing out this great plot line, and realized no one was going to run it right but me. I always frame every game I write with "would this seem cool to me, as a player?"

I also stick fairly close to RAW. Not because I think it's "the right way to play", but because any player can look at the rules and know how things are going to work when I run the game. The few house rules I do use are mostly designed to be more in the players' favor, and ALL of them are spelled out to the players before the game starts.

I stick close enough to RAW, in fact, that when a player happens to catch that I did something that contradicts the rules, I welcome rules challenging, and will at least briefly entertain a few minutes discussion on the matter.

But I digress.

I'm also very humble. One of my best qualities, that I frequently expound upon.
:wink:

Cikomyr
2019-05-11, 09:13 PM
ISeriously though, I want new players, and I want players that push boundries, but new players don't know where those boundries are. I've spent years wanting to profusely apologise to the GM of my first VTM game, simply because I didn't live up to the standards of a Ventrue. My first and only 3.5 character was divisive (with a bad gm, so I don't think much of that) and I look back on much-better but still early games with a critical look.



I am curious about the nature and history of both these chars

Malphegor
2019-05-22, 05:52 AM
"I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee."

You kidding? That's a great backstory.

Once there was a great hero, but they were crippled by a mortal wound. Just barely healed, they're dragged back into the frey, because the Call to Adventure doesn't stop just because you don't have kneecaps any more!

Kyutaru
2019-05-22, 08:56 AM
You kidding? That's a great backstory.

Once there was a great hero, but they were crippled by a mortal wound. Just barely healed, they're dragged back into the frey, because the Call to Adventure doesn't stop just because you don't have kneecaps any more!
Um, taking "an arrow to the knee" means they got married. Good luck adventuring as a father with a baby and wife to care for.

Cygnia
2019-05-22, 09:28 AM
Um, taking "an arrow to the knee" means they got married. Good luck adventuring as a father with a baby and wife to care for.

V did it. Not very well on the spousal/parental front, but technically was a married adventurer.

Max_Killjoy
2019-05-22, 09:30 AM
I've played characters whose entire reason for adventuring was to support a family back home.

hotflungwok
2019-05-22, 10:11 AM
Um, taking "an arrow to the knee" means they got married. Good luck adventuring as a father with a baby and wife to care for.
I thought this was debunked?

Resileaf
2019-05-22, 10:35 AM
I thought this was debunked?

It was debunked, yes.
Unless the debunking has also been debunked.

quinron
2019-05-22, 10:49 AM
"My character has no reason to do that."

There's a reason I've become a firm devotee of Session Zero and establishing firm expectations of how the group will cooperate.

jintoya
2019-05-22, 11:24 AM
"how much damage does a bag of cats deal?"

"Time to spam finger of death"

"How many hit points does a castle have?"

"Is a medium creature a medium or large weapon.... Like.. Say...a nun?"

"How many mice would fit in the this chest?"

"How heavy is a castle?"

"Can a dragon hallucinate?" While looking at a stockpile of hallucinogens.

Guizonde
2019-05-22, 11:47 AM
"how much damage does a bag of cats deal?"

"Time to spam finger of death"

"How many hit points does a castle have?"

"Is a medium creature a medium or large weapon.... Like.. Say...a nun?"

"How many mice would fit in the this chest?"

"How heavy is a castle?"

"Can a dragon hallucinate?" While looking at a stockpile of hallucinogens.

sheesh, you stole me and my group's shenanigans! to wit:

me, grimm, the dm, and kami: how much damage does a bag of potatoes deal?

vb: how much damage does my 5'6", 250lbs medic do if falling from a building?

grimm: how much damage does a succubus corpse deal to a child?

me: *fondling explosives* how much structure points does that dungeon have?

kaht: i broke through the fourth wall taking drugs. lemme see the script?

eva: time to spam summon rabid badgers. (ok, in all fairness, it was my suggestion)

farren: hold up, i can legit aim for the bad guy's character sheet?! i'm so doing that. (dm proceeded to rip up the miniboss' sheet)

jintoya
2019-05-22, 11:51 AM
Just now
Druid: "Is the carry capacity of a centipede still houseruled at a x12?" While purchasing several things that boost carry capacity

Gotta say.... I'd like to see where this goes.

Edit: for the sake of clarity, I'm the druid, I'm posting for my DM who does not have an account

hotflungwok
2019-05-22, 11:51 AM
"Well, I'm nauseated, so I might as well use it. I'm moving to here and vomit all around me. Did I hit the invisible dwarf?"

Cikomyr
2019-05-22, 02:07 PM
"My character has no reason to do that."

There's a reason I've become a firm devotee of Session Zero and establishing firm expectations of how the group will cooperate.

I just fiat to my players that they HAD a specific quest from the get go. Figure it out.

Luckily, there would be a large pool of personal reasons why each would "be looking for the oracle"

Quertus
2019-05-22, 06:01 PM
"Well, I'm nauseated, so I might as well use it. I'm moving to here and vomit all around me. Did I hit the invisible dwarf?"

Bloody awesome!


"My character has no reason to do that."

There's a reason I've become a firm devotee of Session Zero and establishing firm expectations of how the group will cooperate.

Strongly agree. There's no reason for a Paladine to accept a quest to assassinate the good just and lawful ruler of the kingdom. The GM should run a good session 0 that explains what the adventure will be about, so that the players can bring appropriate characters.

King of Nowhere
2019-05-22, 08:00 PM
"Well, I'm nauseated, so I might as well use it. I'm moving to here and vomit all around me. Did I hit the invisible dwarf?"

that one seems like a clever use of circumstances. I'd allow it a chance to work

Kyutaru
2019-05-22, 08:13 PM
that one seems like a clever use of circumstances. I'd allow it a chance to work

Please don't encourage players. I've had them lose an arm then reply with "I pick up my own arm and beat them to death with it!"

Max_Killjoy
2019-05-22, 09:02 PM
I once used a god to kill a demigod (well, effectively by the power level, long story) by knowing which short message to send via what amounted to a Sending spell in a permanent magic trinket, and getting an enraged reaction roll on the part of the god.

Massive fight with high TPK risk, avoided by clever use of what was supposed to be a utility item to help the GM keep things moving along without long delays for communication with our patron, and paying attention to the NPCs' personalities and statements in previous sessions.


Did the GM get pouty or angry or freak out or try to no-sell my gambit? Nope, he rolled with it and thought it was awesome.

I bring this up because some of the things people report not wanting to hear their players say sound like sour grapes over clever moves.

Tvtyrant
2019-05-22, 09:17 PM
Neighbor "Your yard is on fire." It was, in fact, on fire. That was the best teamwork my group ever displayed.

"Can I attack while he is monologue-ing?"

"I have to prepare spells now?" Asked at least once a session by the same player.

"I swear if this is another Spelljammer game in disguise I am quitting."

"But is it a hot bear? What would be the seduction role?"

"I try to benchpress the castle. Nat 20, 40 strength."

Lord Arkon
2019-05-22, 11:48 PM
"I'm sorry, I don't have the time to put in this game anymore. I have to back out."

JeenLeen
2019-05-23, 08:05 AM
Please don't encourage players. I've had them lose an arm then reply with "I pick up my own arm and beat them to death with it!"

I did this in Exalted, but it seemed to fit the flavor and thematics pretty well, so the DM allowed it.

An Abyssal used a Charm that can cut off my arm, and she cut off my sword arm. After checking about penalties for using an off-hand (aren't any), I said I grab my arm and first use it as a weapon to parry her next attack and then use it to wail on her.
I forget if the DM allowed it to still do sword damage as my hand was grasping the sword, or if it was just damage like a club for being an arm.

In most games, I'd agree such is inappropriate.

allthingslich
2019-05-23, 08:43 AM
"so anyway guys, that chinese food I ordered for the group. Yea that wasn't chicken."

Dienekes
2019-05-23, 08:51 AM
"I'm bored."

"This this session just wasn't very fun."

"This story doesn't make any sense."

"Can't play anymore, schedule won't permit it."

Resileaf
2019-05-23, 09:00 AM
This got real real fast.

RedMage125
2019-05-23, 09:21 AM
I did this in Exalted, but it seemed to fit the flavor and thematics pretty well, so the DM allowed it.

An Abyssal used a Charm that can cut off my arm, and she cut off my sword arm. After checking about penalties for using an off-hand (aren't any), I said I grab my arm and first use it as a weapon to parry her next attack and then use it to wail on her.
I forget if the DM allowed it to still do sword damage as my hand was grasping the sword, or if it was just damage like a club for being an arm.

In most games, I'd agree such is inappropriate.

This reminds me of something I saw in a previous thread like this, so it's not my story.

3.5e game, fairly high level. The Barbarian gets disarmed and his weapon is thrown too far away to retrieve quickly.

Barbarian: "I rip off my own arm and start beating him with it"

DM: "Well, you're raging and you DO have a Ring of Regeneration, so I'll allow it. But you'll suffer the -4 non proficiency penalty..."

Barbarian (grinning): "Nope, I took Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Human Limb) last level."

DM "Let me see your character sheet." (looks it over, hands it back). "You win this round you sick ****."

hotflungwok
2019-05-23, 09:38 AM
I forget if the DM allowed it to still do sword damage as my hand was grasping the sword, or if it was just damage like a club for being an arm.
Would this make it a two handed sword?

Segev
2019-05-23, 09:57 AM
"Didn't you say last week that it was Character A that was murdered, not Character B?" :smalleek::smallmad::smallyuk: "Doh!"

Cikomyr
2019-05-23, 10:06 AM
Would this make it a two handed sword?

Id like to give a +1

Ken Murikumo
2019-05-23, 02:38 PM
As of last night:

Can we finance a tank? The number we buy depends on the answer...

Guizonde
2019-05-23, 03:46 PM
As of last night:

Can we finance a tank? The number we buy depends on the answer...

coming from the first campaign i dm'ed, in my custom universe and roleplaying system.

"dude, we've got a tank? we've got a tank. holy carp, we've got a tank."

also, that's for the other thread, but my response was:

"whoopsie, i did not see that happening."

hindsight is 20/20, and at that moment, i felt that i should just roll with it, not wanting to force a retcon. best decision i ever had. those freaks turned it into a motor pool and granted everyone vehicles (with the rules i ad-libbed) in the campaigns that came after. also, those players were directly responsible for the following:

"flame-throwing motorcycles. i think we can hunt an angry mob now."