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2015-11-03, 08:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Are limits there to be broken or abided?
One of the tons of reasons that I've stayed with 3.X for so long is that potential to take an ordinary Commoner all the way to the level of gods. For me, a limit is like a record; it's made to be broken, and if you can break it through hard work, that is intensely satisfying. There is something tremendously satisfying about getting a mage to do fireworks at level 1, and nukes at level 15.
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2015-11-03, 09:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2014
Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
I was about to talk about the Law/Chaos axis, when I realised this was about mechanical limits.
As with a lot of things in tabletop gaming, the answer is 'depends on the group'. Oftentimes, limits are there so that there won't be one overpowered PC (whose player is typically called a munchkin) steamrolling everything while the rest of the party is bored and frustrated because there's nothing for them to do.
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2015-11-03, 01:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2014
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
I find the meticulous loop-hole based power game cheese isn't really conducive to telling a heroic story and tends to shatter immersion.
"Then Lo! The mighty Wizard did use Ice Assassin to..."Here is my DIY D&D blog, where I post my thoughts and homebrew ideas, mainly for 5e. Currently I'm working on Sea Wolves, an Age of Sail setting undergoing systems collapse.
Here is where I posted my Let's Read of the 5e Monster Manual and here are my current Monster Reviews.
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2015-11-03, 01:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2009
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
IT depends on how it is given to me.
If I'm asked to keep the power level and cheese down because they want a RP game than I'm all for it. I'll make something that means something to me personally and be non-optimized at best or more likely pretty lame mechanically but cool for the character.
If I'm told there is no possible way I could EVER do "X" and any attempt will be viciously slapped down. Then they just threw down the gauntlet, Game on.“You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies.” Davis. -Steve Martin- Grand Canyon
Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
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2015-11-03, 01:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
OP, are you actually talking about limits? Because you seem to be talking about what is allowed by mechanics and setting without reference to any limits in the system or setting.
As for what you actually asked, as a rule, limits are to be abided by.
I may disagree with certain restrictions and alter them as a GM or ask a GM to alter them but in general I do not feel that a limit is meant to be broken. Limits may very from system to system and setting to setting and what may be a beyond the limit in one may be 'unlikely' or 'everyday' in another.
For instance, Ars Magica or L5R have pretty strict limits on what you can do and play and stricter limits on what is commonly done and played. RIFTS is pretty open to almost anything and likely has rules for it somewhere, for one big glorious mess of a setting. In CoC becoming a god is to put it mildly unlikely while in BECMI you have rules for attaining godhood (really cool rules). I abide by those limits as a GM and expect them to be, mostly, heeded by GMs I play under. Limits are part of a setting and going beyond that generally weakens the flavor of the setting. Using mechnical loopholes to get around implicit or explicit mechanical limits is something I do not accept as a GM and disapprove of as a player, especially since that often clashes with setting flavor.Last edited by BWR; 2015-11-03 at 02:16 PM.
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2015-11-03, 01:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2013
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
Well, here I'm not so much talking about optimization or anything like that. When I say "break limits" here, I'm saying that a commoner, through luck and hard work, can achieve the powers of a god. And there are games that in some sense cater to this idea(for example, 3.X). The commoner has broken a limit far exceeding a normal person, and this is reflected in their mechanical stats.
I suppose there are two kinds of limitations here: Restrictive limitations are built into the rules, or into the campaign itself. These cannot be broken without breaking the rules.
The limitations that I really enjoy breaking are those that are difficult to break, but not impossible; for instance, the division between a normal character and an epic character.
3.X is pretty loose about limiting what characters can achieve, and this is part of what I love about it. A character will never not have something to strive for.
In 5e, mean while, there are hard limits which were never meant to be broken. As I understand, once you reach level 20, once you've maxed out your most important ability score(the idea of maxing out an ability score is foreign to me), what more is there to shoot for? Unless your class specifically enables breaking those built in ability score caps, you'll never manage it.
I'm not a fan of restrictive limitations; in my campaigns, a character can in theory do nearly anything if they work towards it. Roleplay here is still very important. I'm not gonna let a player become a lich just because, but if they roleplay, it I'll allow it.
(Forgive me, I'm pretty awful at explaining stuff. Good thing I don't plan to be a teacher, lol.)Last edited by MonkeySage; 2015-11-03 at 01:45 PM.
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2015-11-03, 02:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
So basically you are talking about things that are hard to achieve, not actual limits.
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2015-11-03, 02:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2013
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- Arkansas, U.S.
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
Yes and no.
Like I said, I'm really sucky at saying what is on my mind.
3.X sets soft limits on what a character can achieve, 5e sets hard, restrictive limits.
The former kind can be broken, so I suppose they aren't actual limits, but in a way they sort of are.
The latter cannot be broken without breaking the rules.
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2015-11-03, 03:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2013
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
A limit that is not abided by isn't really a limit at all, IMO. There are occasionally times where following the rules or dice rolls or whatever is detrimental to the fun factor, but more often than not letting things play out and seeing what happens is the right course of action.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2015-11-03, 03:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2009
Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
This, exactly. In my opinion, the only way to make D&D actually fun to play is to house-rule it so heavily that it's barely recognisable as the base game. And 3.x, far more than AD&D, actively discourages that.
It seems to me that's pretty much the opposite of "a limit". What you're saying is that anyone, within the ruleset, can achieve just about anything - given enough luck and resources. Which is true, but it kind of implies that the only "limit" is the individual's own luck and resources - which is something that limits everyone everywhere. We only have so much wealth, so much time, so many friends and family, opportunities and commitments - it's those, and not anything about "the rules", that restrict all of us, and they're also what limit your D&D commoner.
As to the level cap in 5e: didn't 3e also have the same cap when it was first published? That kind of "limit" is just an opportunity for WOTC to milk more money out of its customers by publishing a supplement later, specifically to abolish it.Last edited by veti; 2015-11-03 at 03:42 PM.
"None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
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2015-11-04, 03:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
Yes, but 3E and 3.5 did it so poorly that 4E never even attempted it and it's unlikely that 5E will either.
Epic levels without any end point is the kind of thing that seems like a cool idea on paper, but in reality it just becomes a nightmare of unbalanced game play. As in, it literally becomes impossible to maintain game balance when all limitations on PC power are removed. It would honestly be a huge surprise to me if "you can gain levels forever" was ever reintroduced into a D&D ruleset.
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2015-11-04, 09:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2015
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
Personally, I never liked how 3rd edition just threw open all the doors. Yeah, there were limits in AD&D that made little sense, like racial level limits or class restrictions (though dwarven wizards still feel wrong). From what I've seen and experienced, it shifted the balance of the game towards the players over the DM (instead of 50/50), and in some circles it sounded like the DM was an annoying necessity to have a D&D game (which made the prospect of running the game oh so appealing). I know that in practice, it probably wasn't like that for most groups, and frankly, it wasn't for mine (aside from one player buying up a ton of splatbooks at a point where we were still just getting into the basics). However, I appreciate 5th edition for trying to put the genie back into the bottle.
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2015-11-04, 09:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
I prefer a more narrowly-bounded scope to a game. I don't really like going through genre changes or order of magnitude increases in power. Ideally capability ceilings move just a little or not at all over the lifespan of a game, the floor a touch more but the average a fair bit. Which isn't to say I only play games like that (I am posting in a primarily D&D-focused forum after all), just that forced to choose one way that's what I'd choose.
Last edited by Mr.Moron; 2015-11-04 at 09:57 AM.
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2015-11-04, 01:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2006
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
It also depends somewhat on the genre. I would argue, for example, that the superheroic genre is *about* breaking limits (but that's possibly a thread-breaking tangent).
Some players and GM's are going to view it differently as well. There's another thread on one of these boards where a GM told the players they couldn't create supernatural characters. If I said that to my gaming group, they'd *immediately* start looking under every nook and cranny for elements of supernatural - it would be a huge distraction, even if I'm trying to run a murder mystery. I know someone who tried to run a campaign where only women could have superpowers, and the players *immediately* assumed a major plot point in the campaign would be the first male to get them.
Now, I've run enough superheroic/supernatural campaigns that I've established some ground rules for getting the "feel" I want. For example, I have a generic boilerplate about "powers with too much potential to ruin a mystery" - I all but disallow them. But I explain why to the players, and I feel that part in parcel with this is that the NPC's generally face the same restrictions - and any exceptions are going to be a big deal and/or heavily limited. In our last such campaign (a high school \ junior college for a 3rd generation of superheroes), for example, I went ahead and allowed a PC to have "X-Ray Vision" but with the understanding that blocking it was much easier than just lead covering (force fields blocked it too, for example) and that this was something he needed to keep as secret as feasible from most of the character's classmates.- Sometimes, the knights are the monsters
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2015-11-04, 08:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2006
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
You should never break the limits. Of course, it all depends on how you define limits.
If it's about abusing loopholes in a way that's highly questionable and up to the debate by anyone who actually knows the rules? There's a limit, right there. Don't go there.
But combining different rules of the game to create something others might have not seen in advance and there's no question about how all of this works because the rules are clear on this? As far as I'm concerned, there were never limits to be broken.Last edited by Raimun; 2015-11-04 at 08:28 PM.
Signatures are so 90's.
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2015-11-04, 08:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2014
Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
OOC limits are part of a gentlemen's* agreement among the GM and the players, to ensure enjoyment of the game by all parties. The GM describes the style of the game, and the players abide by it so that no one breaks out of whatever the game is supposed to be. In return, the GM doesn't go outside the genre that was described.
Spoiler: This is one example of what could happen if the GM doesn't follow the agreement. In this case, the GM said 'no supernatural characters', but didn't mention that the Love Interest of the Harem Comedy game is supernatural. More context within.
So, yes, that sort of limit is to be abided by, otherwise the game will get unfun for the other people playing with you. Rules-lawyering counts as breaking the limits.
If you want to 'break limits', you should discuss them with the other players and GM first ("Hey guys I've got a cool idea, just wanna make sure you're all chill with it..."). Two posts up, TheEmerged had arranged to allow a PC to have X-ray vision, with enough limits on that power itself to ensure the game isn't broken. Communciation is important.
Erm... I'm not sure how the second paragraph is different from the former. Rules As Written (RAW) can be rather different from Rules As Intended (RAI). When a creative use of RAW leads to unforseen consequences that may or may not be RAI (how would you know?), there'd better be a group discussion on whether said creative use can be allowed without making the game unfun. The group can decide "RAW doesn't follow RAI, let's follow RAI", or even "RAW follows RAI, but RAI makes the game less fun for everyone so let's ignore it".
* No offense to non-males, including but not limited to females and those not part of the gender binary.Last edited by goto124; 2015-11-04 at 08:52 PM.
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2015-11-05, 03:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
I'm pretty sure that in this case it's less a matter of limits per se, and more a matter of there being broad differentiated classes, and walls between them that may or may not be permeable*. In one game, you might have normal people who are separated from those born to be heroic, and it's only the people in the second group that are the most exceptional. The mightiest mage is probably descended from an ancient bloodline of powerful mages, born under a particular star, or otherwise positioned (if not outright fated) to become the mightiest. In another, you'll still have those walls - the scion of a house of mages with access to the best magical training is basically guaranteed to end up a capable mage, a commoner is going to have some serious trouble getting anywhere - but there's a permeability to it, where there's at least some possibility that the mightiest mage was a commoner who pulled themselves up into it. This might be a setting thing, and this might be a mechanics thing, with D&D 3.x being a classic example where the mechanics are pretty much built for zero to hero play.
This isn't just a style difference in fantasy either, it's pretty widespread. In a superhero game, is there room for a normal person to become a superhero by training, or is it inevitably out of the persons control? In a science fiction game, is the social mobility enough for someone from a poor background to become planetary governor or fleet admiral or some such, or is there a more hierarchical and aristocratic feel? In a romance, is there room for a character who goes out of their way to make themselves appealing and lovable and thus find success, or is passionate love the domain of those born with the genetics to be smoking hot? Admittedly, that last one is a bit of a stretch, particularly in the context of an RPG, but the point is that there's a distinct style.
Personally, I tend to favor settings where the power level is fairly low, and there are real limits to what one can do as a human (or whatever the collection of PC species is, in games that use other ones). The most brilliant people still do what they do because of societal backing, the best warriors are still threatened by groups that aren't hyper competent, being an ace pilot isn't enough of an advantage when your dinky star fighter is up against a dread naught, etc. With that said, I also tend to favor settings where the walls are permeable. There might be a class of people with some big advantages that tend to be better at something, but there's also room for people not from that class to be just as good. To use a chivalric romance example, even if the power level is kept low and a ten on one is basically going to end poorly for everyone, there's still the possibility that just about every warrior worth noting is a knight. Alternately, there's a real possibility that there's a peasant outlaw or veteran foot soldier or similar among the best. I usually favor option two.
*Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, MonkeySage.I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2015-11-05, 05:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2006
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
There is a difference. The former is wrong, the latter is right.
Of course, it is possible that things get un-fun (that's totally a word) even in the latter case. The point I'm making is, it is possible to make new limits. Then, if you stay withing those limits, you are not breaking any limits.
At least my reading talents are limited to books and similar devices. Minds and future are way above my limits.Last edited by Raimun; 2015-11-05 at 05:15 PM.
Signatures are so 90's.
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2015-11-05, 06:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2014
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Re: Are limits there to be broken or abided?
Limits, including implied limits, are to be abided by. That's why they're there. If there wasn't a reason for the limit to exist, the limit wouldn't.
Last edited by bulbaquil; 2015-11-05 at 06:09 PM.
Planck length = 1.524e+0 m, Planck time = 6.000e+0 s. Mass quantum ~ 9.072e-3 kg because "50 coins weigh a pound" is the smallest weight mentioned. And light has five quantum states.