Full Games List
Featured Games
New Games
Reviews
Media
Images
Blogs
Game Updates
Images Feedback Summary
Game Design Highlights
Tutorials
Articles
Scripts
Utilities / Plugins
Resources
Engines
Engine Bulletins
What is Makerscore?
Past Events
Achievements
Misaos
Forums
Post History
Chat
New to RMN?
Full Store List
RMN Music Pack (free)
THE OTHER KIND OF GAMING
Posts
calunio
View playlists
Closeauthor=GreatRedSpirit
Sorry, let me clarify: A natural 1 should only be an auto miss when making an attack roll in D&D e3.5. Any character that attacks will start getting multiple attacks per round and that should never translate into "Multiple times to commit suicide / throw the awesome sword into a pit of lava / kill a buddy". The DM basically dicks over the player for performing one of their primary actions with an increased chance to fail as they grow stronger. The DM's free to rule as they want as much as I'm free to tell them off (after trying to explain why their ruling is idiotic) and leave.
D&D3e took all the fun out of RPG and turned it into a lawyers' dispute.
My group makes a natural 1 a "lose your next turn" thing.
But yeah, that's something called "The Golden Rule" of RPGs, and it states that you can do whatever you want with the rules. I like unpredictability.
author=Feldschlacht IV
I wanted to give tabletop gaming an honest shot, I really did and it looks a lot of fun; however, the group I've always seen play in college literally looked like a gathering of unwashed sex offenders so I steered clear.
don't even get me started on this. The worst thing about these people is how bad they make gaming look to anyone else.
But yeah, that's something called "The Golden Rule" of RPGs, and it states that you can do whatever you want with the rules. I like unpredictability.
There is actually an entire contingent of game enthusiasts that HATE rule 0 largely because it interferes with their hardcore munckining. GRS is referring to a part of the "why fighters can't have nice things" argument which largely revolves around D&D 3.5E before 4E made everyone essentially the same. And then there's an entire other faction that hates the idea of GMs in general and prefer GMless play (a concept I truly dislike).
well i think with any hobby there's always a tendency for the ~hardcore enthusiasts~ to fit the stereotype and make everyone else look bad. you've just got to know to ignore it
every summer when my old buddies are back in town we get a weekly game going. this year it was a really sweet call of cthulhu campaign one such buddy wrote. had its own modified ruleset and took place in the early 1900s. i played an old racist war vet, except seeing as it was call of cthulhu, he wasn't really a war vet. he completely believed he was, though. he even had crazy PTSD hallucinations when i rolled poorly and incurred sanity damage. appropriately, the other main player was a psychiatrist, so we got a lot of cool roleplaying going that all locked up nicely.
whenever the aforementioned first buddy DMs a game, he likes to get hardcore and moderately AD&D-ish on his players. (for those of you who don't play, AD&D is essentially the DM doing everything he can to fuck you, and you, as the player, doing everything you can to fuck him back. it's a fun little struggle and all the planning and thought about your skills and feats and shit can make for some really good metagame outside the game itself blah blah i digress) this time around, he came up with some really freaky mindfuck creatures for us to do battle with. memorable moments: i killed his first 'boss level' enemy in the first round before it even had a chance to move. Rule of Cool took over and he granted me that totally awesome victory, but bumped all the levels on later encounters up significantly.
totally worth it.
currently, i have been asked to DM a pretty generic fantasy D&D3.5 campaign in the area. i've never DMed regular D&D before, so i'm a bit nervous about it. if it winds up taking off, i might look at getting a super-cheap used netbook to use for ambient campaign-relevant music and note organization, as well as a dice rolling program so i can roll silently without the players knowing.
I hate dice rolling programs...I don't believe that they are random, and also they always screw everyone and it's more tempting to just scrap and reroll every roll you don't like (for any reason) if you haven't just obviously thrown a physical object across a table.
Anyway, I'm surprised, tardis. My first successful campaign ever, back in high school, was with Call of Cthulhu. Which version are you playing, the d20 version that's roughly equivalent to D&D 3.5 or the original Chaosium d% version? (For me it was the former, although I've always wanted to try the latter.)
GMLess play? wtf?
Well, D&D3e and 4e tried turning RPG into a tabletop game. But I would rather just have a tabletop game with miniatures and stuff. The good thing about RPG is freedom of thinking.
Finding a good DM/GM is very hard because very few people can grasp the concept that a GM's duty is to make the game FUN, instead of defeating the players.
Well, D&D3e and 4e tried turning RPG into a tabletop game. But I would rather just have a tabletop game with miniatures and stuff. The good thing about RPG is freedom of thinking.
Finding a good DM/GM is very hard because very few people can grasp the concept that a GM's duty is to make the game FUN, instead of defeating the players.
Calunio, love ya babe, but you don't actually know what you're talking about.
Roleplaying games EVOLVED from miniature wargaming in the FIRST PLACE. AD&D evolved from D&D which evolved from Chainmail which was one of the first medieval miniature wargames. It is actually 4E that made D&D 'all about' the mat and minis. But then again 4E was also all about "let's take back some of what MMORPGs took from D&D" in the grand tradition of everybody steals from everybody. Anyway, 3E has much more free thinking than 4E because magic and magic items can do almost literally anything. In 4E, everything has the end goal of damaging enemies. Of course, 4E has the advantage of actually being balanced.
D&D in any case is really really far ideologically from the proponents of GMless play. The latter also prefer diceless systems
Well, D&D3e and 4e tried turning RPG into a tabletop game. But I would rather just have a tabletop game with miniatures and stuff. The good thing about RPG is freedom of thinking.
Roleplaying games EVOLVED from miniature wargaming in the FIRST PLACE. AD&D evolved from D&D which evolved from Chainmail which was one of the first medieval miniature wargames. It is actually 4E that made D&D 'all about' the mat and minis. But then again 4E was also all about "let's take back some of what MMORPGs took from D&D" in the grand tradition of everybody steals from everybody. Anyway, 3E has much more free thinking than 4E because magic and magic items can do almost literally anything. In 4E, everything has the end goal of damaging enemies. Of course, 4E has the advantage of actually being balanced.
D&D in any case is really really far ideologically from the proponents of GMless play. The latter also prefer diceless systems
Well babe, don't try to lecture me because I've known RPG for over 20 years.
I know where RPGs come from, but RPGs are NOT tabletop games. Apart from D&D (which is not by any means closest to the ESSENCE of RPGs, even though I know D&D was the first), most RPGs don't use maps or miniatures or anything other than paper and dice.
When I said "GMLess play? wtf?" I meant "I don't know what that is".
I know where RPGs come from, but RPGs are NOT tabletop games. Apart from D&D (which is not by any means closest to the ESSENCE of RPGs, even though I know D&D was the first), most RPGs don't use maps or miniatures or anything other than paper and dice.
When I said "GMLess play? wtf?" I meant "I don't know what that is".
Ask approximately 90% of the P&P community about whether or not D&D is the essence of RPGs. In spite of people like you and me, it is the first, last, and only RPG that most gamers play.
If you roll a natural 1, you roll again to confirm. If your second roll would have missed the target, you have rolled a critical fumble. You drop your sword, or hit an ally. Something of that ilk.
If an enemy rolls a critical 1, on the other hand, and they're a goon, they don't even get to confirm. Kobolds skewering themselves or their friends through the face is fucking hilarious.
Why did you stop?
Best way to see if a DM sucks: Ask what happens if you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll. If it is anything worse than "auto miss" the DM is a complete idiot and doesn't grasp the mechanics of the game. I remember one where a Fighter rolled a 1 then 20 and the DM has the character land a critical hit on himself. Never played with that DM again.
If you roll a natural 1, you roll again to confirm. If your second roll would have missed the target, you have rolled a critical fumble. You drop your sword, or hit an ally. Something of that ilk.
If an enemy rolls a critical 1, on the other hand, and they're a goon, they don't even get to confirm. Kobolds skewering themselves or their friends through the face is fucking hilarious.
I only ever played Dungeons and Dragons for little less than a year, then I stopped. I played it with a few of my buddies. That's my only experience with tabletop gaming, though it seems like fun.
Why did you stop?
Wikipedia
Role-playing games are fundamentally different from most other types of games in that they stress social interaction and collaboration, whereas board games, card games, and sports emphasize competition.
Both authors and major publishers of pen-and-paper role-playing games consider them to be a form of interactive and collaborative storytelling.
Well, whatever.
Shinan
4314
author=Max McGee
D&D in any case is really really far ideologically from the proponents of GMless play. The latter also prefer diceless systems
GMLess diceless games? Are you talking about sitting around a fire collaborative story games? That's hippie roleplaying.
lol
I have rather the same attitude towards it, Shinan.
But it's an entire movement and it's completely synonymous with the indie RPG publishing movement, sadly. Which is a shame, since I also create the other kind of RPGs.
I have rather the same attitude towards it, Shinan.
But it's an entire movement and it's completely synonymous with the indie RPG publishing movement, sadly. Which is a shame, since I also create the other kind of RPGs.
jakandsig
176
Yeah, I be playing that monopoly. Ya know? Play the role of a buisness owner. Very challenging game based entirely on luck.
Gongo
36
author=jakandsig
Yeah, I be playing that monopoly. Ya know? Play the role of a buisness owner. Very challenging game based entirely on luck.
I wonder if there has ever been a game that did not end in a fight?
ppffff what am i saying, of course there hasn't!
Shinan
4314
author=Gongoauthor=jakandsigI wonder if there has ever been a game that did not end in a fight?
Yeah, I be playing that monopoly. Ya know? Play the role of a buisness owner. Very challenging game based entirely on luck.
ppffff what am i saying, of course there hasn't!
I guesss you've never played Diplomacy then. Monopoly fights are tame in comparison.
author=Max McGee
I hate dice rolling programs...I don't believe that they are random, and also they always screw everyone and it's more tempting to just scrap and reroll every roll you don't like (for any reason) if you haven't just obviously thrown a physical object across a table.
Anyway, I'm surprised, tardis. My first successful campaign ever, back in high school, was with Call of Cthulhu. Which version are you playing, the d20 version that's roughly equivalent to D&D 3.5 or the original Chaosium d% version? (For me it was the former, although I've always wanted to try the latter.)
yeah, i'm not a big fan of dice rolling programs for players, but as a DM it's a nice way to keep your surprise in tact if you have an ambush coming and need to roll initiative/etc for the critters you're about to unleash on the players.
i played the d20 version, but i have played both. i honestly prefer the d20 version. it's pretty streamlined for d20, yet at the same time, if the campaign/story requires it, you can drop in rules/basic gear/creatures/etc from modern d20/post apocalyptic d20/etc really easily. our DM commented on how it had made his planning a whole lot easier because he'd been able to modify a lot of his encounter crap from regular old modern d20 rather than writing everything up from scratch.
also readily available lists of d20 weights/sizes for stuff was helpful, as we are pretty particular about what will fit in containers/vehicles.
speaking of vehicles, i actually managed to make my vehicle (rolling player party base essentially) gamebreaking. kept pouring points into my repair skill every level up and with a few lucky rolls managed to turn my humble ford truck into a zombie apocalypse-worthy covered-wagon-tank-vehicle. it even became a boat at one point thanks to, again, really really lucky rolls. DM might have been letting me rule of cool it sometimes though, because i always had some pretty realistic modifications i wanted to make.
it's crap like that that makes me love pnp roleplaying. working within the constraints of the rules and the campaign to do cool shit. i actually talked it over with the DM pre-session and he let me use my 'repair' skill to modify the truck because my character, the old not-really-an-army-vet, would have justified modifying it as 'repairs.' roleplaying, man. feels good man.
Shinan
4314
author=tardis
yeah, i'm not a big fan of dice rolling programs for players, but as a DM it's a nice way to keep your surprise in tact if you have an ambush coming and need to roll initiative/etc for the critters you're about to unleash on the players.
One technique I used was to basically constantly or randomly roll dice either behind a screen or in front of the players not telling them if the roll was significant or not or what the roll was about. Kept them on their toes.
J-Man
4684
Closest thing I did for RMing was playing D&D. The last memory was me getting my head stomped on by a huge rhino... that's when I said, fuck this, I'm done.
Doesn't help that my DM is devious as hell. >>;
Doesn't help that my DM is devious as hell. >>;
