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Post by jakdethe on Feb 21, 2014 23:51:20 GMT -6
I was just hoping we could have a general discussion on how to customize characters in OD&D. How do you guys handle it?
Personally I add in whatever classes my players want, though lately I've been having a hard time bridging the gap between so many different games. What's necessary for fun, and what's not. Basically where to draw the line on class features, and where I've cut too many out.
Also what are you guys thoughts on feats? I made my own, I call techniques, that are purely combat-oriented bonuses; no restrictions or actions other players can't try.
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Post by bestialwarlust on Feb 22, 2014 6:54:54 GMT -6
For customization they can role-play the character however they want I usually add very few classes but might modify a base class. Usually I've noticed the more classes that are added the more narrow and focused it becomes. The player has less freedom. Usually the customization is for those that play fighters. They say they are boring and all the same and it can be if you play it that way. Most want mechanical bonuses which isn't really that much customization as almost everyone picks the same thing that I've noticed when given a list of feats/skills/whatever. I usually point out your fighter is more versatile than most classes. Say for instance you want to play a heavy armored fighter. He buys plate, two handed sword, etc... The player plays his fighter that way for a while and gets bored with a heavy fighter. He'd rather be a light armored "swashbuckling" rogue. All he has to do is sell off or dump his old equipment, re-equip himself and now plays his character that way. If we used a character build or feat system he'd be screwed as he's already "spec'd" his character one way and can't redesign it. For feats I do something similar to the dcc rpg. I let fighters try almost anything reasonable in combat. And I base the success on the d6 damage roll (yes I use the d6 for all weapons) I use abstracted combat and combat rounds, I don't hold that a round has to be one minute. For my game it's the amount of time it takes for you to do something. It could be 6 seconds to a minute it doesn't matter. So a fighter could say, "I attempt to disarm the palace guard and knock him to the ground trying to force him to surrender." I tell the player he has to make a successful hit roll and get a damage roll is a 5+ to do that. If he rolls less I may allow part or none of it to happen depending on the situation. If the fighter is high level say 5+ and he's fighting a first level I'd allow a full success as long as he didn't roll a 1 on the roll. If he rolled a on I might say "You fail to disarm him but your very skilled attack still took him off balance and he falls to the ground." It all depends on the situation. Non fighter characters can attempt to do limited things in combat. But if you want to do cool stuff you need to be a fighter. I try to avoid too much bonus inflation for OD&D as it's not needed. Feats seem too limiting and once a player gets a list that's all they'll try
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Azafuse
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 245
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Post by Azafuse on Feb 22, 2014 7:06:37 GMT -6
I mainly give my players the weapons/armors they want, until it doesn't really matter in terms of damage/AC.
Do you want a chainsaw sword? Sold. Do you want a parrot shooting shurikens from his butt? Sold. Do you want a M-U with a nunchaku? Sold. Do you want a mankini protecting you like a chainmail? Sold.
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Post by Finarvyn on Feb 22, 2014 9:07:47 GMT -6
For me, OD&D characters were more about the concept than the mechanics. We played ranger characters before ranger class was created because we had fighters who acted like rangers.
As far as class and race options go, I tend to focus on the traditional. Classes are mostly fighters, magic users, clerics, and thieves. Races are mostly human, elf, dwarf, hobbit. Anything else can be approximated with those. For example, a player who wanted to play a drow got to use the elf model and call himself a drow. Another wanted to play a gnome and I had him pick from hobbit or dwarf, then call himself a gnome. Specialist magic users can just focus on certain types of spells over other types. I guess I'm not into "rules bloat" and prefer to keep things as simple as possible.
I avoid most feats and replace them with stat checks. I prefer to allow players to be creative rather than pick from lists.
I used to do stat checks for skills, but since I've found 13th Age I've sort of fallen in love with their "background" approach where you say what you are and we decide as needed what you can do. For example, a person who was a castle guard might know about how to impersonate guards, might be friends with certain guards, would know how to anticipate when guards will patrol, or whatever. I don't come up with the list in advance, but we "wing it" as needed. Just tell players they get 5 background points, or whatever, and let them decide how they want to spend them.
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Post by bestialwarlust on Feb 22, 2014 9:19:48 GMT -6
I used to do stat checks for skills, but since I've found 13th Age I've sort of fallen in love with their "background" approach where you say what you are and we decide as needed what you can do. For example, a person who was a castle guard might know about how to impersonate guards, might be friends with certain guards, would know how to anticipate when guards will patrol, or whatever. I don't come up with the list in advance, but we "wing it" as needed. Just tell players they get 5 background points, or whatever, and let them decide how they want to spend them. This is what I do I have players choose a background to define any "non adventuring skills" I don't use a list but if the player wants they can write it down.
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Post by jakdethe on Feb 22, 2014 11:22:28 GMT -6
Yeah I've been going back and forth between extremely rules-light, by the book LBB play, and more codified AD&D style play. I definitely find trying to codify rules to be a bit of a pain. I guess I've just been playing with a bunch of modern gamers a bit too much lately.
One thing I'll say I hate about lists, that you guys point out, is a lot of players just pick whats "optimal", instead of doing something that's fun. I had originally hoped having a huge list of material could act as inspiration for players, but apparently that's the opposite of what happened.
Just out of curiosity do you guys ever play more mechanically heavy games, or ever get the urge too? As a wargamer sometimes I like a bit of rules crunch. Do you guys ever play later editions of D&D for fun, or just because it's there to play?
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Post by Red Baron on Feb 22, 2014 11:38:03 GMT -6
For me, OD&D characters were more about the concept than the mechanics. We played ranger characters before ranger class was created because we had fighters who acted like rangers. As far as class and race options go, I tend to focus on the traditional. Classes are mostly fighters, magic users, clerics, and thieves. Races are mostly human, elf, dwarf, hobbit. Anything else can be approximated with those. For example, a player who wanted to play a drow got to use the elf model and call himself a drow. Another wanted to play a gnome and I had him pick from hobbit or dwarf, then call himself a gnome. Specialist magic users can just focus on certain types of spells over other types. I guess I'm not into "rules bloat" and prefer to keep things as simple as possible. I avoid most feats and replace them with stat checks. I prefer to allow players to be creative rather than pick from lists. I used to do stat checks for skills, but since I've found 13th Age I've sort of fallen in love with their "background" approach where you say what you are and we decide as needed what you can do. For example, a person who was a castle guard might know about how to impersonate guards, might be friends with certain guards, would know how to anticipate when guards will patrol, or whatever. I don't come up with the list in advance, but we "wing it" as needed. Just tell players they get 5 background points, or whatever, and let them decide how they want to spend them. The Whole "points" thing is what leads to optimization. If you give players a choice between a Fighter and a Ranger (A Fighting man who can track, use crystal balls, and shoot at +1) Then a bunch of people will stick pick the fighting man because "fighting men kick ass". If you give players points to spend on various things (like use crystal balls, track, shoot at +1) all of a sudden people start worrying about making the best character they can be instead of the best player they can be. D&d already has enough customization. You pick unique equipment and a weapon to buy. You pick your spells to take with. You get certain magic items over the course of the game to distinguish your character.
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Post by bestialwarlust on Feb 22, 2014 12:20:54 GMT -6
Yeah I've been going back and forth between extremely rules-light, by the book LBB play, and more codified AD&D style play. I definitely find trying to codify rules to be a bit of a pain. I guess I've just been playing with a bunch of modern gamers a bit too much lately. One thing I'll say I hate about lists, that you guys point out, is a lot of players just pick whats "optimal", instead of doing something that's fun. I had originally hoped having a huge list of material could act as inspiration for players, but apparently that's the opposite of what happened. Just out of curiosity do you guys ever play more mechanically heavy games, or ever get the urge too? As a wargamer sometimes I like a bit of rules crunch. Do you guys ever play later editions of D&D for fun, or just because it's there to play? I do and I have. I had a short stint with 3e, but I've run HERO RPG, Shadowrun and a few others that are rules heavy. I started my gaming with classic d&d the on to 1e/2e for the longest time. I only started on OD&D a few years ago when I managed to find he whitebox in a used bookstore. I never knew about the whitebox during my 1e/2e years of gaming I assumed it all started with the moldvay/cook I still play a few other non d&d games - savage worlds was my most recent though that it's pretty rules medium.
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Post by bestialwarlust on Feb 22, 2014 12:24:27 GMT -6
For me, OD&D characters were more about the concept than the mechanics. We played ranger characters before ranger class was created because we had fighters who acted like rangers. As far as class and race options go, I tend to focus on the traditional. Classes are mostly fighters, magic users, clerics, and thieves. Races are mostly human, elf, dwarf, hobbit. Anything else can be approximated with those. For example, a player who wanted to play a drow got to use the elf model and call himself a drow. Another wanted to play a gnome and I had him pick from hobbit or dwarf, then call himself a gnome. Specialist magic users can just focus on certain types of spells over other types. I guess I'm not into "rules bloat" and prefer to keep things as simple as possible. I avoid most feats and replace them with stat checks. I prefer to allow players to be creative rather than pick from lists. I used to do stat checks for skills, but since I've found 13th Age I've sort of fallen in love with their "background" approach where you say what you are and we decide as needed what you can do. For example, a person who was a castle guard might know about how to impersonate guards, might be friends with certain guards, would know how to anticipate when guards will patrol, or whatever. I don't come up with the list in advance, but we "wing it" as needed. Just tell players they get 5 background points, or whatever, and let them decide how they want to spend them. The Whole "points" thing is what leads to optimization. If you give players a choice between a Fighter and a Ranger (A Fighting man who can track, use crystal balls, and shoot at +1) Then a bunch of people will stick pick the fighting man because "fighting men kick ass". If you give players points to spend on various things (like use crystal balls, track, shoot at +1) all of a sudden people start worrying about making the best character they can be instead of the best player they can be. D&d already has enough customization. You pick unique equipment and a weapon to buy. You pick your spells to take with. You get certain magic items over the course of the game to distinguish your character. I noticed this is the trend. Another thing I noticed is when playing an entirely skill based non class system when we played fantasy that people still built nearly the same classes. And they all took almost the same types of skills/perks. So if we had w fighter types they were almost the same. So much for "customization".
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Post by ravenheart87 on Feb 22, 2014 13:42:34 GMT -6
Another thing I noticed is when playing an entirely skill based non class system when we played fantasy that people still built nearly the same classes. And they all took almost the same types of skills/perks. So if we had w fighter types they were almost the same. So much for "customization". What I noticed with skill based non class systems is that everyone wants to be able to both fight and cast some spells.
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Post by Red Baron on Feb 22, 2014 14:12:08 GMT -6
Another thing I noticed is when playing an entirely skill based non class system when we played fantasy that people still built nearly the same classes. And they all took almost the same types of skills/perks. So if we had w fighter types they were almost the same. So much for "customization". What I noticed with skill based non class systems is that everyone wants to be able to both fight and cast some spells. And you can do that fine by tossing your chainmail characters some magic items. Give the hero a flying carpet, and the seer a magic sword. Everyone can kill stuff pretty well and do cool tricks.
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Post by ravenheart87 on Feb 22, 2014 14:23:37 GMT -6
Yeah, I know. I just pointed out that while I saw a lot of mundane characters in class based systems (fighters, thieves, barbarians) who never complained about not having flashy powers, in skill based systems everyone tried to be a magic user to some degree.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2014 14:46:34 GMT -6
For me, OD&D characters were more about the concept than the mechanics. We played ranger characters before ranger class was created because we had fighters who acted like rangers. Ding! Winner. Okay, we're done here. Somebody fetch me a beer.
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Post by aldarron on Feb 25, 2014 9:23:44 GMT -6
There's quite a lot about this in CoZ. Basically, one can follow the Greyhawk Paladin/Druid and Blackmoor Monk/Assasin model. Any changes to the base class come with consequences, such as greater cost of XP, or gains in one area, such as archery or spell casting, offset by loss in another such as Melee ability or ability to turn undead. As long as the trade off seems fair to you and your player, it should be fine (somewhat like the principle of trading ability score values). The base class remains the same in all other respects.
As far as feats go, a bonus to a saving throw works well, and has the advantage of scaling with level. Feats should be fairly individualistic, like "Xylarthen is good with a lasso", kind of thing.
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Post by blackbarn on Mar 7, 2014 18:02:08 GMT -6
It's all in how you play them, and to some degree develops based on what happens in play and what items are acquired, etc. But in our games we do roll on a table I found somewhere online titled "Traits & Tokens", which gives out some interesting little starting items not on the standard equipment list, with a chance for getting an unusual background or personal trait as well. All optional and can be ignored at will, meant mainly to spark ideas. EDIT: Found a link to the Traits & Tokens: dndborderlands.blogspot.com/2012/03/downloads-quick-npc-checklist-traits.html
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