zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Oct 15, 2012 11:10:08 GMT -6
That looks really good!
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Oct 7, 2012 11:52:35 GMT -6
Thanks - glad to see people are digging it!
The rules do indeed owe a big debt to Risus, but they developed in the direction they did out of a desire on my part to get closer to the pacing and tactical texture of D&D combat. We used them happily for a few years; only toward the end of the campaign did some of the more RPG-aware players start to itch for a little more granularity in their character mechanics (which could easily be added in the form of simple mechanical benefits that players have the chance to gain as they accrue dice). As you can imagine, this is very much a rulings-not-rules system that requires almost no rule-oriented prep, so making things up at the table is the order of the day for the DM.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Oct 5, 2012 21:11:27 GMT -6
Just wanted to make available the gazetteer of the campaign I ran over the last few years - I included our very light d6-only system, but the content is all system-neutral and would work well with any old-style D&D. I hope someone finds it useful and enjoys my New Yorker cartoon-style "illustrations."
http://speedy.sh/uMHgZ/GMP.pdf
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Oct 5, 2012 7:03:39 GMT -6
Thanks for the recommendation!
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Oct 4, 2012 10:21:23 GMT -6
I always thought The Wild Bunch could be an exemplary movie for a Western RPG aligned with the grimier end of the old-school affect: Bunch of guys ride around, get into trouble, and eventually raid an enemy fortress. Plus you get to listen to the late great Ernest Borgnine chew mad scenery. For a different flavor but just as much fun, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a classic.
I'm sure someone's beaten me to the punch on this one, but I think it would be cool to do a Boot Hill (or suitable clone) supplement that covers the Australian outback. The Proposition would be a good starting point, with lots of strongly drawn characters (and great performances by Huston, Winstone, Pearce, Hurt, etc.). Somebody should also do a supplement about gauchos on the pampas, but I don't know of a good gaucho movie.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Oct 3, 2012 7:46:22 GMT -6
Is it a problem for you that some of the communication-systems you've described above are jargons rather than languages per se, but that the cost of learning them is the same as that of learning a real language (with its own syntax, phonetics, lexicon, etc.)?
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Sept 26, 2012 14:21:35 GMT -6
Anyone who has problems with the realism of alignment languages is missing an important point.
What point is that?
It's clear that a DM who really wants to feature alignment languages in her campaign can work out a way to do so - but it's equally clear, I think, that they require us to contort our notion of what a "language" is in ways that may be bothersome in a lot of campaigns.
(Maybe this is but another example of the OSR tendency to take strange early rules as "found objects" and work out ways to rationalize and operationalize them; if so, I guess that's all there is to it.)
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Sept 26, 2012 7:07:07 GMT -6
All very interesting - thanks for the responses.
Did anybody take it as a model for making one's own rules variations, extra classes/spells, etc.? Maybe you were already doing that before UA came out, so it wasn't important to you in that capacity?
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Sept 24, 2012 11:34:37 GMT -6
grognardia.blogspot.com/2012/09/unearthed-arcana-reprint.htmlAs old-style D&D enthusiasts, my guess is that most of us aren't super-interested in books of rules addenda. Has anyone here gotten much use out of Unearthed Arcana or Unearthed Arcana-type publications that collect (and legitimate) optional rules? (My unsolicited opinion is that Unearthed Arcana is mostly useful as an example of what one can do with the game, of how granular the subsystems are, rather than as a set of ready-made rules for actual use.)
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Sept 16, 2012 13:19:49 GMT -6
I ran a campaign not too long ago with a simple system using all d6's. It was kind of cool to set a big bucket full of six-sided dice in the middle of the table and say "dig in, everybody." Now, though, there's something about the Big Six polyhedrals that stirs my soul (nostalgia is probably a non-negligible component here). I also rock a d30 when I want to signify to the players that the hand of the DM is, in a sense, an NPC.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Sept 14, 2012 12:30:18 GMT -6
"Screw that noise" indeed, and yet: Character generation replete with options and possibilities remains an appealing option for lots of gamers. For them, I think, generating a character is playing - and moreover, it's a kind of playing they can do away from the table, by themselves. I wonder if it isn't a symptom of the difficulties one faces in coordinating a bunch of busy people's schedules? Certainly I sympathize with players who yearn for a way to "play D&D" without herding a bunch of cats every week.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Sept 4, 2012 7:47:58 GMT -6
Bravo! Je l'aime très bien, particulièrement l'adoption des dieux Gréco-Romaines (et Mithras!) - c'est un rappel de la Camerata Fiorentina et la fascination contemporaine envers l'antiquité classique.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Sept 1, 2012 7:27:25 GMT -6
Less armor does not make one a more effective fighter, the role of armor is to protect the wearer so they can kill others not juststand still and have blows be deflected by the armor. Heavy armor let's one engage in moves and practices that would certainly get them killed if they had no armor.
Historically, that may be true; I have no way of knowing. But we're talking not only about what's plausible in reality but also about la bataille ecrite, the battle as it appears in literature and in the fantastical imagination. It's thought that a lightly armored or unarmored combatant could attempt more spectacular maneuvers than a heavily armored one owing to her increased agility, isn't it? And if it is, shouldn't we take that into consideration when we adjudicate how events go down in the game world?
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 31, 2012 15:34:28 GMT -6
I use a rule for "special attacks" in melee: If the player can convincingly describe a particularly pyrotechnical or stealthful attack for her character to execute, I grant a bonus to the attack roll equal to the character's AC and a bonus to damage equal to her HD. If this attack fails, however, any attacks made against the character's AC in the next round will be successful - which at low levels is often a lethal gamble.
This rule rewards lightly armored characters whose players are willing to take a risk and go an extra role-playing mile for narrating something cool. My house rules don't include ability score bonuses or modifiers to initiative or AC of any kind, so no character's AC will ever go above 9 or below 2 - and the aforementioned "special attack" rule is the only way to get a bonus to one's attack roll.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 30, 2012 17:27:38 GMT -6
Thanks for the info, everyone.
Kesher, I wish I'd been aware of your game - I lived in Minneapolis for four years and just moved away in July!
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 28, 2012 17:06:51 GMT -6
Just wanted to solicit everybody here for some advice: If you were going to initiate a weekly open game at a FLGS, how would you get started? I'm planning on asking the management if they can add it to their calendar, then try to drum up a few buddies to join us at least for the first few nights. Hopefully then it'll just be a matter of hooking whoever shows up.
I also have to make sure the store has the full Stereolab discography, which makes my DMing muscles bulge like Popeye's arms, to play over the PA...
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 27, 2012 14:36:48 GMT -6
Totally. Let me disclaim that as a player, save or die/suck effects don't really faze me - and why should they? My favorite kind of D&D is the kind where the most time-consuming part of character creation is rolling on the B/X Headgear chart. To me, that's one of the coolest things about old-style D&D; the system is so light (and the authority of the DM so sweeping) that the relationship between in-game time and table time can be as fluid as necessary.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 27, 2012 10:46:54 GMT -6
You certainly can - but I think that the loss of a turn goes a long way to explain why "save or suck" is unpopular.
If this poses a problem at your table - which will depend, of course, on your players - there are solutions: As has already been suggested, you could let each of them play several characters. You could modify the saving throw system such that a slept or held character can make a roll each turn to wake up rather than blowing the save and being out until further notice.
Look, we all know that the stakes of a decision are what give it weight; if there were no consequences for a misstep, surely the game would be much less fun to play. But when an in-game consequence (like falling asleep or walking into a spiderweb or whatever) is articulated to the real-world consequence of not being able to play the game, that can be a pretty frustrating circumstance, and one that (in my experience) often leads to diminished attention from the player in question. I think the game is best when everybody is "in;" "save or suck" effects that remove a character from play, even temporarily, create a social problem.
...not an insurmountable one, of course, and maybe not even a serious one if your players are all extremely serious, focused people. Sometimes mine are not.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 26, 2012 13:29:05 GMT -6
Fair enough: As long as you had fun, I guess there's no need to speculate further.
(I wrote a much longer post in which I did indeed speculate further, but then I deleted it, putting my money where my mouth is!)
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 26, 2012 11:33:43 GMT -6
I agree I like the element of danger.
To advocate briefly for the devil:
Leaving aside the "save or die" phenomenon to speak only about "save or suck" - i.e., make a saving throw or suffer some kind of temporary debilitating effect - the "danger" is twofold: first, the danger to the character (possibly serious, possibly negligible); second, the danger that the player is now in a position of watching a bunch of people play the game he or she bought a bunch of dice and got in his or her car to go to an FLGS or someone's house to play instead of playing the game him- or herself.
What "sucks" in a "save or suck" situation is that the player has nothing to do while the character is under a Hold Person or Sleep enchantment. You don't have to be a Candyland enthusiast to be irritated by a game mechanic that essentially mandates a time-out. After all, we all come to the table because we want to play, not because we want a bad decision (and in some cases not even that!) to prevent us from playing.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 8, 2012 20:34:32 GMT -6
In a campaign we recently finished, there were a couple of major villains (most notably a long-dead folk hero resurrected by his cult), but none of them gave monologues, swirled cloaks, etc. In fact, they usually had minimal face-time with the party - a decision on my part that mostly grew out of a fear that they'd become dramatically valuable to me or the party.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 1, 2012 15:26:22 GMT -6
That's too bad! Well, if you know any leads, they'd be appreciated.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Aug 1, 2012 14:53:51 GMT -6
Contact me if you're interested in playing in a (hopefully) weekly home game in the Fargo/Moorhead area. We have two or three openings. Thanks!
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Jul 24, 2012 17:59:12 GMT -6
to vote "TSR" is to vote, in effect, for � a finite canon I actually like the idea of a finite canon, for me personally. I�m constantly purging and pruning my RPG collection. At the end of the day, how many thousands of pages of published material do I need in order to run a competent game? More importantly, with less published material upon which to rely, won�t my own creativity kick in more? Ah HA! This is a good way to voice a sentiment that I suspect Kent and others here may also be getting at: The OSR is important to us because it gives us an environment in which to produce, not because it creates material we can consume. Time to sell my Scroll of Pierre Bourdieu Summoning and inscribe a Libram of Henry Jenkins Conjuration.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Jul 23, 2012 12:58:25 GMT -6
"I'd rather listen to The Beatles than to Oasis"
I get what you're saying, but I don't think this comparison holds water. A better one might be "I'd rather listen to the Sugarhill Gang than to Odd Future" - both initially DIY efforts, the first making an almost inconceivable creative leap (i.e., sampling Chic and expanding the tradition of toasting to new dimensions) and the second taking advantage of an unprecedented availability of competences and technical resources (i.e., releasing singles on Tumblr) to propagate its efforts. These two acts do us the favor of approximating the timings of TSR and the OSR more closely than the Beatles and Oasis, who are in each case about ten years too early (not an insignificant point—the cultural conditions of the early 1960s couldn't have produced TSR, and those of the early 1990s couldn't have produced the OSR). On the other hand, there's still a problem with the metaphor: TSR was a company, and the OSR is a thing that a whole bunch of more or less unaffiliated people do, often with no expectation of pay.
By the way, it goes without saying that the OSR could never have existed without TSR. In that respect, to vote "TSR" is to vote, in effect, for the abolition of all of our creative impulses in favor of a finite canon, and to vote "OSR" (as I did) is to vote for something to have happened that can't possibly have happened without mad rending of the space/time continuum. And yet here we are, calmly and civilly (for the most part) holding forth.
To unfurl my scroll of Pierre Bourdieu summoning: When we talk about this poll, we are talking about ourselves.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Jul 3, 2012 16:31:44 GMT -6
Players of old school games might therefore be more inclined to expect to be able to go off the rails and do anything at all.
I'm very sympathetic to this way of playing—and a rules-light context (like OD&D!) where lots of world content (dungeons, monsters, etc.) can be ginned up real quick allows for it. I guess what I'm asking is whether it would be possible to prosecute a totally railroady campaign whereby the players never know they're on the railroad, having no reason not to believe that their decisions aren't leading inexorably to a predestined conclusion.
I think it would take a lot of thinking on one's feet from the DM.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Jun 27, 2012 12:27:26 GMT -6
And here I thought we might see Friedrich Engels and György Lukács barnstorming a speakeasy.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Jun 27, 2012 7:43:08 GMT -6
For 3.5, there's PCGen (http://pcgen.sourceforge.net/01_overview.php), which I've never had occasion to use but is probably a lot of fun to mess around with even if you don't play 3.5.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Jun 26, 2012 9:08:41 GMT -6
Can I ask a question, then? If the players don't know that their having done X is irrelevant to the outcome of Y, what's the harm in X having no effect on Y? In other words, if the illusion of player choice is maintained, in what way is the players' experience compromised?
(On the other hand, I can certainly see how your DMing experience would be made more bland by a "Y happens anyway" situation.)
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on Jun 26, 2012 8:50:12 GMT -6
I'd shoot for no more than two hours for a demo game: rip and run, leave 'em wanting more, etc., etc. People who aren't used to lengthy sessions may not have the endurance to play for much longer than that, and I imagine you won't want to alienate prospects by confronting them with that kind of challenge (i.e., one that has nothing to do with what happens in the game and everything to do with individual tolerances for sitting in one place for a long time).
"Eradicat[ing] poor player habits," I'd say, shouldn't be on your to-do list for a demo game.
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