Fun Stuff > CLIKC
D&D Pathfinder
Torlek:
I've never played it, but everything I saw about 4e made it seem like a game sequel that took a deep, turn based, isometric CRPG with all kinds of mechanics that could be leveraged in different ways (so Baldur's Gate and its ilk) and turned it into a much more streamlined, real time, third-person action RPG. There's nothing wrong with that and it can be an amazing game, it's just not what the fans playing the previous game were there for.
It sounds like your problems all stem from the eternal question of RPG players, "what do you do with a shitty GM?" I've had some that slavishly adhered to the rules, demanded that every interaction be tied to a skill roll and never had enough story out of combat to make the trips from dungeon to dungeon interesting (though they did still have some extremely interesting combat scenarios, so it wasn't all bad). Thankfully, my current ones have enough backstory going on that there's always something interesting to do out of combat and (most of) the skill rolls feel natural. We've even had a couple of sessions that wouldn't have had any combat if the GM hadn't sprang their surprise encounter (and said encounter actually felt like an imposition). I very much like finding the weird little intricacies in a deep system with complex rules for almost everything, but I can totally see where a bad GM would completely sour you on the labyrinthine mechanics in 3.5/Pathfinder.
hedgie:
Hmm. Given that I don't feel comfortable running in person sessions for, probably a year if we're lucky, and I hate shit like Zoom for something like gaming, I think that instead of sulking, it's time for me to start fleshing out the lore more completely. When I started, I had rough outlines of various groups in power in various areas, as well as roles in larger plotlines. While most of the PCs were from fairly close to the city they landed in, or, in case of the Nazi elf,[1] had a professional reason to be in the area. There's also enough that I can steal from pre-existing fantasy settings to make that job easier.
The harder two areas to work people in from, that have at least some present representation in the current, and likely future parties if I have to do any sort of plot reset with a new group, are the "barbarians" from the known West,[2] and their rather symbiotic relationship with the well, very theocratic human empire that is their only real outside contact aside from what are basically Reavers to their north, and the western desert which is one of those places on a map marked "here be things that eat dragons".
Edit:
Really, I had written about 50 pages of actual lore for the "starting zone", and maybe a few pages each for other regions, and only filling them in more if a PC came from there. The (obvious) setup is that there are two theocratic empires, one "good", the other "evil" who are both on a serious inquisition of anything diabolic/demonic, and even warned players that if they rolled a summoner or tiefling, at least in the beginning, they'd probably have a short and shitty life.
The barbarians got more interesting when one of the players rolled basically a zen archer from that region, and had to figure out the relationships between orcs and humans, as well as the empire on the other side of the wall.
[1] Okay, maybe that's a little unfair. The Shadow Elves *are* at least strongly fascistic theocrats, though.
[2] Human, orc, and intermixed. For basic survival, intermarriage to seal personal and family alliances is common enough, even if not the norm
Gyrre:
--- Quote from: de_la_Nae on 14 Oct 2020, 17:37 ---i will allow that if you had an unimaginative GM i can see how 4th might *maybe* make non-combat a little more irritating, but you're already screwed if you have an unimaginative GM anyway
--- End quote ---
I'm watching High Rollers: Aerois and the DM brought back the skill challenges from 4E into his 5E game. Very interesting to see and something I might do.
Like I said in the 1st post (I think), I've never played 4 ed. One of my former coworkerw is a 3.5 snob pretty much made thecWoW comparison and tutted 'When everyone's special no one is.'
--- Quote from: hedgie on 15 Oct 2020, 23:15 ---Hmm. Given that I don't feel comfortable running in person sessions for, probably a year if we're lucky, and I hate shit like Zoom for something like gaming, I think that instead of sulking, it's time for me to start fleshing out the lore more completely. When I started, I had rough outlines of various groups in power in various areas, as well as roles in larger plotlines. While most of the PCs were from fairly close to the city they landed in, or, in case of the Nazi elf,[1] had a professional reason to be in the area. There's also enough that I can steal from pre-existing fantasy settings to make that job easier.
[Snip]
--- End quote ---
Roll20 with Discord hasn't been too bad. Occasionally there's crap reception/connectivity, but that's standard with online play from the streams I watch (vodsquad for life it seems).
This is actually the second time I've encountered the phrase 'Nazi elf' in less than 24 hours. Is that just a thing? My Saturday group is possibly going to have to do the alternating DMs thing, so we were setting up characters and some world lore for his homebrew dungeon crawl last night, and that's pretty much what he said the elves were like because one of the players picked a half-elf PC. "Dirty elves get kicked out along with any fullbloods who don't agree with doing so." It's also his reasoning for making the standard elvenkind gear rarer and more expensive.
It was suggested that that could be his world's origin for dark elves. They're less evil and more "evil" from the viewpoint of other elves for not being xenophobic racist dickheads. Knocker said he'd think about it.
Gnabberwocky:
In our 5E game, our DM made the mistake of having us encounter a horde of sea hags trying to summon a flesh golem. He was expecting a huge, difficult boss fight, or for us to back off and leave them in peace. Instead, our wizard stepped into the room and immediately cast thunder wave. Only two made their save; he killed the other fifteen. Our rogue picked off the stragglers with throwing knives. The whole fight lasted only a couple seconds.
A few moments later, our chaotic evil gnome paladin (long story) smashed their source of power with a battle axe, got trapped in the shadow realm, and was possessed by a demon before I rescued him. If you're keeping track, that's a chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin with CON 19. Who wouldn't flee?
Gyrre:
--- Quote from: Gnabberwocky on 08 Nov 2020, 14:30 ---In our 5E game, our DM made the mistake of having us encounter a horde of sea hags trying to summon a flesh golem. He was expecting a huge, difficult boss fight, or for us to back off and leave them in peace. Instead, our wizard stepped into the room and immediately cast thunder wave. Only two made their save; he killed the other fifteen. Our rogue picked off the stragglers with throwing knives. The whole fight lasted only a couple seconds.
A few moments later, our chaotic evil gnome paladin (long story) smashed their source of power with a battle axe, got trapped in the shadow realm, and was possessed by a demon before I rescued him. If you're keeping track, that's a chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin with CON 19. Who wouldn't flee?
--- End quote ---
Criminy!
One piece of GMing advice I picked up is set boss encounters a level or three higher than the group is rated for. A 'deadly encounter' at minimum. Granted, that also depends on the group and their class composition.
EDIT: derp double posted that backstory. I'll leave the expanded version in the post below.
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