Random

[jdotmi]

I want to play D&D. Real D&D. You know, the kind with a table and pencils and paper and dice and books and junk food and mountain dew and pizza and pez and more mountain dew and lighters and chase scenes in basements and the ping/pong rings and Callista finishing eating Tracy.

...

What? Didn't your D&D have all those things?

Comments

[eyewrist.livejournal.com]

My favorite D&D quote was from my half deamon/monk chick was "hey baby, wanna pro-create?"

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

My favorite D&D quote is almost a "had to be there" moment.

Picture this party (2nd edition):
Human Fighting Monk (specialty priest)
Human Fighter
Halfling Thief
Chaotic Neutral Human Invoker

Now, the CN Invoker is a 19 year old chick. She has the mentality of a 2 year old. She plays with flowers, coo's over the fluffy bunnies, and is generally oblivious to the fact that she throws fireballs around like a child flings food at the dinner table.

The party is hiding in the bushes, about to spring an ambush on the EvilFighterBitch and her retinue of Goblins. They're waiting... waiting... waiting...

...and the Invoker springs out of bushes, crying "HIIIIYAAAAA!", lands in a classic kung-fu stance, blinks, looks at the Fighting Monk and says:

"Oh! Sorry! That's you!"

[eyewrist.livejournal.com]

hahahha awesome :)

[mightyafrodite.livejournal.com]

Well, we don't have pez, only occasionally eat pizza. We normally have salads, BBQ, homemade potpie, stir fry, BBQ...things like that. I'm the only one that regularly drinks mountain dew, and I drink it diet. And only two people smoke, and we're quitting when we move.

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

Yeah. We had perpetual sugar highs going. Of course, this was like 6 or 7 years ago now. We were playing a Forgotten Realms game that was based off of Highlander (yes, we're highlander nuts, it's sad really) and every time we killed a bad guy we'd pop a pez. :-p

My CN Human Invoker (see above) got to calling it "Pez" when people got decapitated. No-one (IC) understood why.

[mightyafrodite.livejournal.com]

It's funny, looking at gaming culture of people in their late twenties and older, compared to college and on down...

[dorowintersong.livejournal.com]

lol I'm way past my 20's but not TOO much,and the gaming group I am in here in town is the same as it was quite a few years ago.Though we have slacked off on the pizza,everything else is the same,exept maybe when I go bonkers for sushi and I beg someone to go after it.Usually its a freind of mine named Jim,but he doesnt mind because his bf works at the place I get my sushi fix from.

[mightyafrodite.livejournal.com]

That sounds a lot like my gaming group. Mixed green salads, yogurt, etc, right along side the hot wings. Our group ranges in age from 25--unless I'm the youngest and then that's 27--to 45.

[multicolours.livejournal.com]

yes! (I knew I liked you for a reason!!)

and wine... and beer... and terrible puns... and innuendo... and bad jokes...

damn! I miss that!

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

We sorta stopped having innuendo when we tied the GM and two of the girls playing with the group together and photographed them. :-p

I still have those pictures somewhere. I bet some photo-lab tech at Meijer had a field day with those. :-p

[multicolours.livejournal.com]

hmmm... you're one up on us there... we did duct tape the GM to a lamp pole once... but that was because he was too drunk to stand up unassisted! hehe

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

Lol. We actually almost killed the GM once. :-p He's incredibly ticklish. Ticklish to the point where he loses all ability to be coherent. We were tying him to the bed using his Karate belts and tickling him and he managed to wrap one around his neck. O_O

We were video taping this incident. Later, when watching it, we would say "And this is where we nearly killed John.

"...

"Oops."

He was fine like five minutes after we untied him, but still, scary at the time, funny now.

[multicolours.livejournal.com]

ohh... I want to join your group!

*envious look*

[lilacmoon5.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of my old gaming group. Every Friday night 7pm until dawn. With a pizza call at 9pm. Candy, pop, way too much junk food. Our room had a blackboard and was the only one with a pencil sharpener. Koosh Balls were the weapon of choice, but empty two liters worked well too.

Building level 3 fortified libraries. Blowing up another ruler's throne room and starting the war a month before we were ready. Meeting Answhe and living to tell the tale. Controlling undead to save the lives of a bunch of worshippers of the god of goody-two-shoes. Killing 200 skeletons with each wall of ice. FIREBALLS! I how could I forget--Seige weapon practise with the dead enemy as ammunition.

Have you ever played Birthright? SatyrMI says you would want to play 3.5. I should check Birthright.net to find out if the guys from the old group have updated the conversion to 3.5.

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

I haven't played Birthright, and the setting didn't really appeal to me much at the time it was out. Most stuff that's been converted to 3.0 can be fairly easily converted to 3.5. There are only a few differences to iron out.

[lilacmoon5.livejournal.com]

The trouble is that I am not a fan of 3.0 to begin with. It reminds me of Forgotten Realms... Birthright may not have looked interesting, but it is the world where TSR developed the full scale war rules. It is a low magic world and in the main culture that I would run wizards are uncommon. Wizards are also slightly feared by the general population. I also heard that the blood abilities of BR were the base idea for the feats in 3.0. Sorry, for the great numbers that didn't find Birthright interesting when it was released there was/is a great cult following to the world. It is very full and fleshed out. Next time we are east I could tell you the history of the world.

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

Oh I've read a lot about it and glanced through some of the material about it and it's very detailed. It's just not my cup of tea. Part of it is the low-magic aspect. I like my high fantasy to be, well, high fantasy. And I've never been a fan of mass combat. When I was running my first D&D campaign ever (not even AD&D) I avoided mass combat like the plague. We even had a war and I was just like "ok, you kill all these bad guys. Go you!". The Mass Combat rules they had in the original D&D were just a mess.

How does 3.0 remind you of FR? What in particular are you not a fan of in it? Not trying to convert ya, just curious. I've never really played out tabletop 3.0 or 3.5 yet, so who knows.

[lilacmoon5.livejournal.com]

Actually low-magic aspect makes it more enjoyable. It isn't really a low-magic world. It is a world where a +1 weapon is special and a +2 is extremely special. Fresia's +3 whack em stick was exceedingly awesome. That is not including the strange occurrence that she normally resorted to that when the opponent had one 1 point and I would always roll max damage. The legendary sword of Michael Roele was only +2 and it was broken. The mass combat rules are quite nice and easy to use in Birthrigt. Your units go up against the enemies units. Insanity and an amazing war ensues when the PC's in the new campaign attack a country that the PC's in the old campaign are sworn to defend. Talk about going to war with oneself.

It took me a long time to determine why 3.0 left a bad flavor in my mouth. The first thing that struck me was that I didn't like the way that it handled/separated wizards and sorcerers. Fresia could never be converted into either because she was both. She was gifted with magic in her blood - but she learned magic via books. Both parts are integral in this wizards outlook on life and magic.

There were other things about 3.0 I couldn't put my finger on. I have played 3.0 three different campaigns so far. Each one with a different DM. Colin was the most enjoyable DM, but we are similar in our styles. Both of us always take the time to buy barrettes (in my case) or spices (his characters). This was also a single session for me, as I was visiting for the weekend. The other two campaigns were okay, but as we were selecting feats and becoming super powerful beings... there was nothing to go on for except more toys. It is not only the DM's or the party though. 3.0 is designed with the idea of building the biggest and most powerful character that could be imagined. It boils done to the problem I have with 3.0 other than the way it handles magic users are the feats. It becomes gain a level to collect another feat to make your character more extraordinary. While I will allow that some of the overpowered play is from the DM, it seems innately designed into 3.0. Feats which are much like magic items that were found in the Realms. Also it always reappears that I do not like the way magic users are handled in 3.0.

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

See, I never really saw FR as magic item heavy. And I totally don't see how they really connects to Feats. I played a long FR campaign in 2nd edition and we only saw a handful of magical items. Mind you, we were on a quest, ultimately, to destroy an artifact, but no-one had a huge slew of magical items to toss around. It was, in all reality, more like playing Vampire or Changeling. We just had fireballs.

So. How did your character use spells? Did she have to prepare them out of a book? That would, in 3rd edition, directly relate to Wizard. If she just "knew" spells and didn't learn them from a book that would directly relate to Sorcerer. If she had a few that she "knew" and didn't need a book to memorize then she could be a Wizard with the Spontaneous Casting feat (which I believe came out of either one of the default supplements or the FR book) or a Sorcerer with the Spell Preperation feat. Or she could be multi-classed or a prestige class. Hmm. Maybe there are a few too many options to choose from there. :-p

D&D always has been about going for toys. It's always been, for some, about killing the Dragon and taking it's loot. It's always been about accumulating new and nifty abilities. The only difference now is that an individual character has more options in what new and nifty abilities they learn. My wizard, who focuses on making magical items (brew potion, craft wondrous item, craft wand), could be totally different from Keith's wizard, who focuses on making his spells pack a bigger punch (empower spell, maximize spell, spell focus). The loot and toys crap could be laid soley at the feet of campaign design. Yeah, they exist in the books, but the only ones actually in the books are the ones that have always been in the books.

I think one difference is that your seeing the mindset of the gamers coming into D&D from computer gaming who want hack-n-slash. I don't do D&D hack-n-slash. Hate it with a burning passion.

[lilacmoon5.livejournal.com]

You played in a truely special FR campaign, that I might have enjoyed. I have played a few campaigns in FR, read some of the books, and read the novels. They all seemed to be about the magic items and magic item heavy. Designed for greater hack and slash hacking.

The reason I equate magic item heavy with the feats is that the most of the feats are centered around combat. Standard treasure allotment in 3.0 per the DMG, allows that you cannot abide by the encomberance rules without a bag of holding. You just get that much loot.

I get bored very quickly when I am stuck with hack and slash. What is the point? Most of the hack and slash I play is To me DND has not about how many things you can kill and how many toys you can collect. I tend to play wizards who are out to learn more and rangers that are out to protect. Maybe you are right on the mindset... I have done very little computer gaming. The stuff I play, I prefer run, jump, solve puzzle, and duck style games over kill, kill, kill games.

As for magic users, I know what I can do in regards to converting this character, but all options cause this character to lose half of her soul, half of her personality, and have of her egotism. My arguement is that I do not like what has been done we magic users in 3.0. I will say I am used to playing a non-memorizing wizard in 2nd ed. Also, you do not need the feats to make wizards completely different from each other.

I would be interested in hearing what puzzles your FR group solved to order complete their quest.

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

Well we didn't actually complete said quest. We stopped playing before that. A lot of it was, in all reality, finding out who had what information and keeping the enemies from getting to things. It was a character based and relationship based game. We moved along in the plot and all, but the focus was less on the BigHonkinAdventure and was more on the inter-character interactions. The artifact wasn't even really discovered by the PCs until later on, and most didn't know what it was capable of.

I really don't think I was in a particularly special game. I just think most people are deprived. :-p

Here's my take on treasure allotment. 2nd edition actually did have huge amounts of treasure show up, unless I was artificially inflating it in the adventures I made, which I don't think I was. 3rd edition isn't really that different. Individual creatures don't really carry much, but if you go into a lair, they're going to have quite a bit there. If the players never really hit a "lair", they don't hit the jackpot. I'm also very anal about what characters can carry. If they can't carry it out then they can't carry it out. It's still treasure that's generated by the allotment, they just have to pick and choose what they want. It's how I've always run my games. Works out pretty well. I mean, that 500 pound marble statue that is sitting in the back of the Dragon's cave is part of it's horde. Doesn't mean the party of halfling raiders is going anywhere with it. Even if they get it out of the cavern, they have to get it home. And there's plenty that can find them along the way.

I still don't really agree with you on magic users. The default model in 2nd edition was the Wizard who memorizes spells out of a spellbook. That was the only official way for it to be played. Certain campaigns may have had variations, but the core rules had the book-totin wizard who needed an assload of time to memorize her spells. 3rd edition still has said Wizard, albeit it doesnt' take her as long to memorize spells and she can cast slightly fewer in a given day. Of course, she now gets bonus spells for a high Intelligence score, which was previously only possible for Clerics, who were pretty much Gods in 2nd edition. Of course, they added the Sorcerer, who has a limited selection of spells to choose from but can cast them more frequently and doesn't memorize them. Overall, yes they weakened Wizards. However, in 2nd edition they were untouchable past about 15th level.

I think most people's big problem with 3rd edition is that it is simplified from 2nd edition. I don't find this a problem. It was one of the things I hated about 2nd edition. Each ability score not only had a seperate ability modifier table, but they didn't all even come close to matching each other. Plus you had that exceptional strength bit. Cuz, you know, nobody could be exceptionally dextrous or healthy or something. Everything was highly convoluted. It's still a little convoluted in 3rd edition, but you don't need a mobile database to figure out every little quirk in the system.

What in particular don't you like about what was done to wizards?