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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!

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22 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Ah, shadows of the early days of tabletop roleplaying games. Where you grabbed all the valuables no matter how lawful good you were, because 1 GP = 1 XP.

I always hated that.  Which is one reason Project X isn't using an OSR game as it's fantasy half.  They are too tightly tied to that and untwisting the XP needed vs XP rewarded knot is more trouble than it's worth.

 

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38 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I always hated that.  Which is one reason Project X isn't using an OSR game as it's fantasy half.  They are too tightly tied to that and untwisting the XP needed vs XP rewarded knot is more trouble than it's worth.

 

Trust me, I hated it, too. I came up with house rules for awarding XP for nonlethal and nonavaricious ways of advancing plot and goals long before it got built into newer roleplaying games.

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GTA-like feel. Not good.

It feels counterintuitive to leave all the people behind in the floor like that, and to not take all the available loot (weight notwithstanding, as long as they are not props).

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3 minutes ago, Aura Guardian said:

If and when I design a game system, small bonus XP for nonlethal takedown (in a realistic way), and MORE bonus XP for each person NOT taken down. How's that sound?

That might work very well for something like Thief. To be fair, in a Diablo-like it is probably OK to stay with XP for kills. :)

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Thief was good in that it was challenging, you only had so much to start with and you had to be mindful of when to use your equipment, you also had to be aware of your environment. At the same time the only way you could increase your chances of success in later levels is if you collected all the valuables in the previous one so that you could afford enough items to take with you.

I do seem to recall that none of the guards ever got back up after getting knocked in the back of the head with a blackjack....

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42 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I do seem to recall that none of the guards ever got back up after getting knocked in the back of the head with a blackjack....

Once again, a cosh or a blackjack is really only a less lethal way of taking someone down, not really a nonlethal one. And you have to know exactly what you are doing -- if you don't, the odds of killing your victim increase dramatically. :(

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1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

I lean towards bonus XP for clever ways around obstacles of all sorts, genuine role-playing, cooperation, and good puns (with penalties for bad puns).

My general rule is you get XP for defeating the threat.  That doesn't mean you have to kill it, sneaking past it can count as a defeat, depending on what it is and how you sneak.  There are some times that actually killing the threat is the wrong thing to do.  For example if the "threat" is the king.  Killing him, or trying to, in full court, not a good idea.

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

My general rule is you get XP for defeating the threat.  That doesn't mean you have to kill it, sneaking past it can count as a defeat, depending on what it is and how you sneak.  There are some times that actually killing the threat is the wrong thing to do.  For example if the "threat" is the king.  Killing him, or trying to, in full court, not a good idea.

Oddly enough, in one campaign I'm still in the middle of, not all that long ago the threat was the king, and killing him actually turned out to be the best solution. To be fair, though, he had had the previous king assassinated, was causing a civil war to try to kill the rightful heir to the throne, and was actually attempting to destroy the kingdom internally so the upcoming invasion could wipe it out with minimal casualties...

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It's the zillions of guardsmen and a dozen or so of court mages that kind of make killing the king tricky, no matter how much he needs it.

Plus that sort of king tends to have at least one evil high priest with raise dead hanging around making weird noises that scare the kids.

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My daughter has a story of a an RPG where the other players persuaded her to play a gnome thief - and then their characters immediately started with jokes about short people...

She managed to persuade the king that kidnappers were after him, escort him to a place of safety, go back and convince the royal councillors that the king had been kidnapped and they should choose her as the courier for the ransom money, frame the rest of her party as the kidnappers, bring the king back and collect a reward from him for protecting him from the kidnappers, and then rescue the rest of the party...

... there were no kidnappers...

(This involved a LOT of notes to & from the DM. Just to make things confusing, some of the notes she passed said things like "think a moment and then tell me no".)

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I once did that scenario with a kingdom where powerful nobles were trying to destroy it internally, too. The old king was dead, leaving only a daughter to hold the throne, so wild plotting commenced. But the plotting slowly ground to a halt. First, the most aggressive of the plotters died in a hunting accident. This occurred when he was somehow placed in a trebuchet that was primed to launch and he got fired hundreds of yards away to impact in a noxious swamp. The second plotter, who was also a suitor, suffered from a stroke that was so bad that it not only crushed the back of his skull but also most of his neck and his left shoulder. The third committed suicide by running screaming through his home while beating himself to death with an iron bar. The fourth died when an accidental fire burned his home down and shot everyone trying to escape through the windows with crossbow bolts.

After that, the rest of plotters got the hint and decided not to tempt the new queen's wrath any longer. It did not save them, mind. They had the privilege of occupying the front ranks of the army when the Queen ordered the neighbouring kingdom plotting against hers invaded. They all died as war heroes.

The players treated the queen of that kingdom very respectfully.

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10 hours ago, mlooney said:
12 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

I lean towards bonus XP for clever ways around obstacles of all sorts, genuine role-playing, cooperation, and good puns (with penalties for bad puns).

My general rule is you get XP for defeating the threat.  That doesn't mean you have to kill it, sneaking past it can count as a defeat, depending on what it is and how you sneak.  There are some times that actually killing the threat is the wrong thing to do.  For example if the "threat" is the king.  Killing him, or trying to, in full court, not a good idea.

Killing king in full court might be bad idea, but still XP worthy - in fact, so daring act should get more XP than killing the king later in garden. Of course, it would be VERY hard to survive even the attempt - that's WHY it will get more XP.

Totally agree with XP for defeating the threat / overcoming an obstacle. But I don't agree with giving XP for "holding to the script". And NPCs unkillable for plot reasons are something which belongs to computer games, where the variability needs to be limited: in desk game, DM is supposed to adapt to anything the players decide to do. So, it SHOULD be possible to kill even the king, the guards which will try to prevent it shouldn't appear from thin air unless it's work of court mage and if players succeed, there may be someone ready to thank them ... and try to dispose of them later, after they help him with several other ... obstacles.

Of course, there may be XP gain (or loss for failing) for playing in accordance with their alignment and for ability to explain the reasons and motivations the characters have for the actions.

8 hours ago, Random Wanderer said:

To be fair, though, he had had the previous king assassinated, was causing a civil war to try to kill the rightful heir to the throne, and was actually attempting to destroy the kingdom internally so the upcoming invasion could wipe it out with minimal casualties...

Note that this counts as good reason IF the party is good. Evil party is more likely to do the destroying of kingdom themselves.

8 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

The players treated the queen of that kingdom very respectfully.

And did they later succeeded in killing her? ... or it WASN'T preparation for future campaign? :)

It's actually good example of the fact that players are rarely first adventurers appearing in the world. If it would be easy to kill the king and replace him, someone would already do it - or, more likely, someone DID it and it kept happening until the king (or queen in this case) was someone capable of keeping that title.

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I rather strongly don't use plot armor.  Other than for Gods.  And even then you can kill their "mortal form" which stops them from messing with mortals for a year and a day.  Also stops their clerics from getting spells,which tends to piss off people that have power beyond their spell casting, and there is the 366 days later gunning for you to deal with.  They only way to kill a God is to kill all of it's mortal belivers.  Of course if you are doing that you count as a well, so it doesn't die until you do as well.

In well on 42 years of gaming, 30 of it mainly as a DM exactly 2 gods have been killed.  I had my character kill him self at the climax of a 15 year game time (4 year real time) game that was centered on killing off a minor god and his cult, which had killed every one in my village.  Truely epic game.  0th edtion D&D, 3 booklets plus Greyhawk for the rules.

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22 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I rather strongly don't use plot armor.  Other than for Gods.

I would emphatically second this. Never ever use plot armour (again, with the possible exception of Gods) as it is cheating the players. Not even for the player characters themselves. Death needs to be a looming possibility for everyone and even the most powerful master villains or epic heroes need to be fallible.

Mind you, this is not the same as saying that it should be easy to kill anyone. In my Occidentia campaign it would certainly be possible to kill the Byzantine Empress -- once you managed to outwit the Imperial Guards, subvert her massive and paranoid network of spies and counterintelligence, penetrate intricate magical defences erected by the Court Wizards and (last but not least) outmaneuver the Empress' own highly cautious routine of self-preservation. Just remember that all of the above are good at what they do as they get a LOT of practice. Also remember that even arousing suspicion of having intentions against the Empress is as good as a death sentence, of if she is feeling merciful, lifetime imprisonment in a high security jail.

Still, on a more everyday basis and with characters the PCs are more likely to meet, it means that if the players play it smart and/or get lucky, they can take any of their personal enemies down. The above was an extreme example as the likelihood of the players making the personal enmity of someone that high up is very low. Unless they really work at it, in which case they only have themselves to thank for it.

In short, I consider plot armor an abomination. It's unfair to players, demoralising as all out and it makes the game boring for everyone. What fun is it to run a campaign if your players can't surprise you?

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4 hours ago, mlooney said:

I rather strongly don't use plot armor.  Other than for Gods.

Gods who NEED plot armor shouldn't get it. Either it's small God with just few hundreds of believers and no other source of power, and then it's valid target, or it's someone in league of Lord of Nightmares ...

4 hours ago, mlooney said:

Of course if you are doing that you count as a well,

Why? If you are supposed to kill everyone who know about that God existence, it would be pretty evil and likely impossible. Sure, if you are too focused on the killing, it may be problem, but I'm sure some wise guy can teach you how to "let go" and kill that God without committing suicide. In fact, might be better to contact one even sooner, because you need to be sure to not accidentally kill the believers in name of their God, which might count as sacrifice ...

Alternatively, if you are doing it in service of some other God, that should prevent you from keeping your target alive as well.

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I think the theory is that deities get power from those who believe they exist.

How much effort will YOU put into killing a being that you don't believe exists? Probably, none. The fact that you are trying to kill it pretty much demonstrates that you believe it exists - and, therefore, are giving it power.

(The catch is - if you presumably-incorrectly believe that a deity gains powers only from its worshippers, then once you are sure all its worshippers are dead YOU will STOP believing it exists. But how about the people who believe it exists yet don't worship it? Such as most pantheists who have heard of it?)

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18 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I think the theory is that deities get power from those who believe they exist.

How much effort will YOU put into killing a being that you don't believe exists? Probably, none. The fact that you are trying to kill it pretty much demonstrates that you believe it exists - and, therefore, are giving it power.

(The catch is - if you presumably-incorrectly believe that a deity gains powers only from its worshippers, then once you are sure all its worshippers are dead YOU will STOP believing it exists. But how about the people who believe it exists yet don't worship it? Such as most pantheists who have heard of it?)

I believe that if we ask the good Pharaoh here, the chosen MO of ancient Egypt when wanting to utterly destroy an entity -- divine or mortal -- was to destroy all records of it, especially of its name. To speak of it as little as possible and when one did speak of it, to never name it but rather refer to it with some sort of derogative that granted it as little respect (and hence power) as possible. 'The creature', for example. Once the so treated being's name was completely erased and all record of it destroyed and forgotten, the target would be destroyed, too.

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2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

The catch is - if you presumably-incorrectly believe that a deity gains powers only from its worshippers, then once you are sure all its worshippers are dead YOU will STOP believing it exists.

That is pretty good solution, actually. Believing that something existed in past but don't exist anymore should be safe.

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

But how about the people who believe it exists yet don't worship it? Such as most pantheists who have heard of it?

They may stop believing for the same reason. If the fact that someone killed every believer of that god become public knowledge, I mean. The "deity only gains power from worshippers" can be self-fulfilling belief.

(Note that it's obvious the deity get more power from worshippers than from the people who just knows about it - otherwise it wouldn't work so hard on getting worshippers. It's possible that deity without worshippers but with people who know it exists still lives, but in something like a coma, unable to act. Until someone decides to start believing ... or until people stop believing it exists.)

2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I believe that if we ask the good Pharaoh here, the chosen MO of ancient Egypt when wanting to utterly destroy an entity -- divine or mortal -- was to destroy all records of it, especially of its name. To speak of it as little as possible and when one did speak of it, to never name it but rather refer to it with some sort of derogative that granted it as little respect (and hence power) as possible. 'The creature', for example.

Question is if it was really necessary or if they just wanted to play it safe.

Note that it didn't really worked with Voldermort.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Question is if it was really necessary or if they just wanted to play it safe.

Note that it didn't really worked with Voldermort.

It was a belief system. It is not a question of whether it worked or not, it is a question of whether those who practice it believe in it or not.

Voldemort is a poor comparison. The reason no-one spoke his name was that they were afraid of doing so. A fear deliberately inculcated by Voldemort himself by spreading the rumour that his attention might be drawn by naming him. He may or may not have also actually struck at some of those who did to help spread that fear. You will note that the toughest of the heroes refused to submit to Voldemort's intimidation, including Dumbledore and of course Harry himself.

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