Thread 96519785

>play in 4 AD&D games a week
>stop caring about the hobby, becomes a way to pass the time
>drop down to 2 games
>start caring about OSR theory again, engage with the hobby critically and find renewed passion

Being nogames is kind of good, actually.

>>96519785 (OP)
2 games a week is not nogames, or even close. There are people on this very board who game less than once a year and wouldn't consider themselves nogames.

>>96519785 (OP)
I'm starting to think learning THAC0 causes brain damage.

>>96519823
AD&D doesn't use THAC0, it has attack matrices.

>>96519809
>There are people on this very board who game less than once a year and wouldn't consider themselves nogames.
These people are wrong.

Where do I go to find good old school games? I joined a discord for a subreddit and had to nope out because it was instantly too political (and not the cool in-game way)

Is AD&D good?

>>96520528
No

>>96520528
Not every bit of the three books are good (some shit Gary himself disavowed, like the weapons vs AC table)
But in general AD&D is good, yeah

>>96519785 (OP)
Four weekly games is fucking unhealthy.

>Playing 4 games a week
Anon, thats not being nogames, thats being jobless

>>96519858
Learn your history summerchild. THAC0's been in the 1st ed DMG since no latter than 1979. You might not have used it but some of us didn't need to the matrices.

>>96519785 (OP)
I don't see the inate value of OSR theory.

>>96521887
its valuable if you are a DM

>>96521389
You seem to lack the critical thinking skills that I assume other anon was employing. THAC0 is just a shorthand formula used to determine position on the attack matrices. There is literally no difference between using the matrices and using THAC0. THAC0 IS the attack matrices. It's just an expression of the formula that underpins them.

>>96521887
There is no innate value, it's a subjective value.

>>96519823
THAC0 is literally just a DC, you dreary simpleton. Or rather, DCs are THAC0 numbers applied to the whole entire rest of the game system. (It started with revised psionics and MTHAC0 before WotC designers took the idea and ran with it.)
>>96519785 (OP)
Help me, oh wise one, to become a nogames. I want out of this accursed hobby. How do I quit and not want to come back?

>>96519785 (OP)
Jerking off on discord with other retarded faggots who use "theater of the mind" and don't even use character sheets is not a "game", you retarded nogames.

>>96521887

giving xp for gold value of loot instead of kills is already a gigantic game changer

>>96526265
That doesn't even make any fucking sense. How do you gain experience by collecting gold? That means you could just rob a bank at level 1 and instantly max level your character.

>>96526268

dungeons are literally just banks for evil wizards and their lackeys, so yes

>>96526285
So do you lose levels when you lose gold?

>>96526291
Ah, it was a retarded Gygax rule, that figures. Arneson 4 life.

>>96526292
No, because the gold is not the experience points, it's just the basis for how much XP the DM ought to award.
>>96526268
You can't gain more than one level from a single adventure. Not least because as soon as you hit the threshold for leveling up, your XP total freezes there until you train.

>>96526292

In some systems, they address this autistic nitpick by making you fully gain the experience when the gold is spent on something.

>But then you could just spend the gold, then kill the vendor then take the gold back.

You can always be actively hostile to the spirit of any game and push its edge cases through increasingly contrived and hostile examples. Rule negative one is to be a fun person to play with.

>>96526296
Consider this a gentle but firm reminder that Dave was such a disorganized and indolent excuse for a game-designer that Gary had to have TSR ditch his useless ass.

>>96526298
>No, because the gold is not the experience points, it's just the basis for how much XP the DM ought to award.
But it is. It says so in the rules. How much gold pieces you get is equivalent to how much you gain in experience.

>You can't gain more than one level from a single adventure. Not least because as soon as you hit the threshold for leveling up, your XP total freezes there until you train.
Gee, it's almost like he saw how fucking stupid his rule was and instead of fixing it, decided to just put a hard stop-gap into it. Thank god 2nd Edition added experience points from kills.

>>96526320

>Thank god 2nd Edition added experience points from kills.

Experience from gold looted pre-emptively fixed murderhoboing. Experience from kills actively mechanically incentivises murderhoboing.

>>96526308
>Consider this a gentle but firm reminder that Dave was such a disorganized and indolent excuse for a game-designer that Gary had to have TSR ditch his useless ass.

You mean the retarded sack of shit that fucked over Arneson and Blume and was successfully sued in court, and then had his ass ousted from the company due to his absolutely fucking stupid business moves that almost ran the company into the fucking ground?

>>96526328
>Experience from gold looted pre-emptively fixed murderhoboing. Experience from kills actively mechanically incentivises murderhoboing.
No, it doesn't, because the rules also state you still get experience from enemies that surrender or flee. I didn't say it was the "only way". Just that it was added. Troll harder.

>>96526296
Arneson was an illiterate downie, dude.

>>96526261
But 3/4 of my games used battlemaps.

>>96526334
Bad businessman, good designer.

>>96526265
>giving xp for gold value of loot instead of kills is already a gigantic game changer
Usually boils down to the monster that would have awarded 2000 XP without has a hoard or treasure chest nearby with gems worth 2000 gp.

>>96519785 (OP)
>engage with the hobby critically
What the fuck does this even mean?

>>96521887
A lot of it just repackages general GM advice I've seen printed in most RPG books for decades.
>you don't always have to roll the dice - if the players come up with a clever idea, go with it
>keep track of stuff so you can actually establish stakes and costs for failure
>just let the DM decide how to resolve something instead of checking a rulebook or a reddit post for clarification for every little thing

And I can kinda understand why this would be such a big deal to some people who started playing post D&D 3.5's huge boom and massive influence on the hobby. That edition started a trend of turning TTRPGs into rigidly structured, wargame tournament-style play. People got sick of "builds" and "gishes" and dozens of splatbooks that only exist to further complicate the game with new class mechanics and optional subsystems and special hyper-specific rules.

>>96528052
Reading theory, analysing systems, and reading lots of OSR blogs.

>>just let the DM decide how to resolve something instead of checking a rulebook
We've gone full circle and this is now seen as cringe in the OSR, whereas the nu-SR is in favour of that.

Checking and abiding by rules is now cool again.

>>96528849
so the OSR is 3.5 now?

>>96526268
13th age gets around this by having gold that sits in the underworld ( which is anything underground) slowly cultivate 'iconic energy' which makes it valuable and special enough for gold for xp, while random pocket change cannot contribute

>>96526268
>How do you gain experience by collecting gold?
It's for gold that you've retrieved safely from a dungeon, and it explicitly says it only goes for something that was a commensurate challenge and that something gained easily or trivially should give reduced or no experience.
Both your bitching and your theoretical are inane to anyone whose actually read the rules or played the game.
>>96526296
>Arneson
You've literally never read a rule Arneson wrote. Just like anyone else who brings him up to bitch about Gygax.
>>96526334
>fucked over Blume
lmao the Blumes are the ones who fucked over Gygax and the company by every measure.

>>96528849
I am skeptical, but willing to treat this in good faith. What do you consider a good source of theory and which blogs do you enjoy? Which ones have been especially enlightening to you?

>>96528884
>13th age gets around this by having gold that sits in the underworld ( which is anything underground) slowly cultivate 'iconic energy' which makes it valuable and special enough for gold for xp, while random pocket change cannot contribute
Thank you, I thought I couldn't despise 13th age more but I always discover something dumber.

>>96530701
why do you hate 13th age stodl fag?

>>96531067
I literally feel a deep hatred for everything in 13th. Think about a design choice, 13th age took the opposite of my preference.
Everything. I just forget, then people like you post >>96528884
and I remember more things I deeply hate.

>>96519809
That's because they think narrative improv theater systems are games.

>>96521320
nojobs

>>96526268
If banks could be robbed by level 1 characters, there would be no banks in that world.

>>96529134
>It's for gold that you've retrieved safely from a dungeon, and it explicitly says it only goes for something that was a commensurate challenge and that something gained easily or trivially should give reduced or no experience.

Is that thematic in some way? Like does the Deepgold™ attract negative or dark energy leeched from the evil within the dungeon? Then that rescued cursed booty can be taken to some Clergy Priests or Temple and have it reclaimed by banishing the evil out of it? All those involved in the ritual gain (x) xp?

>>96529134
>>96531979
All these dumb requirements are exactly why milestones are infinitely better than tracking XP.

>>96531985
>milestones
Quick explanation if you please?

>>96531993
GM determines when you level up, sometimes even jumping you multiple levels, and typically when you do something noteworthy.
No fuss, no book keeping, no fudging, no loop holing.

>>96531999
Yeah that seems a great method in narrative RP heavy games too.

>>96532034
>Railroading
>Great method
Lmao

>>96519785 (OP)
>start caring about OSR theory again
ai wrote this

>>96531993
Once you've won a few battles, solved some puzzles or gotten the better of some skills checks (and/or some combination of the three), you get an action point which you can use to take more actions in combat.
No idea what this fucknut's talking about though.

>>96531483
you aren't saying anything in this post, you are just echoing your feelings like a woman

>>96533901
The only one with hurt feeling it's you my dear butthurt faggot.
13th age is an abomination of design. Its ethos is against immersion, every single fucking mechanic is designed to detach you from the gameworld. It's 4e made worse.

>>96531067
>stodl
I just realized this was shadow of the demon lord.
I also hate stodl it's a game for people with a scat fetish.

>>96534342
>tripling down
impressive display

>>96534348
what do u play anon?

>be 32
>play in one group
>DM for 2 others
>recently unemployed
>was hoping creative energy would come back
>still barely keeping up with games it feels like
>would not be an issue except for improv energy feels nearly dead
>keep thinking back to early 20s but have moments of clarity realizing I wasn't really that creative then either
>buddy from my early 20s might move back soon and rejoin our group
>some part of me hopes his "aura" will reinvigorate my DMing
>that said the campaign that he would join is going pretty well, probably the best of all of mine
I can't bring myself to quit any of these groups. We don't play every week though. Not anymore. Used to be almost every single week then I got a gf who put us on every other week then she dumped me and the schedule hasn't recovered.

>>96534352
>>96534390
I am very sorry for your passion for absolute dogshit games.
>tripling down
I explained you what is wrong with 13th age. Every single mechanic is intentionally immersion breaking in a way 4e only hope to be.

>>96534412
the multidiemensional alignment system that ties your character to the world and encourages improv DMing is definitely a thing straight out of 4e

>>96534619
>the multidiemensional alignment system
the what? lmao

>>96534394
are you the anon that kept talking about quitting and living in a van to regain his creativity?

>>96534876
Ive thought about doing that yeah.
Instead I got laid off and just kept living with my parents.
Started lifting.
It helps but the years of 5 hours sleep will be hard to undo.

>>96534851
Icon Relationships act under an implicit version of the original alignment system. The Icons disposition to your character ( race, class and backgrounds and invisible alignment) effect how you get to invest your funny d6 dice.

>>96531483
Personally I don't care for it but my only experience with 13th age was being invited to a "west marches" game by an extremely autistic retard ran in it. The game immediately broke because one of the stupid elf races could get extra actions and blaster wizards BTFO everything.
In general it just seemed like the sloppiest and most boring d20 clone ever conceived.

>>96535079
Icons felt incredibly dumb and setting-restricting.
I especially hated the skill system of the version I played though, where you just make up a background or whatever and anything it would cover you can do. There were three ways people engaged with it:
1. They spread points across a list of skills that would cover what a person would do for their job, which sucked because it spread their skills everywhere.
2. They narrowed themselves into a couple specialist skills, which sorta worked but left them with very little they could do.
3. They put the most points possible into one god-skill that covered basically any situation, and one slightly worse skill that covered the rare exceptions.

>>96535129
it is extremely sloppy but i find it far from boring. Most of their funky custom rules come from 20+ years of experience and I found everything easy to implement.

>>96535148
In my west marches I take the players 8 points for backgrounds and I have them spread them in a 5/3 split. Each one is a short sentence, usually one includes their race and one includes their class. This emerged both to prevent the problems you list and because when I was having players generate their characters they would often pause and become hesitant at this step and this made it very simple. I have players generate their characters before I send them the SRD by giving them a list of talents and spells/powers/maneuvers/whatever and telling them to pick what sounds cool, and noting if there is a core class identity feature in the list like shadow walk or a core healing power or something. My rule set up specifically exists to stop players from abusing half-elf. No one has ever even mentioned half elves.

Maybe Heinsoo and Tweet put in those hyper optimization abilities as a trap option, so players could trap themselves into ruining da game instead of playing it. We do tactics on the table not at character select. People complain my combats are too difficult lol

>>96535148
like, a background is not a single thing you can do. It is not lockpicking. A background is ' i was part of the bewley burglar gang for 10 years when I lived in the alleys of axis as an urchin' and lets you do like 10 things.

People play the skill system wrong in lancer too and its hilarious. They take the list labeled ' example pilot triggers' and ignore the word example and just use it as a 3.X skill list. Skill lists are neoliberalism.

>>96535530
My background is that I'm batman.

>>96535518
>My system is so dogshit I need to carefully control every single thing my players can do to make it work.
LMAO

>>96526231
Brain damage in action.

>>96535540
wrong game bub

>>96535548
>leaving it up to chaos by making them select things based on labels and not contents
>somehow this is perfect control?

nope right game I'm batman

>>96536051
Yes anon, deliberately controlling the players access to information so they can't make informed decisions is controlling and manipulative behavior. As is forcing them to allocate points in a specific way instead of how the rules would allow. It's pretty pathetic that you need to hamfist shit together to even get through the starting point that is session 0.

>>96535573
Ron Edwards was right!

>>96519785 (OP)
>4 AD&D games a week
Based unemployed leech

>>96535518
>I have them spread them in a 5/3 split.
+4/4 is much simpler and eliminates any ambiguities which of the backgrounds should apply because the bonus is always the same.
D&D 5e got this absolutely right with its proficiency bonus and then decided to make background proficiency a variant rule only.

>>96536111
I dont run a session 0, hands on character creation replaces that step. Players get the SRD after character creation and can retrain appropriately. Some people sperg out over this system and I am happy to filter them. People who are there for campaign play. DMs are supposed to be controlling and manipulative , they need that capacity to run good NPCs

>>96536841
I want things to be intentionally ambiguous though. I also usually run for parties of 6 or 8 players so the 5/3 split enables a bit more specialization.

>>96536978
>I dont run a session 0, hands on character creation replaces that step
Hands on character creation (More just your hands and nobody else's lmao) IS session 0 retard.

>>96534394
>>96534876
>are you the anon that kept talking about quitting and living in a van to regain his creativity?
people really out here stagnating their life to play 10+ hours of TTRPGs/week?
b-b-based?

>>96531979
Competing XP systems in this thread:
>kill monsters
>finish quests
>tame the cursed booty of the underworld

>>96538562
You should be awarded XP for all three, but in a balanced way.

>>96537292
>people really out here stagnating their life to play 10+ hours of TTRPGs/week?
Bro I'm 32
Live with my mommy and my daddy
Saved tens of thousands and still cant afford a small house
My life is fucking stagnant anyway.
You have to be exceptional just to have a bottom tier house.
I was already making average wage for my area.
What am I supposed to do, be a rentoid? That IS stagnation. I'd be making more progress in life living in my car and paying 300 a year registration fee.
None of that shit has to do with me playing RPGs.
They aren't stagnating my life at all. I just decided there was no point in cucking when it was ruining things I enjoyed for no discernible benefit.

>>96526268
How do you gain XP for killing? The guy who dropped the nuke on Hiroshima instantly hit max level?

XP is, and always has been, a dissociated mechanic. GP is actually more associated than killing, because:
1. My character definitely wants money (even if only to give it to starving orphans), he may not actually want to kill random trolls hiding in holes;
2. You can mechanize it as spending money on training, if you so wish.

>>96531993
>Quick explanation if you please?
GM levels you up whenever he feels like it.

5e-inflicted brain damage, don't worry about it too much.

>>96539694
>claims D&D 5e inflicted brain damage
>prefers 5e-style rule 0 narrative bullshit

>>96531999
>>96539694
Didn't read the book.
>>96532944
Read some book at least.

>>96539837
I hate 5e for many reasons, and among them is its entirely fake skill system.

>>96540037
Yes, yes, you're very smart, "Umm, what you describe is actually called story-based advancement in the boo-" nobody fucking uses the word that way, including the person who originally brought it up, retard!

>>96537229
a Session 0 is getting people at the table to make their characters together and riff about what kind of plot and campaign themes they want.

Making your character with the DM privately is different from this and different from submitting a character build with a roll20 application