tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post5646825441944068408..comments2023-10-14T03:58:59.333-06:00Comments on The Tao of D&D: Spoiled RottenAlexis Smolenskhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-73760791342118576212014-02-27T07:52:42.569-07:002014-02-27T07:52:42.569-07:00John,
There is a lot of cluttered thinking in you...John,<br /><br />There is a lot of cluttered thinking in your reply. I believe the answers to many of your questions are self evident. I would say that clearly, no, you don't know how my world works. You don't seem to have read my post about bards, nor the post I put up yesterday (not two days ago) on sages.<br /><br />You seem to be taken up mostly with justifying general game rules on the basis of a few examples from history that you have over-simplified. For example, among Classics scholars, Caesar's Latin is considered valuable for teaching children, as it is painfully simplistic. And while yes, Tacitus was a general, his histories were written when he was many years older, not when he was on the battlefield. That hardly makes him a justification for fighter/writer.<br /><br />The strength of your arguments come from your belief that anything can be justified <i>if you just think hard enough about it</i>. That's all well for you. I am looking for a game mechanic that empowers players in a limited, reasonable way.<br /><br />Feel free to go off and invent whatever sage system satisfies you. I think that the one I'm drawing up may not be something you're ready to understand.<br /><br />Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-88787731783827495592014-02-27T01:40:44.541-07:002014-02-27T01:40:44.541-07:00Cool, I wasn't really thinking about it in ter...Cool, I wasn't really thinking about it in terms of min/maxing or optimising damage output but your sage skills look like they have some mechanical effect. And I don't know everything about how your world works.<br /><br />I guess I would also add these points.<br /><br />In your reply to my comment you said that not having the ability to read means they have no knowledge. I am not sure I agree with that.<br /><br />You say that a fighter who wanted to also be a poet would be a fighter/bard. Yet you are giving the cleric access to art and music. Wouldn't they just be a cleric/bard? How tied to a class is an area of knowledge? If music is the sole domain of a bard would astronomy be the sole domain of the Astronomer character class (yet to be described)? So then you could have a cleric/bard/astronomer?<br /><br />Does a person have to be able to do the thing to be a sage in that area? e.g. a music reviewer or critic might not be able to play an instrument. Conversely new bands might not know about music history.<br /><br />A lot of people who fought in history were not primarily Fighters. I am thinking of Greek citizens in the city states, or medieval peasant levies, English bowmen, or hunters. These people were maybe merchants, carpenters or farmers first who also had to fight. The same as compulsory military service doesn't automatically wipe someone's brain.<br /><br />Who taught the clerics? What is the primary source of knowledge? Who wrote these books? Were the clerics fighting the monsters? I suppose they can. I find it hard to imagine fighters not talking around the camp fires about monsters they have fought, the grizzled old timer knowing the most. I kind of like the idea of fighters all around the world employing clerics as henchmen to give them information. The fighter monster hunter exploring with his faithful cleric at his side, the fighter pirate with his cleric navigator, I am picturing buddy comedies everywhere!<br /><br />I was also wondering if your rules will include the possibility of sages being wrong. Books were notoriously full of bad information in history. Like animals that did not exist, what strange people lived on distant lands, the earth being flat, etc. Would your astronomer believe that the Sun orbited the Earth? Would your beast sage be able to tell you in great detail about the Jabberwocky, or how tigers get distracted by marbles?<br /><br />I also think that there might be an argument to be made that becoming a sage is dependant on time spent studying that subject. So anyone in the adventuring life, fighters, clerics and magic users included, who spend time treking, spelunking, fighting etc instead of studying, conversing and debating, would have a really hard time becoming a sage on any subject. i.e. there is a difference between a cleric who hikes through the forest, delves into a dungeon and smashes orc heads with his mace, and a cleric who spends the same time researching astronomy. The first cleric wouldn't be any different from a fighter, he would spend time hunting, cooking food, making and breaking camp and looking after his weapons and armour. So NPCs only.<br /><br />I like what you are doing anyway, I just have trouble seeing the divide between the class occupation and what that character knows. I also like the idea of intelligent fighters, so many leaders from history started as fighters. e.g. Odysseus, Julius Ceasar, Tacitus, Hannibal, Sun Tzu, Alexander the Great. Some of these were noted writers. Many kings were fighters and it is hard to imagine them all being illiterate. Stuff like this as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai#Arts. I am just wondering how these kinds of people can exist in your world, if at all.<br /><br />John.jbeltmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02264520619277158883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-83948803219083314602014-02-26T11:05:10.539-07:002014-02-26T11:05:10.539-07:00This is just an awesome sentence: "For forty...This is just an awesome sentence: "For forty years players have been pounding their chests and simpering about what their character hasn't got, what their character needs to be happy, how unfair the game system and the world is to their character, blah blah blah, and for forty years the game industry has bent over backwards in absurd ways to compensate for what amounts to a shit load of poor moral fibre and the rectitude of a rectum." Jomo Risinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13552294536240059611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-76431578575361120932014-02-26T10:23:22.179-07:002014-02-26T10:23:22.179-07:00My feeling about this is that I like characters to...My feeling about this is that I like characters to be able to have special areas of knowledge selected by players, but I don't want to have these be from a predetermined, balanced list of "skills" with special rules and tables for each one.<br /><br />What I've been doing lately is taking the additional languages AD&D used to give out for high intelligence, and letting them be additional knowledge slots in general, regardless of class. Players decide what they want to put in these slots, and during play, their chance to know something useful is some kind of INT check, with likelihood of success influenced by how broad or deep they chose to make their knowledge (monsters/humanoids/goblinoids/hobgoblins/this hobgoblin clan/the lineage of this hobgoblin king).<br /> <br />I mainly use these knowledge areas as one more way to give players minor clues and background about the world.<br /><br />We've been assuming these areas of knowledge are at about the level of an amateur enthusiast, not a professional, and they don't improve as the characters level up, unless they devote time and resources to increases their expertise. Silbermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03634048670337733047noreply@blogger.com