Also, I can kill you with my brain.

River ,'Trash'


Gaming 1: You are likely to be eaten by a grue

A thread for the discussion of games: board, LARP, MMORPG, video, tabletop RPG, game theory etc. etc. and all attendant news, developments and ancillary subjects thereof, as well as coordinating/scheduling games either online or IRL. All are welcome to chime in, talk about their favorite games or learn about gaming of any sort.

PLEASE TO WHITEFONT SPOILERS for video games, RPG modules or anything for which foreknowledge of events might lessen one's enjoyment of whatever gaming experience.


Sean K - Jun 15, 2008 5:00:27 pm PDT #961 of 26132
You can't leave me to my own devices; my devices are Nap and Eat. -Zenkitty

Okay. Just ordered my 4e PHB. It should be here by Wednesday.


Sean K - Jun 15, 2008 5:11:11 pm PDT #962 of 26132
You can't leave me to my own devices; my devices are Nap and Eat. -Zenkitty

Also, I just ordered two bags of organic Earl Grey and a bag each of organic detox and calming moon (licorice, fennel, mint and citrus) from Mighty Leaf, but that doesn't really have much to do with gaming.


billytea - Jun 15, 2008 5:24:59 pm PDT #963 of 26132
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

You could give the different teas personalities and start role-playing them. (I see the organic detox as having a bit of a dominatrix vibe going on.)

Of course, at some stage you would have to exclaim "Oh! You teas!" Otherwise it's just weird. A Flock Of Seagulls weird.


Sean K - Jun 15, 2008 5:48:36 pm PDT #964 of 26132
You can't leave me to my own devices; my devices are Nap and Eat. -Zenkitty

Of course, at some stage you would have to exclaim "Oh! You teas!" Otherwise it's just weird. A Flock Of Seagulls weird.

Uh huh.


Pix - Jun 15, 2008 7:09:51 pm PDT #965 of 26132
We're all getting played with, babe. -Weird Barbie

Crap, Sean. I was going to give you one of those teas and I forgot. Ah well!


megan walker - Jun 15, 2008 7:18:09 pm PDT #966 of 26132
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

And now I'm reminded that I'm almost out of tea.

Played Ticket to Ride again, but this time with 5. I was surprised, but it worked pretty well--even though I was crushed by my sister and niece.

My housemate was thrilled to finally have someone in the house who wanted to play Guitar Hero, Mario Smash, etc.


Pete, Husband of Jilli - Jun 15, 2008 8:20:05 pm PDT #967 of 26132
"I've got a gun! I've got a mother-flippin' gun!" - Moss, The IT Crowd

Looks like my current 3.5 game is going to start switching every few months for a 4E game. We roll up characters on Tuesday.

I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to play.


Volans - Jun 17, 2008 10:15:35 am PDT #968 of 26132
move out and draw fire

OK, so, we spent the weekend playing 4e. Back-of-the-book adventure. We made 4 first-level characters...for posterity, they are:

Controller: Morgan, a human wizard of unknown gender (OotS, yo!)
Striker: Ellantry Mistymorn, female elf ranger (archer-flavored)
Defender: Unapologetic "Pol" Schadenfreude, male dragonborn fighter
Leader: Haldric Horsehung, male half-elf warlord.

Note we didn't make a rogue-zilla, and only tried one new race. Because the "striker" role was filled by the ranger, and the rogue seems to have limited purpose outside of combat, we opted against. And I may be the only player of 4e ever to actually draw character portraits on the character sheets.

About 4 hours into the game, one player said, "Maybe it's just that even-numbered D&D versions suck."

I'll spare you the play-by-play and give my general assessment.

1. Ease of play: NSM. May be an issue of familiarity, but we were looking up rules every action; in fact, sometimes as many as 5 rules to determine how they interacted. Character creation took a long time. That's mostly familiarity, but also, first-level characters are about the equivalent of third-level 3.5e characters.

2. Rulebooks: The DMG is a total waste of trees. The two pages of useful info could've been included in the PHB. The PHB didn't seem well organized to me - at one point I needed to look up movement ("If Pol's Speed is 5, how many hours will it take for him to walk 15 miles?") and the Table of Contents sent me to chapter 5. Which said, "Movement is how far you can move in a round. See Chapter 3 for movement rates."

Also, I don't think they did a good job of clarifying some terms. It wasn't until the third character that we figured out "Powers" is the generic term, but Powers are Spells for a Wizard and Exploits for a Ranger. It was confusing.

3. The Business of Gaming: The only thing that differentiates one character from another (inside a class) is the Powers. Of which the PHB gives about four. It seems clear that WotC views the PHB as sort of a freeview, and plans to issue splatbooks with more Powers. Also, I suspect classes that aren't in 4e like Druid, Barbarian, and Monk will get splatbooks.

4. Gameplay: Key point, we all had fun.

However, the most fun parts were things the DM created. The adventure as written is just five fights. The DM added some interpersonal stuff to try out skill challenges and skill checks, and that was the only time we could really roleplay. (I like the skill challenge concept, btw, and will be incorporating it into other rulesets).

4e was quite good as a tactical fighting game. We were punished if we used poor tactics and rewarded for using smart ones. Individual character builds are balanced to a fare-thee-well (which I hate), so what's important is your party build. The only "role" in 4e's claim to be a role-playing game is that of Leader, Striker, Defender, or Controller. I.e., what you do in combat. The main result of the party-build concept seems to be that you either all survive or it's a TPK. In essence, the party is a corporate entity, and it lives or dies.

(In some ways I'm okay with this, as it forces player cooperation...but it also forces the DM to be the foe of the players, which I've always thought was stupid.)

The move action/standard action stuff is a little different, but easy to grok. At least at early levels, it seems that they have done away with your reliance on magic items to be strong, instead making your Powers the key point.

Final word: It's a superhero tactical fighting game (Champions) in a high fantasy wrapper. It's fun, but I don't see where it adds any value over playing Descent or World of Warcraft.


Connie Neil - Jun 17, 2008 10:27:18 am PDT #969 of 26132
brillig

Haldric Horsehung

OMG!!


Laga - Jun 17, 2008 10:38:12 am PDT #970 of 26132
You should know I'm a big deal in the Resistance.

thanks for the summary, Raq.