Quote from: Imperator;830912Make them play Call of Cthulhu.

LOL no shit! Then again... it might scare them off of gaming in general.

I "ween" players off of power-gaming by simply GMing the world as the game I want to run.

Not trying to sound trite, but it comes out in the "setup" of your campaign. If you're just saying "Let's play D&D 5e!" and roll up characters with people that don't have any idea of what they're in for - they're going to go off of whatever preconceived ideas that they're used to.

If you read 5e (or any other edition of D&D) it's very easy to see how people get into Kool Powerz mode. I beat the dead horse with this - but it's about the GM giving context to those powerz. Why do they exist? What does it mean to level-up? What context do these classes represent in your gameworld? What do they represent to the PC's?

Sounds complex... but it's really just about codifying the vision of gameworld and how it mechanically works in context with the rules.

I'm a little oldschool, in that for me - leveling assumes a *lot* of things other than "DING! I killed the Manticore, it's XP total is X and now I'm 8th level!" And players that play at that conceit of the game will never know anything else than that unless you give it context the way you want to run it. And you should be prepared that D&D might not represent the system you want to do this with.

Getting to 9th-10th level in my games takes a lot of work. It's virtually impossible to just dungeon-crawl your way there without having made enemies or did an awful lot of traveling etc. By 10th level you should be considering the bigger picture in my games, usually. I don't let people just purchase whatever feats they want when leveling either. They have to find someone to train them, or they need to exhibit the consistency of practice in downtime to self-train it. I'll often provide those things if the player asks "How can I go about self-training Savagery as a Feat?" and we'll work it into the game.

But the point is - you give those Kool Powerz context and you'll find that it gives a lot of players satisfaction they earned it rather than simply just dungeon-grinded up the preqrequisite number of XP then magically knows it. It will give you as a GM some sense of world-building too with possible springboards to other adventures. For instance I had a Ranger make friends with a Barbarian tribe to learn a Feat (and a class) and that turned into a series of adventures where the entire party was fighting to save the tribe from encroachment of the local Duke that wanted the tribes land.

Of course it will come down to you, as the GM, to set that standard and enforce it. And be prepared for negative results. Some people *just* want to play like that.

It's always confused me, that if people don't like cool powers, to the point of misspelling them and making them into bad words, and yet STILL play D&D, how in Demogorgan's name do they reconcile spells?  The epitome of Cool Powers.

I mean, at low levels a Wizard can put a gang to sleep with a single word.  Climb better than a Thief type, open doors with a single gesture and fire a triple volley of bolts that never miss.  Those are cool powers, and the higher you go, the better you get to where you can cross continents as easily as crossing a threshold to get to the next room, talk to a God and compel them to answer you truthfully, summon a storm of meteors to level a castle or army.  How is that acceptable, and yet, letting Fighter's dual wield and do damage on both blades/weapons not be OK, for example?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;830910Players have always been interested in 'power', whether its in magical item form or mechanical character doodads.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;830972It's always confused me, that if people don't like cool powers, to the point of misspelling them and making them into bad words, and yet STILL play D&D, how in Demogorgan's name do they reconcile spells?  The epitome of Cool Powers.

The problem is, this isn't really what the OP is talking about, and frequently not what other people are talking about when they criticize "kewl powerz". Perhaps this is because they are using the wrong phrase to describe the problem.

The problem is that the players described in the OP won't get out of the mindset of thinking in terms of mechanics  and system.. It might not necessarily be because they think they can only do what is described on the character sheet: they may know they can try anything, but before they will attempt it, they want to know what bonus they will get, so they can compare it to the bonuses from other mechanical advantages -- the "kewl powaz" -- before making a decision.

So the problem is not the power level. The problem is the numbers. Try playing the same system as before, but warn them to stop thinking in terms of numbers and mechanics. Think in terms of what your fictional actions actually do. Also tell them that you will change the way things work mechancally, and ]they don't get to know what or how, just that you will be fair. Keep all bonuses and penalties behind the screen, and ban gamer jargon; only let them describe what they are doing, and if they ask if one power is better than another, only answer "it's more powerful/less powerful", no hard numbers.

Perhaps add a time limit to making decisions. This is what was great about the old school one-minute round: it took about one minute to resolve, so it's practically real time. If someone delays making  a decision during combat, it takes that much time to make a decision in the game world. Players should always plan their strategies before they get into combat.

Get rid of skill checks for anything except quality. Just let most actions succeed, and be generous with the results. If you have to roll for attacks and damage, but a good idea gives you a near-sure thing, eventually you will start focusing on coming up with ideas instead of relying on the system to cover your ass.

I find it annoying only when someone bitches about the "dead space" in a class.

It got to really moronic levels over on BGG/RPGG with a thread about "fixing" stat bonus progression so there was no "dead space". argh!

These types yes. Wean them the heck off that mindset.

Otherwise just play and if they whine about a level up where they got no kewl powerz then tell them "To bad! You get all these other things throughout the class. What the hell is wrong with you?" well. Ok. Maybee not so harshly. :pundit:

First up, confession time, I'm a fighter fan.  And my idea of playing a meat shield is taking less damage.  So I want to be able to hit things hard, and fast, that way me and my friends take the least amount of damage.

This is not numbers, it's how a fighting man thinks, the less time the opponent is up, the less time he/she/it has to harm us.  So for me, I'll typically pick something long and phallic like a greatsword or use two weapons, depending on the mood I'm in.

And if I'm playing a level based game, I want abilities that help me do my job, as I see it.  Help the party take whatever foe or foes down as hard as I can.  And power bennies at various levels as long as they help me do what I want, is nice.  But they're often, as you, Talysman, describe them, Cool Powers.

But for me, I don't care what the numbers are, as long as they help my concept and make sure I'm not a liability, or I feel impotent for my choices.

However, I also have to point out that in my anecdotal experience that most D&D Wizard/Caster players always go for the 'numbers', if they could pick a spell or two.

For example, a decent wizard player will quickly realize that for most fights, a damage based spell like Fireball is incredibly inefficient, and will likely choose something that's more effective, like a 'save or die' spell, like Sleep, Flesh to Stone or Charm X.

That's looking at the numbers.

Now that I think on it's pretty much what we do in real life anyway.  We always look at the numbers and decide which is better based on various factors.  Take a car for example, how much miles per fuel unit, how much weight it can carry, how fast can it go in case of an emergency, all these things are looking for the most efficient method to get where you want.

Cool Powers is not the problem, it's the GM assigning more importance to them than they really are.  If they're in the game system, they're meant to be factored into every choice made.

Either accept it, or play something else.  And if the players don't want to?  Well, I hope your pool of players will allow you to find another group to play with you, with similar tastes.

Dude, are you or are you not the guy running the game? If you are, then say that you will run game X, that does not have kool powerz and if they do not want to play then they can go elsewhere.

While you are at it, go read Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads!!! Also found in PDF.

Quote from: jeff37923;830988Dude, are you or are you not the guy running the game? If you are, then say that you will run game X, that does not have kool powerz and if they do not want to play then they can go elsewhere.

While you are at it, go read Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads!!! Also found in PDF.

I owned that book, and it is among the WORST GM advice ever.  The other one being the Amber Diceless RPG core book.  It assumes you're taking an adversarial relationship with your players.  That's a wargamer attitude, where everyone on the other side of the table is an enemy to defeat.  RPGs haven't been like that since AD&D 1e.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;830991The other one being the Amber Diceless RPG core book.

It is very safe to assume we have different definitions of "good".  I am now going to check out the other book mentioned, because if you think it rates along with Amber Diceless, it sounds pretty awesome to me.

Quote from: robiswrong;830993It is very safe to assume we have different definitions of "good".  I am now going to check out the other book mentioned, because if you think it rates along with Amber Diceless, it sounds pretty awesome to me.

It promotes pitting players against each other, and is gleeful in it's style of writing about it, that makes it Bad GMing advice in my book.  Is it a good game, despite that?  Depends on your experience with a Diceless system.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;830991That's a wargamer attitude, where everyone on the other side of the table is an enemy to defeat.  RPGs haven't been like that since AD&D 1e.

It was not like that even in 1e. I am pretty sure it was not like that even in OD&D. The DM was not out to "defeat" the players. The DM would though happily allow the players to defeat themselves. See Geezers recounting of the Bag of Holding scoring the first ever self TPK (and first TPK?) due to player foolishness.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;830991I owned that book, and it is among the WORST GM advice ever.

Obviously, tastes are different.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;830991It assumes you're taking an adversarial relationship with your players.  That's a wargamer attitude, where everyone on the other side of the table is an enemy to defeat.  RPGs haven't been like that since AD&D 1e.

Considering that the OP is trying to ween his Players off of a style of play, it looks like he is already in an adversarial relationship with them.

Quote from: jeff37923;830998Considering that the OP is trying to ween his Players off of a style of play, it looks like he is already in an adversarial relationship with them.

If your players are smokers and you are trying to wean them off that bad habit. Then you are in an adversarial relationship with them then.

As noted in a post above. If the players are being obnoxious about so-n-so then the DM is within rights to try and curb it somehow if they feel it warrants.

If they arent being annoying then we drift onto the slippery slope.

So the question to the OP is. Are the players being obnoxious about it? Is it being disruptive of play?

I play fighters too. I like to write a *lot* about fighter-related stuff for D&D. Most of the stuff I did for 3e and in Dragon almost always had material for fighters.

Here's the irony - what you're talking about is exactly what I'm talking about, but we're coming to the opposite conclusions. I'm saying when a Fighter gets "Awesome Feat X" it IS special. Otherwise it wouldn't be contained in a Feat.

The campaign assumption you're making is that just because you *can* have it, it's "normal".

Well that's as arbitrary to assume everyone walking the street "knows" Brazilian Jiu-jutsu.

Now you can certainly play your brand of D&D like that. Sure. Have at it. But that's when BJJ becomes a "kewl power" because it's free of any context of the campaign. That's what we're talking about. At least that's what I'm talking about. It's the entire notion that a player walks into a game and does "the character build" - one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard of. At this level I take x, then I take a level of x to maximize on that, then this feat at level x - etc. etc. until you have this perfect one-trick pony RAW but completely out of context of any campaign, simply because it's built that way.

So this grand assumption of what you want RAW vs. what you have access to by dint of gaming is the gap that needs to be addressed.

Nothing in the rules says you *can't* make a character build. But what does it mean that because you're a Fighter you suddenly in the middle of your campaign in the Desert of Desolation you 1) get the necessary XP to level up 2) you decide to dip into Monk class 3) Pick up random Feat X etc. So in the context of your game, if that's cool, great. In my games - negative. You don't magically "learn" to be a Monk in the middle of an adventure, or learn some awesome maneuver out of nowhere. I'm more flexible if it's something you planned and are telling me "After we pitch camp, I spend two hours practicing that maneuver (so it will give me a reason to purchase Cleave or whatever) when I level up. So it's flexible to a point.

But it always comes down to how you wanna run it. For me - just being an Adventuring Class is special. In 5e that IS the assumption. Which is like 1e/2e. 3e did away with this by assuming everyone had a class (even if it was just Warrior/Expert or whatever). This conceit then changes everything about the game.

So 5e is actually closer to 1e in this respect. Which is good since the underlying math makes getting to 10th level the best part of the game, rather than the unholy shitpile 3.x turns into post 11th, and some say earlier than that.

It's also what got everyone hopped up on this idea that every level should have some cool power or ability. This is not an inherently bad idea, except the fact it makes the assumption that everyone has them.

As an aside - in 3.x I wanted Non-casters to get their feats frontloaded in small 5-level PrC's in order to keep pace with casters. Especially since the math favored the games that were pre-level 12. But for some reason... they wanted players to follow this really bad 20-level design that the system was horrible at.

So now you have a couple of generations of players with these expectations scratching their heads at 5e retro-feel in certain places. Or outright not liking it.

Edit - Pondsmith's "Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads!" is a good book. Love it. But I don't need it. I've done this long enough to know what being really adversarial is vs. running a game that way. And to contextualize Screwheads that way is simply being obtuse.

Quote from: Naburimannu;830936Actually, they are my kids - or, more accurately, my kids' friends. I've in the past run successful Labyrinth Lord campaigns for my kids & a mix of friends / neighborhood teens / neighborhood parents, so my kids mostly trust me. But too many of their friends in the new neighborhood want to start with POWERFUL HEROES and progress from there, rather than play in a more modest power level.

I've had great success running Mentzer Classic D&D with my son, we started when he was 6. But he told me he wanted to play a dragon-riding wizard, and I let him start at 4th level MU with a white dragon mount.

You can do the same with these kids - let them start at higher level, say 3 or 4, with cool stuff like a magic mount, a magic sword, boots of levitation etc - one cool thing each may be enough. That should work well, they don't need all the huge complexity of 3e-4e.