Hey, all!
I've recently picked up Adventurer Conqueror King System (//www.autarch.co), and am really enjoying it. Any of you played it?
Thinking about starting up a game of it this summer, and wondering if there are any pitfalls to avoid.
I think it's great. I'm currently running a campaign on Roll20. I can't say there are any pitfalls as such, but do bone up on how healing works; it's a bit more subtle and convoluted than other systems.
I love it. No real pitfalls. Don't worry about boning up on the higher end domain and economics stuff when you get started. You won't need much of it (other than market class availability) for a while. If quantum uncertainty bothers you, roll the D6 for the mortal wounds table as soon as someone goes down. That way you can describe the generalities of the injury (i.e. location), even though the specifics won't be known until someone treats them.
I really don't understand the love for it. The vaunted dominion system is almost literally Companion D&D (minus the mass combat rules) and the trade system was ripped straight from the GAZ series (09 and 11).
You can see where they copied tables.
"Rabbit, hen" one of them starts. Guess what, so does the same chart in Gaz 09. The rest is changed up a little, but it's obvious it was the source.
It's not terrible (except for their choice to use a different way of determining to hit that doesn't use either regular AC or ascending AC) but it's not even remotely original, yet people act like it had never been done before.
But the rules are literally 20-25 years old.
You are completely missing the point. The similarities to BECMI (specifically some of the domain stuff and some of the trade stuff) and B/X (much of the rest of the system) are a big part of why it's as popular as it is. It's not popular in spite of those things, it's popular because of them. Added to that you are making the rather predictable mistake of those who've given it a cursory read without actually playing it in believing what you regard as small changes to be inconsequential; nothing could be further from the truth. The many, many small changes make for a significantly different game, particularly as one advances in level.
I'm not saying it's to everyone's taste, but dismissing it as BECMI (or B/X, which it's actually closer to) in funny clothes is pretty far from the mark. As far as the rules being 25 years old (or older), this largely describes the entire OSR...is the entire OSR worthless? For me, the neo-clones, such as ACKS, are far and away the best thing to come out of the OSR.
Yeah, its really a re-imagining of the BECMI rules, different enough not to just be a clone. Has some very good parts, but then some odd choices too I think (like how they handle attack rolls).
Anyways, I reviewed it, think its a nice book and a decent rules-set (especially for what is its specialty: realms management), but I have to say that unlike other games I've gotten (LotFP, DCC) I never ended up actually using it, yet.
Quote from: RPGPundit;760411Has some very good parts, but then some odd choices too I think (like how they handle attack rolls).
This is exceedingly easy to convert to D20-style BAB/AC:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?349374-OSR-3-x-ACKs-Conversion-Table
I like ACKS, there's a core of something in there that really appeals to me, shorn of some of the old-school-isms. I used it as the basis for a historical game (no magic, monsters or dungeons) called Tyche's Favourites (http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Tyche%27s_Favourites) that was well received by my players.
Quote from: JeremyR;759942I really don't understand the love for it. The vaunted dominion system is almost literally Companion D&D (minus the mass combat rules) and the trade system was ripped straight from the GAZ series (09 and 11).
No it isn't, it's a derivation of the Blue box Moldvay Expert set. I say derivation because it isn't identical (read the two side by side and you'll see the differences), but you can see the influences.
Quote from: Bobloblah;759950You are completely missing the point. The similarities to BECMI (specifically some of the domain stuff and some of the trade stuff) and B/X (much of the rest of the system) are a big part of why it's as popular as it is. It's not popular in spite of those things, it's popular because of them.
Pretty much this. If "all" I have to do to derive ACKS is somehow know, 30+ years after the fact, that I need to ebay Companion D&D, the right color box of Expert, and GAZ series #'s 9 and 11 (when I don't even know what GAZ is here) then... I'll take the book that's in print, cleaned up and already collated for me.
Quote from: Bobloblah;759950Added to that you are making the rather predictable mistake of those who've given it a cursory read without actually playing it in believing what you regard as small changes to be inconsequential; nothing could be further from the truth. The many, many small changes make for a significantly different game, particularly as one advances in level.
And also some of this. The damage bonus that fighters (and fighter types) get, plus cleave equal to your fighter level, feels like a bigger boost in play than may come across when you're reading it.
Quote from: Saladman;760447Pretty much this. If "all" I have to do to derive ACKS is somehow know, 30+ years after the fact, that I need to ebay Companion D&D, the right color box of Expert, and GAZ series #'s 9 and 11 (when I don't even know what GAZ is here) then... I'll take the book that's in print, cleaned up and already collated for me.
There is no question that we founded ACKS on Moldvay Basic, Cook Expert, Mentzer Companion, and Gazetteers 9 and 11; but the game is substantially revised from those books. I know this because I *started* with those books and it took years of active play to develop ACKS from that foundation.
Among the changes... modulating prices and adjusting wage rates to be properly related; correcting the cargo capacity of ships to historical levels; tying the domain management rules into the mercantile rules so that you can trade at the city you run; tying the treasure rules into the mercantile rules so you can engage in arbitrage with your loot; adding hijink rules for thieves so they can steal the merchandise in the towns; magic research rules to create crossbreeds and constructs and undead and ritual magic; congregation and blood sacrifice rules; developing XP for campaign activities rules that correlate to the demographics of NPCs, the living expenses of nobles, and the GP earned from trade, rule, and magic research; etc. The spreadsheets alone for this work run to dozens of tabs and thousands of entries.
But even if you disregard ALL of the above, ACKS still offered a useful service to the OSR. How many campaigns, prior to ACKS, were actively running using Companion domains and the Gazetteer trade rules? None that I know of. Now there are many using ACKS.
QuoteAnd also some of this. The damage bonus that fighters (and fighter types) get, plus cleave equal to your fighter level, feels like a bigger boost in play than may come across when you're reading it.
Yes. I think this gets overlooked a lot. It was very thoroughly playtested. The best rules are simple but have important impact.
Spellcaster's repertoires and non-Vancian spellcasting are also substantially different in play even though the game "reads" closely to B/X.
I got a copy from Tavis. It looks like a nice game, although I confess that I didn't read it closely enough to figure out how the combat system would be different from OD&D.
Which is OK because the rules are the least important part of any RPG experience.
I did like the domain stuff, and how there are different domain paths for each class.
The only thing I really didn't like was that you are supposed to come up with a "group name" for your group, like the "Invincible Brotherhood" or some such nonsense. This struck me as a total tone-breaker, being the sort of overwrought emotional crap you get from fourteen year olds who really think it's COOL that their Boy Scout patrol is named "Eagle Patrol."
It's also the place where the authors miss "replicating OD&D play" by a quadrillion parsecs. It assumes "a group," whereas both Dave and Gary ran "a bunch of players, any subset of whom may play together at a given time, and whose interactions range from friendly rivalry to outright competition for scarce resources."
The "One True Band of Heroes" is the exact OPPOSITE mindset of the early years of Blackmoor and Greyhawk, and its inclusion is the single biggest disappointment.
Not to mention when you have character names like "Yrag" and "Robilar" and "Sir Fang" and, Crom help us, "Gronan of Simmerya," if you FORCE players to come up with a "group name," you have nobody but yourself to blame when you get "Order of the Stick."
In my college group we would have ended up with "The Hairy Nutted Monster Whackers." Or, more likely, "The Hairy Monstered Nutsack Whackers."
Quote from: Old Geezer;760581It's also the place where the authors miss "replicating OD&D play" by a quadrillion parsecs. It assumes "a group," whereas both Dave and Gary ran "a bunch of players, any subset of whom may play together at a given time, and whose interactions range from friendly rivalry to outright competition for scarce resources."
The "One True Band of Heroes" is the exact OPPOSITE mindset of the early years of Blackmoor and Greyhawk, and its inclusion is the single biggest disappointment.
OG, is there a game that you'd recommend for that style of play (outside of early iterations of D&D)? That style of play is exactly what I'm interested in when I play D&D.
Quote from: robiswrong;760582OG, is there a game that you'd recommend for that style of play (outside of early iterations of D&D)? That style of play is exactly what I'm interested in when I play D&D.
It's how myself (and many others if the play reports online are to be believed) actually play ACKS. Without searching the book, I don't even know what OG's comment was about; the intro fiction interspersed with "what is an RPG", maybe? Regardless, ACKS is extremely well suited to troupe play, if that's your thing. Moreso, even, than any version of actual D&D that I've played.
Quote from: Bobloblah;760584It's how myself (and many others if the play reports online are to be believed) actually play ACKS. Without searching the book, I don't even know what OG's comment was about; the intro fiction interspersed with "what is an RPG", maybe? Regardless, ACKS is extremely well suited to troupe play, if that's your thing. Moreso, even, than any version of actual D&D that I've played.
Awesome, thanks.
My go-to systems for that have always been B/X and 1e, but they're pretty clearly evolved systems (NTTAWWT). A system that takes the evolved goodness and does a design pass on it would be pretty much my sweet spot for games.
I don't think 5e is *really* aimed at that, unfortunately.
Quote from: Old Geezer;760581The only thing I really didn't like was that you are supposed to come up with a "group name" for your group, like the "Invincible Brotherhood" or some such nonsense
Oh, I don't like that sort of thing either. In Earthdawn a group can have a collective identity to draw power from and part of that involves naming... our group picked 'The Rat Pack' (we live in Las Vegas) and try as I might I could not convince them that it was a crappy name.
I've generally never liked the adherence to The Group... I'd much prefer something more fluid, where I could have a small stable of characters to pull from... but hardly anyone seems to play that way.
It sounds like ACKS doesn't force it too hard though... that it's not a focus of the game.
Quote from: robiswrong;760587Awesome, thanks.
My go-to systems for that have always been B/X and 1e, but they're pretty clearly evolved systems (NTTAWWT). A system that takes the evolved goodness and does a design pass on it would be pretty much my sweet spot for games.
You'd have to ask amacris, but my impression is that ACKS is
exactly that. And, as I mentioned upthread, it is primarily a B/X derivative.
Quote from: robiswrong;760587I don't think 5e is *really* aimed at that, unfortunately.
No, I agree with you. I intend to pick up the starter set and give it a shot, as I feel like it has lots of potential to be everybody's 2nd or 3rd favourite system, and hence one everyone can agree on playing. I'm also holding out a faint hope that it'll be useable with a raft of my AD&D 2nd edition material with less conversion than ACKS requires (which is, admittedly, not much). We'll see. Even if that works out, some stuff still cries out to be run with ACKS (Birthright, Dark Sun, the Dragonlance saga, and Mystara for example).
Quote from: Old Geezer;760581The only thing I really didn't like was that you are supposed to come up with a "group name" for your group, like the "Invincible Brotherhood" or some such nonsense. This struck me as a total tone-breaker, being the sort of overwrought emotional crap you get from fourteen year olds who really think it's COOL that their Boy Scout patrol is named "Eagle Patrol."
Thanks for the mostly kind words! It's fascinating to me to see how what we wrote is viewed from a truly Old School perspective. I did not start playing D&D until 1980 (at age 5!) when I was introduced to the game via the Moldvay red box. I do not make any pretension towards being a truly Old School gamer; I am strictly in the "Silver Age" with all of its love for "realism". I was the one guy who liked the Wilderness Survival Guide.
As far as adventuring party names, I guess you're referring to the introductory text in the narrative, where we wrote "As described in Chapter 1, Characters, characters traditionally form adventuring parties which give themselves colorful names, such as the Bloody Band." The Bloody Band name arose in play from the fact that the group had such a high death rate - something like 25% of the adventurers died each session in the first few levels. The players morbidly decided to buy red cloaks to hide all the blood stains and the name cynically grew from there. That's the opposite of the overwrought emotional crap you're talking about, I think? That's how all the names in my ACKS campaigns have developed, at any rate. Cynically.
As far as group dynamics, my thoughts on that are in this article on The Escapist: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/8041-Managing-Problems-and-Players
I think collective, competitive, and every-man-for-himself can all be fun ways to play. In the 1990s my groups tended to be much more chaotic and individualistic; groups nowadays (of Millennials?) are much more communitarian. Definitely a culture shift.
QuoteNot to mention when you have character names like "Yrag" and "Robilar" and "Sir Fang" and, Crom help us, "Gronan of Simmerya," if you FORCE players to come up with a "group name," you have nobody but yourself to blame when you get "Order of the Stick." In my college group we would have ended up with "The Hairy Nutted Monster Whackers." Or, more likely, "The Hairy Monstered Nutsack Whackers."
If those are the names of the PCs, then that's the tone of the campaign, and Hair Monstered Nutsack Whackers fits in just fine with Gronan of Simmerya. It would be weird to have silly PC names and serious group name or vice versa.
QuoteThe "One True Band of Heroes" is the exact OPPOSITE mindset of the early years of Blackmoor and Greyhawk, and its inclusion is the single biggest disappointment.
This is I don't understand. Where did you get a sense of "one true band of heroes"? That is definitely not the tone of ACKS as I run it or wrote it. It's not called "Hero-Liberator-Just King Who Transitions Power to a Constitutional Monarchy"....
Quote from: Bobloblah;760593You'd have to ask amacris, but my impression is that ACKS is exactly that. And, as I mentioned upthread, it is primarily a B/X derivative.
Yes, exactly that. I'd be happy to talk about the philosophy behind the design as much as anyone cares to listen, hah.
Quote from: amacris;760594This is I don't understand. Where did you get a sense of "one true band of heroes"? That is definitely not the tone of ACKS as I run it or wrote it. It's not called "Hero-Liberator-Just King Who Transitions Power to a Constitutional Monarchy"....
If you're drawing from a pool of players that may or may not show up on any given week, and each of whom has multiple characters that they may choose to play (or not), then there's no real concept of a static "band of adventurers". It's "whoever showed up this week, and whatever characters they played".
It's not Alex playing Ashar, and Barb playing Bithina, and Chuck playing Carradan, and Dave playing Darkmagic every week.
It's that group one week, and then the next week Alex, Chuck, Evan, and Fannie show up and they play Allishar, Coorak, Elfdude, and Fianna. And the next week you get Barb, Chuck, Fannie and George, and they play Bithina, Esticar, Florinne, and Gorkam.
So, which is the adventuring party that gets named?
Quote from: amacris;760594This is I don't understand. Where did you get a sense of "one true band of heroes"? That is definitely not the tone of ACKS as I run it or wrote it. It's not called "Hero-Liberator-Just King Who Transitions Power to a Constitutional Monarchy"....
"As described in Chapter 1, Characters, characters traditionally form adventuring parties which give themselves colorful names, such as the Bloody Band."
I don't have the book to hand, but Chapter 1 definitely states that players are expected to give their "adventuring party" a name.
The very notion of "adventuring party" is what I'm talking about. As opposed to, "I bumped into Tenser so we decided to go hit the dungeon and try that area on the 6th level to the east of the Pool of Infinite Catoblepas."
By "one true band of heroes" I mean the expectation that there is one group of players who adventure together with the same characters, as opposed to "Tonight it's Rob with Robilar, me with Gronan, Ernie with Tenser, and some NPCs. Next week it's me with Lessnard, Tim with his Cleric, and my brother with his fighter, and some NPCs."
Quote from: amacris;760594The Bloody Band name arose in play from the fact that the group had such a high death rate - something like 25% of the adventurers died each session in the first few levels. The players morbidly decided to buy red cloaks to hide all the blood stains and the name cynically grew from there. That's the opposite of the overwrought emotional crap you're talking about, I think? That's how all the names in my ACKS campaigns have developed, at any rate. Cynically.
I like that story. :D
But that's not how the text comes across to somebody encountering it cold.
Quote from: robiswrong;760599If you're drawing from a pool of players that may or may not show up on any given week, and each of whom has multiple characters that they may choose to play (or not), then there's no real concept of a static "band of adventurers". It's "whoever showed up this week, and whatever characters they played".
It's not Alex playing Ashar, and Barb playing Bithina, and Chuck playing Carradan, and Dave playing Darkmagic every week.
It's that group one week, and then the next week Alex, Chuck, Evan, and Fannie show up and they play Allishar, Coorak, Elfdude, and Fianna. And the next week you get Barb, Chuck, Fannie and George, and they play Bithina, Esticar, Florinne, and Gorkam.
So, which is the adventuring party that gets named?
Is this a rhetorical question? It sounds like you just have two parties, one consisting of Allishar, Coorak, Elfdude, and Fianna, and the other consisting of Bithina, Esticar, Florinne, and Gorkam. If your parties change composition so often that a name doesn't make sense...don't name them, I guess? There's not any game mechanics that hinge on naming your party. It's just something my players have always done and the intro story in ACKS was literally straight from the play test campaign.
In the groups I run, everyone has 1-3 characters. Some or all of these players participate in any given session, running 1 or more of their characters. Each dungeon-delve or wilderness expedition typically runs across multiple sessions so you have the same set of characters on the expedition but different players showing up. The characters are all always in the world regardless of whether the player shows up. If you don't show up and your character is in the dungeon or expedition, your character gets played by someone who did show up. If your character dies while you're not there, too bad, you should have shown up.
How do you handle it when all of the characters are committed to something and one or more of the players of those characters isn't around? How did Gary & Dave & OG handle it?
Quote from: Old Geezer;760605"As described in Chapter 1, Characters, characters traditionally form adventuring parties which give themselves colorful names, such as the Bloody Band."
I don't have the book to hand, but Chapter 1 definitely states that players are expected to give their "adventuring party" a name.
The very notion of "adventuring party" is what I'm talking about. As opposed to, "I bumped into Tenser so we decided to go hit the dungeon and try that area on the 6th level to the east of the Pool of Infinite Catoblepas."
By "one true band of heroes" I mean the expectation that there is one group of players who adventure together with the same characters, as opposed to "Tonight it's Rob with Robilar, me with Gronan, Ernie with Tenser, and some NPCs. Next week it's me with Lessnard, Tim with his Cleric, and my brother with his fighter, and some NPCs."
OK - I was just discussing this in a different post. How did you handle this situation:
Robilar, Gronan, Tenser, and the NPCs get to Level 6 of the dungeon. The session ends because it's 2AM. The next Friday, Rob and OG are available but Ernie blows you off to go see Godzilla.
The way I handle it is that the next session begins with Tenser, Robilar, and Gronan deep in the dungeon, and either Rob, OG, or the GM runs Ernie's PC Tenser. Ernie gets half-XP for being an NPC if he voluntarily skipped the session, full XP if it was involuntary (sick, stuck at work).
Quote from: amacris;760616How do you handle it when all of the characters are committed to something and one or more of the players of those characters isn't around? How did Gary & Dave & OG handle it?
I could be wrong, but I think he's thinking of more open-table style play. The sessions are self-contained expeditions with those who showed up that night. Similar to
this (http://louisvillednd.com/) (which is using ACKS, incidentally). You can see their session writeups
here (http://louisvillednd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sessions). It avoids the problem (mostly) of who shows up on any given night.
No matter who shows up, it's "The Untouchable Trio +1". :D
I see OG's point, but to me it seems more like the naming of a Free Company from Conan then a "Big Damn Heroes Trademark".
Quote from: Bobloblah;760619I could be wrong, but I think he's thinking of more open-table style play. The sessions are self-contained expeditions with those who showed up that night. Similar to this (http://louisvillednd.com/) (which is using ACKS, incidentally). You can see their session writeups here (http://louisvillednd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sessions). It avoids the problem (mostly) of who shows up on any given night.
Sure. I know Tavis ran that way, too, for his Red Box campaign. But he handled it by insisting that everyone be out of the dungeon by the end of the session and I always had the sense that the old-school guys didn't do that. But maybe I'm wrong?...
Quote from: amacris;760626Sure. I know Tavis ran that way, too, for his Red Box campaign. But he handled it by insisting that everyone be out of the dungeon by the end of the session and I always had the sense that the old-school guys didn't do that. But maybe I'm wrong?...
Good question. Paging Mr. Geezer, paging Mr. Geezer...?
Quote from: amacris;760626Sure. I know Tavis ran that way, too, for his Red Box campaign. But he handled it by insisting that everyone be out of the dungeon by the end of the session and I always had the sense that the old-school guys didn't do that. But maybe I'm wrong?...
You are mistaken, good sir. The session ended with everyone in a safe place. About half an hour before the end Gary would say "Time to head back home."
On outdoor adventures, it would be "Tom's cleric got a summons from his temple and rode away" or whatever.
There was no such thing as "story" other than "what happened." The players present that night were the characters that played.
Quote from: CRKrueger;760622No matter who shows up, it's "The Untouchable Trio +1". :D
I see OG's point, but to me it seems more like the naming of a Free Company from Conan then a "Big Damn Heroes Trademark".
Right, but WHO is the head of the Free Company? By that logic, every PC would have their own.
And as I stated above, no matter what the intent was, the way the text reads to a cold reader is that this is, in fact, a mandatory thing.
No, it read that way to you. I read it the first time and got something very different out of it. A far more interesting question would be what someone new to D&D, or even RPGs generally, would make of it...
I ran a game a couple of years back where I named the adventuring group "The Proud Companions!"
That way, when they'd come into a town, or whatever, people would proclaim in hushed voices, "Beware! Here come the PCs!"
Quote from: Old Geezer;760749You are mistaken, good sir. The session ended with everyone in a safe place. About half an hour before the end Gary would say "Time to head back home."
On outdoor adventures, it would be "Tom's cleric got a summons from his temple and rode away" or whatever.
There was no such thing as "story" other than "what happened." The players present that night were the characters that played.
OK. The immediate questions that come to my mind are "what happened if the characters *didn't* get to a safe place? Or if Tom's cleric was in a place where he couldn't ride away? (Like Isle of Dread or something)."
I don't see the desire to maintain continuity-of-happening as an attempt to impose "story". I do the same thing in non-RPGs, like wargames. When we ran wargame campaigns at West Point we had continuity.
If I'm running a 1941 North African WWII wargame campaign using, say, Spearhead or Command Decision (neither is an RPG), and in the first session Rommel and the Afrika Korps end up encircled in Sidi Rezegh, then next session, Rommel and the Afrika Korp will start encircled in Sidi Rezegh regardless of whether the player who was Rommel the prior session is there or not. To allow the Desert Fox and his panzers to escape to safety because the player controlling Rommel wasn't available would seem wrong and not in the spirit of an ongoing wargame campaign - it would encourage strategic absenteeism, among other things. Someone else runs Rommel and the game goes on.
How do other GMs handle this?
Quote from: amacris;761151OK. The immediate questions that come to my mind are "what happened if the characters *didn't* get to a safe place? Or if Tom's cleric was in a place where he couldn't ride away? (Like Isle of Dread or something)."
I don't see the desire to maintain continuity-of-happening as an attempt to impose "story". I do the same thing in non-RPGs, like wargames. When we ran wargame campaigns at West Point we had continuity.
If I'm running a 1941 North African WWII wargame campaign using, say, Spearhead or Command Decision (neither is an RPG), and in the first session Rommel and the Afrika Korps end up encircled in Sidi Rezegh, then next session, Rommel and the Afrika Korp will start encircled in Sidi Rezegh regardless of whether the player who was Rommel the prior session is there or not. To allow the Desert Fox and his panzers to escape to safety because the player controlling Rommel wasn't available would seem wrong and not in the spirit of an ongoing wargame campaign - it would encourage strategic absenteeism, among other things. Someone else runs Rommel and the game goes on.
How do other GMs handle this?
We never did not get to a safe place. It simply wasn't permitted.
And I've played wargame campaigns too. I've even played Command Decision, thank you nicely. I
do know how they work.
Quote from: Old Geezer;760751Right, but WHO is the head of the Free Company? By that logic, every PC would have their own.
And as I stated above, no matter what the intent was, the way the text reads to a cold reader is that this is, in fact, a mandatory thing.
Way to be like a 4e player or system wonk and read every word seperately out of context and setting. I'm actually shocked to see this from you.
Edit: Someone explain to me stopping at a safe place or my temple is calling me? Uh wut? Being a cleric doesn't mean you and your God are on Sprint's framily plan. That is just as arbitrary as any chapter break to a story.
Quote from: Grey Wanderer;760760I ran a game a couple of years back where I named the adventuring group "The Proud Companions!"
That way, when they'd come into a town, or whatever, people would proclaim in hushed voices, "Beware! Here come the PCs!"
Our current adventuring group acquired its name when the halfling, on the very first adventure, having met the other members of the group in the back of a wagon traveling to the outpost that has become their base town said, sorta offhand, "We're wagon buddies!"
So, now, when someone asks, "Who are you people?" one of us has to step forward and say, "WE'RE THE...(lowers voice), um, Wagon Buddies..."
Quote from: Old Geezer;761156We never did not get to a safe place. It simply wasn't permitted.
If that's the case it's really like imposing some kind of anti-story, as opposed to a lack of story. Not to say that's bad (it's important for an open table), but it's as much a meta decision as following some kind of story is. Allowing the PCs to end up someplace uncomfortable at the end of the session can simply stem from following the logic of their actions and/or the setting to its natural conclusion, and then maintaining continuity, without any requirement for "story", or anti-story (i.e. you all end up back in town).
Quote from: Old Geezer;760751Right, but WHO is the head of the Free Company? By that logic, every PC would have their own.
More importantly, who cares? It's worth noting that lots of groups don't have a revolving door for players, and whether or not you do has a large impact on one's play assumptions (or, if it doesn't, you end up hand-waving lots of weirdness). Does it matter that a group of loosely associated tomb-robbers/world-conquerors call themselves the Bloody Band for laughs? Or does doing so automatically make them story-gaming swine?
Quote from: amacris;761151How do other GMs handle this?
In my experience it's entirely dependent on the type of game and makeup of the players. I've done everything from having characters vanish in a puff of logic (a solution I hate), to NPC'ing them, to enforcing the "you're all safe back in town" thing for an open table group. There's never been just one solution, and it has always depended on the in-game circumstances, reasons for absence, and state of the player-roster.
Quote from: Marleycat;761172Way to be like a 4e player or system wonk and read every word seperately out of context and setting. I'm actually shocked to see this from you.
Shrug. That's just the way it read to me. That's how it came across.
Quote from: Marleycat;761172Edit: Someone explain to me stopping at a safe place or my temple is calling me? Uh wut? Being a cleric doesn't mean you and your God are on Sprint's framily plan. That is just as arbitrary as any chapter break to a story.
Sure. But there never was any "story" other than "this is what happened." If Tom couldn't be there tonight, Gary would say "Tom got a summons from the Temple and rode back home." Or if we were in town he'd say "You haven't seen Tom."
The people who played were the people who were present, period.
And as I said, about half an hour or so before he wanted to quit for the night, Gary would say "It's time to head to the surface/find a town with an inn."
D&D was, first and foremost, a game.
And Amacris said,
"Sure. I know Tavis ran that way, too, for his Red Box campaign. But he handled it by insisting that everyone be out of the dungeon by the end of the session and I always had the sense that the old-school guys didn't do that. But maybe I'm wrong?..."
And I'm saying explicitly that Dave and Gary DID do that very thing; I am directly answering the question he asked. Although maybe that's not who me meant by "the old-school guys".
Quote from: Bobloblah;761174If that's the case it's really like imposing some kind of anti-story, as opposed to a lack of story. Not to say that's bad (it's important for an open table), but it's as much a meta decision as following some kind of story is.
Well, sure. But I'm answering questions about what actually happened in the early days of Blackmoor and Greyhawk; what did Dave and Gary actually do, how did they handle this situation.
At least that's what I thought I was doing.
O
Quote from: Old Geezer;761180Shrug. That's just the way it read to me. That's how it came across.
Sure. But there never was any "story" other than "this is what happened." If Tom couldn't be there tonight, Gary would say "Tom got a summons from the Temple and rode back home." Or if we were in town he'd say "You haven't seen Tom."
The people who played were the people who were present, period.
And as I said, about half an hour or so before he wanted to quit for the night, Gary would say "It's time to head to the surface/find a town with an inn."
D&D was, first and foremost, a game.
And Amacris said,
"Sure. I know Tavis ran that way, too, for his Red Box campaign. But he handled it by insisting that everyone be out of the dungeon by the end of the session and I always had the sense that the old-school guys didn't do that. But maybe I'm wrong?..."
And I'm saying explicitly that Dave and Gary DID do that very thing; I am directly answering the question he asked. Although maybe that's not who me meant by "the old-school guys".
Thanks OG, you answered with context because that was my actual confusion with your prior response. It didn't make sense to me.
Glad to help.
I thought we were talking about how the issue was handled in the early days of D&D, but maybe I'm the only person who thought that.
Quote from: Old Geezer;761194Glad to help.
I thought we were talking about how the issue was handled in the early days of D&D, but maybe I'm the only person who thought that.
Probably but that's okay by me because that's what I expect and I enjoy learning about it anyway, because as you know I'm just a 2e storygame girl. And your sense of humour is like mine also.:)
Quote from: Marleycat;761202And your sense of humour is like mine also.:)
Primarily centered on farting, blowjobs, and tits? ;)
Quote from: Old Geezer;761209Primarily centered on farting, blowjobs, and tits? ;)
Beer, you silly man.:)
Quote from: Old Geezer;761180D&D was, first and foremost, a game.
And I'm saying explicitly that Dave and Gary DID do that very thing; I am directly answering the question he asked. Although maybe that's not who me meant by "the old-school guys".
Thanks for answering the question. Dave, Gary, you, et. Al, are definitely who I meant by old-school guys.
I didn't mean to offend you by suggesting you didn't know what a wargame was. I think we be sure that most people today have never played a Command Decision campaign, though, so it seemed worthwhile to clarify a bit.
In any event, it was necessary to make the point that ACKS is designed for a type of campaign which is not story-based but which has a higher level of continuity than what Gary ran. There are not just 2 types of campaigns, "open table" and "story game".
ACKS could certainly run the type of game you describe but a lot of the additional material in Chapter 7 (Campaigns) only becomes valuable when you are running it with the continuity of a wargame campaign.
Quote from: amacris;761294ACKS could certainly run the type of game you describe but a lot of the additional material in Chapter 7 (Campaigns) only becomes valuable when you are running it with the continuity of a wargame campaign.
At that point I would posit that it would, in fact, be a wargame campaign. And that is very much in line with Dave and Gary's original visions, since all their players were wargamers.
Not everyone in an "open table" campaign would desire to go to that length, of course. But all you need is three or four wargamers with their own strongholds and the wars, they make themselves.
And the other occasional players are being recruited for various factions. At which point, their potential unreliability adds to the game.
"Sorry, squire, your expensive and paid-in-advance mercenaries didn't show."