Quote from: The Butcher;635492Both DSotBH and Chaos Factor are glorious gonzo jewels in their own way

World of Darkness "Done right" bores me to fucking tears, but I would play a DSotBH campaign (or "Underworld as co-directed by David Cronenberg and John Woo with production design by H.R. Geiger") in a heartbeart. I mean, you play international vampire super-agents fighting a secret invasion by a sentient alien disease. This idea is many things, but dull is not one of them.

Who would I like to apologize? Robin Laws. For what he did to the Glorantha gaming that I loved so much. Heroquest/Hero Wars. Bah.

Quote from: jeff37923;635564This.

In AD&D2, casting Haste cost a year of life in the character affected. So we would end up with Players having elves who demanded Haste be cast every combat because they lived a thousand years and could afford to age some while the lesser races (like humans) were just Mayflies meant for death. It damn near took a punch to the face before I was able to convince these guys that they were killing my human character through old age because of this.

This was all in RPGA games, which is also one of the reasons I dislike the RPGA.

I see this as more of an issue with the Haste spell than the elves.  Aging upon casting is a bad way to balance most magic, especially if it is a fixed cost of years.  The exception, campaign boosting rituals, would not be the sort of thing that slowly killed off the party unexpectedly.

Quote from: Baron;635672Who would I like to apologize? Robin Laws. For what he did to the Glorantha gaming that I loved so much. Heroquest/Hero Wars. Bah.

Hmm, yeah, that was bad.

I liked the Complete Book of Elves. Elves should be overpowered IMO.

As for who I'd like an apology from?


Whoever wrote WOD Gypsies I guess. Cant think of anyone else I actually think owes me personally an apology. Plenty of guys I'd love to see smacked upside the head, but not out of any debt to me, just karmic justice.

Quote from: Votan;635710I see this as more of an issue with the Haste spell than the elves.  Aging upon casting is a bad way to balance most magic, especially if it is a fixed cost of years.  The exception, campaign boosting rituals, would not be the sort of thing that slowly killed off the party unexpectedly.

Dude could have casted Haste so that it targetted something besides my character. But noooo, "You wouldn't have a problem if you'd just played an elf. Quit harshing my munchkinism!"

Now that is a double-edged sword. On one hand COMPLETE BOOK OF ELVES was not in the slightest bit powerful except if you're narrating a story and don't like interaction. On the other hand, overall CBOE, as an add-on for 2E, was very bland didn't fix the weak problems of the 2E system (weak monsters/lessened treasure) and that is its real harshness.

So you have a twofold problem already existing. That the author can't address and chooses to create a nonsensical "problem".

Of course, some people will "buy" it but if they've fallen for the broken 2E system's treasure and monster failures that I cited above then they'll fall for anything.

The "Complete" books were boring.

3E/PERTHFERNDER has a concern that power is their problem. "Form" is the problem. FORM! "Edition era D&D" which is technically the moment Gygax said "second edition" in Dragon to right now has always had a hand-wringing fear of artifacts and powerful concepts. We are in the era of "munchkin namecalling" dorks shitting on everything.

I think that a large problem with the CBOE wasn't its mechanics, but how the fluff text portrayed Elves.

A few gems include Grey Elves who practice slavery (but the book says that it's okay, because the slaves are happy!); elves who use magical prosthetic limbs to replace missing ones are viewed as incompetent weaklings who are a drain on their society (ableism); and they can do everything better than everybody else (even dwarven stonecraft is inferior to elven masonry!).

Quote from: Libertad;636123I think that a large problem with the CBOE wasn't its mechanics, but how the fluff text portrayed Elves.

A few gems include Grey Elves who practice slavery (but the book says that it's okay, because the slaves are happy!); elves who use magical prosthetic limbs to replace missing ones are viewed as incompetent weaklings who are a drain on their society (ableism); and they can do everything better than everybody else (even dwarven stonecraft is inferior to elven masonry!).

Objectivist elves? I could totally see this shit working on a game world.

But then I always run elves as assholes. Assholes on the side of Light and Good, more often than not, but assholes nevertheless.

The video is out!

Quote from: jeff37923;635875Dude could have casted Haste so that it targetted something besides my character. But noooo, "You wouldn't have a problem if you'd just played an elf. Quit harshing my munchkinism!"

I always thought Haste was only included in the spell list in order to identify the players who couldn't discern that Slow did practically the exact same thing (and was objectively better at the same thing in 1st edition), without the penalty.

In other words, players who only read the stuff that made them more powerful, rather than finding the stuff that would make them more successful.

Haste is the best meta-game spell ever written.

Are you sure that Slow doesn't have the same aging effect as Haste?

RPGPundit

Quote from: Libertad;636473The video is out!

Great video! I didn't expect the snark. 8/10.

Quote from: RPGPundit;636807Are you sure that Slow doesn't have the same aging effect as Haste?

RPGPundit

Positive - pull out your 1E books and read the two spell descriptions for yourself.

Quote from: Libertad;636123A few gems include Grey Elves who practice slavery (but the book says that it's okay, because the slaves are happy!); elves who use magical prosthetic limbs to replace missing ones are viewed as incompetent weaklings who are a drain on their society (ableism); and they can do everything better than everybody else (even dwarven stonecraft is inferior to elven masonry!).

This guy owes gamers more than an apology. He deserves to let anyone who wants to kick him in the nuts.