Quote from: Doctor Jest;793588That doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. How many hitpoints does God have?

I don't know that. But I am pretty sure that god doesn't need a starship.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;793588That doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. How many hitpoints does God have?

Consult the Fiend Folio.

Quote from: Old Geezer;793290Actually, if the PCs come up with a surprise plan I'll roll dice to see how well the NPCs can adapt to their tactics.

That's fair, though it's only one way to be fair.  Equally admirable is the GM who, though not a tactical genius himself, can decide on the fly, "Yeah, but my bad guy would have thought of that, and done *this*"...as long as he puts reasonable limits on his hindsight.

How reasonable?  I guess reasonable enough that the players aren't all crying foul.  They don't *need* to know how well the GM prepared, necessarily, or that a GM had a momentary mental lapse that a supervillain would not have had.  Retconning is cheating, sure, but so is pretending to have mapped out entire worlds and billions of individual pysches therein in the first place.

A GM need not be perfect.  Just run good NPCs and don't let the seams show, when you can help it.  Cheat the players a little, when you have to, but don't cheat their characters.  Put on a good show, and sometimes that may include sleight-of-hand.

Quote from: AteTheHeckUp;793877That's fair, though it's only one way to be fair.  Equally admirable is the GM who, though not a tactical genius himself, can decide on the fly, "Yeah, but my bad guy would have thought of that, and done *this*"...as long as he puts reasonable limits on his hindsight.

How reasonable?  I guess reasonable enough that the players aren't all crying foul.  They don't *need* to know how well the GM prepared, necessarily, or that a GM had a momentary mental lapse that a supervillain would not have had.  Retconning is cheating, sure, but so is pretending to have mapped out entire worlds and billions of individual pysches therein in the first place.

A GM need not be perfect.  Just run good NPCs and don't let the seams show, when you can help it.  Cheat the players a little, when you have to, but don't cheat their characters.  Put on a good show, and sometimes that may include sleight-of-hand.

Oh, sure, there's more than one way to do it and still be "fair."  I was just showing another possibility.  I'm also a much better strategist and tactician than most of my players so the NPCs frequently don't act optimally even if I could think of better ways to handle it.

Quote from: Old Geezer;793079On the other hand, I always plan the bad guys tactics out in advance, and if the players come up with a good counter, they come up with a good counter.  They aren't beating my tactics, they're beating the bad guys' tactics.  The lizard men in room 26 have very different tactics from the harpies in room 27.

Best tactics for the lizard men in room 26?

If your neighbor is a harpy- MOVE!  

Quote from: Exploderwizard;794476Best tactics for the lizard men in room 26?

If your neighbor is a harpy- MOVE!  

Bob the Beholder disagrees.

http://yafgc.net/?id=23

Quote from: Doctor Jest;793588That doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. How many hitpoints does God have?

In JRPGs he usually has around 9999.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;793588That doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. How many hitpoints does God have?

The good news is, only 400.  The bad news is, he's immune to everything and regenerates 400 HPs a round.

Quote from: Will;793058Yeah, while it's not my cuppa, the positive version of that sort of game is basically no more adversarial than someone posing riddles or making crosswords.

Crosswords, other puzzles, computer game programs. The difference is that the gm is present. If that's  a problem, it is a bigger solution.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;793588That doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. How many hitpoints does God have?

All of them

Now I'm imagining attacking God and as you do piles of damage, random things around you start shattering and dying.

Quote from: Will;794675Now I'm imagining attacking God and as you do piles of damage, random things around you start shattering and dying.

Fantasy Wargaming gave stats. I think the power of YHVH was simply infinite, but maybe not that of the Son. What if Jesus had accepted Thor's challenge? I thought it was funny that the BVM would whip war-loving Asgardians in a wrestling match.

Quote from: Will;794675Now I'm imagining attacking God and as you do piles of damage, random things around you start shattering and dying.

Marvels old Adventure comic magazine had one story where some space explorers are searching for the origin of God. Eventually tracing back to a remote world covered in deadly monsters. They fight their way to a temple and find it lined with statues of every possible iteration of God. Then run into another horror and one of the explorers has had it and blasts it.

Turns out that was God. From the wound pours fourth an all consuming darkness that spreads to erase the universe.

Moral of the story. Dont Shoot God.

In Rifts Pantheons there a bemusing note. Most of the high up pantheons leaders work together to keep even older gods asleep. Bumping one off could disrupt the effort and end everything.

So dont do that either.

Quote from: Bren;793049Only if two things are true. (1) An interventionist god exists and (2) the GM in question is a rocks fall and then you die sort of dick.

Otherwise it is quite feasible to tactically defeat or "beat up" the GM and limiting the amount of information the GM has may help to do that. Attempting and sometimes defeating the GM's tactics was certainly an element in old school play back in the mid 1970s in the groups I played in.

Except that the only two scenarios are dependent on the GM: where the GM wants an adversarial game or where the GM doesn't.

In the former case, you either have a situation that is going to be a really REALLY shitty game, or the GM will be adversarial only "to a point".  Some people MIGHT enjoy the latter, but it will be a bit like if your dad lets you win at chess.

In the latter case, it doesn't matter whether you are being adversarial or not, except in the sense that having that kind of attitude when that's not in fact the point could ruin your enjoyment (and that of your group).

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;793835Consult the Fiend Folio.

Surely, it would be in Deities and Demigods?