Quote from: Claudius;448780True. But I call bullshit on the assertion that D&D3 can be mastered in one afternoon. Or ten afternoons. I'm not saying you claimed it.

Learning optimisation in 3.x mainly involves reading about two dozen short articles, absorbing and then applying the concepts contained within. There's also handbooks for each class, and a few miscellaneous references. Unless you really want to reinvent the wheel, it's not hard to read and remember most of the important stuff, especially since you can immediately start applying it in games.

Knowing this stuff doesn't constitute "mastery" of the game, since as Beno's been hammering on across multiple threads now, there's more to the game than just its mechanical elements interacting, but it strikes me as odd that ignorance of this stuff is somehow considered preferable. I won't deny feeling contemptuous of anyone who both plays D&D 3.x and claims it's too hard to learn all the rules.

Quote from: Peregrin;448743Me personally?  No.  Especially not with 3e.  I find that type of number-crunching/system-mastery boring.  I'm just saying that in terms of "mastering" something, an afternoon is trivial.  And if mastering something can affect actual play in a positive way, I can't say it's a bad thing.

I learnt char op and the rules of the game to effectively apply them to create interesting situations and characters without merely relying on DM fiat or luck. Knowing how to build interesting characters is applicable to NPCs as well as PCs and leads to more dynamic, exciting fights where more things happen than just swarming the big boss and full attacking every round until he's dead.

Quote from: Claudius;448614Rolemaster. I've got nothing good to say about the Companions...

I agree, although I would make an exception for the first Companion, which is pretty solid (as it was written by a single author, it has a clearer overall vision, and is not a hopeless mishmash of different things, like the later companions).

I also would say the MERP is better than RM, at least for lower level adventuring (it keeps most of the cool things of RM, but cuts back on the detail).

Quote from: Ramrod;448781It takes true talent to know which Rifts supplements to pick from the vast sea of them. There are some true diamonds (Arzno, Mercenaries), most of them are alright, and some that just suck giant donkey dick (Africa, the entire goddamn Siege on Tolkeen series).

There is also the eventual power creep from supplement to supplement with each new one trying to outgun all the previous ones and giving you M.D.C underpants.

Welcome to theRPGsite, and quoted for absolute blinding brain-searing motherfucking truth.

As a rule of thumb, starting with South America 1 it's mostly crap. Which is a pity, because you have some books with excellent world info, and crappy, broken or ridiculous classes and toys (WBs 10-18, some of the last purchases I've made, spring to mind). Again, Rifts is not a game for the faint of heart, and the GM should put on the Viking hat and tell players who want to play Anti_monsters and Mega-Juicers to bugger off (unless of course it's one of those campaigns we keep hearing about ).

If I had to choose 5 books, for a North American campaign, I'd go with Sourcebook 1, Vampire Kingdoms, Conversion Book 1, Atlantis and Mercenaries. Vampire Kingdoms in particular is my gold-standard for a Rifts setting book, Rifts needed less ridiculous toy books like Coalition War Campaign, and more world info and locales crawling with adventure hooks like Ciudad Juarez.

Quote from: Ramrod;448781There is also the eventual power creep from supplement to supplement with each new one trying to outgun all the previous ones and giving you M.D.C underpants.

Thanks to you, my RIFTS game's NPC headhunter now has MDC underpants.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Benoist;448580If you want to keep arguing about CharOp "balance" in 3rd ed, power creep etc, create your own thread to do it, please. This thread here is about games that you prefer to play without supplements, and why.

Thanks.

Does anyone else read this as "Please derail the shit out of this motherfucker!" or is that just me?

Quote from: Aos;449293Does anyone else read this as "Please derail the shit out of this motherfucker!" or is that just me?

I'm sure you're not the only one. By all means, go ahead.

Quote from: Aos;449293Does anyone else read this as "Please derail the shit out of this motherfucker!" or is that just me?

One of the nice things about theRPGsite, as opposed to that other heavily-moderated forum, is that threads are allowed to grow "organically", which sometimes includes being derailed into something else entirely.

This can be really annoying at times (e.g. it's nearly impossible to start a thread on 4e without incendiary results), but often allows interesting and meaningful discussions which pop up unexpectedly and are not 100% relevant to the thread's original topic.

To Benoist's credit, though: (1) the "3.5e is a CharOp wankfest" argument is a dead horse, and (2) he did say "please".

The organic growth is something I like about theRPGsite too.  As long as the movement of a thread really is organic, ie. veering off into branches, and not artificial (ie. someone throws in a totally unrelated subject just to fuck up the thread).

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;449417The organic growth is something I like about theRPGsite too.  As long as the movement of a thread really is organic, ie. veering off into branches, and not artificial (ie. someone throws in a totally unrelated subject just to fuck up the thread).

That's a mighty thin line between the two, Pundy, if one exists at all.

I (and a few others) still want the bat-slap back, BTW.

Quote from: Imperator;448773A very interesting idea. Thanks fo sharing

Problem spells stop being problems at all when the GM has the balls to just ban them outright.

Quote from: The Butcher;449470That's a mighty thin line between the two, Pundy, if one exists at all.

No, there really isn't.  One is conversation that grows out of what is being talked about on the thread. The other is some douchebag or douchebags jumping in and trying to change the thread to an entirely different topic with no continuity.

QuoteI (and a few others) still want the bat-slap back, BTW.

That isn't a branch at all, that (and other kind of "Hur hur lets show our disdain for the subject by posting drivel" material) is a dead-end.  Usually an intentional one, meant to shut down all conversation in a flood if inanity.

RPGPundit

(Double post... sorry)

I think that most games that publish supplements with enough frequency eventually get to the point that they become unmanageable or dysfunctional.

Mongoose Traveller is a recent example to me. Though there are a few supplements I find very valuable (central supply catalog, 760 patrons), and I almost always enjoy new career sequences, the material beyond the career sequences in the "Green Stripe" books seem too specialized to use more than one of in a given game fitting that specialty, or not worth using altogether.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;449693I think that any game that sees continual publication is more than likely to reach the point where additional supplements are more trouble than it's worth.

Too true. It's simple statistics, really, no matter how high the writing and publishing standards for a given game line, the more stuff you put out, the higher the probability that bad material sees print.

There's no shortage of great games and settings which have collapsed under the weight of their own supplement treadmill.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;449693I think Mongoose Traveller is a pretty good game with 3 or 4 of the supplements, but beyond new chargen sequences, most of the "green stripe" supplements don't really add all that much to the typical game. Some are good for specialized campaigns, but you still wouldn't want to use all the supplements (or a major portion of them) at once.

I've been avoiding the career supplements like the plague, having been warned off of splatbooks by the Old World of Darkness and D&D 3.5e. From my cursory readings, I'm not sure the new career paths actually add anything significant to the core character generation charts.

I am curious, though, as to what supplements you prefer for Mongoose Traveller. You mention 760 Patrons and Central Supply Catalogue (which seem to heap a lot of praise everytime MongTrav supplements are mentioned). What else?