Quote from: danskmacabre;564115It's from a movie called "Duck you sucker" or "A fistful of dynamite" depending on the country of release.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_You_Sucker!

It's a sort of late period Western, made by Sergio Leone, the same guy who made " a fistful of dollars"  etc....

Fascinating movie. Far from Leone's best, but the way it turns from a light buddy flick set in Mexico to harrowing social commentary is very effective in its sheer ham-fisted brutality. And then add Sean's parallel storyline as commentary on the commentary.

Also, it is so goddamn downbeat it can be a regular gut-punch.

Quote from: danskmacabre;564115It's from a movie called "Duck you sucker" or "A fistful of dynamite" depending on the country of release.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_You_Sucker!

It's a sort of late period Western, made by Sergio Leone, the same guy who made " a fistful of dollars"  etc....

I thoroughly enjoyed running pathfinder for the first 18 months I suppose but slowly got sick of how restrictive it was. There are just TOO many rules IMO which can bind the options for a GM and makes for more prep work.

Compare that to say Runequest which allows a lot more freedom and it was an easy choice for me.
Also I have another gaming group that I run and play MRQ2/Legend/Elric for.
I wanted to drop something to free up some time and out of the 2 by far I was enjoying the Runequest system more.
So I dropped Pathfinder.
I DO think Pathfinder is good fun up to about 10 level tho. But from that point onwards it just gets unmanageable and a rules lawyer/minimaxer playground.

Neat about the avatar.  You ever try 2e?or 1e? Both are custom and easy to run. Hint: I am a Mage girl?so I like loose games.

Quote from: Melan;564117Fascinating movie. Far from Leone's best, but the way it turns from a light buddy flick set in Mexico to harrowing social commentary is very effective in its sheer ham-fisted brutality. And then add Sean's parallel storyline as commentary on the commentary.

Also, it is so goddamn downbeat it can be a regular gut-punch.

Yes it's not as smooth flowing as his other movies, but an interesting backstory and a lot of depth to it.
I actually only saw this movie quite recently, someone I know pointed it out to me.
I quite like the mood to it.

Quote from: Marleycat;564119Neat about the avatar.  You ever try 2e?or 1e? Both are custom and easy to run. Hint: I am a Mage girl?so I like loose games.

Oh yeah, I played 1st ed a LOT in the 80s and 2nd ed for a bit as well.
I entirely skipped Dnd v3 and 3.5 and didn't really play DnD again until Pathfinder came out.

I probably wouldn't go back to 1st or 2nd ed really. I had a great time playing them wayback, but sometimes you shouldn't try to recapture those old times.
Besides there's such a huge variety of RPGs out there I want to try as many of them (Well the ones that look interesting anyway) as I can.

Quote from: danskmacabre;564122Oh yeah, I played 1st ed a LOT in the 80s and 2nd ed for a bit as well.
I entirely skipped Dnd v3 and 3.5 and didn't really play DnD again until Pathfinder came out.

I probably wouldn't go back to 1st or 2nd ed really. I had a great time playing them wayback, but sometimes you shouldn't try to recapture those old times.
Besides there's such a huge variety of RPGs out there I want to try as many of them (Well the ones that look interesting anyway) as I can.

Hence the reason I moved to FC for my Dnd.

Quote from: Marleycat;564125Hence the reason I moved to FC for my Dnd.

What's FC?

Quote from: Planet Algol;563981the humanity!

Yeah. See, I never understood that.

If your character tries something and fails, that's what happened. That's the story. Play it out. Play to find out what happens, not to find out how you win.

If you, the player, come up with a good idea but you give it to another player, because your character couldn't pull it off... that's the story, too. RPG's are not competitive. They are co-operative. If you want to pull off your own plans, think in terms of your character's limits and abilities.

Quote from: Novastar;563984That said, a good argument or proposition should work, no matter how charismatic (or un-) the character is. It should just be easier/greater rewards for the person who builds to that strength.

No, no it shouldn't. The game world is reacting to the character, not to the player, and if the character doesn't have the social ability to win people over to their way of thinking, the arguments they use won't matter.

Quote from: danskmacabre;564128What's FC?

Feta Cheese.

Quote from: Marleycat;564112Jibba, I only ask or care because me you and Drohem are the only 2e people here.  So color me confused you don't prefer a looser game?

I like well defined rules that I can choose to ignore or modify a lot more than I like loose ill-defined rules I HAVE to modify or ignore to play.

I prefer a looser game. I don't think GM fiat is gone at all. Lots of rules light stuff out there these days with plenty of room for GM Fiat.

Quote from: MGuy;564049GM fiat is as necesssary to build and run a game as the players are to create PCs to play in it. GM fiat is going to happen at some level in any game that features a GM that makes choices at all. However GM fiat is not something you can design around and thus should not be taken into account when design points are being discussed. The reason you can't design around DM fiat is that for every point made where you would say "The GM can do -X-" the argument can be made that "The GM could do -not X-". So while we can safely assume GMs will do "something" what that "something" is will vary from GM to GM.

If the game in question is to be run, judged, and played by people then NOT designing to account for people seems like an odd move.

Quote from: Ladybird;564129If you, the player, come up with a good idea but you give it to another player, because your character couldn't pull it off... that's the story, too. RPG's are not competitive. They are co-operative. If you want to pull off your own plans, think in terms of your character's limits and abilities.

It really depends on why you pass the idea? If you think of something great to ask an NPC and Bob's character has known the NPC for years then letting Bob's character ask the question makes sense in the game world.

Quote from: Ladybird;564129No, no it shouldn't. The game world is reacting to the character, not to the player, and if the character doesn't have the social ability to win people over to their way of thinking, the arguments they use won't matter.

This is craptastic. The concept of 'challenging the character' is stupid as fuck-all. An rpg character is a collection of stats scribbled on a piece of paper. Players are the ones playing the game, the ones that think, and act, and can appreciate the concept of a challenge.

Next time your character succeeds in a challenge ask him/her if it felt satisfying. If everything just comes down to a die roll based on some statistics then a trained fucking monkey can play for you. All he has to do is mash the right buttons at the proper time to win.

The challenge of the game is for the player, so taking the player factor largely out of the resolution cycle is moronic.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;564141This is craptastic. The concept of 'challenging the character' is stupid as fuck-all. An rpg character is a collection of stats scribbled on a piece of paper. Players are the ones playing the game, the ones that think, and act, and can appreciate the concept of a challenge.

So what's the point of the stats scribbled on the piece of paper then? If the character's capabilities are not to be considered, why do they have capabilities at all?

Quote from: Fifth Element;564145So what's the point of the stats scribbled on the piece of paper then? If the character's capabilities are not to be considered, why do they have capabilities at all?

They are their to help the GM & player's when the results of an action taken by the character aren't obvious. So:

"I try to pick up the pencil and hold it above my head"
"You succeed"

"I try to pick up the fallen oak tree and hold it above my head"
"You fail"

"I try to pick up the heavy branch and hold it above my head"
"Make a Strength test to do it."

The same thing applies to social interactions.

Quote from: Bill;564008I have met a small number of players that seem to require rules to function.
Some combination of ocd/control issues, and they are used to really bad gm's.

I've seen a few of these at my D&D Meetup - they seem "brain damaged", to quote the Great Beast. But they are a very small minority of players, and confined to 4e and 3e/Pathfinder (though they usually regard one or other of those two as an abomination). The great majority of players (including 3e & 4e players) value and respect GM judgement and many are happy to play a variety of non 3e/4e games, eg we currently have 2 Labyrinth Lord games going.

Quote from: Fifth Element;564145So what's the point of the stats scribbled on the piece of paper then? If the character's capabilities are not to be considered, why do they have capabilities at all?

Maybe they shouldn't. And I say this as someone whp publishes games with skills like deception, command and persuade. Personally I am very torn over such mechanics because the fun of RP for me is playing it out live at the table. These kinds of skills can interfere with that if handled in certain ways by effectively bypassing or undermining the playrer's direct interaction with an NPC. It depends on how they are handled of course. But even as a GM, I find social mechanics the most problematic in play for the style game I prefer.