Quote from: Scooter on October 06, 2023, 04:05:06 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 03:44:00 PM

Quote from: Scooter on October 06, 2023, 03:37:46 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 03:22:31 PM
A wilderness survival campaign makes resource management and encumbrance rules very important whereas a urban investigation campaign makes the rules an unnecessary burden on all players.

  How the fuck would you use them in an urban environment unless the players lacked money and needed to steal food, lodging  and the like?

That's what I thought.  Maybe you'd like to rephrase it so it makes sense.

You really do have a special kind of autism, don't you?

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 03:22:31 PM
The last few posts dance around two things I believe to be very true in any game but particularly RPGs.

1.  A bad rule is better than a vague rule or an implied rule.  Having a 1-out-of-6 fumble is better than something that vaguely states "if you roll badly, the GM might all it a fumble."  Even if it's terrible, it's at least a solid anchor.

2. Whether a rule is good or bad may be heavily dependent on case use.  A wilderness survival campaign makes resource management and encumbrance rules very important whereas a urban investigation campaign makes the rules an unnecessary burden on all players.

I'll agree with statement 2.  But hard disagree with statement #1.  A rule that is badly implemented immediately pulls players out of the game.  Suddenly it becomes about the mechanical effect of the rule and not the in-universe fiction.  I'd much rather have the GM go "Nah, that doesn't make sense in this case" than have a character trip a gelatinous cube because "it's in the rules"...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 06, 2023, 06:18:37 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 03:22:31 PM
The last few posts dance around two things I believe to be very true in any game but particularly RPGs.

1.  A bad rule is better than a vague rule or an implied rule.  Having a 1-out-of-6 fumble is better than something that vaguely states "if you roll badly, the GM might all it a fumble."  Even if it's terrible, it's at least a solid anchor.

2. Whether a rule is good or bad may be heavily dependent on case use.  A wilderness survival campaign makes resource management and encumbrance rules very important whereas a urban investigation campaign makes the rules an unnecessary burden on all players.

I'll agree with statement 2.  But hard disagree with statement #1.  A rule that is badly implemented immediately pulls players out of the game.  Suddenly it becomes about the mechanical effect of the rule and not the in-universe fiction.  I'd much rather have the GM go "Nah, that doesn't make sense in this case" than have a character trip a gelatinous cube because "it's in the rules"...

AKA, it's easier to replace a missing rule with a good rule--or even an adequate rule--than it is to replace a bad rule with anything.  A bad rule by itself is bad enough. However, bad rules don't tend to stay independent, but instead build up a lot of related bad rules trying to fix the problems.  Let it go on long enough, it's a cancer grown throughout the rule system.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on October 05, 2023, 10:26:39 PM

Quote from: El-V on October 05, 2023, 08:33:16 AM

As to gold for XP, Gary explained it as an explicit scoring mechanism - i.e. DMG p.86:

'Players who balk at equating gold pieces to experience points should be gently but firmly reminded that in a game certain compromises must be made. While it is more "realistic" for clerics to study holy writings, pray, chant, practice self-discipline, etc. to gain experience, it would not make a playable game roll along. Similarly, fighters should be exercising, riding, smiting pelts, tilting at the lists, and engaging in weapons practice of various sorts to gain real expertise (experience) [...]. All very realistic but conducive to non-game boredom!'

I remember having long arguments about this rule with a friend in the early 1980s. He hated the rule - I used it. He just gave out thousands of XP if players finished the adventure. I preferred the RAW as it made the players think about getting back to town or storing their loot if they needed to rest up in the middle of a dungeon. This became a concern for them when we played the A1-4 modules as it meant that they had to find ways to hide their gold in hostile territory.

But at the end of the day, either way works and the DMG gold for XP rule is just one way of doing it.

I use XP for gold (among other things) because it is a NEUTRAL reward system. Giving XP for "completing the adventure" is completely subjective and depends on the hoops the DM wants you to jump through to be able to level up. Now if your group doesn't mind being led by the nose through planned encounters culminating in a big boss fight, rinse and repeat then the per adventure method works.

Using the per adventure method with early TSR D&D is an invitation to TPK central. Low levels are where the party learns to work together, and attempts to explore and obtain as much treasure as possible without risking their lives in combat unless conditions are favorable or they have no choice. Being paraded through a string of encounters that the DM thinks that they "should" go through before getting to level is often a death sentence.

Treasure based XP lets the party figure out how they want to seek their fortunes. Gold can be obtained by combat, stealth, trickery, and good old luck finding some in forgotten places. Fiat based XP means you level up whenever you do what the DM thinks you should be doing.

XP for Gold is NOT "neutral". Treasure and what sort of "hoops" you have to go through to get to it is still ultimately subject to the subjective whims of the DM. And is demonstrably more limited than XP through other methods (completing adventures is not the only one of them, any type of objective or achievement may work) because you're limited to treasure hunting as your sole means of progression. While other means of XP award can include absolutely anything, including securing treasure itself as a type of adventure objective, as well as any other objective that may seem appropriate for the group, their goals and the theme of the campaign.

All that XP for Gold does is turn something that's already it's own reward into even more of a reward. And an obligatory proxy for advancement that inevitably leads to inflation due to excess wealth. Which then leads to necessitating additional hoops for advancement, such as requiring training to advance through XP for Gold in order to get rid of that excess gold. When you could have simply given that XP directly, instead of jumping through various hoops to work an unrelated middleman (gold) into the equation.

XP for Gold is the most "dog chasing its tail" asinine nonsense thing ever to rear its head into D&D, other than Initiative and Vancian magic. Which leads me to...

Quote from: Venka on October 05, 2023, 03:46:10 PM

QuoteWith proper buy-in, old school adjudication is waaaaaaaaaaay better than some set of rigid rules because you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want, whenever you want, and the DM assigns a chance to do it and rolls some dice.

I mean, I disagree, especially with initiative.  Without some sense of how play order is supposed to progress, tables can and do spend a bunch of time on small details, and the DM hurrying that along could easily get a played totally wasted.  AD&D 2e had a goofy initiative system, but it was well defined and worked ok and had design space for a ton of weapons.  If you go out there with a guy with two short knives and a plan, it's better if you knew ahead of time whether you get to stab the other guy once, twice, or some number up to eight depending on if he's holding a slow enough stick or axe.  It's reasonable to know that kind of information when you decide to be Double Dagger Guy.

You literally don't need "Initiative" to run the game. Initiative, as conceived in TTRPGs, is strictly an arbitrary game convention that has no basis on reality. It exists based on a set of unwarranted assumptions, such as (but not limited to): you need to establish order of actions in order to run combat; two or more people can't possibly act and potentially kill each other at the same time—all of which is false.

People do in fact simultaneously kill each other in actual fire fights all the time, and swordsmen running each other through was totally a thing that did happen back when swords where a common sidearm. The idea that you need to establish who goes "first" in combat and then break a tie if people roll the same "initiative" is game conventional BULLSHIT. And it has persisted all these years due to a combination of unexamined assumptions (mentioned above) and player selfishness, cuz everyone wants to go "first" before anyone else. As well as the belief that because you can potentially (mayyybe) end a fight before you get hit by shooting someone in the head "first" that that means that therefore ALL combat revolves around that edge case scenario—which isn't even entirely true, cuz some people have in fact survived getting shot in the head, so not even THAT edge case is absolute.

But even when people get killed by getting shot in the head, the VAST majority of combat situations do NOT involve actually hitting someone in the head and taking them out "first" before they attack. In the vast majority of situations people can still let out one final attack, even if mortally wounded, before succumbing to their wounds, cuz 9/10 you don't die instantly from mortal wounds. It's only in TTRPG land where you have this weird convention of people getting frozen in time waiting for their "turn" under the notion that 1) if they get hit before they act they can't possibly take action before dying, and 2) it's IMPOSSIBLE to run combat without establishing a discreet order of actions.

I have run combat numerous times without initiative and it's not just doable, but way faster than having to stop the game every time combat starts (or every round, depending on what system you're using) to make a superfluous roll and take tallies. You can just handle it based on a combination of proximity (those closest to their target go first) and readiness (those ready to act go before those that need to make preparations, such reloading or moving to position), and by resolving opponent actions at the same time that they're attacked (assuming they're ready to act).

And this isn't just me, but there are games without individual initiative (their names escape me right now, cuz I've only read about them or skimmed the rules). And even early D&D had Side Initiative, which isn't quite what I'm describing above, but still not the mess that became the later addition of Individual Initiative, which is invariably what people really mean when they utter the word "iNiTiAtIvE" in a TTRPG context. But people used to run combat in old D&D without keeping track of order of actions of all combatants, and combat didn't become impossible to manage. And Individual Initiative didn't replace it because it was more efficient, but because people are selfish wanted to go "first", and probably erroneously believed that it was more "realistic" than Side Initiative, when it wasn't.

PS: And this rant doesn't even go into all the logical inconsistencies that arise out of Individual Initiative, such characters charging from 60 feet away going "first" before melee combatants right in front of their opponent, cuz the guy charging "won" the bullshit initiative. But this post is already too long as it is.

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 04:20:23 PM


You really do have a special kind of autism, don't you?

You REALLY have the IQ of a turnip.

Yall muthafuckas need some Eye Q pills!

Quote from: Scooter on October 06, 2023, 07:05:53 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 04:20:23 PM


You really do have a special kind of autism, don't you?

You REALLY have the IQ of a turnip.

The only thing wrong with the sentence you highlighted was I put "a" instead of "an."  I could go back to fix it but now I'm not going to.

Go back and read it carefully. Ask someone with a well developed language mastery to read it for you if you have to.

You frequently show the reading comprehension far below a high school graduate.  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say I think it's likely you skim read too fast and miss things.  Combined with your arrogance, it makes you a bit irritating.

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 08:03:06 PM

Quote from: Scooter on October 06, 2023, 07:05:53 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 04:20:23 PM


You really do have a special kind of autism, don't you?

You REALLY have the IQ of a turnip.

The only thing wrong with the sentence you highlighted was I put "a" instead of "an."  I could go back to fix it but now I'm not going to.

Aw, you got twiggered

Quote from: Scooter on October 06, 2023, 08:46:24 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 08:03:06 PM

Quote from: Scooter on October 06, 2023, 07:05:53 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 04:20:23 PM


You really do have a special kind of autism, don't you?

You REALLY have the IQ of a turnip.

The only thing wrong with the sentence you highlighted was I put "a" instead of "an."  I could go back to fix it but now I'm not going to.

Aw, you got twiggered

Quote from: Tod13 on October 06, 2023, 11:07:37 AM

Quote from: rytrasmi on October 05, 2023, 04:55:10 PM

Quote from: Brad on October 05, 2023, 03:25:25 PM
To answer the original question, the worst rules in general are some sort of meta-mechanic/economy that players can use to influence things outside of the scope of their character. I like Force Points and ASP from EABA because the character has an in-game reason for avoiding something bad (the force! he's super lucky!) but crap that allows players to literally alter the game in some way that contradicts what the DM stated would happen is just annoying and dumb. That Modiphius Conan game uses this sort of crap, that doom mechanic or whatever it is...just obnoxious. It's literally a sort of side game that directly affects the game itself, but has no true in-game rationale. I hate that crap.

I agree, these types of meta rules/currencies annoy me, too. DCC and other games have Luck, which I find fun at times but ultimately I can take it or leave it. Anything more meta than Luck hurts immersion. That's one of the reasons I did not choose Forbidden Lands for this campaign. It's got a lot of very subtle meta stuff. It's a good game, along with its sibling games, but not what I want for an old school campaign.

Brad named the company that is worst for my wife and I. We tried playing in a Modiphius Barsoom group. They'd been playing for a year and still didn't know all the rules.

Metacurrency that increments based on stuff you do.
So, you're kind of forced to do that regardless of what you want to do.
Because you need the metacurrency to trigger your skills that let you actually survive.

And something like 6 different wound tracks? Really? (And I don't mean like Traveller abilities as hit points.)

I'm like 6 months into playing in a Modiphius Conan game, and yeah, their ineptitude at writing rules is something special. Fortunately its an online game, so I can just do something else while the sorcerer player negotiates with the GM for 20 minutes about how a basic spell works.

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 06, 2023, 10:47:03 PM

Quote from: Tod13 on October 06, 2023, 11:07:37 AM

Quote from: rytrasmi on October 05, 2023, 04:55:10 PM

Quote from: Brad on October 05, 2023, 03:25:25 PM
To answer the original question, the worst rules in general are some sort of meta-mechanic/economy that players can use to influence things outside of the scope of their character. I like Force Points and ASP from EABA because the character has an in-game reason for avoiding something bad (the force! he's super lucky!) but crap that allows players to literally alter the game in some way that contradicts what the DM stated would happen is just annoying and dumb. That Modiphius Conan game uses this sort of crap, that doom mechanic or whatever it is...just obnoxious. It's literally a sort of side game that directly affects the game itself, but has no true in-game rationale. I hate that crap.

I agree, these types of meta rules/currencies annoy me, too. DCC and other games have Luck, which I find fun at times but ultimately I can take it or leave it. Anything more meta than Luck hurts immersion. That's one of the reasons I did not choose Forbidden Lands for this campaign. It's got a lot of very subtle meta stuff. It's a good game, along with its sibling games, but not what I want for an old school campaign.

Brad named the company that is worst for my wife and I. We tried playing in a Modiphius Barsoom group. They'd been playing for a year and still didn't know all the rules.

Metacurrency that increments based on stuff you do.
So, you're kind of forced to do that regardless of what you want to do.
Because you need the metacurrency to trigger your skills that let you actually survive.

And something like 6 different wound tracks? Really? (And I don't mean like Traveller abilities as hit points.)

I'm like 6 months into playing in a Modiphius Conan game, and yeah, their ineptitude at writing rules is something special. Fortunately its an online game, so I can just do something else while the sorcerer player negotiates with the GM for 20 minutes about how a basic spell works.

Wow. We didn't do that, even trying to learn Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed starship combat.

If I were running a Traveller game, I might ignore most of the combat roll modifier rules. There's just sooooo many.

Quote from: rytrasmi on October 06, 2023, 04:16:54 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 06, 2023, 03:22:31 PM
1.  A bad rule is better than a vague rule or an implied rule.  Having a 1-out-of-6 fumble is better than something that vaguely states "if you roll badly, the GM might all it a fumble."  Even if it's terrible, it's at least a solid anchor.

What about the rule that the GM can deem something successful on a x:6 chance? That is sort of an "if you roll badly..." type of GM fiat. I don't have a problem with this, though I'm used to the x:6 being tabled before the roll and perhaps even being negotiated with the player.

Players being able to influence their odds of success by taking specific actions is what original D&D is all about. Approach doing something as stupidly as possible and your odds will be poor.

Racial level caps.

"Hey, you get a few neat things at level one that will quickly become less and less important and more and more easily compensated for by spells and magic items as time goes on. Also, you live longer, which will probably never actually come up. So as a result, you just basically have to stop getting better at stuff at an arbitrary point in time at which all those perks you're paying for are now basically irrelevant and forgotten."

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 06, 2023, 06:36:28 PM

You literally don't need "Initiative" to run the game. Initiative, as conceived in TTRPGs, is strictly an arbitrary game convention that has no basis on reality. It exists based on a set of unwarranted assumptions, such as (but not limited to): you need to establish order of actions in order to run combat; two or more people can't possibly act and potentially kill each other at the same time—all of which is false.

People do in fact simultaneously kill each other in actual fire fights all the time, and swordsmen running each other through was totally a thing that did happen back when swords where a common sidearm. The idea that you need to establish who goes "first" in combat and then break a tie if people roll the same "initiative" is game conventional BULLSHIT. And it has persisted all these years due to a combination of unexamined assumptions (mentioned above) and player selfishness, cuz everyone wants to go "first" before anyone else. As well as the belief that because you can potentially (mayyybe) end a fight before you get hit by shooting someone in the head "first" that that means that therefore ALL combat revolves around that edge case scenario—which isn't even entirely true, cuz some people have in fact survived getting shot in the head, so not even THAT edge case is absolute.

But even when people get killed by getting shot in the head, the VAST majority of combat situations do NOT involve actually hitting someone in the head and taking them out "first" before they attack. In the vast majority of situations people can still let out one final attack, even if mortally wounded, before succumbing to their wounds, cuz 9/10 you don't die instantly from mortal wounds. It's only in TTRPG land where you have this weird convention of people getting frozen in time waiting for their "turn" under the notion that 1) if they get hit before they act they can't possibly take action before dying, and 2) it's IMPOSSIBLE to run combat without establishing a discreet order of actions.

I have run combat numerous times without initiative and it's not just doable, but way faster than having to stop the game every time combat starts (or every round, depending on what system you're using) to make a superfluous roll and take tallies. You can just handle it based on a combination of proximity (those closest to their target go first) and readiness (those ready to act go before those that need to make preparations, such reloading or moving to position), and by resolving opponent actions at the same time that they're attacked (assuming they're ready to act).

And this isn't just me, but there are games without individual initiative (their names escape me right now, cuz I've only read about them or skimmed the rules). And even early D&D had Side Initiative, which isn't quite what I'm describing above, but still not the mess that became the later addition of Individual Initiative, which is invariably what people really mean when they utter the word "iNiTiAtIvE" in a TTRPG context. But people used to run combat in old D&D without keeping track of order of actions of all combatants, and combat didn't become impossible to manage. And Individual Initiative didn't replace it because it was more efficient, but because people are selfish wanted to go "first", and probably erroneously believed that it was more "realistic" than Side Initiative, when it wasn't.

PS: And this rant doesn't even go into all the logical inconsistencies that arise out of Individual Initiative, such characters charging from 60 feet away going "first" before melee combatants right in front of their opponent, cuz the guy charging "won" the bullshit initiative. But this post is already too long as it is.

Individual initiative does suck and is one major contributor to why people zone out and don't pay attention to what is happening until it is their personal turn. Good old side based initiative works just fine with combat rounds being simultaneous 1/6 of the time. Without determination of some order, spell disruption is not possible. Only at very low levels is getting killed by the other side going first an issue unless you are dealing with a devastating spell effect, a dragon's breath, or something of that nature.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on October 08, 2023, 09:24:26 AM

Individual initiative does suck and is one major contributor to why people zone out and don't pay attention to what is happening until it is their personal turn. Good old side based initiative works just fine with combat rounds being simultaneous 1/6 of the time. Without determination of some order, spell disruption is not possible. Only at very low levels is getting killed by the other side going first an issue unless you are dealing with a devastating spell effect, a dragon's breath, or something of that nature.

Yes.  A couple years later I started running AD&D games I switched to side based init.  The positive change in players enjoyment of combat was very noticeable.

I deal with spell disruption logically.  E.g. no matter who wins init if a spell caster is throwing something that takes an entire combat round (10 seconds) to cast he will not get it off before the archer ready with arrow knocked can shoot him.  This tends to make spell caster not as deadly.