L
Landkiller
Guest
Initial Rant
I don't see what's makes D&D worse than anything else, albeit I haven't tried everything out there. Star Wars RPG was much, much, much worse. That game bit so much!!! Rifts was okay, but the books were almost as poorly organized as the Star Wars book. You could never find anything, and the combat system was so confusing it's not funny. MDC and SDC? WTF? I'd rather learn another programming language. Now Shadowrun. I have read a couple novels, and it sounds like a cool thing to try. I also would love to try anything like Resident Evil or Night of the Living Dead. Night of the Living Dead is the best movie I've ever seen on TV after 3 AM. Zombies rock. Vampires are, like, so last week.
Why I like D&D
I like D&D because it has the most imaginative setting ever, Planescape. There are any number of campaign styles and settings included in that wonderful little box. I bought every product that Planescape printed and still it was canceled. What can you do? And some other settings are good. Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, each have their qualities. I bought the Al-Qadim setting on E-Bay, and it looks fantastic. Can't wait to play it. Even Dragonlance is somewhat cool, albeit completely centered around these "story characters". Sure, character generation sucks. But it is flexible enough, and when it isn't, make a new kit. Adapt it. Now the alignments system is pretty stupid. And I know that I haven't seen everything out there but I still have yet to see any better try. So I think you're best off ignoring alignments. Experience is a Good Thing! It gives players motivation and how else does one move from Shoe-Shining Apprentice to Lord of the Kingdom. Not by sitting around, that's for sure.
D&D's Only Major Weakness
D&D has a crappy combat system. Incorporating critical hit rules is a welcome addition, but not enough to make it a good system. Life Points are stupid. Hp means "Taking 15 Direct Sword Swings to die, because , ::blows trumpet::You're Level 18" is ridiculous. It should be nigh Impossible for a common thug to smack up the lv. 18 Warrior. Not the minimum 5% chance that the d20 offers. A dagger in the back is a dagger in the back. A dead 18th level guy is a dead 0 level peasant with goodies to take.
On Miniatures
This is the only fair way to do combat, and it's quite cool. You have to actually have the mini's though, or cheap out and use chess pieces and monopoly tokens like me
. It's a lot easier to understand the risks of the battle if you see it. This is not the way to map out your characters role in the D-Day landing. 50 enemies? No wonder mini's can suck.
On Character Generation
Random character generation makes people always say, "Dammit I got screwed again. All Single Digits and a 13. Do over. " It doesn't work to make someone play something they don't want to. They don't have fun, and I don't have fun unless they get into it. I always assign my playgroup 78+d4 points between the stats to divide as they like, providing one stat is under an 8. This is excessive, sure. I don't want characters to die much. No one does. I don't play the game to end it. Now if it's the player's mistake, characters die. I hate when a character does what seems best and oops, failed a saving throw. Die. No one roll should kill someone.
On Classes
Sometimes you want to get into them, other times they are an obstacle. When you use kits, often you'll find something that works. Very rarely is a character so unique as to require an all new Class. B/c if you are using a core designed world, it doesn't fit the world to have a new class, except if you change it. Otherwise, if it's your world, it's your job to make everything. Get Busy!
On Anime Cheesiness. Warning : If you like Anime this part below may offend you! Several of my more pathetic friends like Anime, and since I'm not afraid to tell them, I'm going to assualt you now.
Come on, every character in Anime shows can fly and shoot fireballs(DBZ). You can't tell me that's not cheesy. And Pokemon is Anime too. SO there! (Landkiller feels that Anime cartoons are always cheesy) Try telling me that classic American cartoons like Looney Tunes don't stomp those into the ground for entertainment value. I'm serious. Anime is boring. Sure, American cartoons are for little kids, but they are amusing to watch. Anime is just cheesy slogans and videogame special moves. Sub-Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat I look like they could be anime characters. Stupid superhero crap. Anime movies don't count. Those may or may not suck. The ones that are like movies don't suck. Although Vampire Hunter Z is a cooler anime movie, make no mistake, it still bites. It is annoying to watch. It has superior animation and storyline, yet still pulls in a cheesiness. It has no soul. Who needs to see a talking mouth on a guys hand? Keep that stuff out of movies. Well, it's okay. At least compared to the god-awful four hour episode of Pokemon that is "Street Fighter 2 the anime Movie". The four frame per second rate and third rate artists that sign on to make these films don't help anything, either. Is anime for kids or adults? Neither. Anime is for blue and yellow suited superheroes. Anime should stay in Japan.
Well, that's a bit long. Hope it wasn't really stupid to read. It was the most ignorant thing I've written in a while! And yes, this is what I really think. It's opinion, mixed with fact.
If you want to see what Planescape is all about because it's the coolest thing in RPG's that I've seen, here are the best sites for Planescape that I know of :
http://www.planewalker.com - updated nearly daily, excellent.
http://www.mimir.net - official site, formerly excellent, but hasn't been updated in months.
I don't see what's makes D&D worse than anything else, albeit I haven't tried everything out there. Star Wars RPG was much, much, much worse. That game bit so much!!! Rifts was okay, but the books were almost as poorly organized as the Star Wars book. You could never find anything, and the combat system was so confusing it's not funny. MDC and SDC? WTF? I'd rather learn another programming language. Now Shadowrun. I have read a couple novels, and it sounds like a cool thing to try. I also would love to try anything like Resident Evil or Night of the Living Dead. Night of the Living Dead is the best movie I've ever seen on TV after 3 AM. Zombies rock. Vampires are, like, so last week.
Why I like D&D
I like D&D because it has the most imaginative setting ever, Planescape. There are any number of campaign styles and settings included in that wonderful little box. I bought every product that Planescape printed and still it was canceled. What can you do? And some other settings are good. Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, each have their qualities. I bought the Al-Qadim setting on E-Bay, and it looks fantastic. Can't wait to play it. Even Dragonlance is somewhat cool, albeit completely centered around these "story characters". Sure, character generation sucks. But it is flexible enough, and when it isn't, make a new kit. Adapt it. Now the alignments system is pretty stupid. And I know that I haven't seen everything out there but I still have yet to see any better try. So I think you're best off ignoring alignments. Experience is a Good Thing! It gives players motivation and how else does one move from Shoe-Shining Apprentice to Lord of the Kingdom. Not by sitting around, that's for sure.
D&D's Only Major Weakness
D&D has a crappy combat system. Incorporating critical hit rules is a welcome addition, but not enough to make it a good system. Life Points are stupid. Hp means "Taking 15 Direct Sword Swings to die, because , ::blows trumpet::You're Level 18" is ridiculous. It should be nigh Impossible for a common thug to smack up the lv. 18 Warrior. Not the minimum 5% chance that the d20 offers. A dagger in the back is a dagger in the back. A dead 18th level guy is a dead 0 level peasant with goodies to take.
On Miniatures
This is the only fair way to do combat, and it's quite cool. You have to actually have the mini's though, or cheap out and use chess pieces and monopoly tokens like me
. It's a lot easier to understand the risks of the battle if you see it. This is not the way to map out your characters role in the D-Day landing. 50 enemies? No wonder mini's can suck. On Character Generation
Random character generation makes people always say, "Dammit I got screwed again. All Single Digits and a 13. Do over. " It doesn't work to make someone play something they don't want to. They don't have fun, and I don't have fun unless they get into it. I always assign my playgroup 78+d4 points between the stats to divide as they like, providing one stat is under an 8. This is excessive, sure. I don't want characters to die much. No one does. I don't play the game to end it. Now if it's the player's mistake, characters die. I hate when a character does what seems best and oops, failed a saving throw. Die. No one roll should kill someone.
On Classes
Sometimes you want to get into them, other times they are an obstacle. When you use kits, often you'll find something that works. Very rarely is a character so unique as to require an all new Class. B/c if you are using a core designed world, it doesn't fit the world to have a new class, except if you change it. Otherwise, if it's your world, it's your job to make everything. Get Busy!
On Anime Cheesiness. Warning : If you like Anime this part below may offend you! Several of my more pathetic friends like Anime, and since I'm not afraid to tell them, I'm going to assualt you now.
Come on, every character in Anime shows can fly and shoot fireballs(DBZ). You can't tell me that's not cheesy. And Pokemon is Anime too. SO there! (Landkiller feels that Anime cartoons are always cheesy) Try telling me that classic American cartoons like Looney Tunes don't stomp those into the ground for entertainment value. I'm serious. Anime is boring. Sure, American cartoons are for little kids, but they are amusing to watch. Anime is just cheesy slogans and videogame special moves. Sub-Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat I look like they could be anime characters. Stupid superhero crap. Anime movies don't count. Those may or may not suck. The ones that are like movies don't suck. Although Vampire Hunter Z is a cooler anime movie, make no mistake, it still bites. It is annoying to watch. It has superior animation and storyline, yet still pulls in a cheesiness. It has no soul. Who needs to see a talking mouth on a guys hand? Keep that stuff out of movies. Well, it's okay. At least compared to the god-awful four hour episode of Pokemon that is "Street Fighter 2 the anime Movie". The four frame per second rate and third rate artists that sign on to make these films don't help anything, either. Is anime for kids or adults? Neither. Anime is for blue and yellow suited superheroes. Anime should stay in Japan.
Well, that's a bit long. Hope it wasn't really stupid to read. It was the most ignorant thing I've written in a while! And yes, this is what I really think. It's opinion, mixed with fact.
If you want to see what Planescape is all about because it's the coolest thing in RPG's that I've seen, here are the best sites for Planescape that I know of :
http://www.planewalker.com - updated nearly daily, excellent.
http://www.mimir.net - official site, formerly excellent, but hasn't been updated in months.