D&D's newest book...

  • Thread starter Phyrexian Pie-Eater
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Phyrexian Pie-Eater

Guest
Well I don't know about you guys, but my dm(who's life revolves around D&D) got his Monster Manual today. His mom picked it up for him while we were at school. It kicks major butay. GO LICH AND WERE-ANIMAL PC'S!!!
 
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krichaiushii

Guest
While in the end its the DM's call, from my gaming experience, Liches are the epitome of evil, and as being undead, are out of the realm of the PC. In addition to that, liches rarely travel, preferring to send out minions and use magic to gather information -- all the while holed up in trap-filled tombs and towers. Not very exciting, actually.

Lycanthropy is a curse, which is why the majority of the werebeasts you find are evil. The few good ones try to avoid the rest of humanity / civilization. With the exception of playing a character who is trying to have the curse of lycanthropy removed, being a werebeast is also out of the realm of the PC. Losing control of your character (what a good DM does when the curse strikes) is not much fun, and can cause all sorts of problems -- like when you kill off important NPCs while in a bestial rage.

Besides, all sorts of powerful good-aligned NPCs hunt liches and lycanthropes, primarily Paladins and Clerics (and their Fighter, Mage, and Rogue friends), but the more powerful celestials and younger metallic dragons are not out of the question, either.

In addition to the good creatures hunting you, evil is NOT monolithic, and turns on itself. Established, powerful evil creatures are not very likely to be accepting of a newly-formed lich, and will seek to destroy you in order to prevent you destroying them for power and/or loot.

Lastly, the game is geared towards playing good characters fighting evil. Go visit the forums at http://www.webrpg.com for more ideas and information.

Otherwise, the new MM is fairly good. The Sword and Sorcery Creature Collection is not too bad either.
 
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Phyrexian Pie-Eater

Guest
Ravenloft. Our curse is that our DM has so far left us stuck in this god-foresaken place. Therefor it is very possible that we could have Were/vamp pcs. A Lich isn't going to happen since they are very very VERY strong, and like you said, don't really adventure. In fact I think my dm is going to have at least one were, and one Vamp. We're gonna have an interesting group.

Also, the Sword and Soc is a pretty good book. I want a mythral golom!
 
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Riva Iron-Grip

Guest
we have a meeting every thursday, and every time there is a new dm. and the dm alway's changes what we do. they never stick with what the old dm was doin. really pisses me off
 
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Baskil

Guest
Yes, it is the oldest game. Yes, I played it first, and still play it once in a blue moon (like 1 session every four years or so).

What I can't understand, however, is how people could still play d&d when there are literally hundreds of better RPGs out there. Probably one that suits people's styles better.

Are you a powergamer? - Play Palladium games or Champions
Are you a roleplayer? - Play any (non-w:tp or h:tr)White Wolf Game
Are you an average player that likes sci-fi? - Play Shadowrun or Star Trek RPG
Are you a fan of hack and slash? - Play Feng Shuei(sp)
Do you like silly rpgs? - Play Torg, Paranoia, Hol, or IU
Do you like horrific rpgs? - Play Call of Cthulu or All Flesh Must be Eaten

I just see AD&D and the whole experience system to be really outdated. And of course, if it is your first RPG, disregard this entire post, you'll learn eventually :)
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Well, some of those seem to be at odds with the nature of D&D.

I mean, sci-fi? Of course you're not going to be playing D&D if you like Sci-fi. :rolleyes:

Same for horrific RPG.

The rest of the gaming categories can probably be related in the D&D world type RPG, but again, it probably depends on the style of the group and/or the GM.

What makes D&D bad (or outdated)? What makes the others good?

And have you played 3rd edition ('cause it sounds like you haven't so far).
 

Melkor

Well-known member
Don't worry Baskil, thats just a phase you'll be going through. Almost everyone starts out with D&D but eventually you realize that there are other systems out there and when that happens it seems like they are all better than D&D in most ways. In fact you grow to disdain D&D and regard it as simplistic and that it's for "beginners." This is the path that I traveled but then I came back and rediscovered D&D. What you learn then is that for epic fantasy almost nothing is better than D&D, especially third edition. My own pet theory on why this is that since almost everyone starts out with D&D their first adventures are almost always poorly DMed and when you change systems eventually you attribute the better experience with the system rather than the fact that you are in fact a better roleplayer by then. Obviously its hard to acknowledge this change because we all lack the perspective to see ourselves and our own evolution. With perspective you find that every system has its flaws and advantages and that D&D is pretty much just as good as any other system for the general gamer.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
So true, so true...

When I started out I had a GM that gave us ridiculous stuff... like level 3 guys getting staves of resurrection and +3 weapons and whatnot. And somehow one guy survived being eaten whole and then regurgitated by a dragon (still around level 3). Of course I thought it was cool then but now... just gotta shake my head.

[me] shakes his head[/me]

:D
 
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Baskil

Guest
Actually, I was the person running most of the D&D games that I was in. Don't get me wrong, I had fun, and the games that I wasn't GMing I had fun, too. It's just the experience system is not an optimal setting for rpgs. Players, at least most of the ones I know, when put into an xp based system, go crazy about it. (Short aside: I lost a group because of this. We were playing Rifts, which was close to the same system as 2nd ed, as far as xp and levels are concerned. It got so hectic with all of the xp that I just quit running it. They, of course, wanted to continue on, and did with another gm)

I guess in a nutshell what I do not like about D&D is the randomness of it all. Random character gen=a bad system IMHO. I prefer a point based system so all of the pcs are on equal footing. It's not that I don't like playing the runt (my last playing character in d&d was a gnome illusionist), it's just that I hate relying on die rolls for stats. Instead, I prefer Shadowrun's char gen, which uses five categories that you can assign priority to. The higher priority something is, the more points people get in that category. I also don't like the level system. I think it promotes powergaming, which IMHO, is a 'bad thing(tm)'. Instead, I prefer the systems that FASA games or White Wolf Games uses, which is a point system which can be used to improve skills (instead of someone magically getting a keep, or being able to suddenly remember more spells).

Oh yeah, and one other thing I don't like (about 3rd ed specifically): using minitures. I know that it's not required to use them, but with the gamers that I know, they want everything to be as accurate as possible. Enter the grid and minis. Sigh, if there's one thing that slows the game more than minis, I'm pretty sure it would stop time.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
That makes it clearer...

Well, no doubt about it, everyone starting out hates to get less than 9s in his scores, and preferably wants at least 13s (or somewhere where they get a bonus). Personally, I think it's a "growing up" period where if a player can get to the point of playing a character with some bad stats but make it fun, then it should be smooth sailing (not saying that the character will survive; I think theorgg mentioned having some dumb character who ate something that didn't quite agree with him). But game systems are different and will appeal to different people; that's why they're out there!

And I've only played with minatures once and that was more in encounters in a dungeon 'cause the players wanted to see the initial positions of everyone. Didn't take long to set up and certainly we didn't use them for the entire adventure. But aren't there RPGs out there that use minis specifically in their design? Maybe the players ought to try those ;)
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Huh? Are you saying the players are playing 3rd ed. because it uses minis? But you said two posts back you weren't sure if 3rd ed. uses minis.

In other words, I didn't get your statement :)
 

Melkor

Well-known member
Interesting thing is that I prefer randomly generated stats. Maybe its because I started with D&D and then moved to Rifts before heading to anything else. I don't like points or priority systems because they seem too regimented, it feels like I'm making the same character every time, regardless of where I'm putting the points. Besides, equality is for commies, I like having characters with different levels of abilities. Of course this does cause problems, one of my friends was basically always trying to make a "realistic" character, and then he was always jealous and mad when other peoples characters were better than him. Anyway, my original point was that D&D is no worse than most other systems, they all have idiosyncracies that I don't like but you have to take the bad with the good.
 
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Baskil

Guest
Sorry if I confused you :p

In reading the book, it seems a like a lot of it would neccesitate using minis. Most of the examples that they use have gridded maps and minis(actually circles with pictures in them). I'm not sure if that's the absolute case, but it is the reason why my ex-group is playing third ed (They're primarily 40k players mostly, so they've got the cash to blow on minis).

Oh, and as far as another system keeping in the spirit of D&D, there's a system called Imagine RPG, which has an amazing system that can be used in the D&D world.*

I'm the kind of player that doesn't like to dwell on absolute details (like exact distances and ranges), and just go by whim(especially when I GM). I've tried using minis, but it only leads to further confusion, especially when doing mass combat. Example:

That rifts group I was talking about were essentially a team of Xictic hunters. The first real combat they were in was rather large, 50+ enemies (group of 7). It was slow as mollassas, mostly with moving the minis and confusion over ranges and whatever. Later, before we stopped playing, I had a similar sized combat, but this time without minis. Instead of it taking a majority of the evening to play out, we were done with it within an hour or so.

I'm not sure if a fight between four adventurers and a couple of trolls would take as long, but I hope you see my point. It takes forever to use minitures, and takes away from the whole 'in your mind' aspect of rpgs. Of course, some people prefer minis, because they can visualize things better.

Melkor:I can see why you think that way, but most point based systems allow for runts too. Take for instance, the wide range of types in Shadowrun.

Player A builds a cybered street samurai. Player B builds a sneaky face character. Player C builds a quadrapalegic, albino, dwarf rigger. Player D builds a strong willed, weak bodied cat shaman. Player E builds a well-rounded ex-cop with a criminal record and a SIN. 5 distinctly different characters, which by the way, is only the beginning.
Same goes for Torg, White Wolf Games (especially true of Werewolf and Mage), and many other point-based systems.

It's not really equality per se. It's more play balance. Which situation would you rather have?

A:Lucky group with two superpowerful starting characters, hacking through anything that comes their way. Or conversely, an unlucky group that gets slaughtered any time they meet up with anything over 2-hit dice.
B: A Well-balanced group that is challenged by just about everything.

I'll hedge my bets and take B anyday.

*-BTW, I love some of the D&D worlds (Forgotten Realms, Planescape), I just have seen better rule systems out there(and Rifts is definatly *not* one of them).
 
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Cateran Emperor

Guest
yeah, I've had my way around the rest of the RPG world. I just keep going back to D&D though. The setting is excellent (the only sci-fiish stuff I like has something Star Wars related in it), High Fantasy is the only way to go. I have no idea why I like the D&D system the best. So maybe it's not the most efficient. I don't care. It's the one I'll always play.
 

Melkor

Well-known member
I've never liked miniatures or taking too much time to determine position, I'm supposed to be roleplaying, not wargaming. I've played several sessions of 3rd ed D&D and our lack of miniatures and graph paper haven't slowed or hurt us at all.

I find that with Shadowrun and White Wolf's way of assigning your primary stat categories and the like, the feel of making a character ends up being subdivided into 1 of 2 categories, a mental character or a physical character. Then each additional character created kind of feels the same if its in the same category. Really, its just how I personally feel about the character creation process. Within the actual games themselves I think that you can have fun and good roleplaying regardless of everyones respective power levels so I don't find that to be a problem.

One point though, I really enjoy the Champions point based system for character creation, mainly because its so open and you have a lot of options. Its funny how I feel less constrained by a system that basically makes me roll some dice and plug the rest of the numbers in, rather than a system that gives me the numbers and then I'm expected to plug them in wherever I want. Oh well, the human mind is a weird thing.
 
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Landkiller

Guest
I wrote a reply that I thought was too long to add to the thread, so I made another one. If you want to read it it's titled
D&D, RPG, Anti-Anime, or some such thing.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Baskil: Gotcha now. I haven't actually seen a 3rd ed. book but in general it seems that distance stuff is "optional"; you can choose to use or not to use it. I believe back in my GMing days (using Basic, Expert, and Companion! The original D&D) I just used distance as an initial plotting position to see if the characters needed missile stuff and whatnot.

Minis too seem optional, although if your group likes them maybe there's better systems out there (don't know what). Doesn't Warhammer have an RPG system? Does it use minis?

I like the Forgotten Realms setting, mostly because I like reading the books that expand the universe. I liked the D&D setting in the Basic, Expert, and Companion worlds but no books there (I think) so I didn't get into it too much.
 
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arhar

Guest
I play D&D for the same reason that I play Magic and not Pokemon, Legend of the Five Rings, Vampire: TeS, etc... D&D is the original thing... Based on the novels of Tolkien... which are based on the myths of people of northern Europe... which survived for the thousands of years. I tried other RPGs, but usually, the system is not really thought-out well, and in the end, I go back to orcs and wizards :) D&D rules!
 
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Chaos Turtle

Guest
Having started playing D&D in 1982, I have a little bit of experience in roleplaying.
The only other system that's impressed me much is the ne Call of Cthulhu uses (I like the way skills improve slightly with each use).

Now that I have established my impeccable credentials ;) let me just say this:

Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition kicks the ass of all who have come before!

So there.
Go buy yours today.

(The Chaos Turtle is not an employee of, nor is he affiliated in any way with, Wizards of the Coast or any of its subsidiaries)
 
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