Dungeons and Dragons

[Deleted]

First of all it's the DM; dungeon master.

There are no dungeons in Cyberpunk, buddy. D&D and Pathfinder aren't the only games I play. GM, game master, is the universal term.

That makes him the master of the dungeon, not the game and its rules.

Wordplay? OK, except as I said, I'm talking about the game master, so that would make him/her the master of the game, then, right?

The "masters of the rules" are the entire group.

Well now this is something you just made up. Although, of course I agree that everyone should know the rules at least to the best of their ability, and yes, I do think that the GM should be at least one of, if not the most knowledgeable.

Why wouldn't the DM allow you to roll those 5 in the first place?

Of course they can. However, if they decide the situation is over, then the player(s) should just move on to whatever happens next. My whole point was that the worst kind of player is the kind who disagrees and argues with the GM constantly, shoving the rulebook in their face at every turn. That's why the rule zero was made up in the first place.

As for the rest of your post, if your GM is a complete asshole then kick them out of the game. I'm not talking about a situation like that, however. At no point was I assuming that you'd spend even a second with a person who pisses in your cereal at every turn. Power trippers have no place GMing anything. All I meant was that the worst kind of players in a group are the metagamers and rules nazis, who ruin the entire game by pointing out shit to the GM at every single turn. I see I wasn't quite clear in my first post, but I'm sure it's been cleared up by now.

Houserules are fine, but they need to be clear and up-front, or the players aren't playing a game; they're actors in the DM's story, and they may as well just sit there and experience it, because the DM is ruling by fiat, rather than the rules of the game they're supposedly playing. I don't care how kludged-together your Calvinball game may be, compared to the base rules, as long as you're clear about what those rules are.

I suggest you stay far away from pure storytelling games, especially those ones without rulebooks. I think your head might explode.

[ringpriest]

Wasn't there some gimmick where a peasant could summon a chicken as a free action, so someone played a game as a non-classed peasant and flooded the dungeon with chickens?

I don't remember that one, but I do remember a "peasant railgun" from (I think) 3.5, based on the idea that since a level 1 commoner could take one action per round, if you formed a chain of commoners 1000 people long, and each handed the chicken to the next on their action, at the end of the round the chicken would have traveled at stupidly high speeds. It's really just pure silliness, as is a perfect example of a place where the GM (or DM) should step in and say "No, that's no a cool twist (like Endus' use of digging out a foundation) it's abusive rules-breaking" (because it's based entirely around counter-intuitive rules lawyering that makes no sense on any level - among many other things, it ignores initiative).

Now, if you want a less-obviously stupid (but still abusive and game-breaking) bit of D&D comedy, take a look at Pun-Pun.

Pun-Pun is the god of munchkinry. The ultimate example of "breaking the system" in 3.5, Pun-Pun is an ECL 6 kobold character build that can cast every spell and psionic power at will, has infinite stats (and therefore infinite HP), and has a divine rank of 30. While the original version of Pun-Pun was a 12th level psion, the most recent shattering of the system uses only standard divine/arcane magic and setting-specific splatbook feats.

Pun-Pun will bitch slap you for 1dAssload damage. Do not fuck with Pun-Pun.

[Eleccybubb]

Don't play but I enjoy watching D&D especially on twitch.

[Endus]

I don't remember that one, but I do remember a "peasant railgun" from (I think) 3.5, based on the idea that since a level 1 commoner could take one action per round, if you formed a chain of commoners 1000 people long, and each handed the chicken to the next on their action, at the end of the round the chicken would have traveled at stupidly high speeds. It's really just pure silliness, as is a perfect example of a place where the GM (or DM) should step in and say "No, that's no a cool twist (like Endus' use of digging out a foundation) it's abusive rules-breaking" (because it's based entirely around counter-intuitive rules lawyering that makes no sense on any level - among many other things, it ignores initiative).

Now, if you want a less-obviously stupid (but still abusive and game-breaking) bit of D&D comedy, take a look at Pun-Pun.

I was posting pretty heavy to the 3.5 boards back in the day (under a different name, before I settled into this handle), and I recall pretty much proving that the most powerful legit class in the game, without resorting to game-breaking mechanics like Pun-Pun, was the lowly Bard.

At level 12, given typical stats and precisely zero magical gear, a Bard has a roughly 50% chance of walking up to a Great Wyrm Red Dragon, saying "yeah, you better just hand over all the treasure, before I have to get . . . nasty", and having the lizard agree. This was factoring in the Dragon's magic resistance and abnormally high Will saves. Anything that wasn't that smart, or which lacked the magic resist, was basically putty in the Bard's hands.

And that was with a single use of a low-level ability. The Bard can pull those shenanigans a lot. If it thinks, and can hear you, it's your plaything.

At least, by the rules-as-written. Because Suggestion and Bluff are both stupidly written.

That dragon was supposed to be Challenge Rating 24, meaning it was meant for a party of 24th-level players. 12th level Bard had a 50/50 change of winning the encounter all by himself on Round 1. And could try again on Round 2.

[Cairhiin]

3.5 for life! It really gives you the most freedom to play any way you want to.

But of coarse, house rules and DM law also allow you to play any way you want as well.

This is actually my favorite edition as well. Though we play a slightly modified 3.0 still.

I am fairly lenient as a DM if one of my players wants to do something crazy I usually run with it unless it entirely breaks the game. It helps that none of my players are min/max-ers which makes it easy to agree with them because most of the time it's good fun. I have one especially creative person in my group and it's always fun when he does something weird that's not exactly by the book.

[Deleted]

Played D&D and AD&D in the 90´s

[Lodreh]

...That dragon was supposed to be Challenge Rating 24, meaning it was meant for a party of 24th-level players. 12th level Bard had a 50/50 change of winning the encounter all by himself on Round 1. And could try again on Round 2.

"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup"... somehow I don't think a level 12 Bard would be alive on a second round to give it another go.

On a similar note... I seem to recall a succubus bard that was really bad news... the synergy of abilities was great.

[Endus]

The CharOp boards have produced more cheese than Germany. I find it not weird at all that a lvl 12 bard could kill a red wyrm.

Not "kill". "Defeat". By reliably convincing them that your godlike power is too big a threat to face.

It was less an exercise in cheese and more a demonstration that 3.5's Bluff and Suggestion rules are themselves broken and silly.

[Mask]

I was curious, those of you who play RPG's or MMORPG's, have you ever played or currently play Dungeons and Dragons? Which do you prefer? Is it a good template for all potential rpg games?

Dungeons and Dragons is great for fantasy RPG play. I probably wouldn't use it for a modern or futuristic setting, though - other game systems out there support that better.

Pathfinder from Paizo Games (which uses the D&D D20 rules as a starting point) is my preferred system if you want a more rules complex fantasy RPG, and the recently released 5th edition D&D would be my choice for a more beginner friendly and quicker to understand game. Both are great depending on what you want out of the game system.

[Kathandira]

Dungeons and Dragons is great for fantasy RPG play. I probably wouldn't use it for a modern or futuristic setting, though - other game systems out there support that better.

Pathfinder from Paizo Games (which uses the D&D D20 rules as a starting point) is my preferred system if you want a more rules complex fantasy RPG, and the recently released 5th edition D&D would be my choice for a more beginner friendly and quicker to understand game. Both are great depending on what you want out of the game system.

Even better, if you want something simple and easy to introduce someone into table top role playing, get Dragon Quest, or Hero Quest. The DM/GM can fit a story to the campaign, and the rules are super simple. It will at least give you some idea of how to play a table top RPG.

Then you can move onto which ever edition you want.

[Conspicuous Cultist]

Btw has any of you actually played a PnP campaign in WoW? Under any ruleset

I'm playing a classless pathfinder homebrew set in the WoW universe.

[Kathandira]

I actually have the Warcraft table top guide.

[Grognard]

Been playing Pathfinder of late (almost a year, actually), not proper D&D. Really like a lot of the mechanical overhauls and streamlining for the conversion from 3.5.

But, as mentioned first page (tablet, not gonna try and quote), GM - and, by extension, your fellow players - matters more than the system. Allowing crazy ideas is the best thing that can be done, regardless of succeeding or failing. Like, as a N/G Cleric at level 5 bluffing your way into an evil orc stronghold through a translator, when the gate guard is a 16 Barbarian (bonus points for getting the Barb to kill his own troops!); or having the group's Bard using Animate Rope to turn you into a Dwarven wrecking ball to, literally, smash a dragon's face. Good times.

[Deleted]

Allowing crazy ideas is the best thing that can be done, regardless of succeeding or failing.

Exactly!

And, quite often the only way you can do this is by the GM having the power to decide whether it can be done, and making that decision on the fly. This is stuff that can't be "written down" as "house rules" in advance, because it comes up spontaneously in the moment. This is when the GM's word has to be the law, and if a player has a quirky and fun idea, and if the GM decides to allow it - even when there's no rules precedent for it, or even if it goes against the rules - then it will be allowed, regardless of how much the rules sticklers protest.

RPGs are about potential, and basically having a world where everything is possible. It's not a computer game where everything is physically limited by the game's engine. The RPG engine is imagination, and imagination needs to be able to be free, and not confined by some rulebook. The GM decides whether stuff can be done. If you go by the rulebook in every single case, and if you allow the players to refer to the rulebook in every single case, then you can absolutely forget about these crazy, spontaneous ideas completely. Hell, you might as well be playing a board game in that case.

[Wildtree]

never played DnD... but i played The Dark Eye since it's release in the mid 80s, all the way up to until I moved to the US.



And while I never played dnd myself, and can't make a first hand judgment... I can and do go by the verdict of my friends who all said how the dark eye would be leaps and bounds better than DnD.. so i never bothered.

[Youn]

This is the cover of the first D&D box I played. I have played since then...

[Maxilian]

If you let the players run the game, then there's no point in having a GM in the first place. Once the GM gets corrected once, it will happen again, then again, and again, over smaller and smaller things, until you've got one or two people arguing with the GM constantly over absolutely irrelevant shit. The GM needs to have the last say.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleZero
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rule+0

And yes, of course there's the assumption that you don't let just anyone be the GM in the first place. Of course the GM needs to know the rules. That's all too obvious to even be stated. However, I'm talking about situations where a ruling has been made, the GM has said what happens, whether he's right or wrong, and one of the players just hangs on to the rulebook and keeps arguing. Those are the worst kinds of players. They need to let go and let the GM's ruling stand, or leave the game.

I'm not saying that the DM should let the players run the game, but the DM needs to know that he's playing with the Players, there are groups that have their Homebrew rules (and that's totally ok, that actually make the game more unique), but when the DM start changing the rules mid game just because he can, and... the DM have to understand these... sometimes they may be wrong, but is true that whatever happens, in the end, the one who have the last word is the DM (but i agree with you, the people that just hang on the rulebook for no reason -or even worse, when they try to use the rules in the book to brake the game- are the worse, but... there are normally more DMs that think they can do whatever they want just because they are DMs)

[Annoying]

Rolling a wizard in ad&d with con <15? 1d4 HP. Heh.

[Maxilian]

Rolling a wizard in ad&d with con <15? 1d4 HP. Heh.

That's why normally those who die in the first 2 games are Wizards (or the Barbarian / Fighter that just jump in front of the enemy lines cause he's "badass")

[Conspicuous Cultist]

That's why normally those who die in the first 2 games are Wizards (or the Barbarian / Fighter that just jump in front of the enemy lines cause he's "badass")

An adventurer's pride should be considered a CR 24 monster.