Fantasy triggers

>>55292636

3rd only gets me because of how fucked up Warcraft's lore got.

4th makes sense if you are a super paranoid warrior.

>>55292636
>>Plate armor used in tandem with shields
I've got a better one:
>Plate armour being super heavy and constricting
followed by
>Chainmail being lightweight
Irks me to no end.

>>55292636
Bow damage scaling off dex when it should be str.

Having a million races and sub-races for the slightest variation of fairy/elf/eskimo.
Repetitive monsters like "FIRE MONKIES! ICE MONKIES! BEHOLDER MONKIES! SKELETAL MONKIES! SEA MONKIES! SPIDER MONKIES!"

Weights on items and equipment bearing no semblance of reality. No one is going to swing a 30lb sword around. No one is going to wear 100+lbs of plate. Those things should be about 7~15lbs and 35~60lbs respectively. Fuck, Cyberpunk 2020 lists the weight of a motorbike as 15kg in the main book so this isn't limited to fantasy games.

And I don't care how far away it's been imported from an apple is not worth 5 gold pieces. Also a gold ingot that can be used to make 50 gold pieces should be worth 50 gold pieces. Not 500. Not 1000. Otherwise I could just melt 50 gold pieces down into a bar and sell it for ten or twenty times its weight in gold. Gold should only be worth ONE times its weight in gold otherwise the economy makes no sense. Why would putting gold into coin form devalue it by a factor if ten or more? Why would anyone do that? Shit this last one is really getting to me.

>>55292636
>it's a fantasy setting
>but AKSHUALLY it's a sci-fi setting in the far future and the magic is nanomachines that are so absurdly efficient as to straight-up magic anyways and the elves are biomodded humans
Bonus points if the setting doesn't actually do anything with this and it's just the normal medieval pastiche with rules that completely ignore the potential in the setup.

>>55294058
Stuff like gold jewellery costing more than its weight in gold makes sense as you'd be paying for the craftsmanship as well as the gold.

>>55292636
What's wrong with element-themed dragons?

>>55294159
That's exactly what I'm saying. A plain bar of gold should never cost more than something crafted out of that gold. Coins especially. In most games a plain bar of gold is worth more than the number of coins you could make from it, implying the currency has a negative value.

Palladium fantasy is the worst I've seen, with the scrap value of gold being just over 156 times the monetary value of a coin made from that gold. ie selling a single gold coin (~1oz of gold) as scrap would get you 156 gold coins (based on 1lb of gold being worth 2500gp).

In D&D (4e) I think it was closer to 25gp for selling 1gp as scrap but the same principle applies.

>>55294058
>Gold should only be worth ONE times its weight in gold otherwise the economy makes no sense. Why would putting gold into coin form devalue it by a factor if ten or more? Why would anyone do that? Shit this last one is really getting to me.
Plot twist - gold coins aren't made 100% out of gold. They represent certain value of gold, but there are other metals in it too.
So it makes a perfect fucking sense to have coins being valued less than an ignot of gold, because the weight of coin =/= weight of precious metal in it.

What irritates me, meanwhile, is retarded system like "100 copper pieces are equal to 1 silver and 10 silver to 1 gold". And in the end a loaf of bread costs 5 silver coins. So why the fuck anyone even bothers with making copper ones? And that goes without mentioning the retarded exchange rates.

>>55294144
Numenera, so fucking much.

>Fifteen thousand different kinds of liches, vampires and other shit, one more gimmicky than the other
You know why I like Strahd? Because he's just a vampire, he's been this way for decades, and never once he needed some fucking retarded gimmick to stay relevant in a world where just an immortal undead wizard isn't special enough.

>>55294490
You are also assuming that the coin is pure gold (it's not) whereas gold bars are almost always pure as matter of currency.
This seems to be more your own autism and thoughtlessness than the actual games.

>>55292636
Gear being waaaay too heavy (especially armor) and waaaay too big (especially all sort of hammers)

>>55294518
>And in the end a loaf of bread costs 5 silver coins
Anon, hyperbole isn't an argument, it's you being a retard.

>>55292636
>Races are equal to cultures and said cultures are super-homogenous
>Absolutely no local variety
>Humans are the only race allowed to have less homogenous culture, but then it's still series of super-homogenous countries

>Setting has functional, easy to access and learn magic based on modular rules that can do "anything"
>Nobody tries to use it for anything at all aside weaponising it

>Hypnosis can force people to do something against their will

>Bears being underpowered push-over that is barely a warm-up for real fight

>Bears being one of the toughtest enemy you can face in the setting with fire-spitting flying lizards, functional magic, powerful undead and laser guns

>>55294576
>hyperbole
That's literally the price of bread in Arcona. And one silver coin is equal to 160 copper ones.

>>55294532
>immortal undead wizard
jesus, being a wizard wasn't special enough for you?

>>55294518
Gold coins less than 1/156th or 1/25th gold? Historically they were ~9/10ths gold with the rest being copper, so the value of 1lb of impure gold coins should be ~0.9lb of an ingot plus the cost of minting.

A coin that's 155/156 parts copper is a copper coin and should be valued as such.

>>55294058
>Cyberpunk 2020 lists the weight of a motorbike as 15kg in the main book so this isn't limited to fantasy games.
Screencap please

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>>55294765
My mistake, it was the sports motorbike from Chromebook 3.

>>55292636
> Everything is basically European / Medieval fantasy
> Includes Weaboo Fightan man

>>55294688
Yea and a loaf of bread is 3.50 here, or 350 pennies.

>>55292636
>X is based off of Tolkien.
>While at most pertaining to the superficialities of Tolkien.

I think my favorite example is "Elves are master archers and that's why they're so deadly", because it's only the loser Silvan elves who use bows extensively in war, and it's explicitly stated to be the reason they run into trouble with things that their Sindarin and Noldorin brethren handle easily.

>>55295153
>Getting caught up on closely emulating "European fantasy" but overlooking the mummies and rakshasas and Cthulhus and sphinxes and djinni and so many other things to complain solely about some cartoon version of an Asian class that might as well be from anywhere for as rooted in Asia as it really is

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>>55292636
>longsword
>picture of an arming sword
>bastard sword
>picture of a longsword

>>55294058
>Having a million races and sub-races for the slightest variation of fairy/elf/eskimo.

I feel this way about elves. Over the past 30ish years I feel like there have been way too fucking many varieties of elf in fantasy fiction and tabletop games.

If wanted a winged race in your setting, how about instead of sticking wings on an elf, you put some actual fucking effort in and maybe try to create something yourself? It doesn't have to be new or original, but I wish these people would just fucking try a little bit.

You can probably find a variety of elf for every climate and speciality. Warrior elves, magical elves, psychic elves, cold elves, fire elves, flying elves, underwater elves, storm elves, mountain elves, underground elves, forest elves, jungle elves, arctic elves -- name a place, name an occupation, there's some hackneyed bullshit zero-effort kitchen sink setting out there with some kind of elf fucking around in there!

Making something up is too hard, just slap a new coat of paint onto an elf and stick a prefix on there! Fucking done, now to become a best-selling author, let me just wipe my ass on these 300 pages and call it a novel.

>>55297423
i remember making a race of primitive elves NPCs a long time ago, they lived in a forest (totally didn't look like tarzan with pointy ears), only spoke some kind of old elven, had almost no understanding of magic but had innate powers that grew with age
i feel a bit guilty now

>>55297692
It's okay, we've all written shit like that before, and we've all thought it was the hypest and most original shit. People grow and change, and looking back on our mistakes and learning from them is part of growing.

>>55294954
Most likely a typo meant to be 150

>>55297325
To get technical, a bastard sword is a longsword, because the classification of swords at the time there was no such thing as longswords only swords. Bastard swords were known as one and half hand swords

>>55297797
That's fair. It's a minor trigger.

>>55297423
I legitimately like how WH Fantasy dealt with elves, where Dark Elves and High Elves are, at their core, just two different political factions caught in a civil war. And elves being as long lived as elves are, the civil war has lasted centuries.

Then Age of Smegmar happened ;-;

>>55297813
No problem with modern classifications though they have no excuse

>>55297814
Wood Elves don't really fit into this dynamic, except as the Colonists who were left behind because of the Civil War at home. This has happened in a few instances IRL with European nations.

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>everyone wears drab brown and grey, even nobility and royalty

>>55297862
To be fair, Mediterraneans are gay as hell

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>>55297903
you ain't seen nothing yet my dude

>>55293778
>Plate armour being super heavy and constricting
How would you like to see different kinds of armor balanced against each other? Maneuverability is the go-to tradeoff for extra protection, likely due to being straightforward and playing into the lumbering tank/agile rogue tropes. Would you just use the price of the armor? Focus on resistance against different kinds of damage?

>Plate armor used in tandem with shields
I think that armor for reducing damage and shields for deflecting hits is a fairly common mechanical setup, meaning that players who want to maximize survivability would be interested in doubling up. Would the idea be to have the resistance granted by the plate armor such that most hits were just negated, making the shield's added protection fairly minimum compared to the advantage of two-handing?

>>55292636
As long as the shield is quite small it's completely accurate to history and perfectly practical. But of course nobody goes for the buckler because they give less AC despite being fucking amazing IRL.

>>55292636
This is what made RuneQuest (6) great is that you could use a shield with arm/chest/head armor on he opposite side and have adequate protection on the side covered by the shield.

And since encumberance mattered for long term wear and when doing intense activity for a long time. You could really customize armor for the appropriate situation without a lot of mechanical bulk (compared to D&D obviously).

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>>55292636
>And I don't care how far away it's been imported from an apple is not worth 5 gold pieces
This. How my wallet is supposed to look with this shit? Why a fucking dixy costs like it was made of gold? Why people still using gold as currency if it is inflated as shit?

>Leather armor adds dexterity or agility, cloth or being naked don't
>Mages are overpowered, but there are very few mentioned in history and political scene
>1 race, 1 country, 1 culture
>Light race and dark race calling themselves "light" and "dark" is beyond being retarded

>>55298519
>>Mages are overpowered, but there are very few mentioned in history and political scene
>>1 race, 1 country, 1 culture
>>Light race and dark race calling themselves "light" and "dark" is beyond being retarded
These are all sensible.

>>55294144
Age of Decadence was like this.

Vikings wearing biker leather kackets.

>>55292636
>>Ancient evil tentacle monster corruption
Bonus points if the game calls itself "Lovecraftian" because the monsters have tentacles.

>>55294659
>>Setting has functional, easy to access and learn magic based on modular rules that can do "anything"
>>Nobody tries to use it for anything at all aside weaponising it
This, so much. If magic is common, put some fucking thought into how that would change society beyond people just using it as flashier arrows.

>>55298685
I like how the trailers started with "In a world where the ancient evil never awakened...", then the plot of the game was about an ancient evil awakening.

>Everyone wears brown and black
>Armor is cut through like it was made out of paper
>Some generic super steel that's 50x lighter than regular steel but it's 50x stronger and it cuts through normal swords and blah blah blah it's so cool

I'm tired of all of this

>>55298857
>I like how the trailers started with "In a world where the ancient evil never awakened...", then the plot of the game was about an ancient evil awakening.
It tried so hard to be unique and subversive but it only conformed to standard fantasy tropes.

>>55299210
>Some generic super steel that's 50x lighter than regular steel but it's 50x stronger and it cuts through normal swords and blah blah blah it's so cool
I absolutely loved how GRRM did the same thing in his totally unique "deconstruction" of fantasy and a dagger made of the bullshit was stopped by Catelyn's hand.

>>55292636
nanomachines

they're so boring

>>55297179
>Missing the point this hard
Not even him, but do you have absolutely ANY idea about money minting?

>>55298280
>balanced
Here is your fucking mistake.
You DON'T balance them, but make it a linear progression, just like it did IRL.
No armour -> scale -> chain -> plate
The difference being price and the fact they could be further fitted for the wearer. After metallurgy advanced enough, there was absolutely NOTHING stopping everyone from wearing plate. The entire Late Medieval period saw entire armies in plate armour, because it was both good and affordable. The only reason it wasn't widespread a century or so earlier was the price.
So if you want to "balance" things (which is the most retarded approach in mechanics imaginable and my core argument against D&D and derivetives - especially since they fail spectacularly in said balance), provide a proper price. And make a mechanical difference between "one size fits all" and "custom made" plate.
Just making it shit won't balance anything

>a fairly common mechanical setup
From where did you get that?
Also, that's another utterly retarded crunch invented by idiots too focused on balance to apply logic.
A guy wearing plate and carrying a shield is close to invulnerable, and THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT. He can parry your attacks and bash you with the shield, while also wearing best body protection money can buy in case if he won't parry in time with the shield.
So your question is literally pointless, as you are looking for stupid excuse to apply "game balance" in the most retarded and obtuse way imaginable.
See a guy with a shield and in plate? Gang his ass! See a squad of such guys? Run like hell.

>>55298320
The biggest joke in game design is contradiction of shield evolution in pretty much all games. IRL shields were getting smaller and smaller and thus better at doing their job. Meanwhile, game design approach is that the bigger the shield, the better.
And who the fuck is going to lift and then carry a pavaise in size of a door?!

>>55299308
>I'm an unimaginative lazy fuck: The Confession
Thanks for sharing. Now we know.

>>55300159
>No armour -> scale -> chain -> plate
what about leather bronze iron and steel? (am I missing one?) How would you handle them with a linear progression like that?

Also what about wearing scale mail under plate mail? Mechanic wise how would you deal with it?

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>>55294659
>Hypnosis can force people to do something against their will
I'm ok with this one because both I and one of my players have it as out fetish

>>55300170
I feel like Burning Wheel's Fight! subsystem does a pretty good job making bucklers useful. In Fight! every round starts with a positioning test, the winner gets to determine what range the fight takes place at, the further out from your weapon's optimal range you are the bigger the penalty you take to your actions. Larger shields give more bonus die to the 'block' action but also a larger penalty to the positioning test.

The positioning test is also why things like striking with the pommel or having a shorter side-arm is a good idea in that system.

>>55294750
>the value of 1lb of impure gold coins should be ~0.9lb of an ingot plus the cost of minting.
Isn't there going to be a cost associated with going from 90% pure to 99%, the same way you'd expect there to be a cost for going from 99% pure to 99.9%? Or is it easy to reach really high purity in metallurgy?

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>>55292636
>barbarians are barely dressed nigger-tier savages

>>55294058
Bow damage should sensibly scale from both really, or rather it should scale from Str and your skill with a bow, especially in a system that doesn't do location damage - the more accurate you are, the more damage you will do.

>>55294541
Thanks anon, this was bothering me too

>>55300159
>You DON'T balance them, but make it a linear progression, just like it did IRL.
>No armour -> scale -> chain -> plate
no thanks, we gladly sacrifice realism for the sake of variety

>>55297325
that's because games use longsword in opposition to shortsword

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>>55294659
>>Races are equal to cultures and said cultures are super-homogenous
>>Absolutely no local variety
>>Humans are the only race allowed to have less homogenous culture, but then it's still series of super-homogenous countries
Jesus fucking Christ, this shit is so fucking annoying and so prevailing it makes me go berserk each time I'm playing with a new GM/group/both and they decide to just use the setting as presented in the book. For fuck's sake, this kills any joy or thrill of playing, because you know what's going to happen just by the fact the game says "NPC is an X", where X is any of the setting's race.

Hate it so fucking much I'm capable of qutting the group. I've once even thanked them in the middle of the game and left, stating openly that the setting annoys me and kills all joy of playing for me.

>>55300315
I was just referring to historical development of armour starting from the tribal clusterfuck until it went to plate. The better the metallurgy, the better the armour, it's that simple. Needham once made a pretty good socio-economical theory for why China went completely different and avoided anything further than basic proto-feudalism even before Confucianism came into play. His thesis being that due to developing crossbows (no, not the automated ones, that came muuuuuch later) early on, there was always a weapon at hand capable of piercing all existing forms of body protection, so you couldn't just be a mighty lord in mighty armour policing over unarmored and underarmed peasants, because they would turn you into a pin-cushin in no time. The brilliance of the thesis is that the more dig-outs are made, the more it is confirmed, while it was Needham's wild guess in the late 40s.

And about scale under plate (the fuck is plate mail? you mean the armour between proper plate was fully developed and only bits of plate armour were applied to chain?): what kind of protection you want to get from it?
What you put under plate is either thick linen or thin leather, probably both. Not for protection as such (that's what the outer layer of plate is for), but to get a cushion against impacts on the plate. It dampers the hits you receive and reduces/removes bruises and abrasions.
So scale woudn't make much sense, because:
1) you would have to cram it somehow and somewhere
2) the goal is to get damper for blunt trauma, not another layer of anti-cutting defense

>>55300832
Please explain us how the fuck this adds any form of variety?
Because I'm probably missing some step between having few types of armour accessable and the lack of variety.
If you are running a setting where plate is expensive, the price works as the variety factor, since you won't be able to afford it anyway
If you are running a setting where plate is common, then there is no "variety" by default.

>>55300832
>>55300975
And to elaborate, since I've run out of space:
If you have a setting that has alongside in the same culture and region for no reason at all armour that covers dozen of centuries of development and somehow co-exist, then your setting is shit, you are shit and you should feel bad about it.
It's like you would have in the same setting a handcannon, a wheellock and a Winchester rifle and then said "hey, it's for variety!"
Or galleys, clippers, steamboats and nuclear subs, all used by the same "country", because apparently the setting needs variety.

The moment when chain and plate co-existed was a very short-lived one and didn't last even a century. Chain "thrived" in Eastern Europe, especially in Rus lands, for a bit longer, but that came from low urbanisation and poor technology. Once they've get access to better shit tech-wise, they've "jumped the gun" from shit-tier chain to late Renaissance plate and nobody looked back, only to drop armour like everyone else when guns rolled in.

>>55300927
Jesus, how generic can a setting be that you're dropping a group in the MIDDLE of a session? Did a dwarf introduce himself as Alebeard Goldaxe or something?

>>55301059
Close. Aside being so bland it made vanilla tasting like rainbow, players basically picked the example characters and made cosmetic changes to them, then ignored roleplaying aspect completely. Two of them, who were supposedly the most experienced, were rather talking in what they character are doing than performing the action in-character or even phasing the dialogues. So it was shit like "I talk to him about the benefits of our plan" rather than, you know, explaining the plan and its benefits.
The moment GM started to butcher Scottish accent when we approached the most generic imaginable dwarven blacksmith, all bets were off.

So it was a combination of very bland setting and abysmal group.

>>55300927
One thing that can help is simply replacing the suffixes for sub races with place names.
Instead of an wood elf, the shady guy is the bar is just an Tanmaar elf, from that cold place in the North, were they run naked through the woods like idiots for their summer festival. You noticed because he's wearing a pendant of their boar god.


Try to talk you GM into putting just a little bit more work into the world and things become much more enjoyable. If they won't/can't, then you're probably a bad match for the group.

>>55301100
I've found a better solution - I'm running games myself and when I feel the players get the hang of the setting and how things go, we start taking turns at the GM helm. Makes things playable and interesting, without forcing me to be a forever GM.

And changing names doesn't really change the problem, anon. It's more about "every wood/Tanmaar elf is a slender, but boastful and shady archer that lives in a forest and wears his hair in braid" Total population: 200 million, spread over 4 continents and 10 different climates. Variety: 0.


You know, how the stereotypical dorf is Not!FilmGimli. Every single fucking one of them.

>>55300975
>If you are running a setting where plate is common, then there is no "variety" by default.
...unless chainmail allowed for more maneuverability according to the rules.

>>55301022
>It's like you would have in the same setting a handcannon, a wheellock and a Winchester rifle and then said "hey, it's for variety!"
but D&D and the games that emulate have just that and are very successful doing so.
protipp: fantasy is build on top of myths from different eras (beowulf, nibelungen, roland, king arthur, robin hood, etc). you can cry foul about that till the cows come home, it won't go away.

>>55301127
Rotating GMs is actually pretty great idea for that stuff because everyone will have slightly different take on the different archetypes.

Though what I was more aiming for was not making different sub-races in the first places. You have elves and in the various places they live in different cultures have formed. Of course once you have a defined group of people there is always the danger of turning them into a stereotype, but the only real way around this is showing variance among different group members. And that can be difficult if you 40 different races in the setting because don't have time for that many characters.

So it's probably better to put some thought into your game rather than copying the common parts from what you already know. And that's basicly true for every point mentioned in ths thread.

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>>55301142
I've got two words for you:
Reading comprehension.

>>55301142
>protipp: fantasy is build on top of myths from different eras (beowulf, nibelungen, roland, king arthur, robin hood, etc). you can cry foul about that till the cows come home, it won't go away.
Not him, but who are you quoting right now?
Because you've just made a claim that doesn't need to stick to absolutely nothing. You can make a fantasy setting that won't even touch the subject you've listed, avoid the whole issue and still being a fantasy setting.
In short - you are a fucking imbecile.

>>55301184
I don't. If I apply races at all to the setting (and it's not about HFY bullshit), there are rarely more than three. I put entire focus on culture and/or nationality, then spread them over local varieties and put religion focus on it too, if that applies. In the end it's like the game takes place in Balkans: everyone is human, but they speak 10 different languages, have 8 different culture groups, 15 countries, 4 religions and then there are of course the guys behind that mountain range.
At this point nobody even notices the fact there are no races, because they are not needed for anything. And you can still throw in a hefty dose of races anyway, but the setting itself has the focus and tones spread differently, so you don't need to have Race Of Desert Nomads, because you have that covered by three different culture groups within single race living in that continental mass, each of them different than the other two.

tl;dr - races and especially subraces were stupid design decision that came from the early 80s hard-on on making everything into rigid classes and races.

>>55297423
>office drone elves
>monkey code elves
>japanese salaryman elves
>hobo elves
>altright/neonazi elves
>antifa elves
>gutterpunk elves
>brutalist elves
>postmodernist elves
>art deco elves
>mall elves
>underground parking lot elves
>public bathroom elves
>skyscraper elves

>>55292636
>Ancient evil tentacle monster corruption
But it is one of the best concepts.

>>55301264
>>japanese salaryman elves
I wouldn't be surprised if there was a manga for that.

Also, Shadowrun has most of those listed. Which is part of the reason why I dislike the setting so much - it's neither good at doing cyberpunk, nor fantasy.

>>55294659
>>Races are equal to cultures and said cultures are super-homogenous
>>Absolutely no local variety
>>Humans are the only race allowed to have less homogenous culture,

that's what happens when people try to "be creative" and "put a new spin" on traditional races like elves and orcs. in the end they turn them into just a specific type of humans who look a bit different. With orcs typically being just barbarians, but green and with a snout, and elves being hippies but with pointy ears.

>>55301302
I think that this can work, but only to certain scale. Have you ever played HoMM3? Not the entire M&M setting, but the one specifically from HoMM3.
The key to the success and why it worked as a setting, despite being pretty riggid, was combination of few factors:
1) Relatively small size of the continent
2) Serious geographical barriers all over it
3) Borderlands between different biomes and climates, changing hands on regular basic
4) Low population density in general
5) Biological barriers between all species
In the end, you had a setting where the strong differences made sense without looking retarded and still providing some variety. Meanwhile most TTRPGs instead have MASSIVE world and still zero variety occurs.

>>55294659
Areas being homogeneous makes perfect sense, and if anything, the heterogeneous mix so prevalent in things like Golarion is completely fucking absurd.

That being said, the lack of local variation is bullshit, but understandable because often, a setting or area is only described in broad strokes. Most GMs or storytellers just suck at filling in the specifics.

Now, every race aside from humans being homogeneous, however, is complete fucking horseshit, and makes me want to beat shit with a mallet, and triggers me enormously. But to add to that, so does the fact that every fucking subrace that exists of a given non-human race have oddly specific and sometimes wildly different racial abilities - for example, Ghostwise Halflings are fucking telepaths, and Drows are super-magical fucking übermensch despite really just being fancy elves. Meanwhile, wildly different human ethnicities across the entirety of the globe all have the same statblock.

Genuinely infuriates me.

>>55301329
>Areas being homogeneous makes perfect sense
On a scale of, say, 50km radius - maybe. If the region in question has proper geographical boundaries and relatively strong seat of power, multiply by 3.
But it doesn't apply when it's a size of half of a continent. And that's what happens in most of games.

>>55297851
I think they fit in fairly well; they're essentially just another (more isolated) political faction. I liked it even better when Sea Elves were a thing, and represented traders, corsairs and colonials of the elves, and were essentially the neutrals in the dark elf-high elf conflict, despite living primarily on Ulthuan.

Today, they're mostly clear-cut homogeneous factions and, frankly, pretty boring. Age of Smegmar was a blessing in disguise, a cutoff point that meant GW couldn't fuck the setting up anymore.

Alas, it was not meant to last.

>>55301236
That's also how pretty much how I handle races in my setting, but because of some bits of quasi-meta narrative more races have been forced in.
Started with humans-only, then two magical fuckups created more, bringing us to ten races if we're being generous. But most are just mutated by said magical fuck ups and in the process of dying out.

But this is were it comes down to execution.

>>55301264
You just pulled those out of some modern fantasy setting, didn't you? I have harpies as a race low in population and they are in conflict with a bunch of small people adept at earth magic and building underground cities in the same mountains the harpies claim.
The harpies have a reason to be a different race: their tribes and cultures are strongly influenced by the events that mutated them. But the "dwarves" are just another human culture and so they aren't burdened by the usual sterotypes. I don't have much about that culture, that's better than having that part of my world dictated by someone else.

And just as I'm writing this I noticed that they absolutely cannot be dwarves or gnomes or whatever: The entire area is surrounded by mutant beast people, so a dwarf culture would be humanized anyway as they become our view point among the stranger creatures.

>>55301329
Unless you apply and enforce public education, combined with set of citizenship policies and in certain circumstances - religious-related laws, you can forget about getting a homogenous region bigger than, say, few counties. Fucking France, out of all places, wasn't even speaking the same language until Louis XIV spend half of his life on pushing very strong policies toward enforcing Parisian French and then it took another century for them to finally start taking effect.
I don't want this to come off as smug, but I feel there is a historical reason why Americans suck so hard at making variable settings: they never experienced anything like that themselves. It was always the same central government, always the same official language and active policies to reinfoce it (along with policies to supress any form of variety, be them natives, Cajuns, Spaniards and Latino or the incoming immigrants) and being a product of a modern world, rather than gradual evolution over centuries. So when they make a game setting, they apply this mentality of unified country to a world where it makes zero sense.

>>55298685
No it wasn't. Age of Decadence has magic, tons of it, and it fueled all sorts of magitech, including sci-fi-esque magic. But nothing in it suggests that it wasn't magic. They literally made contact with the "gods" using pure fucking magic at first, and magic was around for centuries or millennia before the war.

>>55301374
No idea how I fucked up that formatting, the part about harpies and dwarves obviously belongs to the first post.

>>55301354
Case in point: I live in southern Germany and have relatives living that far away. I can barely understand them.
Two cities away in the same state there is so much weird food that can't go into tavern because I have no idea what's on the menu.

>>55297325
>rapier
>picture of a cutlass

>>55301385
Oh, I mean, obviously theres a great deal of local variance, but it's still fundamentally homogeneous. The parisians still recognized the people and the language outside of Paris as French and frenchmen, or "of the people". This goes again, time and again, throughout most of history and most cultures.

But homogeneous in the sense of being near-identical? Nah, fuck that. If anything, homogeneous Europe as it was had all the diversity they ever needed, as evidenced by literal millennias. This historical context is today lost on a lot of people, who think that if something ian't wildly foreign and exotic, it is somehow badwrong and 'too' homogeneous. Hell, even the U.S. had what you describe (if perhaps not as drastic) a mere century ago, and the regions were rather different in a lot of ways not immediately obvious at an casual glance.

So yeah, I agree; I just meant that the lack of that local variance is understandable, because often a larger region or state is described superficially. Same way we describe Ancient Greece, with it's very homogeneous population, without going into the specifics of each region or city state, which could be extremely and wildly different.

But don't get me started on the idea of 'Common' in things like D&D. Pisses me off to no end. People can barely read & write, yet the entire world has adopted esperanto as a merchant language, whether they're merchants or not.

>>55301413
Silesian here (or as the currently rulling party calls us, "hidden German option") and everyone outside about 30 km radius from my city is already a "gorol", or Not-Silesian. Meaning they can't understand me when I use my language.
Keeping it food-related: the real jokes comes from the fact the same name means two completely different and unrelated dishes, so a shitload of outsiders end up eating dumplings with gravy rather than pasta if the menu is in Silesian.

>>55294058
>Bow damage scaling off dex when it should be str
How to spot someone that doesn't know what he's talking about. I hate how realism-fags completely go overboard with their notion of archers being some horrible mutants of walking muscles with completely wrecked spines.

>>55298857
>>55294659
there's a korean webcomic that does this in a way I like.
Most magic is combat oriented, and they need it since they're surrounded by mosters.
But there's also restorative/healing magic and creation magic, which can create and modify objects.
And those who can use creation magic are super rich and powerful, and the technology of their worlds is based on creation magic, in fact their whole society needs creation magic to function. Without it they'd be able to only live as hunter gatherers, with it they can build cities that can rival our world cities.

>>55301354
>On a scale of, say, 50km radius - maybe.
Much larger areas than that have been principially homogeneous even without any kind of unifying state apparatus. Local cultural variance, however, is a completely different issue.

Inb4 /pol/ shitters notice you talking about population homogeneity.

>>55301487
Anon, remember D'Artagnan? You know, the 4th of the "three musketeers"?
He's constantly referred as Gasconian. And it doesn't just mean he's from south-western corner of France. It means he speaks language barely related with French and doesn't even consider himself a Frenchman. Gascon itself is in a size of your medieval fragmentation duchy.
So it's not about slight accent variety like in modern times, but not being able to understand each other. Kind of how Chinese works - everyone use the same written Chinese (at least on mainland), but they SPEAK over a dozen of different dialects that are utterly incomprehensible. And each of them has a variety of sub-dialects that also are incomprehensible, often now even following similar grammar patterns.

>>55301497
I've practised archery when I was a teen and the requirement to even get into the team was to perform a series of lifting exercises. Half of the people who wanted to join the team were unable to draw the bow on first trial.
So nice knowing you prefer some retarded fanfiction of how bows work, introduced to the hobby by bunch of idiots who never shot a bow in their life and added it for "balance", rather than realising bows are HORRIBLE as a weapon and require to be strong. Not muscleman strong, but definitely with properly build.

>>55292636
>Bows being fired like machine guns and doing crazy trick shot shit

Well, you're objectively wrong. That's how it was actually done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk

>>55292636
Anybody wielding daggers upside down

>>55301551
Oh hey, that faggot.

>>55301514
Unless you have solid geographical boundaries, you can forget about keeping homogenous culture in pre-modern times on local level. Especially if it's some sort of borderland.
Do you know before institutionalised and widespread education became a thing, the "borderlands" in cultural sense were spread (depending on geography) 50 to 100 km on each side of the border? So you have a complete mix of languages and often ethnicities. It's like this anon >>55301385 said: it's the lack of historical perspective that leads to the bland and unified settings in games.

>>55297957
He's going to war against terrible fashion.

>>55301549
This is why in my normie kingdom I have everyone use some kind of light crossbow or hand crossbow when it comes to utilizing ranged. Only some rangers or trained veterans make use of a longbow.

These threads are good if only to allow me to look at my setting and do self-critique on what can be changed and done better.

>>55301551
>This shit again
Ever heard that saying: one swallow doesn’t make a summer?

>>55301577
This is the exact same reason why I always stick to them. It greatly helps to fix things you often didn't fully realised, even if you might notice yourself something is off.

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See, this is why you explicitly state or at least heavily imply that the metal being used in your world isn't iron or steel, OR do to how forging/god of the forge works you have to make armor super thick and unnecessarily heavy.

That way, you can have super heavy armored warriors who can barely move and lightly armored fast warriors. Or you could just play with non-autistic people. Fuck 'realism'.

>>55298280
>>Plate armour being super heavy and constricting
>How would you like to see different kinds of armor balanced against each other?
How about we decide which period we're supposed to basing the setting on?

Once plate armour is available it basically replaces all other types because it's flat out better.

So either choose to have a pre-plate setting where you have chain mail, brigadine, etc. or a post-partum setting where everyone is using plate and just have more or less of it.

This retardation only comes up because they're trying to make plate and mail both have a use when plate is just better than mail.

>>55301084
Oh no, you're one of those faggots that insist on some kind of forced stage-acting and fake accents and shit. Probably best you quit, nobody wants to play with you.

>>55301577
Speaking of which
>Bows being cheaper than crossbows
For fucks sake, when will game designers learn that bow viable for just hunting, not to mention fighting, is a bit more than just a stick with a string? And that crossbow, despite having a trigger mechanism, is relatively easy to make and can - unlike bows - be made from random piece of wood, as long as you have access to iron.

>>55301595
>Oh no, you want to roleplay in a roleplaying game! How could you?!
Not even him, but tell us all why exactly you want to play a ROLE-PLAYING game without doing so?

Also, reading comprehension: anon pointed out it was GM doing shit with accent, not the other way around.

>>55301549
I never said that you don't need muscles at all to draw a bow you fuckwit, read my post again.

>>55301557
Depends on what you're fighting against and what you're trying to do. You get better penetration from a downswing with a revered dagger, for punching through thick hide and armor, you're more threatening and need less penetration if your fighting a lightly armored opponent, and you need the length and speed if your oppenent is armed with a longer weapon, while a reversed dagger (better, paired) is ideal against weapons with a lot of reach.

Situation is why you adapt different styles.

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>>55301595
>Roleplaying is bad

>>55301618
I did. And you've proven to us all you have no fucking clue about archery. Now you are just digging it deeper, for no reason.
Dexterity plays absolutely ZERO role in archery, no matter how you bend it. You need the strenght to draw the bow and good eye to aim it. That's all. So the damage should be done with Str (and it does in most games that aren't D&D and its clones), while the aiming should be done either by skill check and/or Perception roll, depending on game's crunch.

Basing it on Dex is just retarded, no matter what.

>>55301593
>This retardation only comes up because they're trying to make plate and mail both have a use when plate is just better than mail.
I think the issue is that most players, like most people, are retarded. It's like in WFRP2, there's 'Great Weapon', which is a catch-all term for most two-handed weapons; greatswords, mallets, large axes, etc.

Then there's the Halberd, which is a two-handed weapon that can be wielded in two different ways, and is generally cheaper.

People incessantly whine about how that's imbalanced because why would you use great weapons and shit if there's halberds on the table, oh woe the devs are retarded, the item economy is fucked, etc, etc.

But that's just it. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU? It's superior. It's cheaper. It's a martial weapon of war, used tactically. And I think developers are afraid of putting stuff like this into their games. Plate should be superior to mail in almost every way, and there's nothing wrong with that. Doesn't mean that it's widely available or not the cutting edge of warfare.

'Balance' is a fucking sham, and a cancer of RPG:s and reasonable verisimilitude.

>>55301612
>>55301632
>role-playing is only role-playing if you roleplay exactly like I am and no othe way
kys

>>55301644
In D&D, Dex is used for hand-eye coordination, not just manual dexterity. Really, it's no more odd than Charisma. I'm not sure why people have such difficulties wrapping their heads around the nature of certain ability scores.

>>55301644
You are telling me that you can put strength into your fucking arrow and saying I have no idea about archery? I didn't even say that it should be dexterity that governs the damage, since I agree that it should either be a weapon skill or perception, though this shouldn't be needed on close range shooting. But in DnD dexterity also governs the range damage. That is what they decided it does and if you have a look at how this systems handles weapons dealing damage based on stats it's the most sensible option. But the idea that you suddenly do more damage with your shortbow after you leveled up and gained one more STR is completely retarded.

You are hiding some serious incompetence and misundestanding of systems behind a very aggressive tone.

>>55301677
Autism.

>>55301598
Also, it pisses me off that mass-produced early crossbows are sometimes way stronger than a composite longbow. Crossbows are easier to use, that's it, but a trained bowman was generally superior in every way.

That said, crossbows being more expensive can make sense if they're rare or considered special. Supply and demand, rather than what it takes to make them. Technology can be worth a lot. That said, that's usually not how it's portrayed.

>>55301711
Agree. Bows should have a minimum Strength to be drawn, but it shouldn't factor into damage beyond that.

>>55301660
>Anon explicitly notes players are not roleplaying at all
>HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
>DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Like you said, kys

>>55301677
Maybe because D&D mechanics are shit that started badly from the get-go and never was fixed, because ever since AD&D 1.0 rolled in, the shit crunch design turned into "muh tradition" and is now sacred?

>>55301728
Considering the bow should be matched with your own drawing strenght, it's should be different way around:
The bow has a bonus STR score added to it, FOR SPECIFIC VALUE of STR. You have more STR, but still use that bow? Tough luck, get a new one.

>>55301713
>Crossbows are easier to use, that's it
Only small crossbows that were rarely used for warfare. Crossbowmen back then were highly priced professional soldiers with advanced weaponry, and you needed some good understanding of these weapons to operate them and especially repair and maintain them.

>>55301792
So PHYSICALLY easier to use?

>>55301760
Except the examples he gave were retarded. His idea of "not roleplaying at all" is fucking retarded.

>>55301767
It's not a mechanical issue, though, it's a matter of definition. People seem to have a real fucking hard time grasping certain simple concepts, such as what Dexterity represents, or what Charisma represents, etc.

>>55301833
Some crossbows are nearly impossible to reload without specific devices, but beyond that, probably. Just aim and shoot I guess.

>>55301779
>the bow should be matched with your own drawing strenght
Yes, so a different fucking bow. You can't draw it, you should get penalties to damage and attack equal to how weak you are. You can draw it? Congratulations, full attack and full damage. Doesn't mean you get a bonus to damage based on your strength, it just means you can use certain bows, usually the ones that do more damage.

>>55301792
Still easier to use. Maintenance and the technical know-how to repair, keep and manufacture, THAT is why crossbows MAY be more expensive, depending on the setting.

>>55301837
>Not acting at all in character
>HURRR this is retarded example DURRR
Still alive?

Also, joining another argument:
It IS mechanical issue, since everyone and their dog knows d20 is dog-shit awful. Insisting on playing a 40 years old game that still drags all the abysmal choices made by unexperienced "pioneers" for no reason at all and pretending it's good is a special case of Stockholm syndrome.
D&D is a very, very bad game crunch-wise. Get over it, it's fucking 2017, not 1977.

>>55301792
>back then
Back when?
Without pointing out that tiny detail, your argument is worth shit.
And they were still easier to train, use, maintain AND repair than a bow.

>>55301874
Guess we can call it an agreement, just worded differently and approached from two differend sides. But yeah, all of your post. Plus there is a threshold where if you can't draw a bow with specific Str requirement, then you can't draw it at all, rather than having a penalty. I remember my first experience with a non-recurve bow and I couldn't even draw it, despite it having nominally only slightly bigger draw than the bow I've used previously.

>>55302013
>Plus there is a threshold where if you can't draw a bow with specific Str requirement, then you can't draw it at all,
That solves itself; it's when the attack penalty is so big that you can't hit (meaning it didn't launch) or does no damage (because of the damage penalty).

I mean, yeah, it's not perfect, I agree with your sentiment, but we're dealing with mechanical abstractions.

>>55301977
>I tell him what transpired, trying to keep the facts out about the maid that got killed
>OH MY GOD YOU DIDN'T TELL IT YOURSELF AS IF YOU WERE THE CHARACTER AND DID THE VOICE OF YOUR FOREIGN DIALECT OF C'TRASHCAN YOU'RE NOT AT ALL ACTING IN CHARACTER
How does autists stay alive? Breathing manually you'd think you would've died fro either sleep deprivation or a lack of oxygen. Do you use a respirator at night?

>>55302176
>If I ignore original argument's example and make things up instead, this somehow counts
>At least it does in my mind
Weren't you saying something about autism?

>>55302176
Also, let me guess - you are one of those guys who rather than handle all sort of diplomatic, deceive and barter situations by talking, just rolls for that without zero involvement, right?
And you also enjoy being party's face, because you are sooo good at this.

How does it feel to be fucking retarded and then jump on others for not being as stupid as your nigger ass?

>>55302277
>ignore original argument
But no, that was the argument all along, you were just to retarded to realize it.

>>55302297
>you are one of those guys who rather than handle all sort of diplomatic, deceive and barter situations by talking, just rolls for that without zero involvement, right?
Nope, try again. How you say something and what you do matters a lot more than the roll.

>And you also enjoy being party's face, because you are sooo good at this.
No, I hate being the party face. I also hate the very concept of a 'face' character that gets pushed in front of the party at every opportunity.

That said, I almost always end up being the de facto face whether I want to or not.

>How does it feel to be fucking retarded and then jump on others for not being as stupid as your nigger ass?
I don't know, you tell me, how does it feel?

>>55302297
There is nothing wrong with saying "My character tries to appeal to the Dukes sense of pride" or "My character explains why the party is soaked in minotaur jism."

>>55302483
Not him, but it kinda is very wrong to say single line instead of even trying to reason with someone. How did you appeal to the Duke's sense of pride? Does he even have it?
It makes not only roleplaying non-existing, but forces your GM to apply the exact same minimalistic approach, since they can't do dialogues with someone who is not willing to talk. This in turns makes all sorts of interactions with NPCs pointless, because they boil down to... well, not being there. It's just a declaration of action, in something, that can be performed rather than rolled.
Kills entire immersion for me.

>>55301274
>it's neither good at doing cyberpunk, nor fantasy
You take that back.

>>55302483
>>55302512
And for the record, I do understand why people do that (to cut the chase), but it often feels like playing a vidya rather than being part of a tabletop game session.
Also, there is a huge difference in "I summarise the events of last 3 days to the duke" (cuts the chase) and "I appeal to duke's sense of pride" (feels lazy and off-putting).

>>55302533
The only game that did Cyberpunk right was CP2020.
Shadowrun has too many things crammed in for its own good. It in the same time wants to be urban fantasy, cyberpunk and real world setting. And in earlier editions those things didn't mesh together AT ALL, just being there. It took ages to refine the game to something even resembling consistency, but it still has many rough edges after so many years.
But I guess it could be worse. Just look at CthulhuTech.

>>55302538
>>55302512
That means that only charismatic people can play charismatic characters. Odd choice for what is supposed to be escapism.

Now, if you asked for a few more details, that seems reasonable.

"How do you appeal to his pride?"
"I compliment his jewel encrusted codpiece."

>>55302709
>That means that only charismatic people can play charismatic characters
No, that's your wrong assumption taken either from your ass or own insecurity. I prefer to assume it's your ass

The point of roleplaying is not to be perfect in what you are doing, but TRYING to do it. You are not supposed to take singing lessions because you play a bard or enroll to a martial arts training, because you play as a monk. But you should do as many things in-character as you can
I can't fucking lie in a convincing way. That doesn't prevent me from trying to lie in-character. The GM focus on what I say, not the fact I can't make a proper face. My "piece" is not very convincing? A roll for that. My "piece" was judged good enough? Let's just go on

Had once a GM who said that if we want to play as magic users, then the book provides a pretty specific description of the hand gestures required to cast each spell. Everyone laughed at this at first, but eventually it turned out to be both faster and more fun to do than just rolling dice and counting things up
I myself went through recon training when doing my conscription (I've applied to Navy, go figure). When I'm running games, I rather ask my players to describe what they are looking for, how they are doing it and so on, rather than giving them the cup and saying "roll that Tracking/Search"

I do understand this doesn't appeal to everyone, but it's just plain wrong to say "I can't roleplay being a playboy, because I'm an overweight nerd". That's the entire fucking point and how escapism works - you are not a playboy. But can pretend to be one. The dice and checks are there only to help you out if you are really unconvincing in your role. Reducing it to just rolling a dice cuts away the whole pretending aspect, making it a ROLL playing game

And to repeat myself - I understand this might not appeal to everyone, but have you ever TRIED to do an "extensive" role-playing, rather than being more concerned with getting over it?

>>55301592
Or you create a consistent setting thats feels natural.

Plate is just an allround better option for warfare. A solider in plate is going to wreck a soldier in leather armor 9/10 times.

So instead of doing edgy shit like using Not!Steel to justify retarded shit find a work around.

Most adventures don't fight on battlefields. Maybe its considered absolutely haram to wear Plate inside of cities. So in a lot of fights plate isn't available and chainmail remains a more flexible choice.

Temperature. Its so hot/cold in most areas of the World that Plate isn't a viable option.

Do the Japan thing. Steel or Iron is rare and only a few blacksmiths blessed by the gods even know about plate. A Warrior in Plate is fucking rare and only the richest kings can afford that.

Or the Patricians choice: Plate is common and you don't have Not!Wikings next to your warriors in plate because your setting is consistent.

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>>55302883
And I know this will sound preachy as fuck, but the easiest way to get over all sorts of anxieties is roleplaying through situations. Just because they are not real doesn't mean this won't help you as a person to work on yourself.

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>>55302883
You phrased it better than I could ever have done. Solid post.

>>55302939
>Its so hot/cold in most areas of the World that Plate isn't a viable option.
Not him, but chain will be even worse, anon. So I guess that would be the no-armour situation.

>this entire thread
Yep..i should never have come here. For the rest of my life I'm going to assume every DM or player is undiluted autism Lurking beneath a veneer of almost normalcy

>>55302973

True. But if you want the tech-level of easily produced plate armor its pretty hard to explain why chain is still widespread. So why not cutting both?

Leaves room for an interesting evolution of armor.

>>55302982
If it makes you feel any better, just because I hate certain cliches and stereotypes, it doesn't mean I don't enjoy games that contain them.
The key is in execution. And that is almost entirely on your GM. One of my best GMs ever war running exclusively on Witcher RPG, which is abysmal combination of high fantasy and action movie elements with hard-on realism and magic system that can wipe out everything and everyone from the battle in single round...
... and yet we had fuckload of fun, because the GM was competent enough.

>>55292636
Let's not forget those as well:

>Character wears plate armor as everyday clothing
>Two dudes in full plate are fighting eachother with swords as if they were unarmored

>>55303472
>>Character wears armor as everyday clothing
Here, ftfy

Not to be that guy, but half this thread's bitching about armor and how bows work could be fixed just by playing GURPS instead of d&d.

>>55304042
Anon, I DO play GURPS and still bitched about the bows and armour. Because there is literally a handful of games that do those two things right, GURPS is one of them.
Especially with the decision to make bows the hardest and most penalised skill for ranged attacks and making each more advanced armour simply better than the previous ones, with no other drawback than price and then not even that.

>There are firearms in the game
>They come with so many disadvantages you really don't even want to touch them
>There is plate armor in the game
>It comes with so many disadvantages you really don't even want to touch it
>There is magic in the game
>It comes with so many disadvantages you really don't even want to touch it
>There are cybernetics in the game
>They come with so many disadvantages you really don't even want to touch them
Why adding elements to the game that exist solely to be useless? What's the fucking point?
If you don't want to give players guns or good armor, then just don't give it, rather than making horrible disads for using them.

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>>55301236
>Because you've just made a claim that doesn't need to stick to absolutely nothing. You can make a fantasy setting that won't even touch the subject you've listed, avoid the whole issue and still being a fantasy setting.
shit nigger what are you trying to say

>>55301652
Then why would you include great weapons at all?
>'Balance' is a fucking sham, and a cancer of RPG:s and reasonable verisimilitude.
I see, because you're retarded.

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>>55306595
>>55306663

>>55306663

Because even when halberds were around there were still other great weapons.

>>55292636
>Trigger
Guns being most expensive in bow-crossbow-firearms triangle and least useful
>Where this started
In some stupid shit's head, assuming metal must be expensive and bows are made from random stick and string

>>55300625
yeah but let's be honest, which looks cooler?

>>55306067
>There are cybernetics in the game
>They come with so many disadvantages you really don't even want to touch them
This is a big one that bothers me. I want to make a cyborg character that's just loaded with machinery. You can only have like two or three upgrades.

>>55301779
Surely strength should also affect range when factoring in the type of bow

>>55292636
>all playable races are just short humans, pointy eared humans or humans with green or blue skin

Early red flag that lets you know someone has zero imagination, zero taste and no fun allowed.

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>>55292636
Everyone rolling around in biker leathers with no use of colour.

>>55292636
Hypocritical barbarians who insist on the protags respecting their retarded cultural practices - yet they are totally disdainful of any other culture but their own.
I get that they are supposed to be savage and impolite, but this one pops up so often and goes totally unchallenged by other characters.

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>Elves or Elf equivalents have a broadly Celtic-ish culture
>they still dress like fags

>>55306067
>There are firearms in someone's homebrew for a pre-existing system
>They're ten times more complicated than any other weapon

>>55294954
That's mass, not weight. Times it by the local gravity... that's the weight

>>55301549
Not that anon, but since you value historical perspective you should also realize this "strength test" you had to do would have been utterly ridiculous by old world standards. English bowmen were just farmers drafted or eldest son. Their version of boot camp was recognizing order signals and basic range training strength was never an issue because they didn't have pussies and weaboos in the general populace that weren't off in some monastery being educated.

I grew up on a farm today and even though I never looked bulky the first time I drew an 80lbs bow it wasn't a problem the average hay bales weighs 100 pounds, and if it is wet around 150.

Tldr; modern applications of thought to what was required in ancient bowmen are silly

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>>55292636

People carrying swords on their backs. You can't draw a sword like that.

>>55294144
The only games that did this in a way that I liked was the Endless games, which I'm in love with. I usually hate it and I can't tell you for the life of me what they did different. Perhaps that every race is build around the concept rather than the other way around? And that much of the stuff in the setting is pretty unique even if it does have elves and dwarves and such? Not sure.

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>>55312272
in fairness to The Witcher, when Geralt draws his sword he pushes the sheath up a bit at the bottom so he can draw it

>>55306067
>There are cybernetics in the game
>They come with so many disadvantages you really don't even want to touch them
>The disadvantage is you become less human because cybernetics damage YOUR SOUL and causes you to be a monster that can go crazy and kill people
>Somebody who's missing a less is leg is less human than somebody with one
>Bonus points if it isn't even a fantasy setting with magic and essence and stuff
The worst.

>>55306067
>Why adding elements to the game that exist solely to be useless?
Not to derail into whether or not to have gus on fantasy, but I included guns but made them prohibitively expensive to use to avoid having the widespread use of them change the setting.
His might not be as bad as what you described and I hardly advertise guns in the setting, but I included them because not including would have made less sense.

>>55306663
>Then why would you include great weapons at all?
>If you have horses, why would you include mules at all?
Karl Pilkington, is that you?

>>55301566
there was a mix, no where near your level of assumption, but still regional and divided by geographical barriers like hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, etc.
historically, highly diverse and multicultural regions not divided by strong geographical barriers have been epicenters of endless war, until one side genocides/rapes/expels the other into non-existence.

>>55294058
>And I don't care how far away it's been imported from an apple is not worth 5 gold pieces. Also a gold ingot that can be used to make 50 gold pieces should be worth 50 gold pieces. Not 500. Not 1000. Otherwise I could just melt 50 gold pieces down into a bar and sell it for ten or twenty times its weight in gold. Gold should only be worth ONE times its weight in gold otherwise the economy makes no sense. Why would putting gold into coin form devalue it by a factor if ten or more? Why would anyone do that?
This shit made me laugh way too hard.

>>55313004
>pushes the sheath up

That would make it worse. They should just have made the sheaths magic or move them to the belt like in real life.

>>55309291
The one on the right. Obviously.

>>55299301
Valyrian steel isn't 50x stronger or lighter than steel, but it is superior, due to a superior method of forging. It's meant to represent Damascus steel, which really exists, and outperformed more commonly forged metals.

>>55301450
where the fuck?

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>>55292636
>>55293778
We have some illustration of shields being used in full plate armor. Knights in full armor in at least two separate pieces fought with warhammers and shields in what appeared to be a judicial duel on foot.

There's also plenty of evidence that partial-plate was accompanied by shields from time to time, need I bring up the Spaniards and their retarded steel Rodelos? Those guys weren't running in naked, and while we might stereotype them as being completely unarmored there's reason to believe that many of them were noblemen who wore full armor, as Cortez's records suggest. They might've had to take a lot of it off in the sweltering heat of the New World, but back in Europe? It's entirely believable that Rodeleros fought at times in partial-to-full plate.

It's hard to shake the modern idea of uniform troops from our minds, but in reality, a group of soldiers would almost never have identical equipment after the Roman era. Most of the time every man brought his own hardware, produced in his own hometown, bought with his own money. We all know the guy who puts a pair of bug-eyes on under his safety goggles, and then lowers his welding mask to TIG. That's the sort of guy who brings a hand-pavise with him despite wearing full plate. I'd say it's one out of ten welders, so probably one out of fifteen knights? TIG welders as basically the knights of welding, so I'd say it fits.

>thousand year technological stagnation

it's like testicular torsion

>>55313862
No no anon misspoke, he doesn't push it up, he tilts it forward

>>55294518
I did a Numenera game where they found an old Eva-style mech and had to unite the realm against an evil secret society that ruled the major trade cities to spot them from inacting Instrumentality. In the end they led a band of barbarian mechanics against the secret societies robot army while piloting an Eva mech. I think numenera really comes down to how well you as a DM use the tools they give you not vice versa.

Gambesons being worse than leather armour

>>55301551
You know that is like a 20lbs bow, right?

>>55301713
There were crossbows with up to 900kg draw weights

>>55292636
the first, bow things,are common concept if you played korean's mmorpg.

>>55313099
I think this is a direct effect of everyone writing cybernetics in games after watching Robocop.
Utterly forgetting the reason why Murphy acted like a machine and was a slave to The Man - he had his MEMORY erased and replaced with programming. The moment he regains even bits of his memory, he's back to his human acts.
But bunch of stupid cunts decided that cybernetics needs obligatory disadvantages, because.

>>55313641
Making them expensive means you just need to work for them.
Making them more likely to explode in your face than fire at all and utterly useless in almost all imaginable circumstances means you shouldn't be having those guns at all in the first place.

>>55309751
Not exactly. I mean it IS a factor, but not as much as you might think - with proper skill, you can greatly extending the range of your bow. Kind of how snipers fire a meter or two above the target and then it hits said target.

Granted, it will extend your range from 80 meters to 95 meters, but you don't need a "better bow" for that.

>>55312078
>Tldr; modern applications of thought to what was required in ancient bowmen are silly
And nobody does that.
The point of the post was explaining why it's strenght that should count, not dexterity. It's not about some retarded archer ubermensch meme.

>>55312272
Hi, Lindy.
Bye, Lindy.

>>55314232
I'm not sure why you've listed me to the comment.

>>55314310
Thousand year can get a pass in certain specific circumstances.
But there is gorillion of settings where everything is stuck in quasi-High Medieval period for fucking millenias.

>>55315455
He has shot with bows strong enough to pierce basic mail while doing it.
Against unarmoured targets that would be more than enough.

People being so autistic they do not understand that you can shoot a bow "normally" for range range targets, and shoot like him on horseback while circling a target, or on foot when enemies starting getting too close.

>>55312272

Yes you can. Don't be autistic, you do realize the sheath is only strapped at the top, you can just grab the sword grip, tilt it and draw it. Its not glued to his arse
Right? Right?

>>55315765
Yeah, I also don't get why this gets so much hate, maybe because it was a bit spammed when it first come up. But some people seem to think that artillery-like longbow shooting was the only archery done in history, forgetting that the archery our characters on the table are doing is completely different from battlefield archery. I would even say that it makes more sense for an adventurer to run around with a shortbow than with a longbow, but someone will probably reply with "but how is it supposed to penetrate plate armor?"

>>55294058
Funny post but 2 nonsensical things.
Bow damage should scale off dexterity, its how well you can aim and maneuver the bow during a fight. archers arent stationary snipers, they have to move and sometimes shoot while doing so. Being able to aim will impact damage, an arrow to an arm hurts but wont kill you.

Swords didn't weight 7 pounds, much less 15... most are under 5. 1-2 kilos is normal weight, not 3. Even Zweihanders weight about 2.5 kilos.
Dont bitch about wrong weights then provide wrong weights!

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>>55315858
>I'm retareded
>I also think every game is as retarded as D&D
I guess it's seriously about the time to post this image

>>55312078
Except that the English were required to train with their bows every Sunday after church. So boot camp was a life long thing.

>Magical weapon designed to kill large creatures
>It's a fucking one handed sword

>Being forced to roleplay something my character is good at but I know nothing about
>Penalties for check, sometimes auto failing something I couldn't possibly have realized before

>>55315943
>>Penalties for check, sometimes auto failing something I couldn't possibly have realized before
I don't understand the last bit, please elaborate

Also
>Being forced to roleplay something my character is good at but I know nothing about
If your GM is not providing you with proper cues, especially when it's things like verse's lore and things related with the craft your character is familiar with (doesn't matter if it's tool-making, magic or slave trade) is entirely the fault of shitty GMing and lack of preparation.

>>55314310

>no understanding that technological progress is exponential and for many centuries things did not change very much

Look at egypt, thousands of years of existence, technology barely changed. They had jumps when a new method or material was discovered but rapidly stagnated again for another hundreds/thousand years, just to have another jump.

If you are in a primitive setting, say stoneage, it can go by 50k years without any technological innovation. sapien sapiens has existed for at least 300.000 years, you can gauge about 4k of those as technologically meaningful.

>>55315965
I'm an alchemist. I explain that I'm conversing with another alchemist who's making a potion, asking him what the potion is and such. I end up having to roll a diplomacy check with a -5, and fail, causing the alchemist making the potion to fumble and cause an explosion, killing him instantly. No, no reflex (because I was talking, see!) and I'm damaged.

Another instance: I'm a wizard. I don't explain that I'm using a certain ingredient for my spell. Auto fail, lose the spell for the day. I only play silent, determined fighters because it's the only way I'm not getting shafted.

>>55315880
Dude is bitching about bows scaling off dex. It does need a baseline str to shoot, and if you can use higher draw weights it will affect it ofc, but dex is also part of it.

it has nothing to do with D&D, take your pills and go to bed Bob, your autism is not funny.

>>55315994
Not him, but you are missing his point in a clear and elaborate way.

Saying that Egyptian technology didn't change is ignorant, rather than proving your point. The reason of their "stagnation" was threefold:
- lack of ANY resources other than food
- being the prime case of "late Bronze collapse" (even if the theory as a whole is nowdays debunked, it still DOES hold for Crete and Egypt)
- being in a state of utter chaos and anarchy for 1200 years
But saying Egypt didn't change from pre-Dynastic times to said collapse is just you acting dumb on purpose.

If you have a "typical" quasi-High Medieval setting in your fantasy world that does have access to pretty widespread education, printing press, functional fucking magic and repositories of knowledge from ancient times "widely" accessable to scholars and yet technology didn't budge an inch for past not just 1000, but 200 years - the setting is fucked up beyond any repair.

>>55316054
>Nothing to do with D&D
>Dex is used for firing a bow
You know it's only a D&D and its clones thing... right?

>>55316032
>My GM is shit and I don't dropped him yet
And you fucking should. Seriously, who the fuck forces players to make checks like that?!

>>55316064
True what you say is the case, im merely pointing out a case where it might not happen.

In your example yes, it is retarded, unless there is some sensible reason to explain it, such as brutal enforcement of it. Think neoconfusian china and how it affected them.

>>55316090
But I have no one else to play with

>>55316131
>Think neoconfusian china and how it affected them.
... it gave them Song dynasty jump in technology, literally the opposite of what you want to claim here.

>>55316137
Take turns as GMs for the group. You know, each scenario is run by another player. This way you can figure out who's the best at this shit, everyone is always engaged in the game and it's simply more interesting when you are having a close-circle group.
You just can't go wrong with taking turns in GMing, even if people might feel thrown away initially by this idea.

>>55315670
>just need to work for them
This is how I run it.

>Making them more likely to explode in your face than fire at all and utterly useless in almost all imaginable circumstances
This is how I would run amateur improvised explosives, maybe.

>>55316032
>roll a diplomacy check
wrong check

>with a -5
Excessive disadvantage

>causing the alchemist making the potion to fumble
Excessive reaction

>cause an explosion
Further excessive reaction

>killing him instantly
Probable fiat result

>damage with no reflex due to talking
Excessive disadvantage

Please inform your GM that an anonymous strsnger on the internet thinks he is an idiot.
Even if the other alchemist was mixing something that was so sensitive that the mere presence of you speaking to him might distract him and cause his explosive death, you, being a trained alchemist aware of the danger, would have stood back and hesitated.
If a guy is extracting nitroglycerin from sweating dynamite, you don't chat him up.
That's ignorant barbarian behavior.
This would have involved several critical failures on several skill checks, which shouldn't even be a thing.

>Another instance: I'm a wizard. I don't explain that I'm using a certain ingredient for my spell. Auto fail, lose the spell for the day.
I can actually imagine a scenario where this isn't impossible, if the ingredient is special and limited and the rules were explained beforehand.
But based on the other example, I'd guess that has about a 0% chance of being what happened.

>>55316137
No game > bad game

Alternatively, talk to the GM directly about your concerns in a mature, reasoned manner.
And if he spergs, kick him in the nuts for me.

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>>55312272

>>55292636
>Bows being fired like machine guns and doing crazy trick shot shit

I used to think the same but it turns out that this is actually possible. It just requires a lot of talent and constant training.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk

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>>55320630
>Lars Andersen

>>55320630
... and extremely underpowered, modern sport bow.
Pro-tip: that thing is useless and that guy is a go-to faggot that every "but muh Legolas" cunt posts.

If not the shitty net, I'd post you a great webm summing up what this guy does, but since I can't, let's just quote said webm:
"If you want to do that (beat) join circus"

>>55320630
It also requires a bow with a draw weight so low it isn't useful for anything but this. Lars shoots a bow with a 25 pound draw weight - not much harder than a bow meant for a child.

It's all trick shooting, it's entertaining, it's a very skillful thing to be able to do, but it's not combat oriented at all

>>55320630
That is a sport 25 pounds draw weight weight. Since you apparently not into archery, here is a comparison:
A toy bow for your kid that is going to be made from PCV pipe and a laundry string is going to have 25-30 pounds of draw weight. And will be still a relatively harmless toy, unless someone accidently pokes an eye.

So every time someone posts Lars as an example of "fast archery" or "ebin tricks", it's clear they don't understand a bow useful for such shooting is utterly useless in fucking small game hunting, not to mention trying to kill a human being.

>>55292636
There are people with godlike magical abilities, but everyone with political power is a Fighter.

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>>55292636
Not necessarily a story/setting thing, but it's a trope that happens in a lot of games.

>The good guy authority figure (king, ruler, or what have you) is loved but completely incompetent, he relies on the PCs for everything despite having a ton of influence and other resources
>The bad guy (cultist, warlord, ect.) can get everything he needs done on his own or with his minions and does so without much resistance barring the PCs, even though compared to the good guy he has much less influence and resources

I like when people other than the main antagonist have their own agency as well. I hate when they just sit there and do nothing while the PCs attempt to solve every problem ever. I get not wanting to steal the spotlight from the PCs, but man, it makes their allies look like such shit when they don't even attempt to do anything except brood in their throne room and dole out another quest.

>>55323040
Pro-tip:
Don't play shitty vanilla settings and edgy homebrews

>>55295153
Sounds like my campaign. Shinshi has travelled from across the seas

>>55297280
>Setting is explicitly European Medieval Fantasy, clear cut
>Random samurai references and gear out of nowhere

>Realismfags getting in a tizzy about 'muh verisimilitude' in a fantasy game

>>55326593
>People claiming "it's fantasy" to excuse absolutely everything

>elves, dwarfs, ogres, fairies, halflings and giants all look like some variation of caucasians
>other races looking anything like human ethnicities
>orks have massive gorilla arms, are far more durable than humans, spend their whole lives fighting yet need to outnumber the enemy to have a chance
>horde factions coming from barren wastelands that clearly can't support their populations
>vast tracks of land being nothing but spiky/volcanic/mountainous wasteland
>northern barbarians being nearly naked
>architecture not being designed with any counters to all the giant monsters and flyers in the setting
>battle magic being far more common than utility and logistical magic like growing crops next to the battlefield, altering the weather, purifying water, etc.
> human societies looking and acting exactly like real world ones and not like those that developed alongside fantasy creatures and magic
>humans managing to control all the most desirable lands instead of being ousted by races like orcs and ogres

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>>55320096
Claymores were never worn in scabbards, they were carried in a handheld sheath that was just dropped when the battle started and collected after it ended

>>55292636
>ultralarge or infinite scale, multiverses
It's just paving the way for powerlevel wank. Always a portal waiting to leave all consequences of previous actions behind. Scale is so large that nothing changes anything in the grander scheme. Muh setting contains everything ever hyper kitchensink.
>monothematic characters
hotheaded fire genasi pyromancer pyromaniac, wearing only red fire themed clothes, liking spicy food
>game contains evil deities in pantheon, but the threat to the world absolutely has to be another extra Cthulhu

>>55298857
>>Ancient evil tentacle monster corruption
>Bonus points if the game calls itself "Lovecraftian" because the monsters have tentacles.

Fucking disgraceful

>>55302560
Are there actual non-morlocks who enjoy Cthulhutech?

>>55328720
Actually I can tolerate them using another cthulhu if they can do something creative with it, and also highlight the alien other-ness of it. Like actually play it as an uncaring, all powerful entity, not a damn saturday morning cartoon villain

itt: the setting for pathfinder

>>55329918

>>55292636
Trick shots with bows are a thing, anon.

>>55297207
Citation, please.

>>55312057
Ok so it weighs about 150 Newtons on Earth, your point is?

>>55329833
I'm still baffled as to how you could possibly fuck up the base concept of Cthulhutech.
>Yeah the Mythos is attacking Earth so we build not-Eva's to beat the shit out of them
How do you end up with the mess that Cthulhutech was out of that?

>>55294541
Hey. Guess what. Gold is notoriously difficult to alloy and the gold coins are never depicted as bimetallic coins. The treasury would lose money by wasting the effort and the extra metal to make coins out of Something besides gold. In an era where hand labor was the only way to excavate, pricess, refine, alloy, and smith metals there is no way anyone would bother with bimetallic coinage when it would much MUCH easier to simply make small gold or silver coinage.

Artificial currency is a very modern invention. As recently as the twentieth century, even paper currency were only bills of ownership to a certain weight of gold. A medieval style feudal society based heavily on Europe would decidedly not be allowing an iron coin to stand in for gold.

>Setting has cool Cyberware
>The Cyberware makes you go insane.
Yeah CP2020, I got 20-10 vision and a replacement leg, I sure do want to go on a murder spree now.

>>55315511
Yes, and? Do you think people cocked crossbows by pulling with their hands? Goat's foot, winch, etc. were invented for a reason.

>>55294541
There would be paper money at the point of time that coins are not pure metal
I add one - you can tell if something like Dragons are good/evil by skin color

>>55294659
>>Nobody tries to use it for anything at all aside weaponising it
Yes and the fact many systems go out of its way to keep magic as a weapon only due to a handful of GMs that can not see what a world base on the game rules would look like.

>>55332230
The reverse point is equally shit, combat magic is garbage compared to utility and debuffing type magic.
>tfw you want to play a blaster mage in D&D or Shadowrun but you also don't want to be useless.

>>55300975
I see this with game rules all the time. This weapon and armor set is clearly better than all other in the system. Why is anyone using anything else? Why have a list taken up one or more pages of cheep armor/weapons/ships that no one would use. In D&D 5e . I can not see why anyone would would wear leather armor. The next up cost about the same and is better.

>>55332282
I agree to that - GRUPs magic comes to mind. Oh I still casting that fireball. I hope all those range weapons guys that always go before me(by the rules) do not hit me and I auto lose/can't cast the spell in combat.

>>55332345
Shitty armor is meant for mooks so the players don't loot them off their corpses.

>>55297179
Holy fuck, bread is $0.85 here.

>>55332016
Does Cyberpunk have a reason for it like Shadowrun does?

Realism fags are an absolute cancer.

The purpose of having balanced rules, multiple weapon types, armor sets, and games with no set 'best' option is to allow many characters and players to do what they want and still contribute. The party has 4 fighters; a barely clothed barbarian with two axes, a heavily armored knight with flail, a medium armored spearman, and a rapier-using duelist wearing nothing but a noble's cloth. This is how you make a party fit for roleplaying, not some autistic faggot screaming NO THEY SHOULD ALL BE USING PLATEMAIL AND HALBERDS REEE

If someone wants to play a dexterous elf who slides down a banister unleashing a barrage of arrows at orcs which is both fun, exciting, useful, and in line with fantasy literature and tropes you would tell them no, because their arm has to be swollen with muscles to even pull the drawstring, so edgy wow, so realistic.

Fuck you people. Fuck "realism". Realism is not interesting, not fun, and doesn't allow for roleplaying. High fantasy action adventure is about high fantasy action, not muh steel on steel scraping mud wrestling simulator.

Kill yourself.

>>55333260
you know that it depends entirely on the group and what they want and that there is a way to overdo it in both directions.

>>55333286
>:
I believe what he means is that realism should not get in the way of creativity and fun, the way it often does on the internet.

>>55328084
>>battle magic being far more common than utility and logistical magic like growing crops next to the battlefield, altering the weather, purifying water, etc.
0D&D had a fuckload of utility spells.
Guess what.

>>55328720
>multiverses
How about it being the whole point of the setting?
Dunno, ever heard about Infinite Worlds? Where your JOB is to jump between verses on a dispatch missions from HQ.

The other two are annoying as fuck

>>55331886
... and are useless when trying to harm one, since the bow required for pulling all the tricks would have waaaay too low draw to cause "real" harm, not to mention being lethal

>>55332994
No, which is the biggest beef everyone has against CP2020. It does make sense in case of really extensive cybernetics, but it's just silly how a replaced limb or - which is probably the biggest bullshit - few entry-level cybernetics combined together have a value equal to being half-machine.
Your average techie is one step away from mass murdering everyone due to having so many ports and CPUs put into his body to perform his fucking job.

>>55333260
Not a realismfag, but if your ruleset seriously tries to pull "balance", then you have failed the whole point of having diverse characters from the get-go.

Balance is even bigger cancer than oppressive realism.

>>55333442
Balancefag here.

I'm pretty sure you just don't understand what balance means.

>>55333416
Wow, that sucks. Do they even try to come up with an explanation like the electrical impulses the cyberware gives back to the brain are harder to process which slowly and gradually fucks with the cybered up schmucks mind?

>>55333442
Anon, do you know what balance means in ttrpgs?

>>55333442

What are you even trying to say? That's objectively inferior trap options are good because otherwise it 'defeats the point' of having a choice? Literally 3.PF ivory tower game design shit.

>>55333469
There IS an excuse, but while drafting the system, they apparently never checked the values of summed up cybernetics, rather focusing on them as separate elements.
So the entire thing is handwaved that you are less and less human in purely organic sense and there is less and less normal stimuli received in normal, animalistic way and more and more data fed to your brain by sensors.
The mechanics themselves were created to prevent people from going Robocop or beyond, BUT since they never checked values (because there is no other logical excuse or explaination for the company making the game), it turns out that picking techie as your class puts you literally one step from being a psycho.

>>55333464
>>55333475
I don't give a fuck what balance means for you. Balance as a game design choice is a retarded desire to apply mechanical drawbacks and downsides to things that would otherwise would be "too strong", rather than finding real dampeners.
And that's bullshit.

>>55333478
What? Never in my life played D&D or clones, so I literally have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.

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>>55332004
>Artificial currency is a very modern invention.
Dude.

>>55333521
So you don't, then.

>>55292636
Elves. Elves used in settings that are not Tolkin-like ripoffs without some kind of damn good explanation.

>>55333521
To elaborate, let's take the go-to case of "game balance":
Guns

For whatever reason this is a really iffy issues in most of the "classic" fantasy games, so there are generally two ways of dealing with guns as a weapon class in games
1) Making them expensive/rising skill requirements/making them rare/finding a reason to make ammo rare in-universe/etc
2) Making them so fucking unreliable that nobody will want to touch them.
This was invoked few times in this very thread already, so just scroll up.

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>>55332004
There is a threshold, which, once crossed, marks you as utter idiot and uneducated scrub no matter if you are pretending or for real.
You've passed that threshold in first sentence.

>>55333556
That is more a consequence of people insisting that because they are guns, they MUST be stronger than all other ranged methods.
The amusing thing is that in modern games where guns are ubiquitous, archery is still presented as viable, if not as convenient, often bringing it's own advantages.
Your complaint is the devs doing a shit job, not with balance as a mechanical design.

>>55332004
I've got a clue for you:
Educate your stupid ass. Because the amount of bullshit crammed into your posts would require to make a pastebin dump to even try to approach it, that's how stupid this shit is.

Jesus, do you even know ANYTHING about history, economy or history of economy?

>>55333580
>That is more a consequence of game designers assuming out of the blue people will insist guns MUST be stronger than all other ranged methods
Not him, but ftfy

>>55333580
Then please sincerely enlighten me what "balance" is then, because apparently I'm not following the "balance-realism" axis properly.

>>55333597
You can go to specific game forums where this is the common attitude of the fanbase, anon.
It's as common as magic being almighty because it's magic for it's own sake.

>>55333613
Balance is the process of making character options have parity for similar investment.
A 1000xp pc has equal world influencing ability to another 1000xp pc, if in different ways. This requires the devs to understand the system, have few mathematical outliers, and keep in mind the power and application of what they are writing. A fair few do it very poorly.

>>55333260
>implying true realismfags play d&d tier ttrpgs when the game is about realism

Shit, if i want to play a tolkienesque setting or a conanesque pulpy one rest assured that i'm not gonna bother about realism for realism sake

But if i want to play an historically accurate setting then, yeah, i'm gonna go full autism power about details

>NPC/Background Lore wizards are capable of basically anything
>capable of creating eternally vigilant legions of undead minions, making gold from nothing, binding demons into swords, etc,
>highest level PC summoned minions last half a minute before crumbling to dust, alchemy becomes inert after a day, binding magic only works on the demon equivalent of a seahorse
Power discrepancies between what player characters are capable of achieving and what random jackoff NPCs can do piss me off.

>>55333613
Also, the gun example from above is a shit one, being based on Pathfinder, a system known for rife issues across the board, unless you care to point out another game where firearms are treated in the same manner.
Paizo expressly does not try to balance it's mechanical options at all, and have stated such.

>>55333686
Especially in regards to the permanence of magic and shit: that an ancient wizard apprentice was able to animate a statue a thousand years ago that still guards the guild hall to this day while my arch wizard can't create a golem without it fucking off a week later and turning into mud is bullshit.

>>55292636
>>Bows being fired like machine guns and doing crazy trick shot shit
Just bows not needing any strength is probably my biggest one.

>>55333667
Not him, but you know that this is not an issue in classless games... right?

>>55333700
>Only Pathfinder has shit rules for firearms
My sweet summer child...

>>55333736
>Bows being fired like machine guns and doing crazy trick shot shit
>Just bows not needing any strength is probably my biggest one.
Yeah, agreed. My preferred method is having DEX or whatever skill stat you have being for your roll, and then have bows have a STR requirement that correlates to their power. If you, as an archer, want to benefit from your STR stat, you need a bow that's appropriately sized.

The rapid fire and trick shot from the OP doesn't bother me that much. It's been demonstrated by reenactors that it's possible to do in performance situations, and it's cool. Plus, it's the cleanest avenue for a high level archer character to stay relevant in a party where everyone else is also getting ridiculous skills.

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>>55333469
Yes, there is, the guy's just salt incarnate.
From the book-
"In the 2000's, we call this cyberpsychosis; a mental disease in which the
addition of cybernetics causes an already unstable personality to fragment. At
first, the victim begins to relate more to machines than to humans. Soon, he
starts to ignore people - parents, friends, lovers. Eating, sleeping all become
less important. Finally, human interactions begin to irritate, culminating in a
terrifying rage that consumes the victim entirely"

People have already fixed the rules. just use Node16 reference book v5.0 rules on it.

>>55333777
>Not him, but you know that this is not an issue in classless games... right?
No that anon, but classless systems have their own set of (sometimes much worse) balance issues. The biggest appeal of a class system, for a developer, is that it's easy to balance.

>>55333777
>not an issue in classless games
>points to WoD
There is a reason I used xp, rather than levels.
And you haven't pointed out other games. I can think of a handful, but those games make it clear why they are poor weapons, and it isn't due to balancing, it's almost always historical.

>>55333781
I like how bows were approached in Twitcher. There is a bow that doesn't require Strenght.
You can barely hunt for pheasants with it. Meanwhile peasants will beat the shit out of you if you try to attack them with such "weapon".

>>55333793
>The biggest appeal of a class system, for a developer, is that it's easy to make
Ftfy

>>55333805
I didn't point to anything.
Or you are saying WoD is the only classless game you know?

>>55294058
>Bow damage scaling off dex when it should be str.

I'm not against STR requirements on using higher-range bows, but having shot a real life bow more than once, if you're rolling to hit, it's way more about your aim than it is about your strength.

>I am strong, therefore I can correctly judge distance and angle correctly

>>55333805
>WoD
>classless
'Segregate your character options down a flowchart of clan, philosophy, and origin, or some equivalent, with the majority of your character traits being determined by predesigned templates.'

>>55333815
Oh, and shooting all sort of ranged weapons (along with throwing) is done with your Perception, not fucking Dexterity.

>>55333828
This.

Anyone ever played Hero system? That's a true classless that I really never found anything too broken in

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>>55300170
>And who the fuck is going to lift and then carry a pavaise in size of a door?!
A dude who attained maximum strength. Because he can.

>>55333825
No, but it's a well known example, as is FFG's 40k series, Shadowrun, West End's Star Wars, FATAL, Paranoia, etc.
You can stop trying to flash your nerd card on an anonymous image board now.
>>55333828
>I'm going to redefine terms because I keep getting btfo'd
Anything else before I go to bed?

>>55333896
>a system that literally has you pick a discipline of magic to specialize in/a type of alchemy to practice/what what linear progression you want your build-a-beast workshop reject to follow
>classless
In that case DnD is classless because prestige classes let any character do anything

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>>55333828
Are you actually trying to argue a game that does not have predetermined choices for a pc locked behind experience walls isn't classless because it has a theme the mechanics are based around?
What kinda faggot are you?

>>55333940
G'night, anon. Hope you had fun.

>>55333896
But he's right you know?

Sure there's xp and more variance with how your character progresses but it doesn't mean it's a classless system.

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>>55333954

>>55320754
>>55320959
>>55321800
So, yes, Lars is using a sport bow, and no, you can't be Legolas in a realistic combat scenario. I think we all agree on that. HOWEVER, that video does make a few good points.

#1: Back quivers are fine for travel, but not combat. Unless firing repeatedly from a stationary position, you're going to be carrying your extra arrows in your off hand.

#2: You can actually shoot pretty quickly, even with a heavy draw. English longbowmen were notorious for their high rate of fire.

#3: Throw out movie logic, and look at actual historical information.

So, while all the trick shooting is exactly that, they make a lot of good points. There's also a section at the end where he demonstrates that the technique works with a full size bow.

>>55333992
t. Unintentional Reddit Spacing Guy

>>55333941
>no exp walls
>minimum magic-level equivalent for spells and talents, unable to go above one at character creation, path you pick determines what magic you're ALLOWED to learn
Free and Open Ended!

>>55333992
It's easier to have very extreme opinions and automatically reject anything. I have no idea why people have such problems realizing that this is what rapid shot would look like, while not going full reee muh realism.

>>55334014
I'm not following this stupid conversation, but if you are talking about WoD Mage, you can learn all 10 paths, just like vampires can learn all disciplines, even clan ones, usually via roleplay requirements (learning them from a practitioner).

Why are you intentionally misrepresenting the game?

>>55334066
And scrolling up, I find this gem:

>>55333940
>prestige classes let any character do anything

Who actually says this?

>>55292636
>big clunky plates several inches thick
>huge pauldrons, usually with spikes and horns and shit for some godawful reason
>excessively thick/oversized weapons
>two-headed lumber axes being used as weapons by people who aren't desperate peasants who chop wood for a living
>any "stealthy" character who has one or more things on them that actively fucking glow
>daggers as primary weapons
>characters who have musculature based on disfigured body builder aesthetics instead of working strong man aesthetics

>>55333260
>The party has 4 fighters; a barely clothed barbarian with two axes, a heavily armored knight with flail, a medium armored spearman, and a rapier-using duelist wearing nothing but a noble's cloth.
The thing is, no system I've seen manages to balance it as to achieve something like this. You have light vs. heavy armor, and then you can force certain classes into medium armor as the shitty heavy armor by barring them from using heavy, but in e.g. 5e which is the largest game ATM, you use plate or studded leather if you have all proficiencies. And proficiencies do not vary within classes except for a few cases,

If you manage to make armor balanced and for there to be tradeoffs with using each one, so you have to actually make a choice between chain, plate, scale, half plate, leather, furs, whatever else, then that's great. But sacrificing fluff for balance, and then not achieving any notable balance, is worse than paying less attention to balance accepting that it's not going to be balanced anyway.

>>55334066
Not him but do roleplay requirments really count? That's basically DM intervention. And really it's not the same as an actual classless system. At the start of the game you choose between like what, 4 types of wizards who each know two styles? Or vampires that know 3 disciplines? It sure isn't Hero or FATE or GURPS or D6 system or anything close to classless.

Even the supposed vampire "classless class" is very limited (the thin blood one) by being the absolute shittiest choice of the bunch, and being restricted from a bunch of good traits and essentially xp as well as limited disciplines. Calling WoD "classless" seems so silly to me, you literally start off your character creation by picking your stats, bloodline that determines your playstyle and how you approach problems and skills. How is that any different than D&D? At character creation, sure you're not AS limited as in D&D where you can end up having literally 0 choices. But it's still not a TRUE classless system, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, I like the differences between the clans and shit like that, and WoD, for that matter, but I recognize it for what it is.

>>55328084
>orks have massive gorilla arms, are far more durable than humans, spend their whole lives fighting yet need to outnumber the enemy to have a chance
This is why I liked the Eye of the World. The Trollocks were fucking terrifying. Stronger than a man to the point even a man at arms has trouble dealing with ONE and they're fast enough that even being on a horse does not guarantee you get away. But later in the season they are just standard dumb orks that can be killed by the scores by a bunch of sheep herders with mallets.

>>55294144
Sounds like Might and Magic series.

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>>55333941
>I have no idea what a classless game looks like: The Post
>The only games other than D&D I know are those from White Wolf: The Post

>>55333827
>I'm dexterious, which somehow affects my perception and build-up skills related entirely with muscle power.
Also, last time I've checked, the STR argument was about using it to see if you can shot given bow and/or calculate bonus damage, not replace roll, you fucking idiot.
Why people playing D&D are so fucking obsute when things go in different direction than "muh tradition"?!

>>55333408
Probably true. But they're cool, even if not a good idea for combat.

>>55299308
Get better tastes.

>>55316072
In GURPS, Dexterity covers nearly all physical skills, while Strength figures the damage dealt. Though Bows and Crossbows have what is called a "rated Strength" which is a simplification of things like draw weight, and acts as Strength for figuring damage and range.

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>plate armor used with shields

Loser.

>>55333686
>>55333732
It's just the difference between magic being used as a game mechanic with clear rules and magic being used as a plot device to justify whatever the DM feels like having around.

>>55297862
Goddamn that is the smuggest fucking Hun ever.

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>>55301557
Get better tastes immediately. Lrn2dagstuff

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>>55301595
Get the fuck out of tue hobby if you are going to do it wrong and then reeee about it to people who know what's up. Niqqa.

>>55292636
Any nation or setting that has races, like elves and humans, coexisting alongside each other that completely skips over what the fuck happens to the inevitable rise in hybrids between the two. If you go from an angle that they're rare, due to cultural taboo, sure I'm fine with that, or that they're unable to reproduce, sure. But it bothers me when there's no effort to explain why such a nation hasn't just become its own race of hybrids. Sort of like TES bretons. Tes is alright with this by explaining the race of the mother is dominant enough that they're basically just the mothers race with some traits of the father.

>>55340464
He probably was talking about full plate.

>>55331922
>Citation
#1, From The Silmarillion, chapter 10, Of the Sindar:

>But the victory of the Elves was dear-bought. For those of Ossiriand were light-armed, and no match for the Orcs, who were shod with iron and iron-shielded and bore great spears with broad blades; and Denethor was cut off and surrounded upon the hill of Amon Ereb. There he fell and all his nearest kin about him, before the host of Thingol could come to his aid. Bitterly though his fall was avenged, when Thingol came upon the rear of the Orcs and slew them in heaps, his people lamented him ever after and took no king again. After the battle, some returned to Ossiriand, and their tidings filled the remnant of their people with great fear, so that therafter they came never forth in open war, but kept themselves by wariness and secrecy; they were called the Laiquendi, the Green-elves, because of their raiment of the colour of leaves.

Citation #2
Unfinished Tales, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Appendix B, the Sindarin princes of the Silvan Elves

>The Silvan elves were hardy and valiant, but ill-equipped with armour or weapons in comparison with the Eldar of the West; also they were independent, and not disposed to place themselves under the supreme command of Gil-Galad. Their losses were thus more grrievous htan they need have been, even in that terrible war. Malgalad and more than half his following perished in the great battle of Dagorlad, being cut off from the main host and driven into the Dead Marshes. Oropher was slain in the first assault upon Mordor, rushing forward at the head of his most doughty warriors before Gil-Galad had given the signal for the advance. Thranduil his son survived, but when the war ended and Sauron was slain (as it seemed) he led back home barely a third of the army that had marched to war.

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>>55301660
You = wrong. Get over it lad and grow up a little bit.

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>>55301760
You are in the right.

>>55306731
(You)'er. Eat a dick, faglord.

>>55309291
The left one is the only correct answer. Anyone that disagrees has poor sense of aesthetic and should stfu.

>>55313968
OOOOOOOOOOOHHHG. Wrong answer.

The left one is the only correct answer. Anyone that disagrees has poor sense of aesthetic. Full stop.

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>>55313968
Naaah not seeing it.

>>55322859
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEtothatshit.gif

>>55333521
Hahahaha you're actually MAD! At a conversation about GAMES!
BWAHAHAHAHAHA

>>55340552
Which they used shields with as well to guard their horses ass.

>>55292636
>the legal system in cities still functions without issue even though mind control magic exists
If I were a lawyer in such a setting, I'd use this defense at every possible opportunity.

>>55333964
Wh-Which one is the fucking quest hook???

>>55341547
All of them, Anon.