not a d&d hate post

>>55418153
It has some jarring problems that rub some people the wrong way is all. 1d4chan.org has more, shoo shoo.

>>55418303
What, are we just not supposed to discuss it at all around here?

>>55418153
Because of the effect it has on the hobby as a whole.
3.5 and 5e are not only garbage, they're popular garbage. If they were only garbage, nobody would pay them much mind. But at present, D&D is still THE RPG, the one with the most marketing, the one that potential players have already heard of and that they're most likely come into contact with first. And in doing so, they are taught that all RPGs are inelegant and unfocused messes of rules that are a chore to learn and to play if you don't modify them. So most of them will never give any other RPGs the time of day, because surely they must be as unpleasant to learn and get to work as their first system.

>>55418356
what was the first RPG you played?

>>55418153
Because somewhere in the neighborhood of 2/3 to 3/4 of all the games played are D&D or its derivatives. So it's like a pop song that may be decent when you've only heard it a few times, but gets really fucking tiresome once you've heard it a hundred times. Also, because of how big it is, it gets used for basically everything, including a lot of shit it isn't built for or good at.

>>55418392
That's actually a really interesting point. I've never used it for anything other than mid-fantasy adventure type stuff, but it always annoys me when people talk about running, say, a sci-fi political game and someone just goes "oh, you should use 3.5e!"
I don't really get what you mean about it being tiresome though; I don't see why it would get old quicker than any other game.

It all comes down to how incredibly popular it is. It's basically the face of the hobby, it's got novels, comics, a cartoon series, even a movie with Jeremy Irons. It's what the average normalfag thinks of when you say RPG.
Fans of other systems resent it because their own games are eclipsed in the eyes of the general public.
Many feel that this popularity is undeserved, that the game is carried only by its cultural inertia and by WoTC having all of Hasbro's toy money to advertise and make their books all pretty. Some go one step beyond and accuse them of buying off commendations and awards (pointing for example at WoTC winning the Ennie for best company this year despite publishing pretty much nothing) and bribing Moderators on major RPG forums to silence all criticism with the pretense of curbing edition wars.
Some people have a beef with the fanbase, seeing them as fanatics that try cram the system down everyone's throat and use it for every kind of game and wouldn't try a different one even at gunpoint.
Some are just contarians hating on a popular thing.

>>55418371
3.5.
I managed to make the jump, but everyone else in my circle of friends, save for one, I had to drag out of the swap as one would a stubborn mule.

>>55418530
But surely you guys enjoyed playing 3.5, right? So why have you now renounced it?

>>55418459
>I don't really get what you mean about it being tiresome though; I don't see why it would get old quicker than any other game.
It's the difference between a song you've heard 200 times and one you've twice. It's not that D&D necessarily gets old quicker; it's that people get exposed to it much more, so they're further down the road to "tiresome".

>>55418153
But you posted one of the good versions, which really is anything that isn't 3.x.

>>55418371
Not >>55418356, but my first was Mentzer BECMI and I agree with much of what he says. For a long time the "Not 3.5; Not Interested" crowd ruled the roost for the reasons he mentioned. When I started the RPG crowd was much less calcified, everyone played multiple games and were willing to learn multiple games. During the d20 glut there was a large influx of players that would only play d20 based schlock. Getting a not d20 game became an exercise in futility. 4e's greatest accomplishment was breaking that block up and we've seen a revival of some systems, but Paizo is still pissing in the pool.

>>55418356
why is it garbage? bcz it seems like everyone who says that has a completely different and very specific reason and there isn't really a general consensus

>>55418371
>what was the first RPG you played?
AD&D 1e

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>>55418560
"D&D is total garbage and you're a retard if you play it" is a song I've heard a hundred times, and it started getting old after the second.

>>55418153
don't hate it. it's a gamist RPG which isnt my cup of tea. wha I don't like is that it represents just a part of roleplaying but is the only housebold name.

>>55418652
what's a 'gamist' rpg? legit haven't heard that before

>>55418551
Half of the group did. Less than half of the group did, now that I think about it.
Two of the original players left quickly after we started playing and of the remaining and new players, half of them just went through the motions because we were friends and they enjoyed the company more than the game.

Those of us who did enjoy it were the ones who enjoyed learning new things for the sake of learning new things and because we enjoyed coming up with crazy mechanical concepts that ended up not actually being fun to play.

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>>55418153
I think mostly because people expect it to do thing it were not meant to do.

You want gritty, realistic game? Don't play DnD.
You want over the top anime game? Don't play DnD.
You want political game? Don't play DnD.
You want to play horror game? Don't play DnD.
You want game, where magic is mysterious force out of our comprehension? Play anything but DnD.
...

You want play tactical miniature wargame with little RP? Go for DnD!

>>55418153
Contrarians. That is the big reason.

2nd largest, is because most groups only play a system, maybe two. And one of them is almost always D&D. Bitches got to whine when they can't get other games they want to play.

So in closing, because all /tg/ are whinny children.

>>55418153

I've played a bunch of games, as well as delved into DnD slightly, so I can at least answer why I don't like it.

1) The rulesystem is very 'gamey'. It feels like playing a board-game more than trying to play out a 'simulation of fictional heroics'. Nothing makes sense when scrutinized just one step beyond what's on the paper. Like the classic question, what is HP?

2) It feels VERY commercial. Now, all games are commercial, but DnD feels so corporate, clean and mishmashed. Whatever dark elements are there just feel edgy due to the general corporate-clean tone of the game

Can't think of more, the only positive thing I'll say for it is that due to its very long lifespan, there are a shit-ton of fluffed up possibilities, like different planes and stuff that allows for very 'epic' adventures with fantastical scenery.

But I've never been as bored with rpg's as when playing DnD honestly, Dark Heresy rivals it though. I really hate the rpg's that feel like they've taken inspiration from MMORPG's with gamey abilities that need to 'cool down' and so on.

>>55418459
>I don't see why it would get old quicker than any other game.
part of the hobby is:
a) trying different settings
b) trying different systems
it's like a wargamer who doesn't paint his own minis. can he be called a true wargamer if he doesn't? yes, he can. but he's still a wargamer who misses out on half the hobby.

I'm not going to try to force anyone into doing something they don't like but the whole thing seems so incredibly limiting. you just can't join in when other gamers talk about different games because all you know is D&D. you're not really part of the wider hobby.

and that's a shame from my pov.

>>55418392
Basically this. It's decent at what it's made for, but gets real old if all you ever hear about is D&D, especially when it's being used in place of a more fitting system. Pop song played to death is a very fitting analogy.

>>55418622
When any product dominates the market, expect it to get some criticism. There will be plenty of people who don't like the way it does things, shortcomings will become obvious through repeated exposures, and folks will complain about it on purely on grounds that the field needs more diversity. I personally think D&D has it's place, but its saturation shouldn't far exceed all other games combined. It's like if 2/3 of all songs ever played were off of the same Billy Joel album. I mean, Billy Joel is cool and all, but two thirds?

>>55418572
It's inelegant, unfocused, unwieldy and... duplicitous? Except replace intention with incompetence.

>>55418682
Some people think RPGs are supposed to be community theater and super serious story telling time, and they'll decry anything that reminds them that they're supposed to be having fun as "gamist," because god forbid they play a game and enjoy themselves for once.

>>55418715
I've been playing D&D without miniatures since I was 14, and though it hasn't always been perfect, I've had a heck of a lot of fun and gotten into a heck of a lot of other good RPGs as a result. I think that calling it a tactical wargame is a little bit of a reach.

>>55418459
>being tiresome
A lot of what >>55418560 said, with the exposure, combo'd with games honestly tiring out. The longer you play a game, the more obvious its flaws become. I grew up on 3.5, and by the time I left, I was absolutely sick of it due to its myriad flaws. Other games tire as well, but other games tend to be played more for the specific set of campaigns they were made for, and as such the cracks don't show as much. D&D is just very limited in what it can effectively run.

>>55418682
Look up GNS theory.

>>55418733
But it's okay as part of a healthy, balanced diet, right?

>>55418682

He probably means 'boardgamey'.

"Roll 2D6 for damage, you hit, apply 5 damage to HP, the end" is gamist as fuck. Abilities with arbitrary cooldowns are also gamist as fuck. Moving figures around a grid is extremely gamist.

Contrast with other games, the only example I know personally is the Swedish rpg Eon which has you hit, then it specifies where you hit, then it specifies damage, then it specifies if you damaged any organs/arteries etc. That's an attempt to be not gamey, but more try to simulate a fantasy world (this thinking extends to more than just combat).

Personally I feel that if you are going to play DnD, you might as well just save everybody the trouble and play a boardgame like Descent instead. Same shit but less work and pretense.

>>55418479
>Fans of other systems resent it because their own games are eclipsed in the eyes of the general public.
no, i don't think that's the problem. i don't think most people mind that it's the most popular game. the legacy of D&D is part of our hobby and I, for one, am incredibly sympathetic to D&D because of it - even though it's absolutely not my cup of tea.

the problem is that it's the only household name and if that's all normies ever learn about RPGing, they will get a very one-sided impression of the hobby. slash monsters, get loot, level up. there's worlds to be discovered beyond D&D, beyond fantasy, beyond common genres even.

>the game is carried only by its cultural inertia and by WoTC having all of Hasbro's toy money to advertise and make their books all pretty
while that is true, it wouldn't be much of a problem if the public was ALSO aware of CoC, Shadowrun and GURPS (or whatever you prefer).

>Some people have a beef with the fanbase, seeing them as fanatics that try cram the system down everyone's throat
while this is true, it's only part of the fanbase, undoubtedly incentivized by the singular standing of D&D - making the insufferable. there's only a handful of these assholes on /tg/. most other deendeefags are probably pretty normal.

>>55418715
>You want gritty, realistic game? Don't play DnD.
No disagreement. But there aren't a lot of really good systems that do gritty realism.
>You want over the top anime game? Don't play DnD.
Fucking good.
>You want political game? Don't play DnD.
What? Literally any system can introduce politics. No system does politic particularly well mechanically because good politics is the product of creative GM and Players interacting.
>You want to play horror game? Don't play DnD.
This is a lot like politics. There's nothing about DnD to preclude horror.
>You want game, where magic is mysterious force out of our comprehension? Play anything but DnD.
Of course this is true. But few systems do magic really well.

>>55418765

Or you can just stop being butthurt and try to understand what he means, which is obvious if you've played more games than just DnD.

It's a few contrarian idiots. Ignore them.

Or, laugh at their bullshit attempts to justify their hatred. This thread is filled with their insanity. It's always "this minor flaw ENRAGES me" or "everyone who plays it hates me, and it's not because I'm a contrarian idiot who can't emphasize with the majority of roleplayers, it must be the game they play's fault!"

>>55418153
Comic Sans

>>55418811
>they will get a very one-sided impression of the hobby. slash monsters, get loot, level up.

How, when that's not even true for D&D?

You idiots are your mental gymnastics, I swear.

>>55418820

Because it's just unthinkable that a lot of people don't like DnD, right? Or that a lot of people defend DnD just because it is their first and only rpg experience, right?

By your thinking Justin Bieber is the pinnacle of modern music, anyone who doesnt' like him is just a contrarian, I mean look at his success!

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>>55418777
>D&D is just very limited in what it can effectively run.
I think this is true, but I'd argue that it isn't, in and of itself, a flaw. D&D is built for a particular dungeon crawling and exploration niche. So it's a rather specialized tool. And that's great. Having a tool that's specialized for a task usually means it's better at that particular task. The problem comes when you're trying to use that specialized tool for fucking everything. D&D is a hex key that has gotten so famous that people are trying to use it to hammer in nails and shit.

>>55418572
>everyone who says that has a completely different and very specific reason

Because the consensus is that there are a whole lotta reasons. It doesn't know if it wants to be high or low magic, gamey or simulationist, and so it tries to be everything. The rules are a bloated mess that skip over some important things while drowning others in pointless minutiae. It clings for its life to sacred cows like attribute scores and alignment not because it makes the game mroe enjoyable but because if they removed them the collective autistic screeching of all neckbearded fanatics would drown out every other sound on the planet. Balance is an absolute joke and of the tons and tons of options only a handful aren't garbage or intentional traps.

>>55418813
>Politics
D&D is absolutely awful social mechanics. Pump Bluff, Sense Motive and/or Diplomacy high enough and you get absurd results. The Diplomancer was an infamous example, capable of making gods your best friends. Pretty sure 5e took the edge off those problems, but they're still simplistic and will crumple under actual play. That's before all the divinations and enchantments that mess with any sort of normal politics, unless you go full-blown tippyverse.

>Horror
Horror games are fundamentally about helplessness. D&D is about hacking, slashing and looting. Tonally, they're awful matches for one another. "If it has a stat block, it can be killed". Compare and contrast to an actual horror game like CoC.

>>55418811
>the problem is that it's the only household name and if that's all normies ever learn about RPGing, they will get a very one-sided impression of the hobby. slash monsters, get loot, level up. there's worlds to be discovered beyond D&D, beyond fantasy, beyond common genres even.

This is a nonsense statement. Of course D&D has its own flavor. But there's literally nothing stopping people from exploring other systems/genres. In fact, I would venture to guess that most of the participants of these other games started with D&D and, if they hadn't had that experience, they may have not played a RPG to begin with.

This argument absolutely is a "I wish my favorite game was more mainstream".

>while that is true, it wouldn't be much of a problem if the public was ALSO aware of CoC, Shadowrun and GURPS (or whatever you prefer).

So people who are interested in a different gaming experience move to those systems. But let's be honest with ourselves, the setting itself is more desired by players compared to a cyberpunk retro-futurism and lovecraftian horror. More people are going to go watch Lord of the Rings than they will go to watch Blade Runner.

I could be upset by it, but why waste my time.

>>55418886
I wasn't meaning to imply that D&D is abnormally narrow in its scope among non-generic systems, only that it is not immune to this issue, while many people use it for way more than it was meant for.

>>55418563
I'll echo this. Exact same situation I had. I just wanted to play Shadowrun or GURPS or something and it was damn near impossible to do so because everyone was obsessed with playing some d20 variant. Even had someone try to push a shit Shadowrun d20 on me when I suggested Shadowrun.

>>55418563
>During the d20 glut there was a large influx of players that would only play d20 based schlock. Getting a not d20 game became an exercise in futility
i would point out that it's probably just a US phenomenon. at least here in germany that was at no point the case.

>>55418682
there are more or less 3 main aspects of RPGing (and mechanics that cater to them). ever player has their own preferences when it comes to them.
they are gamism (being interested the game aspects of the hobby, sacrificing realism if necessary: optimizing character builds and munchkinism go here), simulationism (hard sci-fi RPGs stress this aspect for example or RPGs that try to emulate kung-fu flicks) and narrativism (creativity about emerging story, FATE's fate point mechanic is an often mentioned example).

D&D is a gamist/simulationist RPG by design, with priority given to gamism over simulationism in a number of key aspects - starting with classes in chargen.

>>55418813
I agree that DnD won't hinder politics and horror - but at the same time it won't help you.

>>55418813
>There's nothing about DnD to preclude horror.
Pathfinder: Horror Adventures and Ravenloft prove otherwise.

>>55418720
>Like the classic question, what is HP?
a mish-mash of luck and meatpoints. which presents a problem for simulationist types like you and me: you never know whether the HP loss you just incured means you got hit or you dodged, consuming some of your luck. gamists will not understand why it matters to us though.

>>55418795
why sure! i have been playing D&D 1 or 2 years ago last time. not my cup of tea, as mentioned but my friends are mostly gamists, so i am occasionally caught along the ride.

>>55418963

Exactly, and that is just... bad. It takes me out of the game immediately and just makes it a boardgame for me.

The troll hit me for 15 hp. Ok... so he obviously hit me with a tree-trunk or something, or did he? Why could I take that kind of punishment in the first place if he hit me, is this a wu-shian story or medieval fantasy? I just can't picture it. And if it is 'luck' or 'advantage in battle', why can a health potion fix anything if he actually missed me 'in game reality'? It's just... bad.

>>55418896
>D&D is absolutely awful social mechanics. Pump Bluff, Sense Motive and/or Diplomacy high enough and you get absurd results.

You're pissing in an ocean of piss. What system has good social mechanics? A discerning DM realizes that difficulty is situational. Yeah, you might be a master of intimidation. Yeah, you might be a terrifying force to reckon with among your average bandit troop. But intimidating the Prince in his own Court? You can roll. You'll fail. But you can roll.

>Horror games are fundamentally about helplessness. D&D is about hacking, slashing and looting. Tonally, they're awful matches for one another. "If it has a stat block, it can be killed". Compare and contrast to an actual horror game like CoC.

That's an awfully autistic way to reduce horror. Sure, Horror could be about helplesness. Horror might also be the unseen, the unknowable, the predator that hunts you, the unconscious fear. Good horror comes down to a receptive audience (willing to be scared) and a good storyteller who can pace, raise tension, choose tempo, etc.

Welcome to my D20 horror game. Oh, you want to know the stat block on this creature? You can't. Maybe the creature can't be killed. Maybe, you thought you killed it already. Maybe it killed something you thought couldn't be killed.

>>55418963
(Another simulationist here)
Injury poisons require HP damage to proc a save, and 100% of HP-damaging attacks with an injury poison applied will require that save, implying it made it to your bloodstream. Wouldn't that imply that all HP loss are actual hits, and in the case of slashing/piercing, draw blood?

>>55419009

It only makes sense if you view it as a board-game, you literally can't picture it or explain it 'realistically' without fucking diamond-platinum levels of mental gymnastics.

>>55418945
I hear this complaint and I don't disagree. D&D doesn't have excellent social mechanics.

Follow up question: what system does?

>>55418948
Bad examples of concept aren't proof that the concept can't be applied successfully.

>>55418963
HP is actually one of my few MAJOR complaints with the system. I split it into Grit/Flesh pools.

>>55419005
>A discerning DM realizes that difficulty is situational.
Sorry, but no, that's not how the rules work. You'd have to throw penalties twice the size of a d20 to make that work the way you want it to, and at that point you've now removed the ability for anyone who's not a hyperspecialized social bot to do anything worthwhile.

>>55418153
/tg/ is like /v/, in the sense that it hates popular games but shills obscure or old games as being the second coming of christ
sometimes they're right
usually they aren't

>>55419041
REIGN

>>55419055

In the modern era both /v/ and (probably) /tg/ are absolutely right though. Modern videogames re 99.9% shit due to hyperinflated budgets, 'cinematic storytelling' and other corporate bullshit that objectively makes the games worse than they were in the 90's.

>>55418856
>slash monsters, get loot, level up.
>not typical for D&D
ok

>>55418892
> It doesn't know if it wants to be high or low magic, gamey or simulationist, and so it tries to be everything.
if any game out there knows what it wants to be, it's fucking D and D. it is and will forever will be Pen & Paper Baldur's Gate. (ignore that the game came much later, it's only for illustrative purposes.)

>>55418906
>This argument absolutely is a "I wish my favorite game was more mainstream".
but i don't need CoC to be more mainstream by all means. i even mentioned GURPS even though I am not a GURPS fan. I could also have mentioned FATE because it's a very different play experience from D&D. or world of darkness. or 40K roleplaying (although it's more close to D&D in style than the others mentioned). i really don't care which games. let CoC be obscure by all means and let some other games that play differently from D&D and are set in different genres arise.

>More people are going to go watch Lord of the Rings than they will go to watch Blade Runner.
Yeah, this makes no sense. The people who watched LotR in cinema aren't just watching fantasy movies after all. People do want variety.

I'll give you one reason why peopel stick to fantasy: a fair number of GMs who have run fantasy are intimidated by running a nodern campaign in a more setting, likely a huge city, because the additional complexity is intimidating at first.

>>55418865
A lot of people don't like a lot of games. D&D just gets people voicing their hate because of you being both an idiot and a contrarian.

Understand? It's not because the game is actually bad, but because you are stupid enough to enjoy being an idiot and wasting your time complaining about a game that is only increasing in market dominance as each day passes despite all your best effort.

You'd be better off talking about games you do like, but you're way too busy with your hate fueled crusade, telling lies that anyone who's played or will get a chance to play D&D will summarily dismiss, undoing all your efforts.

Want to prove me wrong? Don't reply.

>>55419119
>no CoDzilla is totally a lie that never happened trust me guys

>>55419119

This is /tg/, complaining is 50% of what this board is built on. It is not being a contrarian when you have legitimate complaints. I don't give a shit if DnD gets a triple marketshare of what it has now, the game is still as shit.

Also, you are also telling lies and fueled by hate, also you are a pre-op transexual, oh, want to prove me wrong? Then don't reply :^)

>>55419009
well, hit points are a legacy mechanic. you must realize that a few years before D&D (well, chainmail) was conceived there was no hit points even in wargames. the only game that had something like hitpoints was a naval wargame. but if you want fantasy heroes in a fantasy wargame, they need to be able to withstand more than one hit and so hit points were born and then transferred to D&D.

so it was the first mechanic to model elite units/characters. it's a simple way to do so as well and has found its way into countless video games with their health bar.

in 1974 i would have called it a simulationist mechanic. but in 2017? not really.

>>55419157

The problem is that people defend things like HP without understanding the nature of the complaint, like mr 'Dont reply' above.

>>55418963
>gamists will not understand why it matters to us though.
I think it is more that they don't care

>>55418917
But Shadowrun is pretty shit too.

>>55419213
shadowrun is fucking garbage

It's a subpar game that dominates the hobby because of legacry rather than merit.

>>55419183
yeah, i know the dude. he always shows up in these threads, he's kinda paranoid. he has accused me a couple times of creating D&D hate threads although i don't hate D&D and have never created a D&D thread in my life.

although his paranoia is probably feigned for the sake of dishing out against anyone who dares to criticize D&D.

>>55419213
Yeah, but I wanted to play Shadowrun and deal with Shadowrun's problems, not play yet another d20 game that had the exact same issues as 3.5 with new ones piled on top because of shitty, lazy devs.

>>55419009
Saves are just as much an abstraction as hit points. Why should you be making a saving throw to resist the sting of a tarantula hawk? The human reaction to being stung by one is pretty universal and pretty well documented. So the save itself can only be assumed to likewise incorporate an element of luck.

The big mistake with saves was adding an ability modifier to it, because it becomes impossible to accept as such an abstraction.

>>55419228
I'd laugh if it turned out that he was actually someone on the dev team at one point like SKR. He does post like him.

>>55418392

This. Familiarity breeds contempt.

One factor in this is the lowest common denominator effect, where everybody wants to play a different system, but you can't agree on which one, so you just end up grudgingly playing D&D. This encourages nitpicking along the lines of "if we played MY system we wouldn't have to deal with stupid stuff like X."

Another is how the system gets played so much that its flaws become noticeable. Every system has its honeymoon period where it's new and fresh and you're so excited you gloss over various problems, but then as you settle in and that rush fades, you begin to notice where things don't work right. Most of the "better than D&D" systems don't get held up to the same level of scrutiny simply because they don't get played as often, and the people who are playing them are enamored of them and not looking so hard for flaws as they do at D&D.

(This is not to say there are no systems that do something better than D&D, or that trying to improve on D&D is a lost cause or anything. Just that it's not as easy as people think, hence decades of the Fantasy Heartbreaker.)

>>55419047
Not sorry, and yes. This is exactly rules as written.

Literally the "DC" is described by situational variables. An very hard to nearly impossible DC would be something like 25-30.

So, intimidating a thug might be 15 whereas intimidating this incredibly powerful, say, a king in his court (who has no fucking clue who you are) might be 25-30

>you've now removed the ability for anyone who's not a hyperspecialized social bot to do anything worthwhile.

Being able to do everything doesn't prevent somebody from being worthwhile.

That's like saying the level 5 barbarian who can't kill a green dragon has had his hyperspecialization into combat neutered because there is a combatant beyond his league.

>>55419058
I'll take a look at it!

>>55419114
>Yeah, this makes no sense. The people who watched LotR in cinema aren't just watching fantasy movies after all. People do want variety.

Every FLGS I have been too has Call of Cthulu, GURPS, and WoD. Every single one. Sure, they might not be at your average Barnes and Nobles, but that's okay.

Yes, people enjoy variety. But an RPG is a much bigger time commitment than a 90 minute flick (which, for a lot of people is a fairly large amount of time). And when people roleplay, they tend to prefer a fantasy medieval setting more than not.

Yes, are there people who enjoy something like a modern setting or gritty horror setting? Of course. Yes. But I think the reason people pick DnD and Pathfinder over every other system added together is because of the setting.

No, I don't think it's GM anxiety necessarily. From my own experience, it's disinterest. Hell, it's my own disinterest. I have no interest in, for instance, running a Cthulu game. The mythos and setting doesn't interest me.

Listen, I get why you want variety. But variety exists already. There are other games out there.
People choose not to buy them. They choose to enjoy D&D. If that leads to other games, awesome! Either way, more people are gaming.

>>55419258
*Not being able to do everything

>>55419258
>Literally the "DC" is described by situational variables.
WRONG

>Your Intimidate check is opposed by the target’s modified level check (1d20 + character level or Hit Dice + target’s Wisdom bonus [if any] + target’s modifiers on saves against fear)

>>55419244
>Adding an ability modifier to it
Reading the first part of your post, this was my first thought. The various bonuses to saves seems to imply there's something beyond luck going on.

I understand all of this is somewhat of a hold-over of earlier days, and it works well enough as a game mechanic. Just a pain in the butt to figure out what is actually happening.

>>55419281
What edition are you sourcing?

>>55419297
Straight from 3.5.

3.5 also had Diplomacy and Bluff rules that were very clear as to how they worked.

>>55419309
Why are you sourcing 3.5?

>>55419309
>>55419281

So you understand how autistic this makes you look, right? You are either ignorant of the most popular version played (by far) or are being deliberately obtuse in an attempt to win an internet argument.

People treat it like a generic and universal system.
They are conflating D&D with literally any and every d20 based system.
>inb4 that anon who says D&D 5e us great for a horror game

>>55419244
>The big mistake with saves was adding an ability modifier to it, because it becomes impossible to accept as such an abstraction.

Please explain. A individual/race resistant to a poison not dying so much as another changes what about your abstraction?

D&D doesn't really get all that much hate.

No, seriously. If you go anywhere else that games are discussed, D&D is either celebrated, or at worst, it is grudgingly accepted as a game that matches a broad range of tastes, with the latest edition being the most accommodating.

Here, though, we just have the guys who'd get banned on the other sites, but are tolerated here because 4chan is a little more free-spirited. They're inflammatory and single-minded, and genuinely HATE the concept of the game. Not the game itself, mind you, because it's next to impossible to hate what's largely a harmless activity with fun at its center. It's got flaws, but even if you listened to their complaints about the game, they still would have no real reason to hate it as much as they do.

They've built it up as some sort of monopolizing, brain-washing demon in their minds. They take the tiniest flaws and magnify them, and do everything they can to cover, hide, and mindlessly debate against any and all good aspects of the game.

It's almost like this whole board is a game to them. If they admit that there's reasons why there's no real reason to get upset about people enjoying the game, they lose any and all momentum they have. That's why they push so hard in trying to pretend that it's an "objectively" terrible game, and not simply a question of taste, because that would mean they're just really passionate trolls, instead of valiant vanquishers of the evil dragon that plagues the hobby.

Here, we have the angry contrarians. And, just like you shouldn't listen to music opinions from /mu/ or television opinions from /tv/ without recognizing that those are basically the shitting grounds of the mentally ill, it would be good to recognize if that someone doesn't just dislike D&D or merely thinks it doesn't suit their tastes, but genuinely HATES it, remember you are talking to a person professing hatred for a roleplaying game that is a cornerstone of the industry.

>>55419374

That's an impressive strawman you built there. Must've taken a lot of work.

>>55419374
>GITP
>for years, weekly Monk threads where posters explained to newbies who didn't know any better exactly why Monks are a shit class and why you're not going to have fun if you roll one in a typical party
>celebrating 3.5

>>55419374
>D&D doesn't really get all that much hate.
This. You don't know the internet hate machine if you think the dragging D&D gets here even registers. The /tg/ lynch mob amounts to suggesting "there are better ways to do what you are trying to do."

>>55419145
> It is not being a contrarian when you have legitimate complaints.

You can conjure "legitimate" complaints about anything. That doesn't stop you from being a contrarian, especially when your "legitimate" complaints are exaggerated and you never provide a fair assessment of the game by also detailing what it does well except in a back-handed compliment manner.

Contrarians are just people who hate things primarily because they are popular. You might dislike D&D because of some flaws or designs concepts you disagree with, but what's brought you here to complain about it is its popularity.

There's a thousand worse games than D&D. But, here you are.

I guess I've been having fun wrong this whole time

>>55419430
>Strawman

You do not know what this word means.

>>55419572
It's just one of /tg/'s resident contrarians trying to perform damage control. Pay him no heed.

In fact, this entire thread seems just like a magnet for them, despite OP's tagline. Might be best to just let them fester here like they always end up doing.

>>55419500
>There's a thousand worse games than D&D. But, here you are.
Hold up.

Those other games don't get much "bashing" because nobody plays them, so why would you try to convince others of their "badness"? Nobody is making threads about them, or suggesting that they play them or "just use this and refluff it a bit" or whatever.

Does anybody actually complain about FATAL? No, because nobody actually plays it. There aren't threads of "FATAL can totally handle sci-fi space opera, just make this small change" so nobody has reason to go "the fuck? that's a dumb idea." Or whatever people do with DnD.

DnD gets more apparent hate than other things because it gets the most chatter just in general. It comes up more in discussion, it's more present in everybody's ...world/culture/view, etc.

Proportions. Efficiency of effort. Just because you have a negative opinion on the most discussed thing doesn't mean you're merely a contrarian, or that you're being unfair on it. Although, yes, some people are probably just that.

>>55419572

You built a whole army of DnD-hating strawmen, you tard

>>55418886
>D&D is built for a particular dungeon crawling and exploration niche.
This meme needs to end. This has almost never been true except in the earliest of early days back in maybe 1975-76, and the only thing that made it true is the GP for XP rule, which could be applied to any GP from any dangerous situation. By the time that the second version of Basic was released in 1981, AD&D had been out for some time, as well as several modules that used wilderness and town adventures such. That second version of basic also had the Expert set which included rules for wilderness and town adventures. Not only that, but all of those rulesets encouraged the DM to award bonus XP for good roleplaying. And even then, by the time 2e came out, that GP=XP rule changed into a more abstract "If you do something related to your job, you get XP rule" which sadly got fucked up by 3rd edition, but 3rd and above still encourage you to award roleplay XP and even encourage using milestone.

The window of "D&D is only a dungeon crawl robby robby" was incredibly short lived and I frankly don't know why people still insist this is true.

>>55419654
>Those other games don't get much "bashing" because nobody plays them, so why would you try to convince others of their "badness"?
And even if no one is playing it and the system is sufficiently bad, people will still bash the shit out of it all the time
See: FATAL and MYFAROG

>>55419654
Savage Worlds gets more hate per post than D&D does and for far pettier reasons. Go look at the general for it.

>>55418153
>>55418329
it's shilled against pretty hard

fact is, lots of people still love it, but the internet has a very vocal contrarian minority

>>55419675
You are replying to the wrong person. I don't hate D&D.

>>55418795
Honestly the best is to have multiple systems that you are comfortable with. If you're a GM and your party insists on one system, learn to steal mechanics and adapt

>>55418906
>This argument absolutely is a "I wish my favorite game was more mainstream".
This cunt again? Note the Reddit spacing.

>>55419711
Yeah, that's true. SW gets a lot of crap.
But virt is a literal insane madman and it's mostly him (or somebody similar), so.

>>55419765
Dont you have a quest thread to get back to?

>>55419654
>D&D is discussed more because it is popular
>D&D gets more hate because it is discussed more


So, D&D gets more hate because it is popular?
Is there any other way to describe a contrarian motivation?

>Just because you have a negative opinion on the most discussed thing doesn't mean you're merely a contrarian

Having a negative opinion is one thing. Exaggerating your opinion just for the sake of controversy and to incite a response is basically being the worst kind of contrarian, the contrarian attention whore.

To say D&D isn't the best game of all time won't raise any eyebrows.
To say it's a good game with some flaws is the most common opinion.
To say it's not your favorite game won't surprise anyone.

But, to say it's the worst game of all time? That's how to get some (you's).

>>55419683
>The window of "D&D is only a dungeon crawl robby robby" was incredibly short lived and I frankly don't know why people still insist this is true.

The people who hate D&D want to push it into a niche. They want anyone asking about D&D to be faced with a barrage of "Why don't you play something else instead?" and "D&D can only do one thing, so avoid it if you can."

It's just silly system war politics, and it needs to be called out as such.

>>55419843
Oh I 100% agree with you. The question was really rhetorical.

>>55418906
>>55419005
>>55419119
>>55419257
>>55419258
>>55419500
>>55419843
>plebbit spacing intensifies with damage control

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>>55419881

>>55419820
>So, D&D gets more hate because it is popular?
No, that's looking at the relationship wrong, or at least unfairly.

It doesn't (necessarily) get the hate because it's popular in itself, but because it's more popular it gets more discussion, obviously some of which will be negative - because people dislike things. I'm fairly certain these are different concepts.

Say that 15% of discussion related to an RPG is negative. If the RPG has more discussion, there will be more negative posts about it, in an absolute manner.
For example, say there are 1000 posts about dnd 5e. That would mean 150 of them are bad. 100 posts of CoC? 15 of them are bad. In reality, DnD gets a huge amount of posts, so it gets a lot of bad posts in accordance.

That percent obviously varies (usually depending on how good the game is or a variety of other things which yes one of those things COULD be the "well it's popular, and I hate popular things, so I will hate this"), but I hope the point I am trying to say there gets understood. I guess your argument would be that DnD's % of negative posts is too high, such as it is?

And yeah, obviously some people will be more exaggerated in a slightly unreasonable manner about their distate. I guess you're specifically referring to them in just all this?
As that other guy said, see the savage worlds threads. Those threads can be 80% one guy arguing with the other people about extremely petty things. Is he a contrarian, or just an asshole?

>>55418770
Then you've been playing it wrong.

>>55419047
That's every skill system you retard. Skill systems only exist to back door and bypass actual roleplaying. Whatever hipster, indie piece of shit you're trying to push does the SAME exact thing.

>>55419732

Yes?

>D&D Basic: miniatures are not the standard
>AD&D 2e: miniatures are an optional rule
>D&D 3.5e: rules will not assume the use of miniatures
>D&D 5e: nobody uses miniatures

>you: playing without miniatures is wrong
good joke, retard

>>55419820

Literally no-one said it was the worst game of all time until your retarded ass showed up here.

>>55419843

Have you PLAYED any other systems? If you have, I don't understand how you can argue so vehemently for DnD.

And how the hell can it be a system war if the argument is that multiple other systems are better? They are all 'fanboys' of SEVERAL other systems because they think those systems are better than DnD? Jesus.

>>55420296
this is addressed to >>55420193. now i feel like the retard.

>>55420310
>D&D 3.5e: rules will not assume the use of miniatures
Literally the first non-index page in the PHB:
>The game assumes the use of miniatures and a battle grid, and the rules are written from this perspective.

>>55419843
>The people who hate D&D want to push it into a niche
no, because every system has by default a niche, no matter what you say. for example, if someone wants to play heavily narrative fantasy in middle-earth, you wouldn't recommend them D&D or MERP or Rolemaster or even Adventures in Middle-Earth, you would recommend The One Ring.

D&D is by default geared towards a certain playstyle - gamist adventuring with sort-of professional adventurers, heavily leaning towards fighting, stealing, etc. if you want to do anything with D&D, you'll have to roll your own and hope it works semi-okay or rely on 3rd party content and hope it was well-designed.

>>55420473

Nu-uh, you are just a contrarian shitlord that hates all good games.

>>55420486
i have explicitly clarified my position with regards to D&D here:
>>55418652
and here:
>>55418811

>>55420473
>>55420528
I think you'd be a lot healthier if you realized that the hypothetical "default" is something that's at best a suggestion, and the game goes out of its way to assist you in exploring other options within itself.

Saying it falls into a specific niche is just falling for the senseless argument that we should only discuss D&D as it exists in in a purely stereotypical fashion that is both outdated and very far removed from any reality as to how it is played.

You are very much the "normie" yourself if you insist on your farcical and limited view of the game.

>>55418356
>And in doing so, they are taught that all RPGs are inelegant and unfocused messes of rules that are a chore to learn and to play if you don't modify them.
Any idiot can learn to play fifth edition thirty minutes.

>>55420708
The guy went through so many mental gymnastics, and that's the first flaw you point out?

Not his whole insane "People interested in roleplaying games never look beyond D&D because they've never heard of any other roleplaying games in the age of the internet, or assume that every game is exactly like D&D for some unfathomable reason, or that D&D isn't the game responsible for dramatically expanding the hobby and introducing it to most people?"

I mean, okay, you're right, but it's probably best just not to reply to him at all.

>>55420606
>Saying it falls into a specific niche is just falling for the senseless argument that we should only discuss Call of Cthulhu as it exists in in a purely stereotypical fashion that is both outdated and very far removed from any reality as to how it is played.
>You are very much the "normie" yourself if you insist on your farcical and limited view of the game.

>Saying it falls into a specific niche is just falling for the senseless argument that we should only discuss Shadowrun as it exists in in a purely stereotypical fashion that is both outdated and very far removed from any reality as to how it is played.
>You are very much the "normie" yourself if you insist on your farcical and limited view of the game.

>Saying it falls into a specific niche is just falling for the senseless argument that we should only discuss FATE as it exists in in a purely stereotypical fashion that is both outdated and very far removed from any reality as to how it is played.
>You are very much the "normie" yourself if you insist on your farcical and limited view of the game.

there's literally nothing singular about D&D except legacy, brand and community size. it is no more (or less) flexible than other RPG systems.

>>55418153
I like 5th edition dnd. I just don't like pre-5th dnd. I played 3.5 for years without understanding why I wasn't having fun (after all, I did everything the forum said and made the awesomest builds ever), and only realized it after years of playing other games. I want to help other people break out of the kind of suffering I went through.

Also people routinely, out of ignorance, or simply overestimating the difficulty of learning a new TRPG, try to use dnd for games to which it is not suited. This is bad for the hobby, discouraging players from trying different types of games just because they used the wrong game for it once and it went badly (i.e. "I tried cosmic horror in 3.5 but the PCs just killed the monster in two minutes and were never scared, therefore horror doesn't work in RPGs").

Just being aware, that finding and learning an appropriate game is not hard, has dramatically improved my group's roleplaying experience. Instead of trying to butcher dnd into a superhero game, I can ask my group "I want to play a superhero game. How about Wild Talents or Marvel?". Instead of attempting the rules-contortions needed to make it suitable for cosmic horror, I can say "Hey guys, let's play CoC". And so on.

>>55420905
>it is no more (or less) flexible than other RPG systems.
Unless you want to play in a system without magic or a game where characters don't ascend to heroes or a game that is based around skills rather than character level or a game that tries its hand at realism.

>>55420795
>it's probably best just not to reply to him at all.
>>55418303
I TRIED

>>55418356
lol. d&d is a game for the imagination, not a game where you obsess over combat mechanics. the system you use is literally irrelevant.

unless you're a pooptard that plays tabletop for muh combat

>>55422118
>the system you use is literally irrelevant.
This is what retards actually believe

>>55422137
name one reason the system matters?

>inb4 you use pre-written campaigns and settings instead of designing your own

kys. my group could be playing thac0 or gurps or whatever the fuck and it literally wouldn't matter because combat only matters a fraction of the time.

>>55422156
>my group could be playing thac0 [...] and it wouldn't matter
>playing thac0
Yes, because you're too illiterate to actually understand a system to begin with.

>>55422118
If the system is irrelevant why bother using it.

>>55422197
>>55422199
diaperposters go back to /vg/

3.5e is retarded with how much fluff and hundreds of feats and dozens of classes and really stupid rule breaking interactions

5e is incredibly simplistic

too bad neither of those things matter when you're talking to an npc

>>55422156
Oh gee, I don't know, maybe something like the probability distribution of different dice rolls? Different access to and different powered abilities and/or spellcasting between systems? Skill systems with vastly different scopes? If you're only using the system for combat, why the fuck are you even arguing in the first place?

>>55422217
>neither of those things matter when you're talking to an npc
>literally never heard of a system with social mechanics

I think WOTC knows it's limited, but is self-aware and is just about getting as much out of the name as possible.

Some creative tried to get more out of it by writing up the whole Three Pillars of the Game thing, but it falls flat because 90% of the games rules and mechanics revolve around combat, 90% of every character's features revolves around combat, and 90% of the driving force of every adventure is combat.

The other 9% is "Social Interaction", and 1% is Exploration, which becomes an afterthought by people who want to focus on "storytelling".

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>>55418356
This is exactly why.

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I have a very serious question to ask about 5e. Could i possibly make a cleric that worships a god of booze and drunkenness, who's heals and abilities become stronger as he gets drunker at the cost of accuracy? This is my first dnd character and I wanna see if this is even possible

>>55422534
that fucking scaling

>>55422217
>>If the system is irrelevant why bother using it.
>dodging the argument
kys

>>55422466
WOTC couldnt care less about whether it is limited or not. WOTC needs to keep the brand sexy and hope that (wanna-be) nerds will keep playing the game for nerd credentials.

Just a reminder:
2e is GOAT edition

>>55422540
If your DM signed off on it.

>>55422261
>>literally never heard of a system with social mechanics
Not that anon, but can you point me in the direction of one? Something that's more robust than Diplomatin' / Persuadin' / Charismatican' that any shmuck regardless of class and race can do?

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>>55422594

>Not Moldvay/Cook B/X

>>55422795
My 2nd favorite, actually

>>55422713
For the most basic of upgrades: Shadowrun. It's far more in-depth and concrete about what social skills can and will accomplish.

>>55422540
How is this "a very serious question"? It's a silly question, talk about it with your DM to balance it out and that's it.

>>55418153
My biggest problem is that it discourages "intense" play in order to be fun? I mean min-maxing and cheesy solutions to problems. I like taking a system to its limits and being challenged, but it's considered bad to attempt to bring your superior mechanics PC to the table because....? Balance, RAI, game bteaking, etc.

I just never saw the appeal of giving players options only to chastise them for understanding the system.

>>55422861
> Tabletop Role Playing Game
> Role Playing
> Role

Are you playing the role of a fictional character, or is your optimized system breaking character just a vehicle for you to *win* the game?

>>55422713
Burning Wheel or ASOIAF RPG or Dogs in the Vineyard.

>>55422861
Look, if you bring a fleshraker Druid to a party with a Monk, it's going to be impossible for the DM to let you both contribute.

>>55420224
See, I don't believe that sitting around and playing free form pretend is role playing. To play a role you must be a different person with differing capabilities. With no character boons and abilities (even mundane ones) it's just bland acting.

I don't think D&Ds social pillar requires rules, but the PCs taking part would be beter off with social boosting abilities.

>>55422795
>anything with race-as-class

>>55422805
Shadowrun's dumpster fire shines just as brightly as DnD's, anon. Don't point people that way.

Go for Bubblegumshoe for the throwdown mechanics, or steal Burning Wheel's. I'm also a fan of the Apocalypse World kind of social check system, where your reward for success is the ability to ask questions out of character that you have carte blanche to metagame.

I'm not a big fan of those games on the whole, to be clear, but they've got their social shit locked down compared to the skill check trash you usually see.

Steal/import into your favorite game. It's the best.

>>55422982

Is awesome, is the end of that sentence.

>Shut the fuck up, Gary, you're an Elf. You do elf shit, that's your deal, now be an elf and shut up about it.

>>55423035
>Is awesome
Get out of here with your garbage, race-as-class is the single worst mechanic in the entire D&D family.

>>55422861
The game does not discourage optimization. Its players do.

>>55423107
And that's part of why it's bad.

>>55423264
>And that's part of why it's bad.
> the game is bad because it's players are bad, not because the game is bad.

uwotm8

>>55423107
>>55423264
>>55423281

There's a saying in game design that "The most optimal way to play should also be the most fun". If you have to limit or remove people playing in the optimal way to achieve fun, the game is badly designed by default.

>>55422975
>To play a role you must be a different person with differing capabilities.
Then fucking ROLEPLAY that character. Do you honestly believe actors need to actually blind themselves for real to be willing to play a blind person on screen? No, they just fucking play the role.
>Hurr, but I wanna attack your metaphor and say that actors wear blindfolds to play those parts
Yeah, but they're not actually born blind or are forced to do that. They do that on their fucking own because they actually give a shit about playing the role.

Skill checks completely circumvent all of that in a really retarded effort to force people into this story experience, but most idiots are too blind to see that it's just short-circuiting the actual roleplay attempts by having everything delegated to a single roll with various pass/fail parameters.

>>55423304
>There's a saying in game design that "The most optimal way to play should also be the most fun"


I don't think that's necessarily true though. Look at boxing for example, Floyd Mayweather is lauded for having "cracked the code" and fighting in the most optimal way for that sport. To the layman, most outsiders, and even a lot of professionals *in* the sport, it is far from the most fun.

Look at fighting games. The top 1% play as optimal as you can get, and again to the majority of people it's regarded as "the not fun way to play".

With something as variable as tabletop rpgs, there's no objective Optimal play, because there's no objective goal. One group's play looks as different as the next 100 groups, because the objectives are different. So is the fun, and so is what's optimal.

>>55420310
Game created using wargaming rules.
>Minis not the default for early D&D
Your so delusional it hurts.

>>55423281
No, I'm not that other anon. I was saying that the fact that it doesn't warn you about broken mechanics is part of why it's bad. You have to learn about it from other players over the internet, because they couldn't be fucked to finish their game.

>>55423350
>I don't think that's necessarily true though. Look at boxing for example, Floyd Mayweather is lauded for having "cracked the code" and fighting in the most optimal way for that sport. To the layman, most outsiders, and even a lot of professionals *in* the sport, it is far from the most fun.
That's actually more for a case of boxing being a badly designed sport than it is for my argument failing. Especially because in my eyes the point of boxing is specifically to train up your ability to fight in the boxing style and seeing what comes out on top.

>Look at fighting games.
I'm from the FGC and this sentence you just wrote is sheer nonsense.

>there's no objective Optimal play, because there's no objective goal
This is also a nonsense statement. Goals are established very quickly in TRPGs, because there is always an adventure. Even in sandbox games, goals must be established, even if it's as basic as survive. Therefore, the most optimal way to play for the game is to achieve the goal in the most efficient way possible.

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>>55423049

Wow, I haven't seen someone do one of these unironically in quite a while. Kudos.

>>55418356
You're right. Everyone ought to play GURPS instead.

>>55423452
What, Race as Class? Dude, Lamentations of the Flame Princess is fairly popular, new, and has some good traction. Let alone all the other retro clones and the whole OSR movement.

I agree though. Race as Class is bad design that was just carry over from 0D&D that was quickly fixed and turned away from. It's only played today for nostalgia purposes.

>>55422902
I have a heavy wargaming background, so I might be looking at it from the wrong perspective. But, I don't have as much fun if I feel that I or the DM are holding back. Using absurd gimmicks has always been my meat and potatoes and I don't belive that that makes my role playing any less.

>>55423466

No, the pic related, as in "I don't like Race as Class, so it's objectively shit and you should stop liking it."

>>55423487
Race as Class IS objectively shit though. Like I have a huge nostalgia boner, but it's a stupid concept that limits the DM, the players, and the game world in a meaningless way. It's a forgivable fault, but not one that you should put up with.

>>55423466

Dude, I unironically like race as class, and don't see how you can call it a bad mechanic. It enforces the notion that classes are archetypes, not job descriptions, and keeps the focus on a human centric world, where nonhuman races are alien, and fundamentally different than humans, rather than just another slot to minmax with.
I have problems with the way it was done in old D&D, but if you're going to throw away race-as-class, I feel like you should throw out class itself, and probably levels with it.

>>55423500
>limits the DM, the players, and the game world in a meaningless way

I find this a really strange view. But whatever.

>>55423341
I don't believe people play this game to act, anon. They want to roleplay, and think that holds different connotations than what actors do (even more so because it's a job to them). No, our role play is playing pretend with structure. It's reminiscent of gradeschoolers playing pretend pirates, but we require a certain structure to accommodate us. I dont think that structure is a bad thing.

>>55423517
>It enforces the notion that classes are archetypes, not job descriptions
Which is a stupid notion. It limits what you can do with the concept.
>keeps the focus on a human centric world
By making Elves and Dwarfs unironically the best classes in the game? Yeah, no. If you want a human centric world, just tell them human only instead of pidgeonholing all elves and dwarfs into "Fighter/MU" and "Better Fighter".
>I feel like you should throw out class itself, and probably levels with it.
That's an absolutely retarded slippery slope argument. How do you jump from Race as Class to "well if we're not gonna have race as class then fuck you, we're gonna play GURPS"???

>>55423379
I'm not the so-called 'delusional' guy you replied to, but I gotta say that BECMI was quite playable without minis.
Of course, I can't say the same for the later editions.
And yeah, it's actually weird that OD&D (and the other early D&D editions) were made out of a wargame, but, even then, they were playing fine with the 'theater of mind' combat.
However, I just can't imagine a v3.5 game without minis. In combat, it would be a fucking mess.

>>55423536
>I don't believe people play this game to act, anon.
I just stopped reading here, to be honest with you. This is probably one of the most naive things I've read on this board all week.

>>55423529
Not him, so, whatever, but:
"meaningless" might not be accurate, but what it does mean is it means every dwarf or every elf in any setting played with that system is mechanically the same (using their single class option), and they gain abilities/skillsets/whatever in the same way - literally all elves are sorta human fighter/mages, and all worse at humans in both, and none of them are particularly adept at sneaking or lockpicking or whatever, and then all dwarves are whatever.

Of course there's the idea that "no, PCs are just special", but then that also means your party of elves are all literally the same, so it's the same situation in that scenario.

That'd be the major restriction, there, that I see. If you don't want to play in the system's setting, you're semi-screwed (unless of pseudo cop-out with a "well you can just change anything" which eh)

if you have a large set of rules for engagement and action it gets in the way of people's mary sues powergaming through stuff that their character builds and/or RNG would prohibit them from doing. People who dislike 3.5 would prefer writing fanfic, and that's ok.

>>55423582

It's no different than having all kinds of different concepts under Fighter, or Thief, or Wizard, or Cleric.

I used to think Race as Class was dumb when I was younger, but I've grown to appreciate it more and more, especially with well-done examples like Beyond the Wall and ACKS. (This all comes back to Apocalypse World reviving my once-dead love of classes, by reminding me that they ought to be archetypal, and the more archetypal, the better IMO)

Anyway, I don't mind if other people don't care for it, I really only object to the argument that people only like Race as Class because "nostalgia", because it's kind of a shitty hipster argument. "You don't REALLY like that thing you like, you just think you do."

>>55423682
I'm not sure how you think "the entire species of sentient beings all develop the exact same skill set" is the same as "this sentient species develop radically different skillsets", until you go so far that you're basically just race and class as distinct things.

I mean, BtW and ACKS have several different classes for each race. It's not just the one singular class defining an entire species.
I can open up my ACKS core and see 2 elven classes (spellsword, nightblade), and 2 dwarven (vaultguard, craftpriest), and then see how there are 4 human ones. Beyond the Wall is similar.

>>55423572
Shame. The rest of the post touches on the idea that acting and roleplay can be construed as different within the context of RPGs. But hey, if calling others naive from a position of ignorance is your thing...

>>55422540
>Could i possibly make a cleric that worships a god of booze and drunkenness, who's heals and abilities become stronger as he gets drunker at the cost of accuracy?
You are half the reason why D&D is shit.
>This is my first dnd character and I wanna see if this is even possible
Y'know, for my first character when D&D 3.5 was just a couple years old, I made a dwarf ranger. He was absolute shit but we had some really great adventures with him in this cozy little fantasy world that despite being fairly generic, felt pretty real. I didn't make meme characters until nearly 8 years after that.
And now, here you are, making a meme character as your FIRST FUCKING CHARACTER.
I fucking hate what this hobby has become. Especially D&D. It[s a containment RPG for normalniggers who think that their LMAO SO RANDOM character is any good. No, it is complete fucking shit, and you need to go sit in a gas chamber. Fuck you, fuck off. The reason D&D is shit is only half because of its mechanics. The other half is the fanbase, which has gone from smelly powergaming spergs to normal-smelling fuckwits who somehow manage to be even worse. The damage that Critical Roll has done to the D&D fanbase is not to be underestimated, either, given that the show is full of "LMAO nat20 XD XD" hijinks, and shit like that dumb inbred cunt jumping off a cliff and turning into a fish and dying anyway. And her entitled cunt face gets all soppy because her character dying is probably the only bad thing that's ever happened to her in her life. That was the only time I ever respected Matt Mercer, was when he killed that bitch's shitty druid who did retarded shit. Other than that he's a faggot whose only asset is a good voice. There are loads of DMs out there who surpass him in creative ability, description, and combat narration, AND do it for free, AND don't fill their setting with loads of fags and dykes.

Oh, and also to blame are /tg/ greentexts that get reblogged on tumblr and reddit and give normofucks this idea that D&D is all about laughing hysterically and doing retarded shit when you get a nat20. In fact I would blame about 50% of the normalfuck cancer on /tg/ making the hobby seem (1) accessible and (2) primarily humorous. Anyone who thinks that ((((fun)))) is the primary purpose of an RPG, needs to get the fuck out, because they have just outed themselves as someone who doesn't belong in the hobby, someone without a shred of creativity, acting talent, or really anything to contribute to a game besides alcohol.

>>55424221
how many of the characters that you make take it up the ass?

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>>55418153
>Seriously why does dungeons & dragons get so much hate?

Because half of the players are completely new to RPGs in general, and haven't learned how not to be That Guy, while the other half are veteran players who STILL play D&D because other systems aren't popular enough to support a player base willing to put up with their toxic shit.

In other words, it's newfags and shitheads.

As a consequence of the first, there's a lot of graduating-newfags who want something other than D&D, but don't know what, so their first instinct is to force other settings and homebrewed mechanics into D&D (which never works) instead of finding a system built for it and playing that instead. That gets annoying too.

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>>55423910
How enlightened of your intelligence you must be.

There's no option to play ttrpgs singleplayer, even internet groups are much more difficult to organize than a match of a video game is, and different editions of dnd take up something like 90% of the games.
If 90% of people playing video games were playing call of duty, I'd fucking hate call of duty instead of just being uninterested in it.

>>55424221
You don't have many friends, do you

>>55424439
>it's newfags and shitheads.

I like this. My new go to.

>>55418153
I don't know what you're talking about, I love 4E

>>55424638
But D&D is good and what 90% of people want to play. If CoD was good enough to be that popular, you might actually like it. There's actually a roughly 9/10 chance you'd fall into the group that would like it.

Comparing it to Call of Duty is a bad joke by people who also compare it to things like Justin Bieber or Twilight, without fully comprehending that D&D isn't simply popular or a best seller, but an enduring and dominating franchise that has both critical and community acclaim.

We can argue forever about its quality with the answer being ultimately subjective, which then forces us to at least appreciate that by any unbiased measurement, D&D isn't just good, it's great.

*cue some people upset about D&D's popularity pretending they're not upset about D&D's popularity*

>>55419881
Go look at the pinned posts on all the boards that have them. You'll see a lot of "reddit spacing."

Go to a longstanding 4chan archive like suptg's and look up the oldest posts. "Reddit spacing" abounds.

Take posts you think don't have "reddit spacing" and copy-paste them into a word processor without wordwrap turned on. Most of them will have at least some "reddit spacing"

"Reddit spacing" is literally an illusion created by higher resolutions.
Find better things to complain about and better points to make in an argument.

>>55422558
It's almost like .... acceleration instead of simple velocity.

>>55424439
I love that you actually seem like you believe that.

>>55422982
>anything with demihuman level limits.

Play Basic Fantasy and stop being a pleb.

>>55424978
Comparing it to call of duty is not intended as a joke or even an insult. It is an apt comparison.
Also, if the true driver of Dnd being able to hold 9/10 of the market is just that they're just that good, then why hasn't there been a single great video game with that kind of popularity?

As far as I can tell, the only thing DnD does best is have a shitload of content for it.
It doesn't have the simplest resolution system, it doesn't have the most interesting setting, it doesn't have the the most enjoyable combats, etc.

Dnd has that high a share of the players because of being the longest-running of a niche genre. There simply isn't enough room in the market for another ttrpg-centered multi-media empire to rise up

A ttrpg also once again takes alot more time to learn than a typical video game does, and even if you take the time to learn a new system you can't play it by yourself, and if your group is in the middle of a dnd campaign the only opportunity you have to get them to play a different game with you is when the campaign ends, or a one-off with a very easy to learn system as a break or if a player or two is temporarily unable to play.

>>55418153
familiarity breeds contempt

>>55423304
Most RPGS (and all generic RPGs) cannot handle heavy optimization. Unless it's something with no mechanical depth.

>>55424906
Second. Fug I love that game.

>>55426665
Yeah, I know. It's a problem I've slowly become aware of over time that TRPGs in general are becoming more and more flawed, and there's very little talk of game design among the developers of TRPGs. Most talk about games are either trying to "fix" aspects that they dislike from a singular system, or adding clunky mechanics to old systems to address things that didn't necessarily need addressing before.

>>55418371
Not him, but GURPS.
Surw. I looked at and made characters for whatever edition the Cyclopedia was, but I started primarily with GURPS.

>>55426723
If anything they're getting less flawed. The RPGs of before including things like AD&D, Shadowrun, World of Darkness, and a host of super crunchy "realistic" systems that all had holes you could fly a plane through. Compare those to the more tightly designed, mechanically lighter RPGs you see today.

>>55423304
>There's a saying in game design that "The most optimal way to play should also be the most fun".
except for simulationists and narrativists optimizing stats isn't the optimal way to play

>>55423341
>Skill checks completely circumvent all of that
yes. some scenes need to be resolved quickly.

>>55424978
>But D&D is good and what 90% of people want to play.
you realize that you're really starting to do D&D a disservice here? or maybe that's your intention.

>>55425006
he's fishing for (you)s

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>>55426923
>Compare those to the more tightly designed, mechanically lighter RPGs you see today.
>tightly designed
so for which current publishing house are you working, hmmm?

>>55426923
>If anything they're getting less flawed.
Guffaw. What? God no, I'm actually speaking largely in context of where the current TRPG industry is heading TOWARDS.

>The RPGs of before
>things like AD&D
>super crunchy "realistic" systems
Do you know how I can tell you've never touched a game pre 2000?

>Compare those to the more tightly designed, mechanically lighter RPGs you see today.
I'm gonna have to agree with >>55426974 here.

>>55426947
>except for simulationists and narrativists optimizing stats isn't the optimal way to play
Again, that is specifically the problem. Or, to change the perspective of this a little, the problem is for a simulationist and narrative gamer, there exists no game in which the optimal way to play is a method that involves the most fun playing in a simulationist or narrative way. Or in other other words the problem is that you think game optimization MUST be in terms of maxing out your stats and that you don't have any games that facilitate what is the optimal way to play for other game types.

Also narrative games suck.

>>55419683
D&D, as a system, evolved out of games Gygax, Arneson, and crew were playing that were based in the niche we've been talking about. It's what the system was designed for and what the rules revolve around. Vancian magic, for instance, is designed as a resource that dwindles over the course of the adventuring day. And if you're playing a political campaign, not only is the X spells per day restriction likely to be less of a limiter (as your day is less likely to be a slog of encounter after encounter), but many of your spells aren't going to be very well targeted for what you need.

>The window of "D&D is only a dungeon crawl robby robby" was incredibly short lived and I frankly don't know why people still insist this is true.
It's not necessarily all that D&D is, but it's what D&D does well, and the further afield of it you go, the less well the game functions.

>>55426411
Actually, aside from halflings, who get screwed, the demihuman level limits are about right in B/X, at least insofar as the levels it explicitly covers. A 12th level dwarf is about on par with a 14th level fighter, and a 10th level elf is about right when compared to a 14th level magic-user.

>>55427101
>It's what the system was designed for and what the rules revolve around.
It's what 0D&D was built for and revolved around. By the time AD&D came out, they had snuck in tons of ideas for adventuring in the wilderness, spells that were solely useless outside of combat and dungeons, and many different elements of actually decent roleplaying and adventuring that didn't exist in dungeon settings. Keep on the Boarderland and the Village of Hommlet were also incredibly popular modules that had a heavy focus on the town aspect of the game, along with huge amounts of information about the NPCs inside of it.

D&D was already shifting as early as 2 years out of the gate from a pure dungeon crawl to a more general set of rules. 0D&D's rules drastically changed as the game evolved to a point where AD&D can be considered an entirely different game. Even Basic/Expert, which shares it's similarities with 0D&D the closest, has wilderness and town adventure rules. This is all due to the fact that 0D&D barely HAD rules in general, so it was just a matter of adding them in.

This meme needs to end. It is pure trite and nonsense that gets pushed out by people trying to push their niche game and it simply isn't true and hasn't been true since the 80s.

>Vancian magic[...]
This entire point is irrelevant to political campaigns. You didn't state why X spells per day are a negative in regards to political campaigns, nor how not having "many of your spells" not being targeted for what you need is true or even an issue when most people running political campaigns disable the magic you would need the most, even in non-D&D type systems.

>>55418479
>WoTC having all of Hasbro's toy money to advertise and make their books all pretty
>advertise
I don't know what people mean by this. I've never seen an advertisement for D&D, or practically any RPG for that matter, outside of a game store. I can see why people suspect them of shilling, but If Hasbro is bringing new players into the RPG world, it's not through web banners and TV commercials.
>and make their books all pretty
Quality art helps sales, but that's not exclusive to D&D at all. Plenty of other RPG books have good art, and D&D is far from the best. Having the most money does not equal having the best art.

>>55426947
>optimizing stats isn't the optimal way to play
You do not understand.
Take Legends of the Wulin for example. Narrative and combat mechanics are so deeply intertwined that optimization - even in the sense of exploiting imbalance - entails specific narrative impact, and some of the most optimal ways to play are narrative driven.

I don't mind DnD but its mechanics are so incredibly narrow in scope that it blinds people to the potential of RPGs

After spending my highschool years playing 3.5 and Pathfinder, I realized 2e was the superior game and never fucking looked back. Got into more oldschool D&D too, but 2e is the most polished system I've ever seen.

Don't give me that shit about Lorraine either. Call demons demons and devils devils all you like. It's what they are in the planescape setting anyway, but they consider those two words racial slurs.

>>55424978

Madonna is the best artist of all times.

Cause 5e is bad.

On an unrelated topic, anyone have any 2e PDFs or anything like that? Figured I'd ask here first before wading through the millions of results on torrent sites and whatnot

>>55427925
Lmao I scrolled the catalog a bit and found the OSR thread, nevermind.

5e is still the definition of mediocrity

>>55426997
And what is it heading towards? Also AD&D was a mechanically bloated mess. Modern RD design is largely lighter, and more narrowly focused, this is an objective fact. This is mostly just a product of indie developed being the face; everything else being legacy designs that can hardly be called "new."

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>>55418371
This was.

>>55418392
>it's like a pop song that may be decent when you've only heard it a few times
There are no such pop songs.

>>55428714
There are, but since pop songs work on the appeal of familiarity and are therefore all more or less recycled from one another, you have heard every possible pop song more than a few times already.

>>55428738
No. There are old pop songs like The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Queen which are timeless and can be listened to any number of times and which, in many cases, get even better on repeat listenings. Then there's modern pop composed by Max Martin which is akin to being raped in the ears even the very first time you hear it.

>>55427943
>Modern RD design is largely lighter, and more narrowly focused, this is an objective fact.
i won't dispute lighter. as for "more narrowly focused", it depends what you mean by that.

>>55428780
>There are old pop songs like The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Queen which are timeless and can be listened to any number of times and which, in many cases, get even better on repeat listenings.
ouch.

>>55418153
That guy on the horse is fucked.
Dibs on his wife.

>a single rowboat paddles slowly into /tg/ harbour
>"play WFRP", the man within says. "It's D&D with functioning mechanics"
>through the din of yelling and arguments about dungeon crawling, his plea goes ignored once again

>>55428687

Same here. Fucking great game.

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>>55426458
>It is an apt comparison.
>was just told how it isn't

90% of people who play video games don't want to play CoD.

>As far as I can tell, the only thing DnD does best is have a shitload of content for it.

And that makes you sound like an autist. You not understanding why people like it is you being stupid, not them.

>It doesn't have the simplest resolution system, it doesn't have the most interesting setting, it doesn't have the the most enjoyable combats, etc.

But it does have enjoyable combat (opinion), it has a versatile kitchensink setting that anyone can use for interesting games (opinion), and its resolution mechanic hits the sweet spot of being simple but not too simple (opinion).

What it does "best" is catering and appealing to a wide audience, so that very different people can find something they can enjoy at the same table, while also being a high quality, polished product. Even little things as simple as "every monster is illustrated" or "there's an introductory adventure designed to teach you the game" puts it above a fair percentage of games in terms of polish, and it being the most discussed and analyzed game has helped shaped it so that even if you don't like it in its default form, there's plenty of material and guides to help adapt it in a way you would like it.

>Dnd has that high a share of the players because of being the longest-running of a niche genre.

You mean because it's good? There's absolutely no way it could have such dominance over the industry if it wasn't one of the better RPGs. No amount of market forces or similar attempts to avoid admitting that there's no other game that a majority of people would agree is better exists. None. There's no clear "this game is better than D&D".

>A ttrpg also once again takes alot more time to learn than a typical video game does,

It takes less than an hour to learn the basics for both. Beyond that, there's still people discovering new secrets and strategies in Donkey Kong.

>>55429526
>percentile dice and unnecessarily granular values
>shoddy mechanics with even more sacred cows than D&D
>Warhammer and Warhammer "aesthetics"

Your plea deserves to be ignored.

>>55429782
>You not understanding why people like it is you being stupid, not them.
What is it people like about D&D then?

>>55429828
>10% being granular
>Percentile dice not having the perfect distribution
It's like you've never even looked at the rulebook

>>55429782
>There's absolutely no way it could have such dominance over the industry if it wasn't one of the better RPGs.
It wasn't until geek chic became a thing and it started to get lipservice in tv shows like Big Bang Theory that it actually started to dominate the industry. For a long time, D&D was simply one game among many, and while the name might have been known, it was used more like a synonym for RPGs in general by most people who didn't play themselves.

>>55429900
.....did you not read the post or something?

>>55429941
It being watered down enough for most people to not hate it because it does something they don't like is not a reason for why most people love it.

>>55429935
You're fucking kidding right?

It's been bought and sold enough that just owning the name can make bank.

>>55429935
>It wasn't until geek chic became a thing and it started to get lipservice in tv shows like Big Bang Theory that it actually started to dominate the industry.

It's ebbed and flowed, but the only time an edition didn't dominate the industry was during 4e's print run, where it faced competition form 3.5 and PF. Aside from that, D&D has never even had anything you could actually call a real competitor in America, and outside of the states it's always been one of the top five games in every country, typically only beaten by one or two "national" games.

Basically, your assertion is flat out wrong, and mildly appalling that you think that something like BBT had an influence on D&D's dominance when it came out in 2007.

>>55430010
>outside of the states it's always been one of the top five games in every country
That's just flat out wrong.

>>55430079
Anywhere where we have numbers like convention statistics or book sales, that's the general consensus. The only way you can argue against that statement is to say "All available data is irrelevant compared to my gut feeling or personal experience."

>>55430100
I can tell you that at least in Sweden during the 80's, 90's and early 00's, D&D was far from being in the top five. Not only had you a whole bunch of local RPGs at the time like Drakar och Demoner*, Eon, NeoTech and Mutant which all dwarfed it in popularity, you also had White Wolf's entire line of games of which at the very least Vampire and Mage were far more popular than D&D could ever hope to be, as well as the Warhammer RPG and Shadowrun which were about as popular as D&D.

*I wouldn't be the least bit of surprised if the only reason D&D appeared to be a big seller at the time is because American's confuse it with the swedish D&D which is a completely different game.

>>55429782
if your theory was correct, D&D would have pushed DSA/TDE out of the German market long time ago.
the succes of DSA however proves that another interpretation of gaming history is correct: success is self-replicating.
most gamers learn RPGs from people who have been gaming before, which means that brand and community-size are the main factors. in Germany DSA has that brand recognition and community-size. D&D has some brand recognition thanks to the CRPGs and in recent years TBBT.

sorry to put a dent into your narrative but it is plain false and you know it.

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>>55428687
>>55429661
>EONfags, even here
Shoo, shoo!

>>55430010
>typically only beaten by one or two "national" games.
this should not be possible if it was a superior game. it should be possible, however, if brand recognition (and its legacy) propelled it into the top 5 of most countries.

>>55430181
i too doubt whether it was (or even is) in the top 5 for germany for large parts of my gaming time. in the 90s it probably wasnt. i would guess that DSA, Midgard, Shadowrun, Vampire and CoC would have come ahead. in the 00s it changed a bit with Baldur's Gate, NWN and 3.x. and I think TBBT has indeed helped propel it into gamer's attention back again in recent years.

>>55430203
You know, I've never actually played Drakar och Demoner (except for a vague memory of playing the PC game). Though the 6th edition did catch my attention with its beautiful artwork and fairy tale aesthetics. Is it worth it to go looking for an older edition that isn't Chronopia?

>>55430199
>if your theory was correct, D&D would have pushed DSA/TDE out of the German market long time ago.

Not really. D&D is the 2nd most played game in Germany after The Dark Eye according to ICv2. D&D being a good game doesn't demand that it be the top game in every single country, especially because The Dark Eye is designed to appeal to the trends in the market there. It's a German game for Germans, and while its pretty great and definitely worth playing, it doesn't have anything close to the widespread appeal that D&D does, especially with some of its more convoluted lore and thematics.

I think it fell into the same "mistake" that 4e wound up making, which was to lean a little too hard into making the setting dark, but that's another topic. DSA does well in Germany, but only modestly everywhere else, and is a particularly good example of a "national" game.

>sorry to put a dent into your narrative but it is plain false and you know it.

D&D not being universally dominant in every market doesn't detract from the idea that it's a good game with high production values and widespread appeal. It still does well in every market, even in places where it's not strongly advertised, and this would be impossible if it was a genuinely terrible game.

>>55430181
>telling lies because he thinks nobody can check him
Mutant and ESPECIALLY Neotech were never nearly as popular in Sweden as D&D. It's true that spergy Drakar and Eon players liked to shit on D&D players in the period you mentioned and that that eventually stopped in the '00s, but it was always a huge game in terms of number of players, especially among the real grogs who considered Drakar to be a kiddy game. Vampire was definitely bigger in the '90s, but for the rest of the games you mentioned your claims are nothing but fairy tales.

>>55430424
>Not really. D&D is the 2nd most played game in Germany after The Dark Eye according to ICv2.
i wouldn't rule it out, like I said, D&D had been boosted by BG and NWN, then slacked and very likely has been posted by TBBT in recent years. i haven't seen any reliable data, so i really can't comment beyond anecdotal evidence.

>D&D not being universally dominant in every market doesn't detract from the idea that it's a good game with high production values and widespread appeal
well, I never doubted that. it's good at what it does and it certainly has a high production value. that by itself isn't a guarantee for success though. as for its widespread appeal, again i'll point to brand, legacy and community size. and amount of available content.

>this would be impossible if it was a genuinely terrible game.
i would never argue that. but, like every RPG, it is geared towards a certain type of gameplay. like every RPG it can be modified to support other types of gameplay than the default one. successful, established RPGs have the advantage that they have proven to be tried and true by their fanbase for their given gameplay.

and it's not really smarter to homebrew D&D to run CoC-style gameplay than it is to homebrew CoC to run D&D-style gameplay.

which explains in part why other RPGs other than D&D exist. (the other reason being that mechanical variety is also the spice of an RPGer's life.

>>55430181
D&D, considering it has never had an official Swedish translation, actually did fairly well.

Your claims sound largely like your personal experience, because the only games that actually had better sales numbers than D&D was Drakar och Demoner and in some years the White Wolf games, with the rest of your list of Swedish games struggling financially and aside from White Wolf the American/British games not really coming anywhere close to D&D's sales.

In general, the numbers are so low and swing so much, and the Swedish publishers fold so often, that it doesn't seem like the ttrpg market in Sweden is a particularly large or healthy one.

Though, that does make it so that your claims carry more weight, because sales figures become less representative when the market becomes smaller.

>*I wouldn't be the least bit of surprised if the only reason D&D appeared to be a big seller at the time is because American's confuse it with the swedish D&D which is a completely different game.

I'd find it odd for anyone to be picking up a English/German language game in Sweden unintentionally.

>>55430345
>Is it worth it to go looking for an older edition that isn't Chronopia?
Not really. '91 has some fun mechanics but is preposterously fucking unbalanced (splats especially) and manages to have reverse caster supremacy, where getting reasonably good (like 50% success rate) at one single spell costs as much experience as becoming a legendary swordsman. The earlier ones are just Basic Roleplaying in a Swedish box.

Now that the buttrage from sore Altor players has presumably gone down it can be said that Bill King's work on the setting is actually classic and one of the greatest things to come out of Drakar; it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's really striking and original, which is more than you can say for the This Is Definitely Not Europe of the prior setting. (A historical hodgepodge of every period from the bronze age to the Renaissance, as well.)

Similarly Trudvang is a GOAT level setting if you can endure the almost unbelievably terrible Riotminds prose. The rules are mostly indifferent, but they're serviceable. Some interesting stuff in the edition named DoD Trudvang.

>>55430612
> then slacked and very likely has been posted by TBBT in recent years.

The only time it slacked was during the release of 4e, which coincided with TBBT. Looking at the actual numbers, TBBT either hurt or had no influence on D&D's popularity.

What's made D&D surge in market dominance again has been the release of 5e, which has been very well received.

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>>55430617
>considering it has never had an official Swedish translation
D&D totally did though.

>>55430666
Oh, neat. I'm going to try and see if I can track down some sales numbers for that.

>>55430612
>i would never argue that. but, like every RPG, it is geared towards a certain type of gameplay
this is actually pretty much bullshit for DnD. DnD's core concepts are ridiculously broad, which is one of the reasons why it's so extremely popular, and the more specific stuff works by modularly slotting into the core even if it isn't explicitly designed like that like, for example, GURPS. This argument only works for games that are specifically geared towards one specific genre (like Legenends of the WuLin), not to the generic DnD.

You can, in fact, run anything well in DnD and everyone who tells you differently is a retard.

>and it's not really smarter to homebrew D&D to run CoC-style gameplay than it is to homebrew CoC to run D&D-style gameplay.
that depends VERY much on the specifics of your game. I have, because I think CoC is a piece of shit, and it worked great.

>>55430811
>You can, in fact, run anything well in DnD
Found the retard
>d20 == D&D
Called it yesterday >>55419361

>>55431056
I used DnD 5E, you mongoloid.

>>55431076
D&D is not the same thing as d20+mods.
You can't run a horror game with D&D rules.
HP bloat means no sense of danger, almost all the rules and class features have something to do with combat meaning 9/10 times your only options is to fight.There are no good chase rules.

>>55431125
>D&D is not the same thing as d20+mods.
I literally used DnD 5E, nigger.

>HP bloat means no sense of danger, almost all the rules and class features have something to do with combat meaning 9/10 times your only options is to fight.There are no good chase rules.
none of this is a problem for anyone who isn't a complete aspie. If you think horror-roleplaying requires good chase rules you need to be taken behind the barn and shot.

>>55431125
To emphasize your stupidity, DnD 5E in fact has chase rules. That said, I ran Horror games in 3.5 as well with very little modding and anon, if you think that's not possible you need to get your head out your ass

>>55431183
>>55431220
>If I call it a horror game it's a horror game
Yeah okay kid, and D&D can do science fiction well too

>>55431245
>Yeah okay kid, and D&D can do science fiction well too
It can, it's called Star Wars SAGA. Do you ever stop being wrong?

>>55431274
>It's a d20 game
Oh god you're still doing it. Why the fuck do you retards keep saying that d20 is the same thing as D&D?
Are you ESL or something?

>>55431076
>inb4 that anon who says D&D 5e us great for a horror game
This guy called you out a day before you appeared. Just admit that you got rekt and slink away in shame, for Christ's sake, this is painful to watch.

>>55431346
No. You second rate faggots can fuck off our board, kthx :^)

>>55427943
>And what is it heading towards?
More focus on skill systems that bypass and backdoor actual roleplaying instead of supplementing it when used exactly as intended. Skill systems that also attempt to design a character from the ground up in every aspect when on the whole it's rather unnecessary and leads to slower and slower character design over time. Largely inaccurate designs of how damage/dying work COMBINED with (because this isn't a problem on it's own) the fact that the game world's evolution and strategies don't account for this and would rather make half-hearted abstractions to make it fit more into a 'realism' perspective when this is a mistake. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Or to sum it up, most of modern game design is specifically too busy trying to fix errors of 3rd edition even when their original designs had nothing to DO with 3e and 3e popularized many of the flaws of the hobby that we still haven't gotten rid of, SUCH AS the skill system.

>Also AD&D was a mechanically bloated mess.
You have literally never played AD&D and aren't even really qualified to be having this discussion if you genuinely think this.

>Modern RD design is largely lighter, and more narrowly focused, this is an objective fact
lol

>everything else being legacy designs that can hardly be called "new."
Get the fuck outta here with that weak ass shit, half of the indie market is using 3rd's OGL, and the other half are literally 3 pages of actual game mechanics/rules optionally followed by 800 pages of "How to DM: Chapter 1, How I think the game should be run and why you should do it too"

>>55431220
You are arguing with a retarded troll.

Just stop.

>>55431346
Not him, but calling >inb4 on something like it's a god given fact just makes you look like an asshole. 5e has rules for Sanity and Chasing in the DMG. As long as you keep them at level 1, or even give them an NPC statblock + some skills, you can quite easily run a horror game as is. Also Ravenloft for horror-themed stuff.

>>55430652
>The only time it slacked was during the release of 4e, which coincided with TBBT
6x23 aired in Germany probably late 2013/early 2014.

>What's made D&D surge in market dominance again has been the release of 5e, which has been very well received.
certainly the combination of promotion via a widely popular TV show combined with a new edition helps. also in the years 2011-2015 nerd culture was becoming gradually more mainstream here, in no small parts thanks to that show.

>>55422534
That fucking picture.
I know a player that will argue that if the lizard man hits the character at the exact same time that his hits the ground, only the damage from the lizard man's attack will be applied due to some of the most insane logic I have ever heard in my life.

People hate 3.PF, but those aren't relevant anymore so all that hatred spilled over to 5e.

>>55430811
>DnD's core concepts are ridiculously broad
they aren't more or less broad than that of any other major RPG, sorry.

>You can, in fact, run anything well in DnD and everyone who tells you differently is a retard.
no more or less than you can can anything with any other game. as for running it well, that requires for every game quite a bit of effort, which is why i was alluding to the tried and true nature of successful gamelines.

>that depends VERY much on the specifics of your game. I have, because I think CoC is a piece of shit, and it worked great.
personally, i think that CoC is the best RPG system ever conceived (not necessarily my fave RPG though) and because it is so well designed it has gone through so little change over the years. but then again there is no accounting for taste.

anyway my point stands: i might as well run a D&D-style game in CoC aka BRP aka Runequest.

>>55431573
People actually don't except a rather small percentage, something that's obvious at conventions and at other websites that discuss RPGs. /tg/ just ends up being the place those kind of people end up gathering, because they've been banned everywhere else.

And, even then they remain a minority, with most people here appreciating 3.PF for its time or genuinely liking it. It's just that a fair number of them have moved on to 5e, and most people are smart enough to let the haters hate without engaging them in their mindless debates.

>>55431483
>As long as you keep them at level 1, or even give them an NPC statblock + some skills, you can quite easily run a horror game as is.
So if you ignore most of the content of the rulebook then.

>>55431647
You need to realize that there's no such thing as any campaign that even uses close to 1% of all the available material.

And, you generally need to stop being a dumb troll. Either put on a trip so people can filter you or stop being stupid while adults are having a conversation.

>>55431274

>It can, it's called Star Wars SAGA. Do you ever stop being wrong?
>Star Wars
>science fiction
>not science-fantasy
i'm playing it these days. it does star wars but it doesn't do it great. starting with force user-supremacy.

the talents and feats are wholly unsuitable for any HARD sci-fi game and would have to be ditched/replaced for the most part. a huge operation. and that ignored HP bloat and using level as armour. i think it wouldn't even be good for running star trek.

>>55431325
probably a WOTC employee or otherwise affiliated

>>55431383
>3e popularized many of the flaws of the hobby that we still haven't gotten rid of, SUCH AS the skill system.
this is wrong on so many levels, i don't even know where to begin.

>>55431220

It's possible to eat glass as well, but why would you?

>>55431694
>this is wrong on so many levels, i don't even know where to begin.

Don't. Just don't reply to someone so obviously stupid.

>>55431647
>It's a flaw to have too much content you can choose not to use instead of little to no content at all
Yeah, nah mate. A dedicated horror game would have the same amount of content minus character advancement, so yeah. Don't know what your complaint here is.

>>55431696
If only it were possible for you to stop being an idiot, we wouldn't have to listen to such meaningless platitudes used in such an inept fashion.

>>55431719
>No character advancement in a horror game
Name me a good horror novel with no character advancement. Name a good horror film with no character advancement.

>>55431694
>>55431707
>this is wrong on so many levels, i don't even know where to begin.
Up until AD&D 2e released, there were only a handful of games that used skill systems at all and were very niche to begin with. Like GURPs, Runequest, BRP/Call of Cthulhu, and Shadowrun. And yes, their sales and lack of any market presence outside the most CORE of core nerds means they weren't popular. When 2e came out, they included Non-weapon proficiency, but this was regarded as optional for a tournament setting and fairly unpopular to most players and went unused for the most part. Most players simply didn't need them.

When 3e came out, they incorporated the skill system into the game which completely changed how it was played, and then released the OGL. They also had a complete resurgence in popularity after the crushing defeat of TSR at the management's own incompetence, so it got widely spread very fast. Games after the year 2000 began to not only ALWAYS incorporate skill systems into their game even when it would have been a better idea not to, but game designers began to shift focus to a heavy emphasis on skills instead of classes or levels. Some indie game devs even create games based on nothing BUT skills, such as mini-6, risus, and more.

If you have a problem with what I'm saying, list arguments instead of passive-aggressive bullshit that can easily be disproved with a casual glance at the history of the hobby.

>>55431757
Mechanical character advancement in an RPG means something different, you mongoloid.

>>55431757
>Name me a good horror novel with no character advancement. Name a good horror film with no character advancement.
All of them.

Unless you mean literally "a character is advanced and developed", in which case you're just retarded and trolling.

Don't fall for his bait. It's tempting, but he's just a really angry guy who doesn't know jack shit, and telling him how little he knows will just encourage him.

Just ignore. Don't even give him that (you).

>>55431757
>Name a good horror film with no character advancement.

Hellraiser

>>55431867
I honestly don't know who you're referring to or which argument in this thread, but regardless, Pleading to the Audience is probably the most pathetic of all logical fallacies and is a good indicator you are mentally deficient.

Sorry, no precious (you) for you.

>>55431833
This sounds like you're listing all the major RPGs that weren't DnD, saying "yeah but they don't count", and then blaming DnD 3e for making skill systems?

Most RPGs that weren't DnD were already using skill systems. DnD added them after everybody else was already doing that.

If your argument is solely going to be based on what DnD does because they have always had the majority of share, then other RPGs might as well not even exist, and there's literally nothing to discuss because all we're allowed to look at is DnD.

>>55431947
Why. You could have just ignored him.

>>55431958
great justice.

>>55431833
1. DSA/TDE, the most popular German RPG, included skills in its first edition (advanced set) in the 80s.
2. i don't give a hoot about the D&Dsphere. outside of D&D skill systems were a must-have in the 90s and D&D 3.x only adopted what was common in our hobby at its inception. that legions of people who only play D&D and will only play D&D got into touch with skill systems is none of my concern. D&Dfags who had played other systems knew skill systems very well. so to claim that D&D popularized it beyond D&D-only faggots is a bald-faced lie.
3. skill systems continue to be a main staple of RPGs because they plain work. they are both useful in making characters distinct as well as resolving situations with relative ease.

>but game designers began to shift focus to a heavy emphasis on skills instead of classes or levels.
outside of D&D, game designers had done so long before.

>If you have a problem with what I'm saying, list arguments instead of passive-aggressive bullshit that can easily be disproved with a casual glance at the history of the hobby.
your problem is that you cast aside GURPs, Runequest, BRP/Call of Cthulhu, and Shadowrun as irrelevant when what is irrelevant for the overall hobby is whether people who ONLY PLAY D20 adopt skill systems or don't.

they are literally not part of the overall hobby for all intents and purposes.

>>55431947
>>55432004

No, these are clearly a misrepresentation of what I said. I said that 3e Popularized it. You do understand what that means, right? They did not invent the skill system and that is far from stated facts. The first known use of a skill system is Bunnies & Burrows a little over a year after 0D&D's release in 1976. Popularization means "the point when the general wide audience favors/uses it".

Like I said, GURPs and CoC used skill systems, but again, they were still relatively unknown to most players of the hobby back in those days and that's why TSR had a HUGE share of the market to a point where people were making claims that they could overtake fucking Hasbro. There's also a VERY noticeable trend of using skill systems and change in game design to use skills AFTER 3e's OGL.

If you're going to address my arguments, at the very least understand what I'm saying. Both of you went off on huge as fuck tangents under the idea I said 3e INVENTED skill systems when I intentionally did not use such language.

And no, skill systems were not popular and "must-have" in the 90s, that's pure nonsense.

>d&d is created and get famous
>its the first rpg so (since its famous) you have all those extreme amount of rpg players with different point of view of how a rpg should be, playing the exact same rpg
>after some amount of time playing some players discover some stuff they think are flaws, while discover some rules they think are really awesome
>because they have very different views on what a rpg should be (despise playing the exact same rpg), what some guy think is a good idea wont be considered a good idea by the other player, what some consider a shitty idea will be considered a good idea by other rpg
>new system is made based at this enviroment, and create a mess of a rpg system.
>many of those players quickly jump into the new system, expecting fixed to what they think are flaws
>because the players have very different opinions on what rpg should be (despise playing the same exact system), what is a flaw to some is a fix to another, and what is a fix to another is a flaw to someone. So the system CAN'T be fixed.
>all those extreme amount of players quickly jumping to this new system, bring new (to rpg) players to the new d&d system
>this make the game have an extreme amount of rpg players with different point of view of how a rpg should be, playing the exact same rpg
>because they have very different views on what a rpg should be (despise playing the exact same rpg), what some guy think is a good idea wont be considered a good idea by the other player, what some consider a shitty idea will be considered a good idea by other rpg
>new system is made based at this enviroment, and create a mess of a rpg system. No one knows what the system/d&d is suposed to be, because it was created based on a mess.
>the story continue ad infinitum

>>55432052
>Popularization means "the point when the general wide audience favors/uses it".
Oh, yeah, so we ARE only allowed to talk about DnD because "wide audience" is going to mean >50% of the playerbase, which DnD has always had.

It's like watching a train wreck, people trying to put it back on its tracks, and then it immediately falling off a bridge.

>>55432080
>Oh, yeah, so we ARE only allowed to talk about DnD because "wide audience" is going to mean >50% of the playerbase, which DnD has always had.
You can come off as catty as you want, I can't change history for you. If you want to argue some other system was the fulcrum which changed game design, feel free to post your arguments and we can talk history of the hobby, but what's happened has happened.

Please, just ignore this guy. Don't give him the satisfaction.

Goddamn fire nation.

>>55432052
>"the point when the general wide audience favors/uses it"
game designers did use it before D&D. D&D players who played other RPGs did use it. the only people who adopted it were literally those games who ONLY play D&D.

>unknown to most players of the hobby back in those days
only if they were the D&D-only type

>There's also a VERY noticeable trend of using skill systems and change in game design to use skills AFTER 3e's OGL.
name the systems you are referring to

>And no, skill systems were not popular and "must-have" in the 90s, that's pure nonsense.
Vampire (was huge in the 90s, had a skill system), Rifts (#3), Shadowrun, CoC, GURPS, CP 2020, Twlight etc. in fact i struggle to find any prominent RPG system of the 90s other than D&D that didn't have a skill system. can you name any?

>>55432069
incorrect. the 3rd RPG ever was Boothill by... TSR. it featured a different setting (western) and a different system that catered towards that setting.

having different systems isn't about fixing flaws, it's natural diversity

>>55432135
>the fulcrum which changed game design,
literally not D&D 3.x. 3.x literally changed nothing. except the approach to licensing.
way more influential were for example HERO/GURPS with their advantages/disadvantages (also late adoption by D&D via lame feats) or FATE with its Fate Point usage. the jury is still out on the upcoming GENESYS system and its narrative dice. D&D 5E itself was clearly influenced by recent rules-light developments. again, the game is just adoping. it is literally only popularizing to the D&D-only crowd.

of course none were more influential than OD&D but that's kinda obvious.

>>55432226
>game designers did use it before D&D
But there weren't very many of them. Especially because the deluge of games out there at the time were trying to "kill" AD&D. Yes, you can list a pretty decently sized handful of games around the time, but for every White Wolf produce you list, I can go back and find 10 fantasy heartbreakers that were deluding the market. Which was it's own problem and I think actually kind of exasperated things, but hey, that's how it goes.

>only if they were the D&D-only type
MOST players were the D&D-only type, how the fuck do you think they maintained market share in a pre-internet-piracy age? I swear to god if you point out that piracy existed in a small fashion even though it wasn't easy or popular...

>name the systems you are referring to
I don't have literally all day to list games made after 2000. Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World and those engines, 13th Sea, the GUMSHOE system, etc

>didn't have a skill system. can you name any?
If your criteria is "prominent", then no. They were called Fantasy Heartbreakers for a reason, and frankly, it wouldn't be presumptuous of you to call it cherry picking if I just started to list unknown-but-advertised-at-the-time games just to satisfy and argument.

>>55432337
>literally not D&D 3.x. 3.x literally changed nothing. except the approach to licensing.
Which is why games are still being made today with the OGL (like Fantasy Craft) and Paizo managed to steal the majority of the market share for a short while with Pathfinder when 4th edition came out, right?

>way more influential were for example HERO/GURPS
lol okay, I stopped reading there. Nobody was ever influenced by GURPS and even the creator said he hates it.

D&D is a good and noble game.
People who don't like it only feel that way because of over-familiarity.

>>55432523
>>55432550
>I can go back and find 10 fantasy heartbreakers that were deluding the market
so completely irrelevant, utterly uninfluential wannabe AD&Ds? wow!

>MOST players were the D&D-only type,
thus making your claims meaningless

>I don't have literally all day to list games made after 2000.
name those who didn't have a skill system before 3.x and adopted one after. we're waiting.

>games are still being made today with the OGL
yeah, licensing changed. not game design.

>lol okay, I stopped reading there. Nobody was ever influenced by GURPS and even the creator said he hates it.
yes, please stop reading here. i am asking you to because you're a moron. there's a line of succession via HERO, then GURPS, then various 90s games (including FASA games) to 3.x.

>>55432684
>so completely irrelevant, utterly uninfluential wannabe AD&Ds? wow!
Yeah! It's like they were trying to copy the game everyone was actually playing or something!

>thus making your claims meaningless
My claim that 3e was the point where skills were popularized because it had the lion's share of the market? Yeah, I sure did that...somehow.

>name those who didn't have a skill system before 3.x and adopted one after. we're waiting.
I frankly don't have such a narrowly defined topic. To be honest, I'm not sure if such a thing exists. I'm mostly talking about new game design and the increasing emphasis on skill-based games without classes, levels, or even attributes, which I can list. So yeah, you got me(?) there I guess.

>yeah, licensing changed. not game design.
Did I mention the point that half of today's game market is based ON 3e's design and the OGL and that this point has little to do with the licensing and more of the fact they released a game engine which people are building their backbone of game design off of? Cause I'm pretty sure I did.

>yes, please stop reading here. i am asking you to because you're a moron. there's a line of succession via HERO, then GURPS, then various 90s games (including FASA games) to 3.x.
All of which wildly unheard of. Your point?

>>55431383
>More focus on skill systems that bypass and backdoor actual roleplaying instead of supplementing it when used exactly as intended. Skill systems that also attempt to design a character from the ground up in every aspect when on the whole it's rather unnecessary and leads to slower and slower character design over time.

Skill systems are meant to supplement roleplaying, and give a clear idea of what a character is capable of. Character creation has gotten faster over time, not slower. Compare constructing a Cyberpunk 2020 character to constructing a Savage Worlds character.

>Largely inaccurate designs of how damage/dying work COMBINED with (because this isn't a problem on it's own) the fact that the game world's evolution and strategies don't account for this and would rather make half-hearted abstractions to make it fit more into a 'realism' perspective when this is a mistake. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I don't even know what you're trying to say here, you insufferable grog. Considering you're whinging about AD&D being some masterpiece of game design, you'd be pretty stupid to think modern design has gotten worse compared to that.

>You have literally never played AD&D and aren't even really qualified to be having this discussion if you genuinely think this.

It had what, four, five resolution mechanics? One of which (the most commonly occuring, actually) added an unnecessary extra step. Compared to games like Fate, Dungeon World, or Savage Worlds, it's a fucking mess.

>lol

pictureofstephanmolyneuxtellingyouwhetherthisisanargumentornot.jpg

>half of the indie market is using 3rd's OGL

Only the OSR half, of which like three games have any prominence.

>>55431383


>he other half are literally 3 pages of actual game mechanics/rules optionally followed by 800 pages of "How to DM: Chapter 1, How I think the game should be run and why you should do it too"

So let me get this straight, you deny that games are mechanically lighter and more tightly focused, yet one of your criticisms is that games are too mechanically light and focus too much on telling you how to run the things?

For a guy who criticized another on not having played any games from before 2000, you sure don't seem as though you played anything but AD&D. You're like the pre-2000 equivalent of one of them "not 3.5, not interested people."

If you seriously think modern RPGs have gotten more unfocused and mechanically heavy (as well as more centered around skill systems) than Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk 2020, Hero, GURPS, Shadowrun, World of Darkness, Traveller, Battletech, etc. then you're a fucking idiot.

>>55432784
>only the D&Dsphere truly matters!
>Your point?
none, none at all. now go away.

>>55432835
>Compare constructing a Cyberpunk 2020 character to constructing a Savage Worlds character.
if you ignore the lifepath, CP2020 isnt any slower

>Only the OSR half, of which like three games have any prominence.
he thinks that's all the matters.

>>55432862
>Call of Cthulhu
bad example. D&D 5E isn't less mechanically heavy than say CoC 4E. which is why the latest version of CoC didn't have to "streamline" its rules, it was always fairly light-weight in comparison.

>>55432784
>Yeah! It's like they were trying to copy the game everyone was actually playing or something!

One game. It was one game, you cretin.

>My claim that 3e was the point where skills were popularized because it had the lion's share of the market? Yeah, I sure did that...somehow.

You fucking idiot. Skill systems were already present in every piece of major competition for AD&D you goddamn fucking dipshit. You don't have a leg to stand on, give up before you look like more of a retard.

>I'm mostly talking about new game design and the increasing emphasis on skill-based games without classes, levels, or even attributes, which I can list. So yeah, you got me(?) there I guess.

It's not increasing. This shit has ALWAYS been standard outside of D&D. If anything it's grown less because OSR gaming has become prominent. But even non-D&D class based systems (like Rifts) still used skill systems.

>Did I mention the point that half of today's game market is based ON 3e's design and the OGL and that this point has little to do with the licensing and more of the fact they released a game engine which people are building their backbone of game design off of? Cause I'm pretty sure I did.

Actually it comes down to licensing because the OGL freed up a lot of terminology, the stuff that can be copyrighted in game design. This is why OSR games exist. The D20 boom however is largely over outside of OSR.

>All of which wildly unheard of. Your point?

GURPS is not unheard of, and was not unheard of, neither is anything by FASA (Shadowrun, Battletech, etc.) you liar.

>>55432916
Fair, but I mean more outside of D&D, since "modern game design" in this context is shit that isn't a legacy design. I mentioned that I wasn't referring to legacy designs earlier.

>>55432959
>neither is anything by FASA (Shadowrun, Battletech, etc.) you liar.
i was particularly talking about vampire. which had both skill system as well as advantages and disadvantages. and it was super-popular. anyway, i am done here.

>>55432886
>if you ignore the lifepath, CP2020 isnt any slower

Only if you're intimately familiar with it's massive skill list.

>>55432862
>So let me get this straight, you deny that games are mechanically lighter and more tightly focused
SOME games are mechanically lighter, but that's heavily in the narrative niche indie market, not the widestream main market. Get it together, anon.

>>55432886
>none, none at all. now go away.
Nah, fuck off.

>>55432959
>One game. It was one game, you cretin.
Yeah, the game they were ALL trying to copy because it had such a HUGE SHARE OF THE MARKET THAT ALL OTHER GAMES DROWNED LIKE CRAZY.

Get the fuck out of here. Threads dying anyways.

>>55433917
>HUGE SHARE OF THE MARKET THAT ALL OTHER GAMES DROWNED LIKE CRAZY.
the only games that drowned are the games you cited: the games that tried to homebrew it. all the games that had something new to offer either setting or system flourished.

and you know what took those game companies under? not fucking D&D but the CCG disaster.

>>55430617
>the rest of your list of Swedish games struggling financially
Only from the late 90's and onwards due to the role-playing scene dying out in general in the country in favor of LARPs and video games. During the 80's and early 90's the RPG scene was huge in Sweden. In fact, unless I'm mistaken it was the second biggest in the world (only the RPG market in USA was bigger).

File: landsknecht.jpg (294KB, 1525x1075px) Image search: [Google]

294KB, 1525x1075px

>>55422540
I'll give you a serious answer, and a bit of advice as a new DnD player: don't tie being a drunk into his powers. Make him a cheery, jovial cleric of a god like Dionysus. Make his drunkenness a character flaw, something you roleplay as opposed to something that directly affects how powerful he is. Fooling around with mechanics, particularly with your first character, is a recipe for unbalanced play. Learn the basics with this guy, how to be a good traditional cleric (mechanically), and let his eccentricity be what makes his personality fun as opposed to what makes his abilities powerful.

>>55424818
I have loads of friends. There are plenty of people out there who aren't normalfags. Admittedly, a large number of my D&D friends ARE normalfags, whose presence I merely tolerate. Most of them are tolerable accept when doing their chucklefuck OMG SO EPIC bullshit.

>>55424430
I haven't played a gay character, if that's what you're asking.

>>55419005
I like the social mechanics in A Song of Ice and Fire RPG. Also, the Injury/Wound system solves the whole "what is HP" problem