Beaten to death and cliched beyond belief

Aries

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What about rolegaming bugs you for it being just to over done.

You're sitting in a bar ..... Arggghh how I hate that :)

Adversary NPC monsters with no desire to see the next day. If I attack with 100 Goblins, you better kill 20-40 real quick, otherwise you'll never get the other 80 to break morale and run away. It's easy to kill 5 goblins with your uber fighter, but can you deal with 100?

Your in a bar, and of course someone has to accost the ideally proportioned bar maid.

I always got a hoot out of rolegaming with this one girlfriend of mine (side note, she's a girl + friend hence girlfriend, never had any relationship). Her idea of fun was to select a male bar patron that looked "usable" and have her female paladin drag him upstairs for some "relaxation".

It's refreshing having a girl in the group, so that the gaming isn't the atypical oh so common penis envy combat heavy rolegaming sessions. Girls are almost mandatory if you want to get away from the cliched to death sequences.

And last but not least, dungeons that never had any reason originally to be dug, filled up with monsters that have no identifiable food source, just sitting there to give you a reason to go up a level.
 

Dr Zaius

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Aries said:
And last but not least, dungeons that never had any reason originally to be dug, filled up with monsters that have no identifiable food source, just sitting there to give you a reason to go up a level.
I think D&D began to go through an evolution of sorts in the early '80s on how DMs approached adventures, and I also think players began to demand more from DMs. One has to bear in mind that the system began life as a chain mail "wargame" at the micro level, thus is was very heavy on combat and very light on roleplaying in the early days. This becomes readily apparent if you leaf through any of the early D&D packaged adventures. These weren't adventures at all in the contemporary sense, but simply a series of very loosely related encounters with various enemies. There may have been a story in there somewhere, but it didn't have much substance to it.

As time went on the focus shifted from monotonous melee after melee to true roleplaying, with a lot more stress on the storyline and motivations of the main characters. It's no longer acceptable to just plop down some monsters in a series of square rooms and call it an 'adventure.' The Temple of Elemental Evil is a prime example of this phenomenon at its worst. The entire dungeon is just a series of interconnected hallways and rooms filled to the brim with monsters, none of which makes any sense whatsoever. There's no way this arrangement could last more than 30 seconds and simply isn't convincing within the context of the campaign world. How could the monsters eat? How could they even move around without fighting through each other's space? Most of them would probably be dead by the time the players arrived.

All that being said, those early adventures still bring out some fond memories. Almost all of them failed to flesh out the story in a credible way, however, I suspect DMs everywhere simply filled in the blanks where necessary and allowed the story to develop in a very free-flowing manner. With a really good DM this would have been okay.
 

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I still have the "first" real dungeons I made: looking at them today I laugh myself silly. Nothing but 4 levels of hallways & rooms filled with monsters :eek:gre: . Not one plausable reason for any of it! :laugh:

The big step for me was an article in an old Dragon Magazine called @ "Let there be method to your madness." It explained the "why" part of dungeon designing. :hmmm:

And I agree 100% with Don, I have very fond memories of those days & nights drawing maps & dungeons in my room, planing for future players... :devious:
 

Aries

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I'm playing in a 1st edition based, updated for 3.5 module with a crew of veteran players currently.

It's basically mostly hack n slash, but it can be fun occasionally.

The guys though, thought I was nuts putting an 18 dice roll into my Charisma stat :) I fiigured, if he lives long enough, makes it to the end of the module, and has a future, I want a guy that will command a lot of attention :)
 

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Campaigns always seem to end with some uber-battle against some monster boss. Although it's a computer game, if anyone remembers Ultima IV, the whole idea of the game was self-enlightenment. It was one of the first (if not the first) games to track and evaluate you on decisions you made during the game, ie. if you never gave to the poor your compassion would suffer. I thought this was alot better than leveling up your character and buying/finding the best equipment just so you could win the first with the boss.

Another peeve I have is that DM's seem to think Rogues have to steal and be sneaky. I usually play a Rogue or a M-U and when I play the Rogue, he's an adventuring thief, ie. little pick pocket skills but very good with traps and locks. Some DM's will penalize your XP because you didn't pick pocket so-and-so when you were "suppose" to.

My last peeve, and I'll probably get some greif for this, is that I hate using a character voice. My character sounds like me, the DM should be able to tell when I'm talking to them and when my character is speaking.
 

Palantir

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I gave up counting individual XP for my players ages ago.

Instead they advance based on the involvement/complication of the missions/quests they complete & major actions taken there-in. They could do 4 short easy missions in and around their home base for several months & not get anything beyond the treasure they collect (and inter-play/connections with NPC's = future adventures).

Or they could stumble upon a temple and after a short weeks enterprise & planning defeat the shamans who are attempting to raise a demi-god & gain a full level.

Normally it's an all or nothing affair: either the entire party deserves a level or no one does. Ex. the rogue's party job of doing rear-guard is just as important as the thief's up front opening doors & picking locks & the fighter standing by protecting him. (but obviously if a player does nothing they deserve nothing) They could fail a mission(s) but still gain a level based on the actions/ideas they tried & attempted.

The only differences in "XP" gaining comes in learning the next level: how long it takes & GP cost there-in to master the next level. If a player was "involved" in roleplaying and did their profession-job as required by the mission the cost/time is less to learn the next level. This can be from 1-8 weeks of game time. Roleplay a lot & be "profession" involved = less time/cost.

Players give me a list of things they want to do on their off time after training. Those players who learn quickly get a detailed "story" of what happened: NPC connections, rumors heard, new "hobbies" gained, new friends met etc. Those players who take 4+ wks to train usually don't get more than a brief paragraph of what happened.

There are also only so many "trainers" out there in each class and I don't tell them where they are, they have to remember the locations of earlier ones or roleplay to find new ones in new locations.

Rogue's in my world are wilderness "thief/rangers." Better than thieves but not as good as rangers. They can back up either class with only a little loss in each class.

I don't do character voices either except to lower or raise my voice a bit.
 

2054172

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What did you expect

The game has evolved, as has the culture, I still have some fond memories of past DM games. i DMed more then played, I enjoyed the joy of others. All game progress and it is how we are able to adapt to the changes, that is what makes a game able to stand the test of time. There are many things that have progressed past our ability to adapt it , and it just fades away. The ideas may of been good if not great but it was ahead of it's time.:smoke:
 

Aries

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Ah experience awards :)

One of the beauties of Alternity.

1 point if the game saw almost nothing happen that night.

2 points if at least one event of worth occurred.

3 points if the session was an active one

1 bonus point if the player actually impressed the DM at least once in some in character way during the session.

Very predictably easy on the book keeping :)

Alignments. There are none in Alternity. See gaining that bonus point. I have people write a short descriptive paragraph "explaining" what is essentially important to their PC.
Do you kill the helpless, rob only from scumbags and the rich, die trying to help friends, obey the laws simply because they are the laws, etc etc.
If you don't live up to your paperwork, no bonus.

Granted, I tend to treat their PCs in a fashion they have coming to them.
 
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