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Monday, October 14, 2013

Preferences

There'S an informal survey circulating the forums, and I thought I'd copy my answers here, for purposes of discussion.

This is what I prefer in my games:

  1. Characters are Zero to Hero, have random chances of success (tempered by player decisions,) and death is a consequence (edging towards "looming".)
  2. Magic items are Uncommon to Rare, Randomly found but potentially creatable by PCs (eventually.)
  3. Natural Healing takes days to weeks, but hit points are luck and thus potentially recovered quicker.
  4. Rules are simple with few Mechanical Options. I prefer characters with a minimum of defined abilities, but completely open-ended as to what they can do, as oppose to lots of defined abilities, but hard limits and "niche protection".
  5. I have no strong preference between GMing and playing, but perhaps lean more towards GMing if I feel the local GMs are less lenient than I would be. When I GM, I'm almost completely homebrew, although I have no compulsion to avoid published material.



4 comments:

  1. Interesting you should phrase it as random chances of success tempered by player choice. Seems to put a little too much emphasis on the dice for me. I'd say it's about player choice first and foremost, with the dice being used to handle any uncertainty

    If you strip out a lot of the NPC skills like Knowledge and any elements that undermine player skill, 3.0's got a great system. Skills are defined, but flexible since you can swap the skill ranks or key ability used in any situation; DM fiat's built into the system and you're even given feedback to decide when it's appropriate. It also handles niche protection pretty well, with cross-class and exclusive skills, though perhaps a little too well when it comes to rogues. Of course, like with just about everything, 3.5 ruined all that

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    1. It's an artifact of posting my answers without the questions. The survey asked whether players should almost always succeed, succeed about half the time, have random chances of success, or fail most of the time. Player choice wasn't even listed as an option. But I have mixed feelings about skills and I'm opposed to niche protection, which may explain why I'm an OD&D blogger and not 3e or 4e.

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  2. I can understand why you'd have mixed feelings about skills, but opposed to niche protection? Could you elaborate on that, 'cause I honestly can't wrap my head around why you'd oppose niche protection unless you were also opposed to classes

    I'd kinda like to do this survey myself, but don't really participate in forums (only ever lurk Dragonsfoot and OD&D Discussion, and then just for specific information). Where might I find it?

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    1. I can write something about niche protection in two days. Could have sworn I wrote about it before, but not sure where that is.

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