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Boredom is the Mother of Creativity. |
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Googleshng - February 10 '03- 2:00 Eastern Standard Time
Forget that whole necessity/invention bit. I have been unable to upload
files to my page of rantings for a couple weeks now. The resulting boredom has left me to create a whole
bunch of stuff in need of being uploaded to said page. Meanwhile, in the world of anime fansubs, Ghost
in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is QUITE good.
Oh yeah, and fair warning. The first letter here contains far more talk of paper RPGs that anyone would
likely want to read, so feel free to skip it.
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The dread D&D letter.
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Ouch. You didn't specify whether you were playing 2nd
edition or 3rd edition (or 1st edition for that
matter), but regardless I was referring to 3rd
edition. Youre right about the characters being the
same even if theyre class composition isnt exactly the
same, but I think you can easily make more characters
in 3rd edition than you can in any other rpg to date.
Or, to put it another way, you can more easily realise
any type of character you would wish to play using the
3rd edition rule-set.
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Googleshng:
One word. GURPS.
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As far as it being unable to handle many situations,
this is also not true. There are rules for doing just
about anything the character can want, though its true
sometimes the DM will have to wing it, set a DC, and
tell the character to make some attribute check to do
something. And if youre talking about some incredibly
strange scenario involving holy stones of love,
pregnancy, and making babies that grow up really
fast...well honestly I havent ever heard of a rules
system that has anything like that, let alone a mere
console rpg.
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Googleshng:
There's a LOT of situations where the GM has to pull a DC out of thin
air. 3rd edition isn't as bad as older versions when it it comes to
that but there's still a few too many fairly common activities where
you have to wing everything. The whole DC system is a tad too
subjective too. It'd be a whole lot easier to wing everything if there
was a universal base difficulty number for everything, with a huge
list of situational modifiers shoved away somewhere. So, let's say,
under normal conditions, the base DC for any situation is a flat 15.
Even if you have an inexperienced group, you're never going to have to
flip through skill lists. "I try to entertain the crowd." "OK, you
have to beat a 15." "I try to pick a random person's pocket." "OK, you
have to beat a 15." "I try to bash down the door." "OK, it's a bit
better reinforced than average, let's call it an 18." Now before you
point out that some skills are just flat out inherently harder than
others, just up the cost for bringing them up. Heck, D&D3 already does
that with cross-class skills.
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D&D is also the most balanced of the editions to come
out, and while not every product is as balanced as the
core rulebooks, they can be modified by the dm if
he/she thinks they are too powerful. Balance only
really matters if your characters are going to gripe,
and if youre going to write a story for d&d in a
console-like way, it wont matter since characters in
console rpgs are rarely balanced. How often is the
main character not the "best" character?
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Googleshng:
I assume you meant 3rd edition there, and yes, it is. That doesn't
change the sad state of comparison between a mage and a cleric though.
I mean, a mage gets their spells slower, has to lug them around in a
book, rolls a smaller die for HP, can't default a memorized spell to a
standard spell for the class like clerics can with healing spells, and
is FAR more limited in the number of spells they can learn per level.
Personally, I can't name a single thing they get to balance any of
that out aside from a roleplaying restriction that doesn't come up
much.
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As far as customizing your character, what more do you
want? There is a virtually infinite skill list based
only on your imagination, and while you can only have
so many skills at a certain power level, this is for
balance, if you need it to be higher you gain some
levels. In conjunction to that there is the feat
system, and being able to write any feat you want,
this is another infinite aspect, you can realize as
many feats as you feel like imagining. I dont know
many other rpgs that let you customize your character
AS much.
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Googleshng:
You can make house rules up for every RPG out there. If you're pushing
the merits of a system of rules, you can't make arguments outside the
book. In any case, the only RPGs off the top of my head that offer
less ways to tweak your characters than D&D 3rd edition are the
earlier incarnations of the game. Most games, when creating your
character or leveling up, give characters a pool of generic creation
points to spend however they want to on stats, skills, and special
abilities. A few will even give you extra points by taking negative
extras (say, being blind, missing an arm, being a lecherous freak,
having a little kid you have to take care of, etc.) With D&D, all
three aspects crawl along at independant, slow, fixed rates.
Relatively speaking, that's pretty static.
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Static combat is a result of a dm that hasnt the time
to write good encounters. Even in modules combats
arent all that static, what with disarming, sundering,
tripping, grappling, rushes, charges, and terrain. If
you want an inventive monster, just make one up, the
rules are there to help you make a new monster.
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Googleshng:
Again, better than it used to be, but aside from a couple special
options that are available in pretty much every game, but the bulk of
combat primarily tends to boil down to: roll your d20 to hit, if you
hit roll your damage, next character. No real significant difference
between weapons either. There's games out there where there are
important strategic considerations in what variety of punch you want
to throw. Don't even get me started on Lost Worlds.
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While the game itself is 30 years old, I think the
idea of it is as timeless as you get, its playing
pretend or fighting imaginary things. People have been
doing that for thousands of years. The game was
updated 3 years ago, and this summer receives another
revision: 3.5, to further balance elements that are
lacking. Its true the roots are from a wargame, but
honestly what bearing does that have on the game it is
today?
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Googleshng:
I have absolutely no problem with D&D growing out of a tabletop war
sim. My point is that it's a 30 year old RPG, and more importantly the
FIRST RPG. That's 30 years other people have had to come along, see
the game, and build on what's there with new creative ideas. Even if
you assume that most such attempts at making a better game didn't pan
out, that's still more than enough time for people to make impressive
improvements on the prototype. In the same time frame, all that's been
done with D&D when you get right down to it is they seperated race and
class into two seperate traits, did away with some of the truly
strange mechanics (remember thac0?), and finally got around to adding
a system of special perks for characters to get. All of these are
features everyone else on the block came to town with as far back as
20 years ago.
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With the Open Gaming Liscence allowing for people to
write their own D&D products, sell them, and make
money without paying WotC, I think its easily the best
pen and paper rpg, and therefore the best rpg around.
You can do anything, be anyone, go anywhere, all you
need is an inventive dm and 2-3 other players.
Technik
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Googleshng:
Allowing the general public to release their own sourcebooks really is
a brilliant idea. It saves them the trouble of making every sourcebook
they need to, helps get people's house rules out into the world, and
makes the core rules that much more appealing. Of course, there is the
problem of having no quality control, inevitable rules conflicts
between all the various third party books, and fairly random market
penetration. Still, the only way to top the number of good sourcebooks
for your game out there than that is for the creators of the original
game to single handedly make a sourcebook for every concievable type
of game anyone could ever want to run.
However, someone actually did that. Again, see GURPS.
Finally, D&D does not allow you to "do anything" (without making up
house rules, but by that logic every RPG lets you do anything), on the
grounds that the rules are specifically designed for roleplaying in a
generic fantasy setting. Then of course there's the other points
mentioned in the rest of this.
Phew. That took a while.
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Xtra Nding
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I apologize if you get this question commonly but i would like to know if
actually have the Final Fantasy International version of FFX. I do have
the extra dvd with the artwork, trailers, previews and interviews and
also my ffx also has the extra sphere grid system, but how do i view the
extra ending. Is it at the end of the game? Is it somewhere in the
extra dvd? Do i need to pick up specific items? Could you please tell
me in detail how i go about viewing the extra ending if i do in fact have
the Final Fantasy International game which is supposed to feature the
extra ending.
If it helps i have an Australian version which should be the same as
European version.
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Googleshng:
Common sense would indicate that the extra little epilogue is tacked on just after the end of the game.
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You people have too much money.
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Google,
People have been sending andrew ideas of collectibles and memorabilia that they want from various RPG games. Alot of people are sending stuff in from the final fantasy series but one thing that disturbed me was the Materia that's being sold on ebay. I found it amusing that someone would pay 722 dollars for this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=16462&item=3104824365
when you can actually buy these things for 10 bucks here: http://www.phoenixorion.com/phoenixorion/crystals/spheres/fiberoptic.htm
The reason I'm telling you this? Because I know some Final Fantasy 7 fanboy/girl is going to want one (whispers: who wouldn't want materia? Especially if they were led to believe it was an original square product? I would *read: if you tell anyone I'll kill ya :-p*) and I couldn't sit by and let someone totally rip off my fellow rpgamer friends.
Incidentally...parusing the ebay for FF7 memorabilia has made me want very much the final fantasy 7 international edition (didn't know it even existed). I haven't played this game in many many years but I loved it. Why would they call it an international edition if it wouldn't work on an american PS? *sniffle* now I'm gonna cry.
Sincerely,
The Lich King
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Googleshng:
Hey, while people are paying such outrageous prices for Square memorabilia, I have a mint condition copy
of Parasite Eve 2 sitting here I'm willing to part with for the low low price of $300!
Oh, and because it contains the things they added in when the came was released outside of Japan. So
really, what would you even need it for?
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Gripes
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Hey.
You know what I like? I like when people write in whining about how much they hated a certain game. They didn't like it from the beginning, they didn't like the end, they didn't feel for the characters, they didn't like the gameplay. They spent 60-80 hours (read 3.3 solid days) voluntarily sitting in front of something that they hated.
I hear complaints like this a lot, but I never hear anyone comment on how lame that is. If you don't like a game, sell it and go get something else. Or read a book.
(shrug)
-Matt
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Googleshng:
Well personally, I have a duty to play every RPG I can get my hands on and let you people out there know
what's worth tracking down and what should be avoided like the plague. People who sit there and try to
convince people that, say, FF6 is the worst game ever made though are really just wasting their breath.
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