*more rantings about the same old shit*
I don't know what's up. I feel like a grumpy old man lately. Really, I'm not. Just don't know why everything is pushing my buttons.
Got invited to a new rpg campaign. Cool! Not sure what the heck I'm gonna play. Kinda waiting on what the other members of the group are thinking, but from the looks of things, we're gonna need a rogue type and possibly a front line fighter (we have 2 ranged types...one mundy one arcane). So I'm kicking around ideas. Mind you, this is for a Pathfinder game. It's going to be co-gm'd. That is, there will be two GMs that alternate between parts of the story (it's one of Paizo's Adventure Paths ((which is a GREAT FRICKIN' IDEA, all you other gaming companies...some of us don't have the time to write up WHOLE campaigns...we want more adventures and campaigns!)) that we'll be playing).
And now one of the GMs, who's enamored with DnD 5th Ed. is wanting to work it into the campaign. Ummmm....the rules aren't compatible. At all. Not really.
Doesn't help that I find 5th Ed.'s magic item rules to be, well I'll be politic, dumb (if you don't want politic, insert about four or five choice words that you aren't allowed to say on the air). Admittedly, I have some problems with Pathfinders magic items, but at least Paizo has given me a system on how it works, so I can fix it for my home games (yes, I'm looking at you, wands).
I like the flexibility of Pathfinder. Yes, there are a LOT of choices. Sadly, the more choices that are offered generally means that you start running into issues. However, I will take choices and issues over bare-bones railroading into cookie cutters crap.
With Pathfinder, we see behind the scenes and see how they did the design. They've shown it to us, and shown us how to modify it or recreate it. DnD doesn't. It's wysiwyg. Nothing off menu to order and little flexibility from what I can see.
So, I will admit that DnD simplified magic item creation. Anyone. ANYONE can make a magic item. If you are the right level. There's no need to be a caster even. Which doesn't make sense to me. And you can't fail in making one, if you try in DnD.
Ugh. I don't mind simple. I don't mind simplifying. I completely understand the rule of K.I.S.S.
I don't understand watering it down to the point that a goldfish with ADHD and diarrhea can do it.
ok, yeah, that might have been a tad offensive there. My bad. I'll own it.
I guess I cut my teeth on gaming when it was something that you had to learn. To master. That it helped teach certain skills. Yes, THAC0 meant doing math, unless you were smart enough to figure it out and, I don't know, write it down at the bottom of your character sheet.
I guess that I enjoy it when a game streamlines things. Shadowrun has done an AMAZING job of streamlining Rigging and the Matrix stuff. Gods alone knew that the Matrix stuff in 1st Ed. read like stereo assembly instructions in another language. The newest Ed. has fixed a lot of that. Deckers don't need separate gaming sessions just to do their part of the run anymore.
But there's a difference with streamlining and dumbing down.
I guess that's what I don't like about 5th Ed. It feels like it's been dumbed down several times. For no good reason. And trying to inject that into another system, I feel, isn't going to work. Yes, Pathfinder mechanics aren't finely tuned German engineering, but trying to remove two cylinders from a 4-cylinder car is gonna screw it up something fierce. It's like dropping a boulder into a still pond. It's not going to make ripples, there are going to be waves and you won't see the repercussions of what happened until you run smack dab into the tsunami and have to desperately try and paddle to fix a situation before it swamps the boat.
Ah well. It's enough that I can post here. I've tried talking with the GM who wants to do this, but she feels that I'm not giving it a chance. I'm tempted to show how badly it'll break down, but that would screw both GMs and ruin a campaign for three other people. I don't want to do that. Maybe I can convince the other GM of what I'm saying. Or maybe not. Maybe I just have to ride this train wreck until it goes off the rails. Then I can pick up the pieces and start something new.
Got invited to a new rpg campaign. Cool! Not sure what the heck I'm gonna play. Kinda waiting on what the other members of the group are thinking, but from the looks of things, we're gonna need a rogue type and possibly a front line fighter (we have 2 ranged types...one mundy one arcane). So I'm kicking around ideas. Mind you, this is for a Pathfinder game. It's going to be co-gm'd. That is, there will be two GMs that alternate between parts of the story (it's one of Paizo's Adventure Paths ((which is a GREAT FRICKIN' IDEA, all you other gaming companies...some of us don't have the time to write up WHOLE campaigns...we want more adventures and campaigns!)) that we'll be playing).
And now one of the GMs, who's enamored with DnD 5th Ed. is wanting to work it into the campaign. Ummmm....the rules aren't compatible. At all. Not really.
Doesn't help that I find 5th Ed.'s magic item rules to be, well I'll be politic, dumb (if you don't want politic, insert about four or five choice words that you aren't allowed to say on the air). Admittedly, I have some problems with Pathfinders magic items, but at least Paizo has given me a system on how it works, so I can fix it for my home games (yes, I'm looking at you, wands).
I like the flexibility of Pathfinder. Yes, there are a LOT of choices. Sadly, the more choices that are offered generally means that you start running into issues. However, I will take choices and issues over bare-bones railroading into cookie cutters crap.
With Pathfinder, we see behind the scenes and see how they did the design. They've shown it to us, and shown us how to modify it or recreate it. DnD doesn't. It's wysiwyg. Nothing off menu to order and little flexibility from what I can see.
So, I will admit that DnD simplified magic item creation. Anyone. ANYONE can make a magic item. If you are the right level. There's no need to be a caster even. Which doesn't make sense to me. And you can't fail in making one, if you try in DnD.
Ugh. I don't mind simple. I don't mind simplifying. I completely understand the rule of K.I.S.S.
I don't understand watering it down to the point that a goldfish with ADHD and diarrhea can do it.
ok, yeah, that might have been a tad offensive there. My bad. I'll own it.
I guess I cut my teeth on gaming when it was something that you had to learn. To master. That it helped teach certain skills. Yes, THAC0 meant doing math, unless you were smart enough to figure it out and, I don't know, write it down at the bottom of your character sheet.
I guess that I enjoy it when a game streamlines things. Shadowrun has done an AMAZING job of streamlining Rigging and the Matrix stuff. Gods alone knew that the Matrix stuff in 1st Ed. read like stereo assembly instructions in another language. The newest Ed. has fixed a lot of that. Deckers don't need separate gaming sessions just to do their part of the run anymore.
But there's a difference with streamlining and dumbing down.
I guess that's what I don't like about 5th Ed. It feels like it's been dumbed down several times. For no good reason. And trying to inject that into another system, I feel, isn't going to work. Yes, Pathfinder mechanics aren't finely tuned German engineering, but trying to remove two cylinders from a 4-cylinder car is gonna screw it up something fierce. It's like dropping a boulder into a still pond. It's not going to make ripples, there are going to be waves and you won't see the repercussions of what happened until you run smack dab into the tsunami and have to desperately try and paddle to fix a situation before it swamps the boat.
Ah well. It's enough that I can post here. I've tried talking with the GM who wants to do this, but she feels that I'm not giving it a chance. I'm tempted to show how badly it'll break down, but that would screw both GMs and ruin a campaign for three other people. I don't want to do that. Maybe I can convince the other GM of what I'm saying. Or maybe not. Maybe I just have to ride this train wreck until it goes off the rails. Then I can pick up the pieces and start something new.