@ultranurd definitely how i feel about Kingmaker and especially Wrath of the Righteous… i only found the latter compelling because there was literally a "just cheat at D&D" option
@ultranurd it starts with a bit of innocent "why does acrobatic movement make me slower? it should make me faster instead!" and fudging the stats of all the items you identify
and ends up at using UMD to write your own spellbook, movement triggering reverse-AoOs (with full sneak attack damage, of course, since that is very surprising), and a spell that just makes you roll perfect 20s
• 70% of the decisions that go into a character build are basic "don't suck" busywork rather than customization per se • that last 30% is the only thing veterans really think about, and if you combo the right stuff it totally breaks the game
• bespoke special toys the GM introduces tend to either immediately become Gale Dinner or totally break the game
• the game defaults to a pile of 50-50 gambles and tactical play starts with removing those coin flips
in bg3 this is all mostly fine since you do just go and break the system, and it's just you pushing the game as far as you want; not a whole crew of people all trying to use the rules *together*
and you can really push combat encounters in a video game since players get to just retry — so the game can make you "work for it" with far, far tighter margins than a tabletop GM gets to use in their encounter design
combat-challenge game rules *are* about presenting fun little puzzles for the players, but, at the table, they're also a shared language we're using to set expectations, build the fiction together, &c. &c.
on the computer there's more room to just fuck around with the puzzle without making everyone else feel bored, upstaged, overwhelmed, &c.
and it's really not fun — ime — to be gaming together and have to go like "yeah i use the cheesy action cheat yet again, third time this month"
anyway, my biggest gripe here is probably the action economy, since the second you pick up anything useful to do with your "bonus action" that's like taking an extra turn constantly compared to someone who's just using it to do sad baby stuff
make a little program that just prints out d&d "stat arrays" in various orders
if you have any significant experience with the system you can immediately say "that's fine for a [class]" or "you will hate the game and yourself if you do this"
explaining why is a lot of work, but the net result is just… knowing you should always do it like *this* and not like *that*
think about the metric ton of "why can't my shadowheart hit anything?" posts about bg3
yeah this was one of the big sins of 3rd edition is they wanted the game to be like Magic the Gathering where there is stuff you can take that is extremely good and stuff that is extremely bad and part of the "fun" and challenge of the game is tinkering around figuring out which is which and they still haven't completely gotten away from that
@Claire @Alex P. 👹 I think, this, annoyingly, is the Thing D&D Does, D&D is a game about The Build and your build choices, and it kinda goes off the rails when it tries to not be that
which was pretty annoying to begin with in Magic but becomes extra bad when you're supposed to be playing a character across multiple sessions over a long period of time and you're also supposed to be considering roleplaying and not just straight combat optimization
silverwizard
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • •Alex P. 👹
in reply to silverwizard • • •stand by
silverwizard likes this.
Nicolas Ward
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • • •Alex P. 👹
in reply to Nicolas Ward • • •definitely how i feel about Kingmaker and especially Wrath of the Righteous… i only found the latter compelling because there was literally a "just cheat at D&D" option
Alex P. 👹
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • • •(have you seen the WotR "Trickster?" it's peak "i'm bored, just gonna argue a lot and cheat at d&d")
Nicolas Ward
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • • •Alex P. 👹
in reply to Nicolas Ward • • •@ultranurd
it starts with a bit of innocent "why does acrobatic movement make me slower? it should make me faster instead!" and fudging the stats of all the items you identify
and ends up at using UMD to write your own spellbook, movement triggering reverse-AoOs (with full sneak attack damage, of course, since that is very surprising), and a spell that just makes you roll perfect 20s
Alex P. 👹
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • • •• the action economy kinda really sucks
• 70% of the decisions that go into a character build are basic "don't suck" busywork rather than customization per se
• that last 30% is the only thing veterans really think about, and if you combo the right stuff it totally breaks the game
• bespoke special toys the GM introduces tend to either immediately become Gale Dinner or totally break the game
• the game defaults to a pile of 50-50 gambles and tactical play starts with removing those coin flips
Alex P. 👹
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • • •in bg3 this is all mostly fine since you do just go and break the system, and it's just you pushing the game as far as you want; not a whole crew of people all trying to use the rules *together*
and you can really push combat encounters in a video game since players get to just retry — so the game can make you "work for it" with far, far tighter margins than a tabletop GM gets to use in their encounter design
Alex P. 👹
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • • •combat-challenge game rules *are* about presenting fun little puzzles for the players, but, at the table, they're also a shared language we're using to set expectations, build the fiction together, &c. &c.
on the computer there's more room to just fuck around with the puzzle without making everyone else feel bored, upstaged, overwhelmed, &c.
and it's really not fun — ime — to be gaming together and have to go like "yeah i use the cheesy action cheat yet again, third time this month"
Alex P. 👹
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • • •Alex P. 👹
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • • •like, here's an exercise:
make a little program that just prints out d&d "stat arrays" in various orders
if you have any significant experience with the system you can immediately say "that's fine for a [class]" or "you will hate the game and yourself if you do this"
explaining why is a lot of work, but the net result is just… knowing you should always do it like *this* and not like *that*
think about the metric ton of "why can't my shadowheart hit anything?" posts about bg3
Claire, The Ultimate Worrier
in reply to Alex P. 👹 • • •silverwizard
in reply to Claire, The Ultimate Worrier • •Claire, The Ultimate Worrier
in reply to Claire, The Ultimate Worrier • • •