What is your "Fight Me" thread?

[2D8HP]

Stalin! Thank you. I've used the quote, but never knew the original author.

Do you mean the 1980's Japanese punk band The Stalin?




They're okay, but I prefer The Soviettes.

[Cluedrew]

Personally I don't like fight me topics. Because people are so emotional about it that even if they are correct, they rarely take the time to stop and explain why. Which leads to the slightly sad result that, generally speaking, the more you care about a topic the less likely you are to convince me on it.

Let go of your anger. Appreciating that it is not that easy.

[ImNotTrevor]

Personally I don't like fight me topics. Because people are so emotional about it that even if they are correct, they rarely take the time to stop and explain why. Which leads to the slightly sad result that, generally speaking, the more you care about a topic the less likely you are to convince me on it.

Let go of your anger. Appreciating that it is not that easy.

HOW DARE YOU INSIST THAT I CALM DOWN AND SPEAK LIKE A REASONABLE GROWNUP!

But yeah. I have pet peeves but I definitely wouldn't start a thread looking for a fight.

[Potato_Priest]

My personal fight me topic is subclass balance. There are many folks on the 5e forums that seem to automatically assume that the game is perfectly balanced, and make up whatever justification/wierd scenarios they need to to justify this assumption.

They generally insist that the berserker barbarian is just as good as the bear totem barbarian, that the champion is just as good as the battle master, and that the thief is just as good as the arcane trickster. If that doesn't meet your personal observations after using/DMing the classes in question, then you must be playing the game wrong.

[SirBellias]

I wouldn't start a thread over it, but I'd like to argue that putting absolutes as to party cohesion, alignments, and most things people argue about in relation to any RPGs (besides out of character issues) is a bit silly. Provided it's talked about beforehand (or not, in case of PARANOIA), and your players agree with what's talked about (or willing to compromise/try it for a session), then anything can work. There have been several games I've been in where the party falls apart due to disparate values, and it was great. Alignments (while mostly ignored in games I'm in) wold have been across the chart if applied. A game with a serious plot that the DM has lined up and well though out definitely works if talked about beforehand. They aren't my preferred domain, sure, but it will work if you trust the people you're playing with to roll with it.

[Guizonde]

3. PVP
I like pvp and allow it in all my games. If your character doesn't like someone, take the appropriate actions that character would take. If you think someone is after you, do something to stop them. If you piss off the party, know there are consequences. Anyone who disagrees can FIGHT ME!!!

i chuckled.your phrasing perfectly reflects your attitude towards pvp.

Indeed. I've that one go so far as to try to encompass any and all NPC goals and actions separate from the players' input, any pre-existing conditions of the setting, and any cause-and-effect / momentum in the setting, as "railroading".

Oddly, this seems to be done in support of TWO very different agendas. One, as you note, is trying to move the border so that you either "accept" that railroading is "good", or you're "being a hypocrite".

The other is in support of a particular (and IMO peculiar) type of gaming in which everything has to emerge out of play, nothing exists that doesn't come from active play, and there is NO backstory or past until it's "out on the table" in the game's present-moment -- a sort of No Myth / Story Now cranked up to 12. They would assert that any existing setting detail or backstory is "railroading".

how are any of those examples railroading? i don't get it. you've got a setting that's set and that's the canvas for your players to work on, either with or against the grain. the backdrop does not reflect the course of the story. how would you be on rails when all you've got is the scenery?

the other example seems to me to be a vacuum, where it'd be hard to pull a railroad in the traditional sense of the word. i know it's not your opinion and only your examples, but i'm very confused by this viewpoint. i see a magical mcguffin as more of a railroad station than your examples. it'd be like saying "well, the lich didn't hide his phylactery during the campaign explicitely, so it must be on him, otherwise you've railroaded us into a fetch quest!"

True, I should rephrase it to "breaking CHARACTERs". (so disappointing in myself for making that mistake.)

I see too many dm's have evilmcbadguy trying to destroy the world, and the only way to stop them is with the magical mcguffin. Yeah, world ending is a serious consequence, but it is death without meaning. It's the dm saying oops, you were to late, everything dies.

You can have a character go stark raving mad, and lock them in an insane asylum, or various other terrible things that don't technically kill the character. The main point is people who shy away from and defend those who shy away from consequences because they don't want to make their players mad/sad/happy/etc.

edit:


my problem with murder hoboing is the idea that a player can avoid any and all consequences by running away, and ignoring common sense in favor of "adventuring" mechanics.

oops, I killed a few guards, oh well, I'll head over to the next nation and work there. I'll just sleep in an alley, raid this tomb, burn this village, etc. There are no consequences because the party members are "players/gamers" not living citizens of this world.

I like my players to form a party organically, so there is actual weight behind their agreement to travel together, and that means they have to form actual in-game relationships, be that friendship, companionship, or mutual hatred. If two characters hate each other and try to go at it, it will have consequences. (pretty much comes back to roleplay vs. rollplay)

murderhoboing has consequences in most of the campaigns i've played. my players were a team with an agenda: they hated their respective guts, but they knew they couldn't trust anyone besides their teammates. it was fascinating, especially coming from newbie roleplayers. once the campaign ended they decided their characters would start a war against each other. during the campaign, they spent their time intimidating, killing, and generally being a nuisance. they fought back against the guards permanently, taking down a lot of them until they had gathered armies of their own. they were seen as the lesser bad guys, and it drove them to insanity. being bad guys with a "good" agenda made the campaign a lot more difficult for them. stealth, bribes, assassinations, and underhanded dealings were their bread and butter to continue to solve the main quest.

perhaps it's due to my system, or a "rule" i've tried on people, but we give ourselves 3 sessions to see our character's personnality develop. this means that it's never a fixed thing aside from pet peeves. demeanor changes, tone changes, sanity changes. there has never been one campaign where one character never changed their personnality from the first to the last session of a campaign. bonds form or break in the party, links are woven. sanity is lost, routinely crippling the character until they're a former shell of themselves and generally becoming a nuisance to themselves and a handicap for the party: we've had firebugs, kleptomaniacs, one dude got pica (and ate a teammate's stock of ammo and the brains of a mayor...), i tried to have a character remain fully human for the duration of the campaign and failed on the last session where he had to have cybernetics installed to keep going (hero syndrome and distrust of the machines in a team of cyborg mercs. it was intense roleplaying. he didn't live well with it).

dying is easy: it's surviving and solving a main quest with a crippled character that's hard.

[Pex]

Personally I don't like fight me topics. Because people are so emotional about it that even if they are correct, they rarely take the time to stop and explain why. Which leads to the slightly sad result that, generally speaking, the more you care about a topic the less likely you are to convince me on it.

Let go of your anger. Appreciating that it is not that easy.

You do not understand the power of the Dark Side.

[1337 b4k4]

Hammering D&D for not being good at generic fantasy. D&D is largely a victim of its own success here, but D&D is not a generic fantasy game. It's a game for D&D fantasy, which yes would have been cyclical reasoning before D&D came out, but given that since then it's more or less established its own branch of fantasy stories, isn't so much cyclical as it's the apprentice becoming the master. If you play D&D for the game that it's intended to be, it's a wonderfully fun game and the system works just fine for it. 3.x IMHO tried to make the game more generic, and lost a lot of tiny details along the way (e.g. XP for Gold). And given at this point we have almost 20 years now of 3.x D&D (and Pathfinder) being the primary starting point, it's unfortunate that so many people haven't had a chance to play some good old fashioned grave robbing, exploring and seeking treasure D&D. To me, that's part of what triggered the OSR movement, was a re-discovering of the games D&D was originally designed to run.

To a lesser extent, slamming old D&D for not being modern (either in terms of game mechanics or "social commentary"). Old D&D is a product of its time, and more than that a product of a small group of people making stuff up as they go along. Things we take for granted today weren't 20 years old when old D&D was being made, and likewise modern views weren't the views 30 and 40 years ago. Remember when D&D was first being written, "Summer Blockbusters" weren't a thing (Jaws was 75, Star Wars was 77), the F150 was a brand new truck, SNL was brand new, Bohemian Rhapsody was brand new and it would be 5 more years before the world knew what Pac-Man was. Old D&D absolutely had its flaws, and knowing what those are have helped make TTRPGs what they are today. But slamming it for not having all the things that come from a hobby that's 40 years old is unfair.

[Max_Killjoy]

how are any of those examples railroading? i don't get it. you've got a setting that's set and that's the canvas for your players to work on, either with or against the grain. the backdrop does not reflect the course of the story. how would you be on rails when all you've got is the scenery?

the other example seems to me to be a vacuum, where it'd be hard to pull a railroad in the traditional sense of the word. i know it's not your opinion and only your examples, but i'm very confused by this viewpoint. i see a magical mcguffin as more of a railroad station than your examples. it'd be like saying "well, the lich didn't hide his phylactery during the campaign explicitely, so it must be on him, otherwise you've railroaded us into a fetch quest!"

I don't really get it either... like I said, it's taking what could be some interesting and useful advice about how to have the fictional world and other characters react to the PCs actions, and cranking it up to 12+.

One of the examples given in my exchange with one of its proponents was that the PCs were searching for an artifact in an abandoned tower, and as the GM, this proponent insisted it would be railroading if he decided before the players rolled whether or not the artifact was indeed in that tower...

It made no sense to me, I mean, I'd say that the artifact was either in the tower, or it wasn't. Searching "really hard" or "really well" for something that just isn't there won't make it appear out of thin air.

Hammering D&D for not being good at generic fantasy. D&D is largely a victim of its own success here, but D&D is not a generic fantasy game. It's a game for D&D fantasy, which yes would have been cyclical reasoning before D&D came out, but given that since then it's more or less established its own branch of fantasy stories, isn't so much cyclical as it's the apprentice becoming the master. If you play D&D for the game that it's intended to be, it's a wonderfully fun game and the system works just fine for it. 3.x IMHO tried to make the game more generic, and lost a lot of tiny details along the way (e.g. XP for Gold). And given at this point we have almost 20 years now of 3.x D&D (and Pathfinder) being the primary starting point, it's unfortunate that so many people haven't had a chance to play some good old fashioned grave robbing, exploring and seeking treasure D&D. To me, that's part of what triggered the OSR movement, was a re-discovering of the games D&D was originally designed to run.

True.

One of my peeves is actually players who insist that D&D (and its offspring) are generic fantasy gaming rulesets, when really that sort of system is only suited for a particular sort of game experience and "story structure" (it's there even if the story is emergent).

[RedMage125]

I most frequently argue about alignment.

ESPECIALLY in 3e boards. Since it was the last edition to use "heavy-handed" alignment mechanics.

Thing is...I like alignment. I find that it works fine.

In 100% of the stories I have heard from players and DMs who have shared their "bad experience" with alignment, a key part of the problem is that someone deviated from RAW. SOMEONE in that telling, went off-books about what constitutes Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, or what the ACTUAL rules are for a character changing alignment, or how the rules pertain to character classes with Codes of Conduct or alignment restriction. Also, my personal favorite, people deviate from the RAW in terms of what alignment even IS. Statements of "Alignment X must behave in manner Y", or other such nonsense.

Fact is, alignment works fine, as long as people stick to what the rules say. The 3e PHB, and supplements like BoVD and BoED are very specific about what is Good and Evil in D&D. And guess what? It's a fantasy game, so the devs actually DO have the right to say "X is an evil act". I don't care about whatever arguent each and every special snowflake has to support their opinion on why a certain deed "should not be Evil". RAW say it's evil.

Houseruling is fine. D&D is a game that thrives on customization and houserules. But when you deviate from the RAW, you should at least be aware of it, and so should everyone at the table. Know that when you change certain things about the definitions of alignment, that may have a cascading effect on the mechanics, so be prepared to make adjustments to those, too. If you redefine what constitutes Good/Evil/etc., then use the mechanics that enforce the RAW definitions of those, you may encounter problems.

Point is, if the only thing that makes you say "this mechanic is bad" stems from situations where people are deviating from the rules of said mechanic, then it is not a fair indictment of the mechanics, only of those people. Crutches can be very useful to people with injured legs. If you've been repeatedly bludgeoned over the head with someone's crutch, does that make all crutches "dangerous weapons designed to inflict pain"? No? Then shut up about alignment.

Have had some interesting conversations about "railroading", too. I don't like what I call "hard railroading", where the players' choice and agency is rendered meaningless and they know it. But I also like to run games with a plot and direction. I like to write story elements and foreshadowing. I like to tell a specific story. Now, my players always have room to be creative and make that story better in ways I cannot always predict. Which is what makes the game great.

I'm getting sidetracked. I've actually had a group of players ASK me to give them a railroad plotline. I took over a group as DM when our last DM got stationed somewhere else. He usually ran pre-published adventure, and that was what the group was used to. My first game with them, I did an Evil Campaign. Which meant the players had a LOT more freedom and agency. More than a normal "sandbox" game, actually, because I expect villains to be proactive and move the plot along, while I, the DM, simply describe how the world (and its inhabitants) react to them. More often than not, these people were paralyzed by the availability of choice. After that mini-campaign concluded (about 5 or 6 sessions), they asked for "a more structured storyline with more direction". I was floored.

What all of it boils down to is this: No matter what rules you're playing with, or how you're playing, the only wrong way to play D&D is when people are not having fun.

Railroading is not inherently "bad", some people like it. When the players at the table are groaning and complaining, chafing at the restrictions...THEN it is bad. But no one here is of an authority to say "this is badwrongfun"

Alignment rules can work just fine. Some people hate them. Cool, don't use them. Houserule to your heart's content. But don't act like your OPINIONS are so vital and universal that they carry the same weight as objective fact. Your negative opinion about alignment and alignment rules has no bearing on whether or not they are objectively "bad".

[Glorthindel]

My hill to die on is that character death is fine, acceptable, and an entirely normal and natural part of the roleplay experience.

It is ok to kill a character, and not just because they did something dumb, or it is a dramatic pivotal moment of the campaign. Sometimes a character will die in a completely simple, boring, and anti-climactic way. And this is ok. Not everyone gets to be Aragorn, sometimes it turns out you were playing Boromir, and all your plans, and plotlines get cut short by some nameless peon with a good roll. Yes, be a little sad, but if the idea of your characters death is traumatic to you, you need to take a step back.

I will not use (and will always try and talk other people from using) "acts of god" or other DM ex-machina to save or bring back a dead character. Your character is nothing to the gods and other powers of whatever setting I'm running. When your character stabbed up a whole temple full of Clerics of [insert evil god here], who were actively advancing their dieties cause, he didn't step in and save them from death, so why should the god you only pay lip service to when its relevant even be aware of your existence, let alone value it enough to intercede? Even if you are on a literal "mission from god" in likelihood everyone you are opposing is on a mission from their gods too, so what makes you special? If every "god supported" enemy put in the ground popped back up a few minutes later because their god revived them too, the game would suck - so the rules apply to your character too.

Oh, and no, the monsters didn't just "knock you out". You attacked their friends and family in their home, unless there is a particularly valuable bounty or active slave-trade involved, they are executing your murderous ass for their own safety (and likely desire for vengeance). That's assuming they aren't particularly hungry carnivores - it isn't cannibalism for a goblin or gnoll to eat a human you know.

As a secondary (slightly less vehement) cause, backstories are not pristine, inviolate works of art. Once it is in my game, it is mine, to do with as I see fit. I wont spring changes on you, and will breif you on anything that needs to be adjusted to suit the world, but I wont ask your permission either. I might give you the intresting plot development you hope for, but I might equally do nothing with it because it isn't appropriate for the story that is being told. And that is my prerogative.

[2D8HP]

...don't act like your OPINIONS are so vital and universal that they carry the same weight as objective fact....

Where's the sport in that?



NEVER!

Doing what you suggest would lead to tolerance, mutual respect, courtesy, and common sense.

AND THAT WOULD BE WRONG!!!

:

As The Clash taught us:

"...Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
D'you know that you can use it?

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you..."

ON THIS HILL I'LL DIE!!!!!

[CharonsHelper]

But no one here is of an authority to say "this is badwrongfun"

YOU might not.

I DO

[2D8HP]

YOU might not.

Bluetext is boring

And typing out: [COLOR=blue] Blah, blah, blah [/COLOR] is tedious.

I prefer ALL CAPS and lots of EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!

ON THIS HILL I'LL DIE!!!

[Faily]

Alignment-stuff in D&D.

I will gladly stand by you on this hill, RedMage125!
I am among the "weird people" who like the alignment-rules, and think they work perfectly fine in a fantasy-game that is much more black-and-white than real life is. I enjoy the escapism of it.


----


My hill is most often game-settings, especially settings I am very familiar with. While I don't mind that people play various game-settings differently at their own tables, I do take issue with incorrect understanding of settings (also not fond of people expecting a setting to be changed for their expectations or wants either, but that's a different matter I suppose).

Legend of the Five Rings is a setting I know very well, and I have discussed and explored the setting with the people who were on both Story Teams and RPG Teams (both in games or in just out-of-game conversations) before the IP-sale. L5R-stuff is a hill I will fight on if I see misinteprations or misunderstandings.

[goto124]

Yes, be a little sad, but if the idea of your characters death is traumatic to you, you need to take a step back.

You know what's traumatic? Spending all that time rolling up a new character and coming up with a new character concept!

More seriously though, I really need to streamline my character creation process. I probably should ask someone who's overflowing with character ideas, I'm dry as a desert in need of a downpour...

And typing out: [COLOR=blue] Blah, blah, blah [/COLOR] is tedious.

I use the mobile site on both desktop and mobile. I type out not just the color codes, but the url,
img, and quote codes as well!

[Lord Torath]

Here are my "Fight Me" topics:

Spelljammer is stupid!

No. Yes, there is some inherent silliness in the game (Gnomes and Giant Space Hamsters). Yes, there are some new laws of physics you're going to have to get used to. No, it's not perfect (what game is?). But if you want Adventures on the High Seas in Space^TM, this is the setting for it. And all spaced-based RPGs that I've heard of have either new laws of physics, or "magic" ways of breaking the currently-understood laws of physics - FTL of whatever stripe (or plaid, as is the case in Spaceballs), artificial gravity, strength of materials of spaceship construction, etc.. Spelljammer may not be for you. That's fine. But your Space RPG of choice is not inherently better than Spelljammer, simply due to the fact that you prefer the way your RPG re-writes the laws of physics better than the way Spelljammer does it.

DM fudging dice rolls is always terrible!

Yeah, "No." None of us are perfect DM/GM/Storyteller/Referees. If I, while planning an encounter, overlook a special ability, or fail to think through the implications of the terrain, combined with a unique attack form, and only realize how this moderately-challenging encounter I planned is going to kill everyone midway through the encounter? Is it fair to punish the players because I made a mistake? I can either tell the players I made a mistake and retcon the thing (obvious deus ex machina), say "screw it" and kill the PCs anyway (They brought this on themselves!), save the players through the intervention of some other "monsters" (possibly less-obvious deus ex machina), or fudge some opposition hits into misses. Is fudging always a good thing? Obviously not. Is it always a terrible thing? Also no. But it has its place.

[CharonsHelper]

...Giant Space Hamsters

Any miniature giant space hamsters?

[prufock]

"Flavour is immutable" or similar.

[Tinkerer]

So many grudges that I had forgotten about until this post came up. I will join people on the hills of:

Defending alignments (in D&D specifically as well as in a couple of other systems)
Character death (up to and including TPKs) occasionally being a good thing
Spelljammer was a fantastic setting that doesn't get nearly enough attention
Defending D&D (particularly defending how hard the creative team works to try and put out a good game)
Character balance being an OPTIONAL part of a game so long as the game accepts that is what it is (Rifts and GURPS accept that they are unbalanced, D&D does not)
Fumble mechanics being acceptable in a game (so long as the odds are lower than 5%)
And as I mentioned before some railroading and wanting to nerf spellcasters rather than buff martials in 3.5

I have put literally hundreds of hours into refining my thoughts and engaging in conversation on all of those (except for Spelljammer since it doesn't really come up as often). My opinion could possibly be changed on any of these points but you'd better be bringing an extremely original point because I've heard all of the standard responses.

[Lord Torath]

Any miniature giant space hamsters?

Yes, actually.
Here are some subspecies:
Subterranean Giant Space Hamster
Sabre-toothed Giant Space Hamster
Rather Wild Giant Space Hamster
Invisible Giant Space Hamster
Sylvan or Jungle Giant Space Hamster
Miniature Giant Space Hamster - Our favorite I mean second favorite (please don't hurt me, Belkar) Ranger has one of these for his animal companion.
Armor-Plated Giant Space Hamster
Yellow Musk Giant Space Hamster (No relation to the Yellow Musk Creeper)
Ethereal Giant Space Hamster (not really ethereal, but has translucent flesh)
Carnivorous Flying Giant Space Hamster (a "regrettable if understandable line of inquiry")
Two-Headed Lernean Bombardier Giant Space Hamster
Fire-Breathing Phase Doppleganger Giant Space Hamster
Great Horned Giant Space Hamster
Abominable Giant Space Hamster
Tyrannohamsterus Rex (25' tall at the shoulder, 75 tons, and no intentional attacks. May trample in fright for 10d10 damage)
Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen ("Woolly Rupert" is speculated to be even larger than the Tyrannohamsterus Rex)

[Guizonde]

Here are my "Fight Me" topics:


DM fudging dice rolls is always terrible!

Yeah, "No." None of us are perfect DM/GM/Storyteller/Referees. If I, while planning an encounter, overlook a special ability, or fail to think through the implications of the terrain, combined with a unique attack form, and only realize how this moderately-challenging encounter I planned is going to kill everyone midway through the encounter? Is it fair to punish the players because I made a mistake? I can either tell the players I made a mistake and retcon the thing (obvious deus ex machina), say "screw it" and kill the PCs anyway (They brought this on themselves!), save the players through the intervention of some other "monsters" (possibly less-obvious deus ex machina), or fudge some opposition hits into misses. Is fudging always a good thing? Obviously not. Is it always a terrible thing? Also no. But it has its place.

paraphrasing gygax, "a dm rolls dice to make players feel afraid". i toss the dice, i see what comes up. sometimes i don't know, and let the dice decide, because that's how i roll . i fudge rolls often because i must have been blessed by lady luck herself for critical hits. no, there's no reason a low-level mook wielding a crowbar just dealt 47 wounds to the friggin' space marine equivalent that is the player's beatstick. it'll turn into something more reasonable, for example, 7 wounds (knowing that that in itself is just under half his total health...). other times, i'll fudge the rolls in the npc's favor just to drag a fight for longer than the initiative round. occasionnally i do it for humor, turning a crit hit into a crit fail (works wonders for speech checks, or the boss' rallying monologue), or on the contrary, making sure the extremely lithe and trained assassin does pull a batman and escape through several wall jumps. it's dependant on the scene and the mood i'm going for.

my teammates are the same, it goes with the setting: the dm rolls the dice to make the players crap their pants. sometimes, just the sound without consequences is enough to get us on edge.

[CharonsHelper]

Miniature Giant Space Hamster - Our favorite I mean second favorite (please don't hurt me, Belkar) Ranger has one of these for his animal companion.

Really? Lol. I always just assumed that it was Minsc's weird affectation out of nowhere.

[Amphetryon]

Any version of "the dice shouldn't be used for the social aspects of any (rules-medium/heavy) RPG that uses dice for other aspects of the game."

Yes. Yes they should.

[CharonsHelper]

Any version of "the dice shouldn't be used for the social aspects of any (rules-medium/heavy) RPG that uses dice for other aspects of the game."

Yes. Yes they should.

I'd argue that either way can work. Some crunchy systems choose yes, while others want to keep social portions looser.

Either can work so long as they're consistent.

[Amazon]

Every Time someone feels like they need to share their misconceptions about feminism.

I will be there.

*Super hero pose*

[Max_Killjoy]

"It's fine or even good to infringe on the core connections between the player and the PC, by hijacking the PC's thoughts and desires, and telling the player what their PC wants and feels."

No... no it's not... and I'll plant my banner on that hill and fight to maintain the core critical aspect of player agency.

[Random Sanity]

Any version of "the dice shouldn't be used for the social aspects of any (rules-medium/heavy) RPG that uses dice for other aspects of the game."

Yes. Yes they should.

I will die on that hill as many times as necessary to drive the point home. Charisma is not an attribute you can fake, and no GM in the entire world has any business expecting people to try.

[mgshamster]

Any miniature giant space hamsters?

Hi there.

Yes, there are miniature giant space hamsters.

[Cluedrew]

Shouldn't they be called giant miniature space hamsters?