Feedback on rogue centered game idea?

[shadowkat678]

I don't think it matters. Neither game has much in the way of mechanical support for the kind of campaign you want to run, so you'll be doing the same amount of work either way. I might lean more towards 5E just because it has less CharOp culture devoted to it, and so there's less chance of the game getting dragged into endless gonzo setpiece combats.

I am seeing game slang I do not know.

[daniel_ream]

"CharOp culture" is a game play style that focuses on producing the most highly optimized character by exploiting weaknesses and corner cases in the character creation system. It's most well-known in 3.5/Pathfinder, but it goes back as long as there have been point-buy systems.

"gonzo setpiece battles" are big, long, complicated combat encounters that involve unusual terrain, monsters, environmental conditions, or anything that makes the encounter stand out as extraordinary. 3.5/PF strongly encourage this, and 4E was explicitly based around it.

[shadowkat678]

"CharOp culture" is a game play style that focuses on producing the most highly optimized character by exploiting weaknesses and corner cases in the character creation system. It's most well-known in 3.5/Pathfinder, but it goes back as long as there have been point-buy systems.

"gonzo setpiece battles" are big, long, complicated combat encounters that involve unusual terrain, monsters, environmental conditions, or anything that makes the encounter stand out as extraordinary. 3.5/PF strongly encourage this, and 4E was explicitly based around it.

For the first one, just say "hey, if I say you can't swim up a waterfall like a salmon, waterfalls can't be something you swim up? Okay? Character and story driven game. Have fun. Min maxing not necessary. Neither is metagaming" and then everyone agrees. Like. If you don't have a way to fly over, and you ask to jump over a 300ft cavern, again "great bar twenty. You jump a whooping TWENTY EXTRA FEET...before plummeting. Anyone got something to catch this guy?"

If we're playing a serious and "realistic" kinda game, for lack of a better word, you all agree to that. Seems like a fairly easy script. You trust me not to unnecessarily screw you over with encounters that have no reason to happen, you guys drive the story through your in character actions without setting out to purposefully break or "win" the game. Sign here on the dotted line and proceed character creation.

For the second, sounds fun. If we ever DO have fights, having be: "I strike with my sword"

*rolls dice*

"Roll of 17 vs DC 15. HIT!"

Is a lot less fun. One thing I'm liking so far looking through the 3.5 pdf is there seems to be a lot more room for decision and personalizing a character, which would, I think, be good for a game where you're looking for individually specialized rolls. Really like the point buy idea because of that. And the races have pluses and minuses, which is pretty cool too.

I also like the pluses and minuses to DC based on conditions. Complicated, but...eh. Starting to think I just like complicated things. Seems to be everything I think of is something more complicated than it has to be...eh. I think it goes side by side with liking to expand choices. It even has more for out of combat.

I don't so much like not being able to break up your turn, but I feel like that could be put in.

I haven't played 3.5 though, so that's why I was asking someone who had experience playing both, without talking about any options outside those two. I was wondering if 3.5 would be good because the optimization, as I've been looking through it today.

[daniel_ream]

One thing I'm liking so far looking through the 3.5 pdf is there seems to be a lot more room for decision and personalizing a character, which would, I think, be good for a game where you're looking for individually specialized rolls. Really like the point buy idea because of that. And the races have pluses and minuses, which is pretty cool too.

I also like the pluses and minuses to DC based on conditions. Complicated, but...eh. Starting to think I just like complicated things. Seems to be everything I think of is something more complicated than it has to be...eh. I think it goes side by side with liking to expand choices.

That's CharOp culture in a nutshell. Good luck with that, if you stick with 3.5.

I find it ironic that you're seeing "a lot more room for decision and personalizing a character" in 3.5 than 5E, because you have exactly the same scope for that in both systems. 3.5 merely gives you more explicit and complex game mechanics to represent your choices, where 5E simply abstracts that to "you have advantage/proficiency bonus or you don't".

It is exactly because neither 3.5 nor 5E has any mechanics to represent your choices when, say, running a complex heist to relieve a local noble of his family heirloom jewelry or manipulating two factions of the Thieves' Guild into a shadow war with each other so you can end up on top, that so many people recommended a different system to you in the first place.

[shadowkat678]

That's CharOp culture in a nutshell. Good luck with that, if you stick with 3.5.

I find it ironic that you're seeing "a lot more room for decision and personalizing a character" in 3.5 than 5E, because you have exactly the same scope for that in both systems. 3.5 merely gives you more explicit and complex game mechanics to represent your choices, where 5E simply abstracts that to "you have advantage/proficiency bonus or you don't".

It is exactly because neither 3.5 nor 5E has any mechanics to represent your choices when, say, running a complex heist to relieve a local noble of his family heirloom jewelry or manipulating two factions of the Thieves' Guild into a shadow war with each other so you can end up on top, that so many people recommended a different system to you in the first place.

I'm talking about character choices. I still firmly believe that the story choices shouldn't have rules attached. They should figure out their heist and how to run it and make their choices themselves without confines in that aspect.

[Nifft]

I have a question, for those familiar with 5e and 3.5e, and this is saying if I did stay within the realm of D&D for this, would you think one would be better to handle this type of game than the other?

IMHO 5e would be better because it's simpler, and because in 5e skills remain relevant for longer -- but in one specific respect 5e is worse, because the Stealth rules are a total mess. Other than the Stealth mechanics, everything else in 5e is better for a high-skill heist game.

3.5e has tons of spells that allow you to just plain bypass challenges, which is great if your goal is to be a Wizard who wins everything, but not great if you want skills to be an important part of the game beyond the lower levels. I like 3.5e a lot, but that's because I like cool Wizards walking away from explosions.


So my advice is:
- Look long & hard at 5e
- Find or invent better Stealth rules
- Enjoy the (modified) game

[daniel_ream]

I'm talking about character choices. I still firmly believe that the story choices shouldn't have rules attached. They should figure out their heist and how to run it and make their choices themselves without confines in that aspect.

I really don't think you're grasping what I'm saying. Since you're clearly gotten over your aversion to PDFs and looking at other rules sets, I strongly recommend you look at Leverage and Blades in the Dark for an example of how to handle heists in an RPG, and Fate for a more general look at how to model challenges with something representable by mechanics (I'm talking about the Fate fractal, but you may have to dig up Worlds on Fire for a good example of it in use).

As just one example of what I'm talking about: suppose one of your thieves manages to abscond with the Duchess' diamond necklace and nearly makes it over the estate's wall but for the scullery maid raising a hue and cry at the last minute. The guards spot the thief, halloo and give chase.

What now?

In 3.5, you're kind of stymied, because there's no rules for this. The thief probably has a slightly higher movement rate due to encumbrance limits and so on, so he always gets away. Always. At best, you make a single opposed Dexterity check and that's the chase over and done.

By comparison, 5E has quite a nice little chase system that gives the players something to interact with and produces some nice results in the fiction, and lots of advice on how to extend the system for different types of chases.

Do you see my point? Different games have different rules to cover different kinds of situations. Some games have no rules whatsoever for certain situations; some games have generic resolution rules that try to handle any and every situation; some games have very detailed rules for every possible situation that could ever come up in the setting (I'm looking at you, Harn).

Now, I have no doubt someone is going to say that the GM can always make up some chase (or whatever) rules, or else the GM can just decide what happens. Of course the GM can. That's Rule Zero and it's true for every single RPG. But at some point, Rule Zeroing everything that comes up in the fiction because the game has no rules for it means you're making your own game, not playing an existing one with house rules.

Why not start with a game, or at least a set of mechanics, that's pretty close to what you want anyway? And exactly what harm is there in at least looking at the way other games have handled this same campaign frame?

[Florian]

For the first one, just say "hey, if I say you can't swim up a waterfall like a salmon, waterfalls can't be something you swim up? Okay? Character and story driven game. Have fun. Min maxing not necessary. Neither is metagaming" and then everyone agrees. Like. If you don't have a way to fly over, and you ask to jump over a 300ft cavern, again "great bar twenty. You jump a whooping TWENTY EXTRA FEET...before plummeting. Anyone got something to catch this guy?"

If we're playing a serious and "realistic" kinda game, for lack of a better word, you all agree to that. Seems like a fairly easy script. You trust me not to unnecessarily screw you over with encounters that have no reason to happen, you guys drive the story through your in character actions without setting out to purposefully break or "win" the game. Sign here on the dotted line and proceed character creation.

Scrap that thought. 3.5E/PF uses a very different power scale and models a very different, more magical kind of reality. A rough comparison would set a level 20 D&D 5E Character at around a level 10 PF character or a level 5 3.5E spell caster.

A, say, PF Shadowdacer, Shadow Scion or Umbral Agent will start teleporting from shadow to shadow at around level 7, a Monk will simply walk along the walls/ceiling at the same time and any arcane spell caster will open any lock, no matter what, at around level 5.

You will notice an ongoing topic of "mundane vs. magic" in the 3.5E subforum, as anything to do with magic or supernatural abilities surpasses "realism" sooner than later (E6 (exit level 6) is a common format to stop leveling before that point).

[daniel_ream]

(E6 (exit level 6) is a common format to stop leveling before that point).

That's actually E6 for "Epic Level 6", as it moves the "you stop leveling up" cutoff in 3.X from level 20 (normally the gateway to the Epic rules) down to 6, and adds "epic" feats to add in the iconic class features that only show up later, like the Druid's Wild Shape (Large).

[tomandtish]

[citation needed]

It's possible, I suppose, John Rogers wrote for D&D 4E. But given that Leverage is entirely heist-by-numbers and is indistinguishable from the A-Team, Mission Impossible, Ocean's N for 11 <= N <= 13, The Sting, Ronin, Heist (clearly) and just about every heist movie/show ever, I'd want to see a direct sourced quote before I believe that.

I wonder if they are thinking of this interview...

What has gaming taught you about producing?

John Rogers: Creative flow. Listening to the group of people around you trying to be creative, to form a story spontaneously is not that different from the writers room. Managing that by throwing the spotlight, “yes, and”, asking questions… being a showrunner in the room is a lot like being a DM.

Note that you get a closer quote regarding The Librarians.

Basically, spend as much time on party building as you do character building. I ruthlessly steal a lot of the “relationship map” mechanics from other games, like the Cortex System. We actually used a version to design the character relationships on The Librarians.

a Leverage based game sounds like fun. If your players are familiar with the show however, be aware that there were a lot of shortcuts they didn't show that would need to be played out.

Most common: To steal X from Company Y, they have someone working as a guard/receptionist/IT person, etc. However, they often didn't show HOW they got that person into place. Presumably hacking, etc., but there's actually a LOT of steps of any given plan you never see enacted.

[daniel_ream]

I wonder if they are thinking of this interview...

That sounds a lot more like storygaming techniques, which are themselves taken from screenwriting. That I'll believe. It was the "based on D&D" part I found disingenuous. And that headline is complete clickbait.

a Leverage based game sounds like fun. If your players are familiar with the show however, be aware that there were a lot of shortcuts they didn't show that would need to be played out.

Most common: To steal X from Company Y, they have someone working as a guard/receptionist/IT person, etc. However, they often didn't show HOW they got that person into place. Presumably hacking, etc., but there's actually a LOT of steps of any given plan you never see enacted.

No, that's reflected in the game design. You can spend Plot Points to narrate a flashback that explains why you have the thing you need right now, and you get a bonus on the roll. It's essentially he same as the Planning Dice mechanic mentioned upthread.

[tomandtish]

No, that's reflected in the game design. You can spend Plot Points to narrate a flashback that explains why you have the thing you need right now, and you get a bonus on the roll. It's essentially he same as the Planning Dice mechanic mentioned upthread.

Ahh, if the Leverage game itself covers that, then cool. I was referring to the concept as a whole, since it was something often skipped over in the show.

[shadowkat678]

My main issue is I don't think I could run a game with only having a PDF copy. The only reason I was really reading the 3.5 handbook is because I saw it online for sale by a bookstore for under $10 before tax. In almost new condition.

Come on. Considering amazon has it $40+, and most used ones aren't in that good a condition, I was NOT going to pass it up if it looked good enough to buy it. Also, just came in. Wasn't lying about the Almost Like New part.

I've been looking for cheap solid copies of some of these other RPGs, but I still can't find them, and I just can't focus on pdf copies. I need something in my hands if I'm going to have to look things up and such. The Leverage thing is sounding really cool, but I still can't find the book for less than $35-$40.

[FreddyNoNose]

I really don't think you're grasping what I'm saying. Since you're clearly gotten over your aversion to PDFs and looking at other rules sets, I strongly recommend you look at Leverage and Blades in the Dark for an example of how to handle heists in an RPG, and Fate for a more general look at how to model challenges with something representable by mechanics (I'm talking about the Fate fractal, but you may have to dig up Worlds on Fire for a good example of it in use).

As just one example of what I'm talking about: suppose one of your thieves manages to abscond with the Duchess' diamond necklace and nearly makes it over the estate's wall but for the scullery maid raising a hue and cry at the last minute. The guards spot the thief, halloo and give chase.

What now?

In 3.5, you're kind of stymied, because there's no rules for this. The thief probably has a slightly higher movement rate due to encumbrance limits and so on, so he always gets away. Always. At best, you make a single opposed Dexterity check and that's the chase over and done.

By comparison, 5E has quite a nice little chase system that gives the players something to interact with and produces some nice results in the fiction, and lots of advice on how to extend the system for different types of chases.

Do you see my point? Different games have different rules to cover different kinds of situations. Some games have no rules whatsoever for certain situations; some games have generic resolution rules that try to handle any and every situation; some games have very detailed rules for every possible situation that could ever come up in the setting (I'm looking at you, Harn).

Now, I have no doubt someone is going to say that the GM can always make up some chase (or whatever) rules, or else the GM can just decide what happens. Of course the GM can. That's Rule Zero and it's true for every single RPG. But at some point, Rule Zeroing everything that comes up in the fiction because the game has no rules for it means you're making your own game, not playing an existing one with house rules.

Why not start with a game, or at least a set of mechanics, that's pretty close to what you want anyway? And exactly what harm is there in at least looking at the way other games have handled this same campaign frame?

At least Harn has nice maps!