Dark Shadow's Surprisingly Well-Lit Random Banter #217

[WarKitty]

FTFY. 10chars

Heee. Nah, I'm doing a nice 5e bard, trying to kind of fill in and be good at the things other people aren't good at. I'm sort of covering the rogue and cleric together.

[2D8HP]

Heee. Nah, I'm doing a nice 5e bard, trying to kind of fill in and be good at the things other people aren't good at. I'm sort of covering the rogue and cleric together.

Cool!

I'm curious what your impressions of how much and how little the edition change effects gameplsy how much it still does or doesn't "feel like D&D" (I know it's hard to seperate ones impressios of who your playing with from what rules your playing, but still curious)

[enderlord99]

How many time-traveling doctors and/or doctors with time powers do you know of? I can name four, assuming The Doctor only counts once.

[Insane Jeenyus]

.. .. .. .. .. assuming The Doctor only counts once.

that a real buzz kill right there!

[Amidus Drexel]

Note to self:

New group. Not optimizers. Do not break anything.

Heee. Nah, I'm doing a nice 5e bard, trying to kind of fill in and be good at the things other people aren't good at. I'm sort of covering the rogue and cleric together.

I've been in that boat before! And I usually jump to playing support too - a well-optimized support makes everybody feel powerful. Usually I opt for sorcerer instead of bard, though (I've gotta have those offensive spells too).

Cool!

I'm curious what your impressions of how much and how little the edition change effects gameplsy how much it still does or doesn't "feel like D&D" (I know it's hard to seperate ones impressios of who your playing with from what rules your playing, but still curious)

As far as D&D goes, I've played 3.5, PF (not technically D&D, but everybody else treats it that way, so I might as well include it), 4e, and 5e (in varying amounts), as well as some simplified homebrew systems that were a little less structured. The table definitely matters the most - the games I played with my grandpa were very different than the ones I ran for my friends, which were very different from the ones I ran for people in my dormitory freshman year, which were very different from the ones I've played in online between then and now. The edition matters, for sure, but you can play a dungeon crawl in any edition and have it feel very "D&D", or do something else fairly divorced from the standard high fantasy tropes and have it not feel like "D&D".

(I'm very at-home in 3.5, so I have some bias towards it (I've been playing it for about 10 years now, after all) - it has lots of little fiddly bits and extra rules for specific situations and edge cases that feel like "D&D" to me.)

I know you've been in the hobby since the 70s - what edition feels the most "D&D" to you?

[WarKitty]

My joke is that D&D really changes when everyone's old enough to drink.

[Amidus Drexel]

My joke is that D&D really changes when everyone's old enough to drink.

That's about when it goes from "bribing the DM with doritos and knockoff dr. pepper" to "bribing the DM with whiskey and pizza", right?

[enderlord99]

Oh, hey, Amidus! I was wondering where you were.

[WarKitty]

That's about when it goes from "bribing the DM with doritos and knockoff dr. pepper" to "bribing the DM with whiskey and pizza", right?

Pretty much, yeah. Helps if you made the pizza yourself.

[2D8HP]

....I know you've been in the hobby since the 70s - what edition feels the most "D&D" to you?

I first DM'd in 1978 with the Holmes "bluebook", with my little brother as my first victim player, and that version was imprinted on me as "D&D"

In '79 when I brought the bluebook to class and my future best friend (Derek Whaley Lindstrom, RIP) saw it and invited me to play D&D at his house, where his brother was the DM using the LBB's, including the Supplements (one of which we called "Claudes, Demi-Claudes, and Zero's", and let's just say that I thoroughly "studied" the Eldrich Wizardry cover), and he also used the AD&D Monster Manual (how envious I was that his had the cool Lizardman logo instead of the lame Wizard logo mine had), and extensive use was made of third-party Arduin and All the World's Monster's (we were in Berkeley, California).

For a long time I thought that the rules from the Perrin Conventions were oD&D because that's what we used, and paradoxically that version of "D&D" with a heavy use of third party stuff is the next most "D&D" to me.

Good times.

The third most "feels like D&D" version to me is the AD&D I DM'd from '80 to '85-ish, which makes me part of the "Johnny-Come-Late" cohort that ruined the game:

Back when it was wargamers and college kids, it was pretty good. Around 79/80 I started to see a shift with "serious" role players who were very entitled and opinionated.

It's true.



Sorry about that.

In 1985 Unearthed Arcana came out, which I really disliked, and I'd already been playing other games, plus one game, King Arthur Pendragon, became what I most wanted to play, so while I continued to play some Dungeons & Dragons after '85, I didn't buy any new rules for it until the 3e PHB in late 2000, and I played no RPG's at all after '92 till after 5e came out, so I never played 2e to 4e, but I'll give you some impressions anyway!

2e AD&D, B/X, BECMI, and RC BD&D: All the TSR D&D that I didn't play looks close enough to what I did place (minus some wonky stuff).

3e & 3.5: Some nice changes, I like how easy multi-classing became for one. Races of the Wild, and Drow of the Underdark had cool "fluff", unfortunetly while I like some of the additional "crunch" (the "Scout" from The Compete Adventurer looked way cool), that there's so much of it intimidates me (I just don't learn as fast as I used to).

4e: "Nentir Vale" and the "Feywild" look like cool places to adventure in, but I didn't read the books enough (which I think are probably in my garage) to form much of an impression of 4e.

5e: I've actually gotten to play some and think play at first level is awesome!, and I think I like first level WD&D better than first level TD&D (not that I'd turn down some more TSR).

My chief complaints about 5e are that:

All that content makes it intimidating to DM,

How quick and easy healing is makes other players too reckless for my taste (seriously, you don't have to melee everything!),

and

Levels and extra abilities come too fast (for my taste and cognitive ability). The "E6" option for 3,5 I think I'd like for 5e as well.

Still, I can't argue with being able to play an FRP game with a Swords & Sorcery setting again (unlike '92 when it was all "Dark Future", and "World of Darkness"
*shudder*)

[Amidus Drexel]

Oh, hey, Amidus! I was wondering where you were.

I'm here! I still lurk RB, even if I don't post much. What are you up to these days?

Pretty much, yeah. Helps if you made the pizza yourself.

Man, I haven't had homemade pizza in a long time. Mom used to make some with a fococcia-esque crust - it was heavy stuff, but tasted amazing.

These days I pretty much just cook sausage and pasta - easy stuff I can do on the stovetop. I'l probably get back into cooking properly over the summer, though, when my "at-home" time isn't focused on "doing schoolwork" quite so much.

My chief complaints about 5e are that:

All that content makes it intimidating to DM

Still, I can't argue with being able to play an FRP game with a Swords & Sorcery setting again (unlike '92 when it was all "Dark Future", and "World of Darkness"
*shudder*)

I'm definitely coming from a different perspective, but one of my biggest complaints about 5e is that it doesn't have very much content at all - though I suppose most systems fall short of 3.5 as far as "sheer quantity of content" goes.

I agree that it's nice to have a solid S&S system, even if I feel myself wanting to drift away from that style lately. Eclipse Phase (which is somewhat hard Sci-Fi) has caught my eye recently, and all the new D&D settings I'm working on draw on (or at least try to draw on) a slightly different sort of fantasy than bog-standard S&S.

[Teddy]

Cool!

I'm curious what your impressions of how much and how little the edition change effects gameplsy how much it still does or doesn't "feel like D&D" (I know it's hard to seperate ones impressios of who your playing with from what rules your playing, but still curious)

A pair of things which struck me when I started playing a 5E campaign at work, compared to the 3.5 games I've been playing on these boards, is how the ability gap between a reasonably specialised character and an untrained character is much smaller (so the elf druid no longer completely eclipses the party fighter in perception), but the advantage system means it's less efficient to offset poor abilities with good circumstances.

Also, the new system for threatened area and opportunity attacks made positioning a lot less intuitive, as enemies could just walk around out party tank to hit back row characters if those weren't further than a pair of tiles behind. My dwarven wizard in medium armour had to spam Shield spells all campaign through to stay alive, as it was impossible to stay out of harm's with the endless stream of giants that our DM kept throwing at us (we were playing Storm King's Thunder).

[2D8HP]

....I'm definitely coming from a different perspective, but one of my biggest complaints about 5e is that it doesn't have very much content at all....

That seems to be common, I'm definitely in the minority.

...I agree that it's nice to have a solid S&S system, even if I feel myself wanting to drift away from that style lately. Eclipse Phase (which is somewhat hard Sci-Fi) has caught my eye recently, and all the new D&D settings I'm working on draw on (or at least try to draw on) a slightly different sort of fantasy than bog-standard S&S

I can emphasize, but it's weird (or maybe it's normal for an almost 50 year-old), but more and more, my tastes are regressing to what they were when I was 12, and farther from what they were when I was 22.

[Florian]

@WarKitty:

When joining a new group and possibly having higher optimization skills and system knowledge then my co-players, I always go straight for one of the more supportive classes. I find it easier to not hog all the spotlight by pushing the others into having more spotlight on their own.

@2D8HP:

Funny. I grew up next to an U.S. Army base and the soldiers there played oD&D with us as some kind of "fantasy wargaming for kids", along with Chainmail. So my original D&D experience was .... not that much of a roleplaying game at all, rather more like "crack squad vs. castle/dungeon/dragon". Personally, AD&D 2nd and especially Al´Qadim captured the look and feel best.

[FinnLassie]

I hate being the person to complain, but someone should've come in and change my bandages this morning. It's noon. This isn't morning anymore.

The instructions I was given by the hospital were somewhat unclear anyways, since it just says "first bandages will be changed twice a day, then once a day, and then every two days". ... But like, who decides when it goes to just once a day?? aAAAAAAaaaaaaaaAA

When it comes to once a day, I want a morning "appointment"... because the nurse coming over during the evenings has been an utter annoyance that says stuff she probably shouldn't.

[LaZodiac]

I hate being the person to complain, but someone should've come in and change my bandages this morning. It's noon. This isn't morning anymore.

The instructions I was given by the hospital were somewhat unclear anyways, since it just says "first bandages will be changed twice a day, then once a day, and then every two days". ... But like, who decides when it goes to just once a day?? aAAAAAAaaaaaaaaAA

When it comes to once a day, I want a morning "appointment"... because the nurse coming over during the evenings has been an utter annoyance that says stuff she probably shouldn't.

Oof. At least you've got someone to help you with that, at least? I hope you can get the problems worked out soon though.

[Amidus Drexel]

Also, the new system for threatened area and opportunity attacks made positioning a lot less intuitive, as enemies could just walk around out party tank to hit back row characters if those weren't further than a pair of tiles behind. My dwarven wizard in medium armour had to spam Shield spells all campaign through to stay alive, as it was impossible to stay out of harm's with the endless stream of giants that our DM kept throwing at us (we were playing Storm King's Thunder).

\looks up
It's definitely simpler than 3.5's idea of "threatened squares", but I'm gonna have to agree on the results being unintuitive.

Spoiler: For interested people who don't want to look up what we're talking about

Show

If you leave a hostile creature’s reach during your move, you provoke an opportunity attack.

[...]You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack[...]
[...]
Moving out of a threatened square usually provokes an attack of opportunity from the threatening opponent.

Which are very similar, but not the same - in 5e, you can approach and then circle an opponent without provoking an AoO as long as you stay within their reach, but in 3.5 that's not true.

That seems to be common, I'm definitely in the minority.

It's kind of odd when a large group of people (the 3.5 and 4e community, among others) look at a system that takes 3-4 books and 1000 or so pages and say "there's not very much content there".

(of course, we're coming from systems with 60+ books (3.5) and easily 20,000 pages of material; or 30+ books (4e) and an amount of material on the same order of magnitude)

Funny. I grew up next to an U.S. Army base and the soldiers there played oD&D with us as some kind of "fantasy wargaming for kids", along with Chainmail. So my original D&D experience was .... not that much of a roleplaying game at all, rather more like "crack squad vs. castle/dungeon/dragon". Personally, AD&D 2nd and especially Al´Qadim captured the look and feel best.

That sounds like a lot of fun, actually - that kind of hard "dungeon/fortress crawl" is something I really enjoy as a player.

[Insane Jeenyus]

I hate being the person to complain, but someone should've come in and change my bandages this morning. It's noon. This isn't morning anymore.

The instructions I was given by the hospital were somewhat unclear anyways, since it just says "first bandages will be changed twice a day, then once a day, and then every two days". ... But like, who decides when it goes to just once a day?? aAAAAAAaaaaaaaaAA

When it comes to once a day, I want a morning "appointment"... because the nurse coming over during the evenings has been an utter annoyance that says stuff she probably shouldn't.

I was able to do a lot of my own wound dressing changing as my dressings were on my belly. I was taught by my home nurse how to do stuff in case of an emergency. with that I wish I could be there as a caring big brother, but I am afraid I am a few thousand mile away. Sorry.

Hang in there kid!

[LaZodiac]

Here's a fun little story for you guys.

A friend sent me some money to get God Hand on the PS3, and that's super appreciated and stuff. But I still had to buy it. Well, I haven't used my PS3 online for some time so it decided for whatever reason to say that I needed to prove I was me. And I mean I get it, fine, that's...security, I suppose. It's dumb and stupid but fine whatever. But in order to prove it I had to enter in the expiration date and three digit security code for one of the credit cards I had on file for the PS3.

However, those are all prepaid cards from who knows how long ago, that I've thrown away the instant they're out of money. So I had no way into my account. There was no way I could remember the date and numbers!

I then proceeded to just kinda random guess them and get in on my first try.

[enderlord99]

Here's a fun little story for you guys.

A friend sent me some money to get God Hand on the PS3, and that's super appreciated and stuff. But I still had to buy it. Well, I haven't used my PS3 online for some time so it decided for whatever reason to say that I needed to prove I was me. And I mean I get it, fine, that's...security, I suppose. It's dumb and stupid but fine whatever. But in order to prove it I had to enter in the expiration date and three digit security code for one of the credit cards I had on file for the PS3.

However, those are all prepaid cards from who knows how long ago, that I've thrown away the instant they're out of money. So I had no way into my account. There was no way I could remember the date and numbers!

I then proceeded to just kinda random guess them and get in on my first try.

That's pretty funny.

[Teddy]

I can't tell if the quality of this year's Eurovision Song Contest finalist entries is higher than normal, or if I just feel that way due to not having gotten to read any reviews on beforehand, and thus not knowing what I should dislike them for.
*has no ear for quality*

ION:
I'm up at our Ancestral Farm again, and we hit it right at the peak of the spring flood of the decades. I don't think the lake has been this high since before I was born, and half of the forests around its edges should probably be retitled mangroves for the time being. Yesterday I took the rowboat around the lake just to check out this strange new landscape that this oh-so-familiar litte valley has turned into, and the trip yielded a few pictures:

Spoiler

Show

Starting off with the mandatory picture on the cape. There's usually a little bit more exposed sand than this. At least the roots are dry.


That root to the right is the outermost point on the cape now...


... so of course I had to walk out on it.


This is one of the inlets to the lake. It's one of the larger streams, and once used to power a small local sawmill, but it's not usually this wide.


A lone mezereon flowering beside in the middle of the stream. They're a bit rare, and their flowering, leafless twigs are cute...


The weather was quite unstable, which made for some quite dramatic clouds passing over the farm.


The cape again as I passed it by on the lake.


This is the usual outermost point of it.


Continuing out to the island, a pair of pines in back lighting.


Disembarking for a quick exploration by foot. New pools reflect the trees bathing in them.


Lingonberries seem to have become a new type of seaweed...


A sudden downpour kept me marooned for a few minutes. Hearing it approach was an interesting experience. It started out as a whisper from the other side of the lake, then grew to a roar before the drops started falling around me.


Continued down the outlet of the lake. Normally it's too grown over to get very far, but now it was really easy to row down. Until I got to the old service bridge for the power lines, that is. I was wondering whether it would be the easiest to go under, over or around the bridge. It was time to turn around, though, so I didn't get to try either.


And finally, the mangroviest of all our new marshes. Not a single dry speck of land in sight...

[Peelee]

I can't tell if the quality of this year's Eurovision Song Contest finalist entries is higher than normal, or if I just feel that way due to not having gotten to read any reviews on beforehand, and thus not knowing what I should dislike them for.
*has no ear for quality*

ION:
I'm up at our Ancestral Farm again, and we hit it right at the peak of the spring flood of the decades. I don't think the lake has been this high since before I was born, and half of the forests around its edges should probably be retitled mangroves for the time being. Yesterday I took the rowboat around the lake just to check out this strange new landscape that this oh-so-familiar litte valley has turned into, and the trip yielded a few pictures:

Spoiler

Show

Starting off with the mandatory picture on the cape. There's usually a little bit more exposed sand than this. At least the roots are dry.


That root to the right is the outermost point on the cape now...


... so of course I had to walk out on it.


This is one of the inlets to the lake. It's one of the larger streams, and once used to power a small local sawmill, but it's not usually this wide.


A lone mezereon flowering beside in the middle of the stream. They're a bit rare, and their flowering, leafless twigs are cute...


The weather was quite unstable, which made for some quite dramatic clouds passing over the farm.


The cape again as I passed it by on the lake.


This is the usual outermost point of it.


Continuing out to the island, a pair of pines in back lighting.


Disembarking for a quick exploration by foot. New pools reflect the trees bathing in them.


Lingonberries seem to have become a new type of seaweed...


A sudden downpour kept me marooned for a few minutes. Hearing it approach was an interesting experience. It started out as a whisper from the other side of the lake, then grew to a roar before the drops started falling around me.


Continued down the outlet of the lake. Normally it's too grown over to get very far, but now it was really easy to row down. Until I got to the old service bridge for the power lines, that is. I was wondering whether it would be the easiest to go under, over or around the bridge. It was time to turn around, though, so I didn't get to try either.


And finally, the mangroviest of all our new marshes. Not a single dry speck of land in sight...

That's gorgeous.

[2D8HP]

[...]I'm up at our Ancestral Farm again [...]

[...]the trip yielded a few pictures:

Spoiler

Show

Starting off with the mandatory picture on the cape. There's usually a little bit more exposed sand than this. At least the roots are dry.


That root to the right is the outermost point on the cape now...


... so of course I had to walk out on it.


This is one of the inlets to the lake. It's one of the larger streams, and once used to power a small local sawmill, but it's not usually this wide.


A lone mezereon flowering beside in the middle of the stream. They're a bit rare, and their flowering, leafless twigs are cute...


The weather was quite unstable, which made for some quite dramatic clouds passing over the farm.


The cape again as I passed it by on the lake.


This is the usual outermost point of it.


Continuing out to the island, a pair of pines in back lighting.


Disembarking for a quick exploration by foot. New pools reflect the trees bathing in them.


Lingonberries seem to have become a new type of seaweed...


A sudden downpour kept me marooned for a few minutes. Hearing it approach was an interesting experience. It started out as a whisper from the other side of the lake, then grew to a roar before the drops started falling around me.


Continued down the outlet of the lake. Normally it's too grown over to get very far, but now it was really easy to row down. Until I got to the old service bridge for the power lines, that is. I was wondering whether it would be the easiest to go under, over or around the bridge. It was time to turn around, though, so I didn't get to try either.


And finally, the mangroviest of all our new marshes. Not a single dry speck of land in sight...

Those pictures are amazing!

Just wow.

From what I've seen, there's nothing like that near California farmland, mostly it's just

Spoiler: this

Show

for hundreds of miles in every direction, the exceptions used to be where the fields were near urban development, into the early 21st century they were crop fields that were surrounded on four sides by the City of San Jose, but apartments and condo's mostly replaced them.

Sites like the pictures of yours you have to go into the mountains and parks to see.

The only exception (sort of, it's more a children's zoo than a working farm) that I know of is:

While my 13 years old son was taking an on-line test, my wife and me took our 20 months old son to the

Little Farm

in the hills above Berkeley

Spoiler: Some Images

Show

(I haven't yet figured out how to post pictures I've taken yet, so these are from others)

which is in Tilden Park, in the hills very near Berkeley, which mostly looks like

Spoiler: this

Show

[FinnLassie]

Welp, just saw a pic of my wound on my back and it's pretty damn horrifying. I'm gonna end up with one hell of a scar.

[2D8HP]

Welp, just saw a pic of my wound on my back and it's pretty damn horrifying. I'm gonna end up with one hell of a scar.

Sad to learn that FinnLassie, I hope that your not in pain.

My only advice is to start practicing telling a story of how you got the scar from when you saved a group of orphans/pensioners/tourists from a rampaging bear/cougar/moose/gila monster/komodo dragon.

[FinnLassie]

Sad to learn that FinnLassie, I hope that your not in pain.

My only advice is to start practicing telling a story of how you got the scar from when you saved a group of orphans/pensioners/tourists from a rampaging bear/cougar/moose/gila monster/komodo dragon.

Not that much in pain really anymore, just very uncomfortable. Thing is... the wound is a cavity wound, so, uh, yeah. Quite the view right inside it if I may say.

[LaZodiac]

Welp, just saw a pic of my wound on my back and it's pretty damn horrifying. I'm gonna end up with one hell of a scar.

Oh my gosh who would do such a thing to you. I would never ever ever want to see how bad a wound like that is, especially on my own person! That sucks Finn...especially given the added detail that it's a cavity wound x_X.

*sends all the hugs*

[factotum]

Oh my gosh who would do such a thing to you.

Didn't FinnLassie say earlier in the thread that it was an infection? That being the case, presumably it was a medical professional who did it?

[2D8HP]

Didn't FinnLassie say earlier in the thread that it was an infection? That being the case, presumably it was a medical professional who did it?

I assumed it was from the traffic accident.

I was hit by a car coming at 80km/h (~50mph)[...]

Whatever the cause, best wishes, hopes and prayers for healing of the Lass of Finland.

[WarKitty]

Whatever the cause, best wishes, hopes and prayers for healing of the Lass of Finland.

We should all sacrifice espresso to Banjo for her healing.

I suppose sacrificing a non-virgin would be more canonical, but I REALLY don't want to get into the discussion of which forum members are eligible.