tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post1485207558151904800..comments2023-06-08T08:26:07.304-05:00Comments on Advanced Gaming & Theory: Mechanic Series: Nonweapon ProficienciesRipperXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-49803622438316967892017-06-14T16:15:10.329-05:002017-06-14T16:15:10.329-05:00That is ambitious! We went into the opposite direc...That is ambitious! We went into the opposite direction, I am playing a hybrid version of D&D, the only thing that matters is what is going on at the table. I stripped the game way back to its basics. I don't always know where things come from. We use a strange NWP called Sharp Shooter, it is probably in some handbook somewhere, I don't know. The only thing that I let it do is allow a player to fire into a melee without shooting allies in the back. That is the only hard rule, the players can redefine it as the game goes on. <br /><br />I want to say that there was a master index published, but it only collaborated with the "Black Books", and I prefer the original core handbooks.RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-13145795421293479842017-06-14T04:25:25.376-05:002017-06-14T04:25:25.376-05:00I don't know if I can answer the question just...I don't know if I can answer the question just yet, as I'm in the process of building my 2e-based homebrew and am just preparing to start on those sorts of decisions. (I'm currently in the probably over-ambitious stage of cataloging every published proficiency, kit, and character option before pruning back down to a consistent and manageable rules with different choices possibly available in different regions.)<br /><br />That said, my intuition is that the broader, less strict interpretation would emphasize the freedom of the older rules, vs the way larger lists of more explicitly defined options (per 3e skills and feats) counter-intuitively stifle player agency by suggesting that the only options are the ones listed, and their only applications are those defined in their descriptions.<br /><br />With languages, I have ambitions of defining language groups and dialects, but we'll see if that proves too burdensome for play. The basic idea is that characters with languages of the same group but without a specific shared language could communicate via shared root words (like Tarzan-speak: "me you go there"). Part of that would be tying language to region over race, with fewer individual languages in a given area, but with dialect indicating one's being "foreign" without hampering communication. <br /><br />In other words, i dunno! The balance between breaking immersion to keep things streamlined for fun and the verisimilitude of a language simulator boardgame is one where I hope to err (slightly) on the fun side.Stanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07134126937159646788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-89962855890029566232017-06-12T15:13:22.564-05:002017-06-12T15:13:22.564-05:00Howdy Stan!
Thanks for pointing that out. We alw...Howdy Stan! <br /><br />Thanks for pointing that out. We always had ignored Languages in the past, but after years of playing they really do add an element of fun to the game. <br /><br />I look back and read this now, and see that my opinions have changed. I don't run these things as strict as I used to. <br /><br />I still think that they are valuable! If a player has a NWP it can affect different ideas, they are masters of that given skill. The NWP system is totally in their domain of control, it is up to me to determine success. When an idea is attempted, the player has the option of telling me what they are doing, and letting me figure out how this effects things, or roll the dice, and let the die determine results. There are risks with either system, but more often than not they go with talking it out because if the dice say no, they mean no.<br /><br />We haven't had any crazy inventions, everyone seems to respect the setting and wants to do their part to keep the mood of the game. If I veto a dumb idea I typically just have to remind them how long it would take to attempt the action.<br /><br />Challenge the players over their characters, that has become a big thing for me right now. <br /><br />Lang. has been an issue, and I actually did begin giving Languages to them, they have been immersed in a foreign culture for several months now, it makes sense that they are picking up the language. <br /><br />I think that it makes sense to leave most of the Language slots blank, and add them as the game progresses. I noticed that the players are doing that with their NWP as well. When a slot becomes open to them, they almost always fill it with something that they had tried to emulate in the past. I like that better than them suddenly knowing some weird skill.<br /><br />Thanks for commenting Stan! This is an interesting topic, how stiff do you run NWP and Lang.? RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-29516215279154245932017-06-11T21:05:14.557-05:002017-06-11T21:05:14.557-05:00That may have been unclear. Let me try again. The ...That may have been unclear. Let me try again. The bonus languages number from the Intelligence chart applies separately to both languages and NWPs. If you get 4 bonus languages, you get 4 extra NWPs as well.Stanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07134126937159646788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-62854143876181410682017-06-11T21:02:20.997-05:002017-06-11T21:02:20.997-05:00I know I'm late to the party, but I thought I&...I know I'm late to the party, but I thought I'd share one small correction. Bonus Languages from Intelligence need not be converted into NWP slots. If you check the description of the INT table chart in the 2e PHB, it says the number grants BOTH NWP slots and languages. I never realized that myself until recently, when I started paring down the system to build a more modular version.<br /><br />Great article.Stanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07134126937159646788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-86528876784720926782016-01-10T14:14:31.604-06:002016-01-10T14:14:31.604-06:00Rip, that's a great example of deeper D&D ...Rip, that's a great example of deeper D&D play, when you pushed the player to explain how s/he learned to speak Goblin if Goblin was the PC's racial enemy.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-67172858757347742282016-01-09T18:50:50.772-06:002016-01-09T18:50:50.772-06:00Thanks, Rip!
Interesting example with dice vs log...Thanks, Rip!<br /><br />Interesting example with dice vs logic. I think that in D&D game, as opposed to other forms of fantasy, rpg, and story games, logic, imagination and initiative will only take you so far, before you have to roll the dice. Combat, tactics, situation resolution necessitates die rolls. <br /><br />I cringe, when I start hearing the DM's "Improvising", or running the adventure off the cuff without die rolling, you know, the typical After Dungeon part of the game, where experience points are given out, the type of magical items get revealed, and powerful NPC's tend to be in generous moods.<br /><br />Often times, DM's improvising indicates an unprepared DM unfamiliar with that stretch of the gaming material. There are many different game processes which make up the D&D game. There is character generations, there is Dungeon Exploration, Hex crawls, Wilderness adventure, town adventure, role playing, skill, and combat encounters, site based adventuring, and node based adventuring (developed in large part by Justin Alexander of The Alexandrian Blog). Some DM's may not be equally familiar with all of the aspects of running the D&D game and their style will emphasize the parts of the D&D rules that they are familiar with and will gloss over and improvise the game mechanics that they aren't familiar with. That is DM being human.<br /><br />In that context, the DM should implement those tools in his kit, which are necessary to accommodate the complexity of his or her campaign. You can run dungeon crawls and mega-dungeons and not need to utilize any skills beyond those given in D&D books. You can take the game outside the Tavern, the Equipment Shop, and The Dungeon, where players can engage the DM's world on a wider scale, and all of a sudden, different skills will add richness to the game. Can you imagine a Wilderness expedition without a Herbalist, a Hunter, a tracker, an Elf and/or a Ranger type? What if you decide to run a social adventure, where the players will attend Court festivities with notable nobles, Jousts and other high level meetings, where NPC's will actually be engaging in conversation regarding the topics of interest in your settings? How will you navigate these waters? And if the players decide to engage your world during periods of non-adventure?<br /><br />A skill system is one of the tools to address the increased demands of the setting. Merle Rasmussen is the author of the rules for the TSR's Top Secret game, overall a bad fit of the D&D style rules to portray the espionage and terrorists in the modern world. Arguably, it was TSR's worst offering, but he did manage to come up with two very useful game mechanics. <br /><br />He introduced an early skill system, and had an early outline for running non-linear non dungeon based adventures. There was an ENCOUNTER at an exotic locale, and no real dungeon labyrinth.<br /><br />In his skill system he introduced something truly interesting. The way D&D has INT based extra language slots, he had Areas of Knowledge. Based on their scores, players can choose a few areas of knowledge (Chemistry, Botany, History, Anthropology) etc, with which they were really familiar, and a few more in which they had above average general knowledge. Thereafter in the game, if the player character came across the information touching on the subject that they were familiar with, they would make a generalized roll and either know or not know what was going on or what was being said and or discussed. This was a very elegant mechanic, and was useful when guiding player characters through social interactions with the world.<br /><br />So, the skill system, or any other set of rules does not have to be overly extensive or complex, it just has to be adequate enough to handle the demands of the campaign.<br /><br />Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-44026217464834547432016-01-09T11:09:23.036-06:002016-01-09T11:09:23.036-06:00Gothic Earth is an amazing setting which can take ...Gothic Earth is an amazing setting which can take a group of advanced players and make them even better players. It changes how you think about the game as a whole, and shows a DM that he can really push the AD&D core system in unusual ways and it can handle it.<br /><br />There are more than one way to play this game. You can do the combat heavy treasure quests, war games, intense choose your own adventure type story games, sandbox find the adventure, diplomacy, war. . . the list goes on and on, but there is something rewarding when you take time to really look at a character, and figure out what this person does. Really get into him and view the world from his perspective. Low fantasy can be just as fun as high fantasy, if not more so, as low fantasy really levels the playing field, making a PCs Hit Dice irrelevant. <br /><br />We could always write down that our character knows how to speak goblin, and that goblin is our racial enemy, but if we push that further and ask how we learned this language a story developed, and it is a story that is independent of the Dungeon Master or the setting guides and can be unique to this one character. It provides a motivation which eclipses the standard fantasy game limitations by going beyond, "I just wanted to sit at the table and roll dice with my friends". <br /><br />Some gamers roll their eyes at this level of play, thinking that we are acting or just story telling like a bunch of Nancys, but they fail to understand that it takes more than just endless combat to keep a table going. RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-14811464872562416852016-01-09T10:14:24.007-06:002016-01-09T10:14:24.007-06:00Ripper's wife here! Just thought I'd thro...Ripper's wife here! Just thought I'd throw my two cents into the ring. Non-weapon proficiencies really didn't come alive for me until Rip ran the Gothic Earth setting. I've been playing D&D since I was a kid, and the majority of the DM's I've played with, including myself, had never really given NWP's much thought. I think I was more apt to use them when I played AD&D with my folks and their friends than I had with 2e. Not real sure why that is, but whatever. Then came along the Gothic Earth setting.<br /><br />I had never rolled a character up using the GE kits before. Looking at the kits as is leaves a little something to be desired. There isn't much to them. One gets pretty much an overview of the character kit, a couple of special things they can do, and that's just about it. But then I discovered the NWP list for GE. Very carefully I picked out some NWP's that I thought my particular character could use. What I ended up with is probably one of my all-time favorite characters to play. Using my new found way of thinking, I helped a couple of our fellow players to create their characters, and what we came up with was a character similar to Indiana Jones, a scrappy old sailor with an attitude, a gunslingin' dandy, and a "wizard" charlatan like Oz the Great and Powerful. NWP's MADE these characters! NWP's made the characters richer and more rounded out, which is what NWP's should be doing for our characters.<br /><br />I think where the problem lies sometimes with the treatment of NWP's in standard D&D play, is we all already have preconceived notions as to what a fighter, wizard, thief, or cleric is. I didn't have this luxury with the GE setting, so I was forced to use NWP's in a whole new fashion to truly create a character. So imagine what NWP's could do for a fighter. Not just treating them so much as secondary skills, but actually using them to enrich the character and utilizing them during role play. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-73973310397835296952016-01-08T16:36:20.231-06:002016-01-08T16:36:20.231-06:00I could had sworn that I read somewhere that a spe...I could had sworn that I read somewhere that a specific player started irritating DMs, including Gygax, by using logic instead of dice. I tried to find the source, but wasn't able to, which probably means that I'm crazy.<br /><br />I loved these two posts Brooser! You are one hell of a contributor and I'm glad to have you haunting these pages.<br /><br />As far as NWP, I can't express how much fun they have added to my games. If they were all well-defined and set in stone, I would probably hate them, but as written in AD&D they bring something to the table that is extremely pleasing to everyone. <br /><br />I don't always make people roll, that only happens if there is a chance that the idea will fail, and if you can declare your action in a way that eliminates failure, you succeed because we don't need the dice. <br /><br />RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-84822944995188864172016-01-08T09:14:29.479-06:002016-01-08T09:14:29.479-06:00For me, I have no problem using character skills, ...For me, I have no problem using character skills, because they express the player charater's culture, and in my campaign, they integrate the player character into the setting. In Midlands, different ethnic groups, which settled the area, brought their own cultures, which had a profound influence on schools of magic and warrior cultures, that their fighters, priests, and magic users practice. The choice of ethnicity, character class, and their character's social class each give a player access to sets of skills, from among which the players can choose a finite number of skills to use in the game. I have over 350 skills in the game so far, but the players get to look at only 30-50 or so, based on their character's background. BTW, I use the Runequest system to run the skills in my campaign.<br /><br />I have no problem with players trying to outthink me as a DM. Do you have in-game skills, money, or contacts to build a siege engine? No problem! This becomes an adventure in itself. Where you gonna make that Glass Sphere? They are gonna have to role play the search and initiate the process. No die rolls for resolution, no suggestions from the DM. This is much fairer, than the time, when I wanted to build a palisade fort outside the Dungeon to save on the usual 4 hour ride back to town every time we needed rest. DM was unprepared (and unfamiliar with real life). He told me there was no wood in the forest, no workers in town, my gold was useless. <br />Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-55388863550575324992016-01-08T09:13:53.849-06:002016-01-08T09:13:53.849-06:00There is a difference between the Gygaxian Non Wea...There is a difference between the Gygaxian Non Weapon Proficiencies (NWPs) and character skills, as they are used in WOTC D&D, Traveler, and Runequest games. Before we start, we have to realize, where the concept of character skills come from. <br /><br />It comes into gaming from Trait Psychology. Gygax specifically defines NWP's in his Oriental Adventure (OA) (where they were first introduced) as a way to give further definition to a character, and that is lifted directly from Psychology. Skills are the in-game character traits and function the way Personality Traits work in the real world. <br /><br />It is likely that Gygax was making AD&D more competitive with other RPGs when he introduced the concept in his OA supplement. There is one game mechanic, that is largely lost on players and DM's and was lost on the subsequent editions of D&D, that makes all the difference in the game.<br /><br />Every role playing game that I seen that uses skills, including the WOTC editions of D&D use the NOMOTHETIC approach, whereas Gygax used the IDIOSYNCRATIC. Nomothetic method takes a trait that everyone has, say Irritability, and tests everyone to see how much of it each person has, how irritable are you? How good is your Math? How strong a Chess player are you. Idiosyncratic approach, on the other hand, studies only those traits, that influence to a great deal, culminating with the CARDINAL TRAITS, which define individuals. In D&D terms, cleric's ability to turn undead, Thieves' ability to pick pockets, Ranger's Special Enemy are all Cardinal Traits that define each class.<br /><br />In D&D, you are using a Nomothetic Approach, if you have the player roll against the skill every time that they use it. WOTC Edition Difficulty Check (DC) 10, 15 whatever are examples of the Nomothetic use of skills.<br /><br />Gygax, on the other hand, had the player do a skil check, when the player was trying to do something difficult, where most people woild ordinarily fail. Trying to swim in armor or survive a tidal wave, jumping into a saddle out of second story window and trying tp catch someone riding away, etc. This cut down on the number of skill checks, but also Gygax carried this approach further, by writing essentially a mini-game for each skill - whether you are trying to make a suit of armor, swim, or write a poem, the game mechanic for each skill's resolution was different, different modifiers, etc. For further readings, you might want to familiarize yourselves with the works of Gordon Allport (founder of trait psychology, idiosyncratic approach) and of Raymond Cattell (father of the nomothetic method).<br />Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.com