the Innistrad block is shaping up to be one of the best blocks of all time
and they responded to all the criticism of their planeswalker point and tournament formats, actually fixing what they broke and making Worlds better than ever.
Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
Its still utterly goddamned mystifying that they don't want to mix their two fantasy franchises and make a campaign book based around any one of the M:TG blocks.
Its still utterly goddamned mystifying that they don't want to mix their two fantasy franchises and make a campaign book based around any one of the M:TG blocks.
Yeah, I'd play a MtG rpg like that
As far as Call of Cthulhu goes, I never liked it, and I rather like the Lovecraft books. Horror RPGs rarely if ever work, and Lovecraftian horror can be very arbitrary and "you have read a book filled with horrible knowledge and it has driven you maaaaaaad!" without actually, you know, giving me a reason why. Also Sanity mechanics, like Alignment mechanics, can choke on a dick.
Its still utterly goddamned mystifying that they don't want to mix their two fantasy franchises and make a campaign book based around any one of the M:TG blocks.
the problem with mutants & masterminds is basically the same problem all points-based RPGs have
if the GM doesn't gently take you by the hand and guide you through character creation the odds of you ending up with something completely useless or really out of place or kind of overpowered is pretty high
True, although that to me always seems like a tiny drawback in comparison to the level of freedom and variation you get in regards to making your characters. I'd much rather put in more time a character creation in return for a better character, the idea that lengthy or complex character creation is somehow bad is kind of silly to me, if it's a result of more flexibility then why not spend the time and effort? You only have to do it once, after all.
And besides, it's not like you can't do the same in DnD or any other class/level based system. You've always been able to make crappy, sub-par and staggeringly OP characters with those games as well.
True, although that to me always seems like a tiny drawback in comparison to the level of freedom and variation you get in regards to making your characters. I'd much rather put in more time a character creation in return for a better character, the idea that lengthy or complex character creation is somehow bad is kind of silly to me, if it's a result of more flexibility then why not spend the time and effort? You only have to do it once, after all.
And besides, it's not like you can't do the same in DnD or any other class/level based system. You've always been able to make crappy, sub-par and staggeringly OP characters with those games as well.
It is, in 4th edition, genuinely impossible to make a stupidly bad or stupidly powerful character at first level. Okay it's slightly possible to do the former, but you actually have to be trying to do it.
There are a few niche amounts of optimization you can do at first level (like Perception/Initiative), but otherwise it's pretty restrictive.
I think it's just a matter of specturm. Some people prefer what feel like an easier creation process, while others prefer something that has more options, but can take a bit longer.
Having never played M&M, I can't really say. I'm pretty okay with WoD's CC process, if it's similar (though I prefer more freebie/XP at creation to round out concepts better), but I've always believed that character creation should be a group process, overseen by the GM anyway, so potential for broken isn't as big an issue in my mind.
True, although that to me always seems like a tiny drawback in comparison to the level of freedom and variation you get in regards to making your characters. I'd much rather put in more time a character creation in return for a better character, the idea that lengthy or complex character creation is somehow bad is kind of silly to me, if it's a result of more flexibility then why not spend the time and effort? You only have to do it once, after all.
And besides, it's not like you can't do the same in DnD or any other class/level based system. You've always been able to make crappy, sub-par and staggeringly OP characters with those games as well.
It is, in 4th edition, genuinely impossible to make a stupidly bad or stupidly powerful character at first level. Okay it's slightly possible to do the former, but you actually have to be trying to do it.
There are a few niche amounts of optimization you can do at first level (like Perception/Initiative), but otherwise it's pretty restrictive.
I think it's just a matter of specturm. Some people prefer what feel like an easier creation process, while others prefer something that has more options, but can take a bit longer.
Having never played M&M, I can't really say. I'm pretty okay with WoD's CC process, if it's similar (though I prefer more freebie/XP at creation to round out concepts better), but I've always believed that character creation should be a group process, overseen by the GM anyway, so potential for broken isn't as big an issue in my mind.
I dunno
In 4th ed I made a wizard and Melding said to me that a few choices were bad and I should take different, better ones.
There is one at-will that is strictly better than another.
I'm just saying that as someone new to the game, what to take wasn't immediately apparent and if I'd have tried to do so then it wouldn't have worked very well. Someone even said that Wizards weren't very good at something, being controllers I think? So If I had tried to do that, I would have been bad.
And there is a clear disparity in power between, say, my wizard and Gatsby's monk, who is ten men hard. Not that I mind that, just that the different choices you make are important and there are "bad" and "good" choices, as far as I can see. So saying it's impossible to make a bad character in DnD at first level is wrong, because it clearly isn't. Stupidly bad, debatable, but bad? Yeah.
Really, M&M is pretty great at saying "you should take this stuff to be good," because you have PL caps that you are advised to reach. If a player makes a character than reaches it's PL caps, then it almost can't be bad, because it will have the best attack and defense possible for the PL.
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AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
Its still utterly goddamned mystifying that they don't want to mix their two fantasy franchises and make a campaign book based around any one of the M:TG blocks.
the problem with M&M vs. say, a class-based structured game like D&D 4e
is if I come out to your D&D 4e game, beyond having to learn the particulars of your campaign setting and whatever weird crap you may have banned ("NO ELVES!" for instance) and, if I'm playing a Divine character, what gods or whatnot exist in your setting
I still know how to make a mans, what's good and what is not, I know what style of game we are playing and if I, personally, know the rules I ain't gonna make something gimpy or OP by accident
but!
if I show up to some dude's house and he's like "I'm running a Transformers RPG using Mutants & Masterminds as a rules set, PL 10 characters, 150 points"
that is not enough information to make a character that fits the kind of game he is running, who will be on par with the other PCs, and will have abilities and shit that are useful
for example: Should I have a Con score, or does this dude consider Transformers, being robots, to have no Con score? How should I stat out my alternate mode? Should I use Alternate Form, or what? What size should I make my guy? (in a TF game this would be really important as a detail)
shit like that, those are pure game mechanic questions ignoring larger setting-based questions like "what era/faction are we playing in" etc.
if I show up to a game of D&D 4e, I know what I'm playing and how to make a dude, provided the DM isn't doing something weird with the rules. If I show up to a game of whatever using M&M as a vehicle by which to run the game, I have no idea what I am making or how to make it unless the GM essentially lays it all out for me
which is an extra piece of work on the part of the GM, which is exactly why I don't GM M&M unless I am running a conventional super-hero game.
I love settings where urban areas are so ancient and sprawling parts of them have become wilderness and there are places here nobody lives that are filled with monsters and endless dungeons below the surface an so on. There is so much you can do with settings like that.
There's an attraction to systems where the purpose of particular stats and attributes and powers/feats/whatever is so carefully forecasted that a cursory exploration of a character's sheet is enough to immediately absorb how they'd perform in various encounters
But the flipside to that, of course, is that things get abstracted to such an extent that they're entirely reliant on player roleplay/description over specific mechanical action; a game with opposed rolls for every clash, compared to the tactical depth of something like 4E
Which isn't a bad thing by any means but I know it's certainly not for everyone
I love settings where urban areas are so ancient and sprawling parts of them have become wilderness and there are places here nobody lives that are filled with monsters and endless dungeons below the surface an so on. There is so much you can do with settings like that.
Speaking of which I need to get off my arse and bother you with more aspect lists finish up that urban gang warfare game
the problem with M&M vs. say, a class-based structured game like D&D 4e
is if I come out to your D&D 4e game, beyond having to learn the particulars of your campaign setting and whatever weird crap you may have banned ("NO ELVES!" for instance) and, if I'm playing a Divine character, what gods or whatnot exist in your setting
I still know how to make a mans, what's good and what is not, I know what style of game we are playing and if I, personally, know the rules I ain't gonna make something gimpy or OP by accident
but!
if I show up to some dude's house and he's like "I'm running a Transformers RPG using Mutants & Masterminds as a rules set, PL 10 characters, 150 points"
that is not enough information to make a character that fits the kind of game he is running, who will be on par with the other PCs, and will have abilities and shit that are useful
for example: Should I have a Con score, or does this dude consider Transformers, being robots, to have no Con score? How should I stat out my alternate mode? Should I use Alternate Form, or what? What size should I make my guy? (in a TF game this would be really important as a detail)
shit like that, those are pure game mechanic questions ignoring larger setting-based questions like "what era/faction are we playing in" etc.
if I show up to a game of D&D 4e, I know what I'm playing and how to make a dude, provided the DM isn't doing something weird with the rules. If I show up to a game of whatever using M&M as a vehicle by which to run the game, I have no idea what I am making or how to make it unless the GM essentially lays it all out for me
which is an extra piece of work on the part of the GM, which is exactly why I don't GM M&M unless I am running a conventional super-hero game.
Well you gotta admit, the DM has been very short on details there. And I'd consider that to be actually a weakness of DnD, not a strength. In DnD, you always know what is in it. You always play the same set of classes and magic always works the same way and so on. It's kind of samey. With M&M, you aren't restricted to that at all. You can say "magic works like this!" and then let the player mess with that, or even better, say "magic exists in various forms, create one that you like!" It's a lot more flexible and can cover a lot more bases, which is necessary because it's for Supers games.
If I did a Transformers game, I'd come up with a template for transformers than the player can then modify and change around with as they see fit. while keeping the basics, and then add on what they feel best represents their character. But really, your argument seems to be based on the idea that in DnD the GM doesn't need to pass on pertinent info about the setting, whereas in M&M they do. But even if you consider that a failing in M&M (and I don't), it's not true, because you still need to know about the setting to make a character that fits well into it.
I love settings where urban areas are so ancient and sprawling parts of them have become wilderness and there are places here nobody lives that are filled with monsters and endless dungeons below the surface an so on. There is so much you can do with settings like that.
Speaking of which I need to get off my arse and bother you with more aspect lists finish up that urban gang warfare game
Yes, you do
And as far as tactical options go, I've never found that DnD is particularly better when it comes to tactical options. In fact, you could argue that since it limits you to what your class can do and what feats you take, it actually restricts you more than other games. In a game like Battlelords the tactical options are many and varied because they are not codified by the game. There aren't special moves or anything, really. The tactics are based on the environment, the party, the enemies and so on.
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AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
edited January 2012
you absolutely would need to know the setting before you made a character. Is it Beast Wars, with exclusively animal altmodes? Generation One? Is it Animated's Universe, where Autobots don't fly at all ever barring three major exceptions? Is it some insane blend of other continuities? Are you a combiner, a city bot, a triple changer, do you have a super mode?
Posts
Very much not sure if any of my friends would get into it.
'i.. research stuff? i guess?'
though i still have fond memories of the first time i ran the game, late at night in a friend's garage
and you got mad a the guy who wrote the published adventure?
yeah
just the quality of their contributors varies wildly
a lot more informal than i expected. it's no wizards', which is probably why i don't hate them quite as much whenever the personnel talk to the public
Cthulhu devours D4 investigators per turn.
the Innistrad block is shaping up to be one of the best blocks of all time
and they responded to all the criticism of their planeswalker point and tournament formats, actually fixing what they broke and making Worlds better than ever.
Got outta Magic back around 8th.
Yeah, I'd play a MtG rpg like that
As far as Call of Cthulhu goes, I never liked it, and I rather like the Lovecraft books. Horror RPGs rarely if ever work, and Lovecraftian horror can be very arbitrary and "you have read a book filled with horrible knowledge and it has driven you maaaaaaad!" without actually, you know, giving me a reason why. Also Sanity mechanics, like Alignment mechanics, can choke on a dick.
WotC is owned by Hasbro
Hasbro owns Transformers
Transformers RPG?
naw, never happen
what gives
it's called Mutants and Masterminds
if the GM doesn't gently take you by the hand and guide you through character creation the odds of you ending up with something completely useless or really out of place or kind of overpowered is pretty high
And besides, it's not like you can't do the same in DnD or any other class/level based system. You've always been able to make crappy, sub-par and staggeringly OP characters with those games as well.
It is, in 4th edition, genuinely impossible to make a stupidly bad or stupidly powerful character at first level. Okay it's slightly possible to do the former, but you actually have to be trying to do it.
There are a few niche amounts of optimization you can do at first level (like Perception/Initiative), but otherwise it's pretty restrictive.
I think it's just a matter of specturm. Some people prefer what feel like an easier creation process, while others prefer something that has more options, but can take a bit longer.
Having never played M&M, I can't really say. I'm pretty okay with WoD's CC process, if it's similar (though I prefer more freebie/XP at creation to round out concepts better), but I've always believed that character creation should be a group process, overseen by the GM anyway, so potential for broken isn't as big an issue in my mind.
they fucking struggle to find enough topics to cover as it is
and come on The DM's Guide To Ravnica imagine that with your mind
It does not work well, let's just say that.
I want to love Call of Cthulhu so much, but I have never had a good game of it.
I dunno
In 4th ed I made a wizard and Melding said to me that a few choices were bad and I should take different, better ones.
There is one at-will that is strictly better than another.
I'm just saying that as someone new to the game, what to take wasn't immediately apparent and if I'd have tried to do so then it wouldn't have worked very well. Someone even said that Wizards weren't very good at something, being controllers I think? So If I had tried to do that, I would have been bad.
And there is a clear disparity in power between, say, my wizard and Gatsby's monk, who is ten men hard. Not that I mind that, just that the different choices you make are important and there are "bad" and "good" choices, as far as I can see. So saying it's impossible to make a bad character in DnD at first level is wrong, because it clearly isn't. Stupidly bad, debatable, but bad? Yeah.
Really, M&M is pretty great at saying "you should take this stuff to be good," because you have PL caps that you are advised to reach. If a player makes a character than reaches it's PL caps, then it almost can't be bad, because it will have the best attack and defense possible for the PL.
Strength
Endurance
Firepower
Intelligence
Speed
Skill
Rank
Courage
there's already premade stats it is bloody stupid that they won't do it
my god
it's full of stars
It's such a pretty dream
Ravnica is my favorite fantasy setting of anything
I love the guilds so goddamn much
upset that the Dimir have been kicked out of the Guildpact but who knows maybe the Dimir will do something besides try to destroy the other Guilds
four colored monstrosities with insanely odd and powerful abilities? yes, yessss
is if I come out to your D&D 4e game, beyond having to learn the particulars of your campaign setting and whatever weird crap you may have banned ("NO ELVES!" for instance) and, if I'm playing a Divine character, what gods or whatnot exist in your setting
I still know how to make a mans, what's good and what is not, I know what style of game we are playing and if I, personally, know the rules I ain't gonna make something gimpy or OP by accident
but!
if I show up to some dude's house and he's like "I'm running a Transformers RPG using Mutants & Masterminds as a rules set, PL 10 characters, 150 points"
that is not enough information to make a character that fits the kind of game he is running, who will be on par with the other PCs, and will have abilities and shit that are useful
for example: Should I have a Con score, or does this dude consider Transformers, being robots, to have no Con score? How should I stat out my alternate mode? Should I use Alternate Form, or what? What size should I make my guy? (in a TF game this would be really important as a detail)
shit like that, those are pure game mechanic questions ignoring larger setting-based questions like "what era/faction are we playing in" etc.
if I show up to a game of D&D 4e, I know what I'm playing and how to make a dude, provided the DM isn't doing something weird with the rules. If I show up to a game of whatever using M&M as a vehicle by which to run the game, I have no idea what I am making or how to make it unless the GM essentially lays it all out for me
which is an extra piece of work on the part of the GM, which is exactly why I don't GM M&M unless I am running a conventional super-hero game.
But the flipside to that, of course, is that things get abstracted to such an extent that they're entirely reliant on player roleplay/description over specific mechanical action; a game with opposed rolls for every clash, compared to the tactical depth of something like 4E
Which isn't a bad thing by any means but I know it's certainly not for everyone
Speaking of which I need to get off my arse and bother you with more aspect lists finish up that urban gang warfare game
Well you gotta admit, the DM has been very short on details there. And I'd consider that to be actually a weakness of DnD, not a strength. In DnD, you always know what is in it. You always play the same set of classes and magic always works the same way and so on. It's kind of samey. With M&M, you aren't restricted to that at all. You can say "magic works like this!" and then let the player mess with that, or even better, say "magic exists in various forms, create one that you like!" It's a lot more flexible and can cover a lot more bases, which is necessary because it's for Supers games.
If I did a Transformers game, I'd come up with a template for transformers than the player can then modify and change around with as they see fit. while keeping the basics, and then add on what they feel best represents their character. But really, your argument seems to be based on the idea that in DnD the GM doesn't need to pass on pertinent info about the setting, whereas in M&M they do. But even if you consider that a failing in M&M (and I don't), it's not true, because you still need to know about the setting to make a character that fits well into it.
Yes, you do
And as far as tactical options go, I've never found that DnD is particularly better when it comes to tactical options. In fact, you could argue that since it limits you to what your class can do and what feats you take, it actually restricts you more than other games. In a game like Battlelords the tactical options are many and varied because they are not codified by the game. There aren't special moves or anything, really. The tactics are based on the environment, the party, the enemies and so on.
But you'd to know that regardless of the system used, is what I am saying