Which system is better for beginners: Pathfinder or 5E?
Gonna be running a game for a group most of whom have never played tabletop before.
>>47641274
Neither.
Give them an easier entry into the hobby with Risus, Everyone Is John, or a D&D Basic retroclone.
Between the two 5E. 5E is also the most newby friendly D&D edition.
5e.
>>47641331
Or you may indeed try simpler non-D&D system, like pdf related
110% 5E. Super easy system to pick up and it's fun.
Pathfinder is a nightmare of math and trap options and bloat.
>>47641274
5E by several lightyears. You can read a single book in a day and know what you're doing, how to make a relatively competant character, and play a balanced game that's fun for everyone.
With Pathfinder it'll take months and you'll get 2 out of 3 of those things at best. Don't start newbies out on Pathfinder, it will forever ruin newbies' idea of what TTRPGs are by indoctrinating them with ideas that "ivory tower design" and "system mastery" are "normal".
>>47641402
another edition wars thread incoming...
>>47641425
What war? The only people who defend Pathfinder are drones who have never played anything else. To call this is a war is like North Korea is a world power just because they throw fits and scream really loud all the time.
>>47641425
It's not a war, PF was just designed to cater to people who want to play a "build" instead of a character that's all.
>>47641421
What is ivory tower design? I keep seeing the term thrown around but I can't find a proper definition.
>>47641500
In so many words, it's the idea that it's a GOOD thing to design a roleplaying game like a videogame, where instead of the rules accommodating to what the player wants to do, the rules instead reward the player who knows the rules inside and out and treats them as something to be exploited and mastered. Rather than the rules existing to empower the player, they're an obstacle for the player to "beat" or "master".
Basically they completely missed the point of roleplaying (except for Autists who enjoy this sort of thing). DnD was, thankfully, smart enough to get as far away from the philosophy as possible after 3e. Pathfinder, unfortunately, decided to double-down and incorporate this even deeper into their games, treating the endless rules-bloat, overpowered character builds, and freedom-discouraging rigidity of the rules like a "good" thing. If you're not having fun, you just need to get "better" at the game.
The term "Ivory Tower" refers to how the game seperates the "normal" people from the people who have "system mastery" (the ones who are looking down from their ivory tower)... when the real point of a roleplaying game should just be being able to make a character you want to play and telling a story with friends, not min-maxing a set of videogame rules for MAXIMUM DPS.
>>47641500
The phrase Ivory Tower is about elitism. Ivory Tower game design means that there are non-obvious good choices and bad choices to make in the game. The easiest example is in D&D 3.5e, the Toughness feat. It gives you a few more hit points. It is a trap option. Compared to other feats you can get instead of it, Toughness is a very weak and poor choice. But players will look at it and think, "hey my wizard has very little HP, I should get this feat and help shore up that weakness." This is a bad decision, and one that you don't realize unless you've studied the game enough to know why.
What this can and does lead to is the situation where some people know the good choices, and some people don't. Some characters begin outstripping the others in their party, and the players of the weaker ones start having less fun.
>>47641274
5e.
Not even really a contest, Pathfinder is literally a mess of frequently contradictory rules that only make sense if you've already run 3.5 games and need a pre-existing set of houserules and are fine running "all caster/no caster" games.
Even palladium/Rifts is easier to run for the first time.
There isn't a correct way to play tabletop, I just said 5E is better than PF for new players because it gets you right into the game and doesn't require so much meta planning or mastery of the system to truly appreciate it
>>47641274
SHIT NIGGA THAT CAT CUTE
I'D PET THE FUCK OUTA THAT CAT
5E
>>47641571
>>47641576
This. And this is coming from a Pathfinder player. This is coming from someone who played Magus and took Shocking Grasp + a Maximized Spell Rod + Magical Lineage + Empowered Spell to do a guaranteed 60 lightning damage + melee damage each turn while the other people in my party were only doing 20 damage a turn if they were LUCKY.
Ivory Tower Design is like building a map in a shooter game, hiding a rocket launcher or sniper in a barely noticeable obscure piece of geometry, then inviting your friends over to play and laughing at them when they get blown up or spawn-sniped constantly.
Sure, it's fun when they eventually learn how to do it to the other players too... but that's the problem, the only way it's really fun if if you're one of the few people who knows how to do it, and it's not fun at all for the person on the receiving end.
>>47641653
>being this much of a pussyrubber
>>47641274
5e, no contest.
>>47641274
Of the two, probably 5E.
Me, I'd suggest Ryuutama. Unless it's too cute looking for your group and they'd be shitting themselves with rage over the idea. After that, maybe Lady Blackbird or the fantasy hack of Lasers and Feelings?
>>47641274
>alien web-claw paws
>>47641274
5e is as simple as I would ever go.
>>47641364
Does OpenD6 have a WWII era module?
5e hands down.
Pathfinder is like learning to sail a yacht while building it in the middle of the sea.
5e is better for new players, but that's like saying that bleach is less poisonous than cyanide.
Try an easier game. Playing only DnD variants is like being taught basketball and then never trying football ever in your life. Who does that?
>>47641274
5th edition. PF, or rather 3.5 it's based on, is designed to reward "system mastery", which is a fancy way of saying there's a large amount of international imbalances (like some feats are just flat out worse than others) and complex rules, with the idea that players familiar with the system can take advantage of their knowledge and avoid the intentionally bad "trap options".
>>47642139
>Playing only DnD variants is like being taught basketball and then never trying football ever in your life. Who does that?
...a lot of basketballers I assume
>>47641571
"It's so people who master the game can sort out the bad cards!" has always been the dumbest excuse for shitty cards in MtG.
People that have system mastery can deckbuild better than those without, fullstop. Don't make up excuses for filling sets with 90% horseshit.
>>47641274
Dont play either if you purely want simplicity pick up a micro system. If you are hell bent on having one of these two 5e character creation is much more streamlined.
>>47641675
Dogs, pls go, this is now a cat thread.
>>47642139
No, I'd compare D&D to a place like Olive Garden.
It's not as cheap as something like fast food or a family diner so you can't use the price argument.
It's pretty bland.
But it's everywhere so you always have the option to eat there, which is why it stays in business.
>>47642223
Whoops, wrong pic.
>>47642181
NEVER play anything else?
Basketballers never kick around a ball with their kids? Never give baseball a shot in high school? Never play darts in a bar?
>>47642233
This is accurate. DnD is expensive, bland, but somehow everywhere thanks to marketing.
>Which system is better for beginners
Basic D&D or any given retroclone.
>>47642317
This.
>>47641274
5e is easier by far, and it's not a bad place to start. I wouldn't exactly call it ideal though, just not bad. It's still far more involved than I'd like it to be. If you're not dead set on D&D, you might want to look at something like Barbarians of Lemuria, which is far more accessible than 5e. One of the biggest draws of modern D&D is that a lot of people know how to play it, but if you're learning a game with your friends, that's much less of a consideration.
>>47641337
>5E is also the most newby friendly D&D edition.
Moldvay Basic is 128 pages in total. The core books for 5e come in at over 900. Now, 5e has much more mechanical character customization (you improvise that kind of thing in Basic) and does away with some of the wonkiness of old school D&D (a bunch of different subsystems that use different dice, some where you want to roll high, others where you want to roll low), but Moldvay Basic is still much simpler.
>>47641966
>5e is as simple as I would ever go.
5e is about as complicated as I would ever go. Wait, no. That's not strictly true. I've played plenty of more complicated games. 5e is about as complicated as I'd *want* to go.
Too many rules just get in the way, and something I've noticed about more complicated games is that GMs are constantly altering things and tweaking results so that they make sense. What's the point of having complicated formulas for everything if you're just going to default to common sense and GM fiat? The rules should provide a simple basis from which to judge things--a firm foundation on which to stand--but otherwise keep the hell out of the GM's way. RPGs are different from war games because you have a neutral arbiter. You don't need to tie him down with a bunch of rules. Also, cinematics and actual role-playing are important in RPGs, making them less strictly mechanical and more judgement-based than war games.
>>47641274
5e.
>>47642372
>Barbarians of Lemuria,Mythic Edition (current edition) -- https://www.mediafire.com/folder/7llc83r2xf8bg/Barbarians_of_Lemuria_-_Mythic_Edition
>Barbarians of Lemuria, Legendary Edition (earlier edition, fewer details & more minimalist presentation makes it even easier to learn, but the rules aren't as refined) -- http://www.mediafire.com/download/p5w885sa9a869ma/Barbarians+Of+Lemuria+-+Legendary+Edition.pdf
>Barbarians of Lemuria, House Rules / Patches for Legendary Edition (if you want the bare bones minimalism of Legendary, but with the rules tightened up a bit) -- https://mega.co.nz/#F!CtQR2bST!y_awB-GHCiL3CdK4iLCV7A
>>47642260
>>47642233
D&D is foundational though. It was a trailblazer and pretty much the only game in town for a while. Olive Garden has no excuse. It's just terrible, over priced food, but for some reason people think it's cool to eat there.
Often, when people first want to get into role-playing, they ask about D&D because it's the only RPG they've really heard anything about. I doubt that Olive Garden is the only restaurant many people have heard about. I understand D&D's prominence, but Olive Garden's completely mystifies me.
I do get what you're saying though; I just really hate Olive Garden. Fuck that place. Fuck people for wanting to go there.
Just in case somebody wanted to look over it, here's Moldvay Basic (otherwise known as B/X). The Basic Set is 64 pages, covers levels 1-3, and is all you need to start playing. The Expert Set is another 64 pages and takes you the rest of the way, through 14th level.
Basic Set -- http://www.4shared.com/office/T5OnHAlMce/1011b_dd_basic_rules__moldvay_.html
Expert Set -- http://www.4shared.com/office/fCvOLachce/1012A_DD_Expert_Rules__Cook_.html
5e.
And when you realize there's no where to go with it, you switch to PF.
>>47642430
D&D was only a trailblazer for helping to start the genre, but it stopped being the only thing in the market since the mid 70s. Then after that there was a shitload of rpgs in the 80s which ended up getting crushed by D&D's brand recognition basically because of concerned parents alone.
If a child is playing a game of Traveller and the parent asks what the kid is doing, the kid will usually say "our crew is working hard to buy our spaceship, a few more trade runs and we'll almost have it". It'll sound a bit weird, but just your usual sci-fi make believe, and then even the most "shove a coal up their ass and you'll get a diamond" level of parent will go away.
If a child is playing the Ghostbusters RPG they can just say "we're playing Ghostbusters!". Some parents will get upset, but everyone knows that Ghostbusters is so it's hard to spread false information about Ghostbusters being a satanic film.
If a child is playing D&D and a parent asks they say "we're using magic to fight demons and slay dragons!". The parent will go "hold the fucking phone, did you just say you were using magic". Then they write a letter to an uptight organization, the uptight organization spreads shit that's not true, and since nobody had heard of D&D before they just assume all of the shit is true.
The controversy is what drove D&D's sales, not its innovation. TSR at the time had several other products that they had the capabilities to sell just as well as D&D, but D&D had magic and demons so it made people butthurt.
>>47642467
>>47642430
This.
Who the fuck actually likes Olive Garden?
>>47642491
REEEEE
>>47642519
nuh uh
>>47642535
>>47642550
we are going slightly off-topic
>>47642372
This anon gets it. Rules should be there to facilitate play (so the GM doesn't have to judge everything on case by case basis), not an obstacle that needs to be bypassed for the game to proceed.
>>47642488
>it stopped being the only thing in the market since the mid 70s.
Access to games was comparatively limited in those days. At least where I lived, there wasn't anything around like the game shops you have today, and D&D was ubiquitous while other RPGs weren't.
>The controversy is what drove D&D's sales, not its innovation.
As somebody who lived (and gamed) through that era, I saw little evidence of that. And remember that D&D actually ran away from the controversy, dropping stuff that might "give people the wrong idea" from 2e (half orcs, demons, devils and so forth). Now, I'm not saying D&D was innovating much by that point (it was relatively stagnant while other games broke new ground), but I think the whole satanic scare was more a result of D&D's popularity than the other way around.
>>47642607
Okay, the controversy was not the biggest boost, but it definitely helped it stay into the public mind. TSR was really damn good at licensing out their product though.
>>47642596
The ideal situation is that the rules are so well-built that the game practically 'runs itself' just by everyone following the rules.
The DnD that came closest to this was 4e with the fixed monster math - if the GM set up their encounters (both combat and noncombat) right, then neither side had to guess or stumble, you were just guaranteed a good time.
From non-DnD games you get similar results from the good PbtA games (not Dungeon World or Monster of the Week).
>>47642669
>4e
So you have no idea what you're talking about. Why didn't you just say so?
>>47641274
I'm going to be another one of the faggots: have you thought about 13th Age? It's a much more rules-light, GM based game. What I love about it that you don't have static skills such as in 5th, but rather, you have an amount of points which you can distribute amongst any number of careers your character may have had in the past. When a skill check for anything is in order, you can try to convince the GM that one of your past careers helps you, so you get the bonus.
If you really want to decide between 5th and 3.5e, I'd totally go for fifth. It's much better from a player perspective, but for the GM too. Especially the rescaling of AC and other stats make it much easier to use higher/lower level monsters while still being fun to fight against. Furthermore: fuck the aforementioned Ivory Tower design of PF.
>>47642700
I love 13th Age but while it does work as a beginner's game for players, it's not for beginner GMs - even the combat chapter assumes you're somewhat familiar with 'standard' d20 combat.
It's absolutely a superior game to both Pathfinder and 5e, though.
>>47642658
Not the previous anon but I know the satanic panic shit actually prevented one of my friends from playing D&D for the longest time.
Oddly his parents were fine with rifts and battletech, but went full kool aid drinker on believing that D&d was a gate way to the devil.
>>47642669
> The DnD that came closest to this was 4e with the fixed monster math - if the GM set up their encounters (both combat and noncombat) right, then neither side had to guess or stumble, you were just guaranteed a good time.
RAW 4e wasn't without its issues though. Monsters in the original book had way too high defenses to be fun, and even the errata for this had its issues: monsters have way too much effective HP. Encounters drag out way beyond any fun length with the rules as written and the entire system requires some heavy rebalancing to be truly fun.
>>47642708
>I love 13th Age but while it does work as a beginner's game for players, it's not for beginner GMs - even the combat chapter assumes you're somewhat familiar with 'standard' d20 combat.
I don't know. I may be one of those run before you can walk kind of people, but I think that starting with something like 13th Age over more hand-holding systems such as 4th can have its advantages. It's one of my favourite RPG books ever to read. Just the comments by the two authors, showing different interpretations of what it means to be a DM and how to use rules make the book worth the buy imho.
>>47641480
Nah, pathfinder beats dnd 5e out the door and down the street. 5e< PF.
>>47642697
Have you even read the book, much less played it?
Or are you that 3.PFag from the last few days who has everything to say about how 3.PF was influential and the best but was too chickenshit to even voice the merits he believed made it a good game?
>>47642726
4e needing heavy rebalancing? I got all your rebalancing right here.
(Or just use the MM3 and the Monster Vaults)
technically you never 'needed' the 'math fix feats' - it was assumed that player versatility and teamwork would make up for the 'numbers gap'. The developers didn't make this clear, so here we are.
>>47642746
Everything beats 3.5. But 4 doesn't beat it by much, let alone come anywhere near beating 5th.
>>47642727
What merits do you feel makes it a better game?
>>47642765
It does if we're talking about balancing and combat though.
Say what you will about 4e from a personal standpoint but it really did help make everyone in the party feel like a unit that contributed equally to the party's survival.
That and the way the monsters were designed helped in constructing encounters, especially once the math fixes were made and they learned how to go absolutely nuts with monster rules rather than playing it like 3.PF.
>>47642770
By the rules as written, DnD5e is a better experience than Pathfinder.
However, Pathfinder is a MUCH more fun experience if you limit it to tier 3 and 4 classes and include Path of War.
Of course, doing so makes it even less of a beginner's game. Although it's nice that the SRD makes doing that free and easy.
DnD5e is empty white bread.
Pathfinder is an overstuffed, unhealthy burger.
But if you take enough OUT of that burger, and put some cool new stuff in, it can be pretty good. Still unhealthy, but a good time.
>>47642747
That is some pretty heavy rebalancing though.
> technically you never 'needed' the 'math fix feats'
Please, it's not just about encounter balance, but also fun of encounters. Before the fix, encounters took way too long, which made them unfun.
An aside on 5th which I did not mention earlier and I didn't see mentioned elsewhere in the thread: I dislike the monster manual part. Monsters themselves are fine, but the diversity is way too low. One kind of goblin, really? It's not that I mind adding extra shit myself, but it makes it harder to do stuff on the fly.
>>47642718
My friend's parents are crazy religious and they actually burned his D&D stuff in the fireplace. So he and his brother just made up more free form games to play with each other.
>>47642801
How can a game be good if you must ignore most of the rules just to get a relatively pleasant experience?
I mean, wouldn't empty white bread be better since there's still room to put something into it, rather than it being overstuffed with grease that makes it taste awful and disgusting?
>>47642801
The "content" of the "burger" should be coming more from the GM's storytelling ability than anything. If you need to bloat a system with a ton of rules to have fun, then you're completely missing the point.
>>47642589
>>47642814
Let's be realistic here man.
You don't need a dozen recolors of the same monster when the only difference between, say, a red goblin and a green goblin are arbitrary.
Personally, I love what they did with the monster manual simply because they gave some monsters things like legendary actions and lair actions to make them feel less like mobs and more like supernatural juggernauts that were not to be fucked with on their home turf.
For example, how a kraken's lair action allowed it to alter the currents in the water so it could pull or push things away from it or how it can spend a legendary action to just grab something with its tentacles.
One other thing is that I'm not entirely convinced that letting the newcomers make their own characters is a good idea. The GM should instead ask them what kind of character they'd like to play, and whip up something for them. Regardless of the system used the odds are that they're nit going to manage a character that does what they want mechanics-wise and end up frustrated. Of course if the player doesn't have a strong concept but just like to browse and pick something from the book that looks cool then it's okay to let them.
>>47642824
In this particular case, I'm referring to the better, more interesting class design. Character building and advancement in Pathfinder can be entertaining, and is comparatively dull in DnD5e where you make your biggest choice at level 3.
>>47642826
>The "content" of the "burger" should be coming more from the GM's storytelling ability than anything.
This isn't how games work. The GM is like a waiter. I can have a shitty waiter or a good waiter, and maybe a shitty waiter will totally ruin my order, but my enjoyment comes from the food, not the waiter.
The waiter's job is to do the following things:
1. Prepare the table.
2. Take my order to the chef (take what I say, and apply it to the rules).
3. Give me the food I ordered (give me the result, as passed through the rules).
>>47642855
Wow... Pathfinder players really DON'T get it, huh?
I literally have no way to reply to that It's almost like trying to burn water.
>>47642669
>4e
>the game practically 'runs itself'
That's one of the many reasons people hate 4e. There's no need for creativity on either the players' or the DM's side. Everything is built for you.
The players are never really "challenged" since every single encounter is designed to be overcome by them.
You might as well just play WoW or Diablo.
>>47642846
> You don't need a dozen recolors of the same monster when the only difference between, say, a red goblin and a green goblin are arbitrary.
Totally true, but it'd have been handy for on-the-fly encounter creation to have some small templates with stuff like: "same goblin, but with a tower shield and spear" or "this goblin can do sneak attacks in situation X and has poison Y on their weapon". It doesn't take much space, no wasted extra space on huge blocks of stats, but it allows you to just grab a few of them to add some quick variation to an encounter.
> Personally, I love what they did with the monster manual simply because they gave some monsters things like legendary actions and lair actions to make them feel less like mobs and more like supernatural juggernauts that were not to be fucked with on their home turf.
Yeah, that was pretty cool. It reminded me of the the nasty abilities from 13th Age.
>>47642879
Actually, I've been playing DnD5e for the past two years ongoing, and have had a few sessions of Monsterhearts, and a short 13th Age campaign.
Although I'm hoping to get a game of Mage: the Awakening 2e going soon as a break from all the DnD I've been a player in. Been feeling pretty stale.
The point is - the GM is just a player, combined with a referee.
Do people rely on the referee to make football fun? No, of course not. The referee is there to keep things flowing.
The fun comes from the players interacting with the rules and the ball. If I really like kicking the ball in football, I'm not gonna switch to basketball just because the basketball referee has a louder whistle.
>>47642855
>Character building and advancement in Pathfinder can be entertaining, and is comparatively dull in DnD5e where you make your biggest choice at level 3.
It's only entertaining if you're willing to spend your free time "mastering" the system, at which point you realize that out of 20 options, 10 are traps, 3 are comparably weaker, 5 are relatively balanced, and 2 are broken in either they make other class options obsolete or are just poorly written/balanced and end up being unable to handle shit that's supposed to be weaker than them.
At least in 5e, they took at least some steps in reigning in the bullshit and they have added more character options as well with the addition of Sword Coast Adventures and the like.
We're still relatively early in 5e's lifespan and there's talk of them making a new book to address the few imbalance issues that 5e has, such as the beastmaster Ranger variant for example.
To get back to what I was saying before, the white bread can later be filled with anything you want it later but the burger will always be greasy and disgusting to most people who don't want a burger with a dozen ingredients thrown between some buns.
>>47642883
It's a roleplaying game. You exercise your creativity (just like any other RPG) by describing your actions creatively. Don't just say "I cast fireball", say some dumb magic words, or describe your cloak billowing in an invisible wind, or whatever.
This applies to every game, not even just DnD.
You have the rules, and then you follow the rules and describe it in a creative manner.
>>47642883
To be fair to 4e age: it explicitly mentions that same-level encounters are meant to be tough, but doable for a party of regular PCs. That means that more min-maxed parties will have an easy time if you throw those encounters at them. I regularly threw level + 4 encounters at my group back in the days, and they were no huge min-maxers.
A GM should generate encounters which are fun and creative, regardless of the system. This means thinking up cool and exiting locations, as well as making sure that combat is as tough as is required.
>>47642883
>The players are never really "challenged" since every single encounter is designed to be overcome by them.
What?
No seriously, what?
Are you saying that you shouldn't be able to use teamwork to make a fight easier?
>>47642899
I'm actually agreeing with you - Pathfinder is full of poorly balanced shit, but when you reduce it to the ten or so classes that are actually good, it becomes more fun than DnD5e.
DnD5e is also running on a skeleton crew and any more 'player option' books are unlikely to materialise satisfyingly. Things like the Purple Dragon Knight in the SCAG were embarrassingly poorly designed - I've seen better homebrew on reddit, and there you still find people who don't understand caster supremacy.
>>47642883
The system that had huge sections in the DMG about ideas for building a fun environment for a battle, not just the opposition had no creativity?
>>47642888
There's nothing necessarily stopping you from tweaking the monsters a bit if you want to make a goblin Fighter or a goblin rogue or whatever, it's just that we don't really need a dozen mild variants on the same creature if the only differences are things that basically come down to giving the creature class levels.
Plus, I'm pretty sure bugbears already corner the market on goblinoids that sneak attack. I could be wrong though, but I recall them getting something for ambushes.
>>47642855
>The GM is like a waiter. I can have a shitty waiter or a good waiter, and maybe a shitty waiter will totally ruin my order, but my enjoyment comes from the food, not the waiter.
That might be true for an arbitrated war game of some sort, but it's incredibly wrong for an RPG. Like, it's so wrong that it flips the scale, goes back to being right, then circles all the way back around to bury the needle in "wrong".
>>47642883
I will agree with you on the stuff outside of combat though: it was an overdesigned and still did not work. Two examples:
the rituals system: it made little sense, it was way underpowered at lower levels and there was never really a good reason to use it, since it was just underwhelming in general.
Non-combat encounters: why codify it in this stupid way? What would've been the harm in having a chapter basically saying: "look. Design an interesting problem. Then tell the players the problem and allow them to think up ways to solve it." The X strikes and you're out system doesn't work, feels way too clunky and doesn't add much. You're much better off ignoring that system alltogether.
>>47642932
I know. However, I try to spend less time preparing everything, especially random encounters. However, that also means that I have less time to think up alternative monsters like that. For this, some small templates would've been helpful. I'm sure that when I'm more knowledgable about the stats of different weapons and armours, it'll come easier, but as someone starting out with 5th, it feels a little bit annoying.
>>47642896
I pity how utterly terrible and boring your GM's must be.
>>47642923
The thing is though, people don't necessarily like having to remove options or add options just to make the game passable, especially when the "best" will usually come down to personal preference.
I've met hardcore casterfags who outright refused to play anything even resembling a martial and I've met martialfags who feel the same way about magic.
There isn't really a satisfying camp to satisfy both ends of the spectrum and honestly, it's just simpler to run 5e where most of the bullshit got cut down to a manageable degree.
>>47642854
Yeah for sure, the character creation process is one of the most tedious parts of any system if you don't know what you're doing, and especially if it's the first thing you do.
Most people don't want their board games to start out with homework.
>>47642896
But how does that work story-wise? Like, sure. If there's some system to procedurally generate content such as encounters, sure. However, for out of combat stuff, puzzles and the like, having the GM being a player makes little sense.
If you want to do stuff like that, you should look into games like Microscope though.
>>47642896
>Do people rely on the referee to make football fun? No, of course not. The referee is there to keep things flowing.
Because football is a game between two teams where the ref just serves to adjudicate. Role-playing games aren't at all the same thing. The GM builds and fleshes out the world. He interprets your actions, determines the results and brings everything to life. He is not a servant of the rules. The rules are just tools for him to use to provide consistency and make things easier for the players to grasp.
>>47642908
>by describing your actions creatively
Port stunting from Exalted then
>>47642941
To move away from DnD for a moment, consider Apocalypse World, which is more what I had in mind when I wrote that.
In session 0, you make characters, and the group as a whole talks about their backstory, and the setting they want to play in.
And the GM will set up some initial threats and situations to play off of.
And from then on, the whole game 'plays itself'. Of course everyone has to be creative - it's like improv! But the GM will never need to spend time prepping anything beyond maybe thinking of interesting NPCs or maybe thinking of a new potential threat.
The game is structured such that players and the GM play off each other, and keep the game rolling.
There's a similar thing going in Chronicles of Darkness (what was once nWoD). The new XP system means that players are encouraged to downgrade 'regular' failures into 'dramatic' failures, because that gives XP, and do similar things with bad Conditions that they gain.
You CAN do a very traditional 'GM describes everything' game with it, but it works much better as a whole with everyone reacting and responding to the failures and successes and snowballing off that.
It's not 'the GM' that makes those games fun. It's everyone following the rules and interacting with each other. The GM doesn't make the fun - everyone playing the GAME makes the fun.
>>47642854
Personally, from watching GM's who made characters for other people before, it turns into a crapshoot.
Even if the character is built correctly, it's like handing a pistol to a caveman. They won't understand what they can do and more often than not, you're going to end seeing them flounder simply because they don't know the full breadth of their character's actions.
At least if they build a character themselves, with someone around to ask questions and offer tips, they come out of it with some level of understanding as to what they can do as a player and as a character.
>>47642988
well that's nice, but it's not how the vast majority of DnD games are run, or how it is designed to be run
if you want dungeons to explore, plots to foil, and villains to defeat, you need a DM to design all that stuff for you (or at least read it from a book)
>>47642801
>Endless cascades of numbers are fun! I like having three different types of AC and three different skills for knowing about magic!
Balance is but one of Pathfinder's many issues.
>>47642855
So your favorite part of playing the game is not playing the game.
>>47642988
>The GM doesn't make the fun - everyone playing the GAME makes the fun.
But you're confusing "the game" with the "system of mechanics". Mechanics-wise, I could go off script one session, ignore all the rules, and just make shit up based on how high people roll, and everybody could still have a good time (assuming I don't screw it up). If I ever sink into the background and just become a rules arbiter, the RPG just becomes a war game. Role-playing is not a mechanical thing, and that's more important than what your attack bonus is, or how your skill check is mathematically affected by the fact that you're wearing armor.
>>47643019
My favourite part of playing the game is playing the game.
In the case of both Pathfinder and DnD5e, this means making interesting decisions about how my character acts, both tactically and theatrically, and describing that appropriately.
If I've just moving my character like a chess piece, I'm not playing an RPG, because I'm not describing shit or adding to the story.
If I'm just making shit up without rolling or reference to rules, I'm not playing an RPG, because there's no rules interface (although, of course, you can't have this constantly happening or else you could never have a conversation happen ever).
Between Pathfinder and DnD5e, Pathfinder is better in the 'make interesting tactical decisions' part, and I can be as pretentious and artfaggy in either one of them equally.
Pathfinder requires me to dig through a shitpile to find gold and other precious metals (or rely on other people's goldfinding).
DnD5e requires just being happy with some dull, but functional, rocks.
>>47641274
I would say 5e, but I feel like there isn't enough books to help the GM, but if the GM and the party are new, then full points to you all for 5e.
Personally I prefer Pathfinder as there are a shit tone of options my players can enjoy and I can add or deduct certain rules from the game if I so choose(as long as I am not disrupting my own game when I do it of course).
People keep saying that there is a shit ton of math involved with Pathfinder, yet all I see is basic arithmetic explained quite clearly.
5e is easy to get into, because it was made for retards and children.
>>47643038
> Mechanics-wise, I could go off script one session, ignore all the rules, and just make shit up based on how high people roll, and everybody could still have a good time (assuming I don't screw it up).
You had a good time, but you didn't play an RPG, you just had an improv session using the dice as an oracle.
In a mythical ideal RPG that doesn't exist, every time you do something important to the progression of the story:
1. It interacts with the rules
2. You're not bogged down keeping track of a billion things at once.
>>47643053
Explained clearly or not, it's not fun to pause the game every 30 seconds to search the wiki for the rules and math involved with almost every single action you take, and heavens forbid you try to play a spellcaster and keep a speedy game going.
>>47643065
Is this bait I see before me, pointy end towards my mouth? Come, let me bite thee.
>>47643072
It's not even bait, just another Pathfinder drone who honestly believes what he's saying, even though it's 2+2=5 nonsensical.
>>47643051
Yet most people will be happy with the rocks since you don't have to crawl through a mountain of bullshit just to get to the gold that might have already gotten mined out by the resident power gamer.
>>47643081
DnD5e is fine, but it's kind of like releasing Orange-Box era Team Fortress 2 after we've had Overwatch, various flavours of cawadoody, and Monday Night Combat for several years.
We've had all these advancements in game design and... that's the best you did?
>>47643095
I'm including full casters in the 'shit' here. The gold/etc in this case would be well-designer tier 3 and 4 classes.
>>47643105
>Saying 3.5 is the improved game and not the barely-playable older version.
Here's an example of old school D&D play I gave a while ago. Note that most of the interesting bits of the interaction are coming from the GM. Sure, you could have consistent formulas to define the way, say, tripping and disarming works, but then you'd just end up with one or two things that were mechanically better than anything else, and you'd do them over and over. That's limiting, leads to stupid results, and lacks cool cinematics.
>The goblin lunges at you, trying to skewer you on his short sword!
>I'm gonna sidestep and bat the thrust aside with my shield, leaving him open to my counterattack.
[GM figures PC could play it safe by simply blocking without batting, so he decides that if the PC gets hit, he'll take +2 damage. However, if the goblin misses, he will, indeed, be open to the PC's counterattack. Because of this and because the PC's action seems colorful and appropriate for the situation, and because it's conditional--only happening if the goblin misses--he'd get a +2 to both damage and chance to hit on that counterattack.]
>[clatter] Success! The goblin shifts his mid-level attack upwards, trying to strike above your shield at your unprotected head, but you're quicker than he is and slam your shield into his arm so hard he almost drops his sword. His arm is up and to the side like this, leaving him wide open, but he still has some forward momentum, so you don't have much clearance between you.
>Okay! I... uh... if he's gonna be in really close, I'm not gonna try hit to him in the front of his body. Instead, I'm gonna bury my axe in the top of his shoulder, where it meets his neck.
[The GM thinks this is about the perfect response and ups the +2 bonus to damage and to hit to +3]
>Roll it.
>[clatter] Damn! I... uh... miss by 2.
>No you don't. The goblin's wide open and though you're a little slow and the goblin is almost inside your swing by the time you land your blow, you still manage to connect with the lower corner of your axe. Roll damage.
>>47643105
As someone who played Orange-Box era TF2, those types of games were much better when they focused on a small but focused number of options.
If orangebox era TF2 is like 5e than modern day TF2 is like Pathfinder.
A billion options with only a handful being worth playing, a shitload of promotional garbage that breaks the theming of the game, references to better games, and classes where four can do almost everything while the rest are left in the lurch because they're too specialized for one job.
>>47643113
Then you're not even mining gold, you're mining fool's gold that you've mistakenly called actual gold.
>>47643105
>advancements
Most of those games are shit, though. Pathfinder just doubled down on making 3.5 worse and 4e was a completely different game.
You could argue some decent stuff like Legend or Fantasy Craft came out, but you're arguing for Pathfinder. This is a game that thought that comparing the Druid and the Fighter on equal terms was a good idea and that the Kineticist was a good class.
At least in 5e, all of the classes are playable in the same game with no house-rules required by new players and experienced players alike.
>>47643155
>4e was a completely different game.
shit man, what was this completely different game that had the exact same stats, same grid mechanics (hurr diagonals), half the same lore, same spell names
if it was a completely different game, what game was it more like? surely for it to be different to DnD on a spectrum, it would need to be MORE like another RPG than it is like DND
>At least in 5e, all of the classes are playable in the same game with no house-rules required by new players and experienced players alike.
are you really claiming caster supremacy doesn't exist in 5e? the game where one of the class abilities the fighter has is "jump up to five feet further"?
>>47643068
>You had a good time, but you didn't play an RPG,
Yes, I did. You seem to have a very strange notion of what a role-playing game is.
>>47643183
It was a completely different game because every class was homogenised and given the exact same amount of abilities called "powers" with different cooldowns.
It's tabletop WoW.
>>47643196
If get a bunch of my friends together on a basketball court, and give a ball to one guy standing in the middle, and then we all start running around the ball, we didn't play basketball, even though running on a basketball court is a component of basketball.
Likewise, if I get my friends together to play an RPG, and we all start talking in character and describing things we're doing, but we never apply any of the rules, we're not actually playing an RPG, because a game is a system of rules that are applied.
You're roleplaying! But you aren't gaming.
And there's nothing wrong with that at all.
>>47643220
Shit man, I'd better never play Mage. Everyone gets the same amount of powers on the same cooldowns. I might as well be playing tabletop WoW.
I'd better make sure I never play Fate. Everyone gets five Aspects? fuck, this shit is so homogenous
>>47643183
Absolutely. I'll go on the fence saying that caster supremacy isn't NEARLY as bad as it is in 3.5.
I think it's shitty to say that we'll ever get a perfectly balanced game, but the problem with pathfinder isn't that it's imbalanced but that it's so BADLY imbalanced that different classes seem to be playing different games.
In 5e, rushing a caster can stop them from casting spells entirely on even a single hit, and the Fighter can get 2-3 hits by the time that Casters can obliterate them. Why? Because Fighters can get an ability to make the Wizard's Spell Component bag / Spellbook / magic Want / etc. go flying out of their pockets with no extra roll on any hit. Battlemasters are awesome that way.
In 5e, Save or Die is practically gone, requiring at least 3 saves, and Save or Suck is saved for later levels instead of being available right out the game. The spell DC's have also been nerfed into the ground - Where in Pathfinder I've made Wizards that can force DC 30 save-or-die spells by 10th level, you'll be lucky to hit a dc 20 by end-game in 5e.
Maybe things will change in the future, but it's a game where spells like Glitterdust and Create Pit don't show up at first level to fuck up encounters. Yeah, there's still some shit that got through the cracks - Rangers are noticeably on the low end of power, Bards have some weird rules interactions that give them hilariously great abilities, and some of the Summon Creature spells are broken as fuck, but even with all that
It's way the fuck better than pathfinder.
>>47643220
That's like saying that every JRPG plays exactly the same because you access your abilities through a menu and your party stands in a line opposite their opponents.
I could make an argument that states that 3.PF is more an MMO than 4e could ever hope to be, since the game is built upon arbitrary restrictions, tiers, builds, and abstractions that only make sense as a game and not as a setting.
>>47643253
I think we're agreeing on that point on 5e, but have different viewpoints on what makes a game entertaining.
Would I play Pathfinder with everything released so far? Fuck no. DnD5e is much better. Way better. I'd be retarded to pick Pathfinder.
But if instead I'm playing Pathfinder with Spheres of Power, Path of War, the tier 3 and 4 hybrid classes, the magus, etc?
Suddenly Pathfinder is more appealing to me.
I'd still rather play neither. But given just those two options, that's where my tastes lie.
>>47643229
You think that just because something doesn't have rigidly defined rules it can't be a game? Have you never played a game of cops and robbers? Have you never watched the Olympic games and tuned into a gymnastics competition?
And why must the rules be pulled from a book and interpreted by a GM? Why must the book be a higher authority than the GM? The GM is running the show. Rule zero says he can change or ignore rules when he wants. It's just one small step from there to him making everything up himself. And there are plenty of role-playing games that seek to keep some of the rules hidden from the players, so it's not like it's only a game if the participants know all the rules.
>>47643220
>using cooldowns to refer to an edition that doesn't have cooldowns in defense of an edition that does have cooldowns
>>47643220
Didn't 3.PF invent the concept of abilities that could only be used X times per day?
>>47643298
To follow up, see >>47643131, where many of the rules and most of the fun flow not from the pages of a book, but the mind of the GM (and the interaction of the players, of course).
>>47642498
tuscan soup, all day, everyday.
>>47643298
>Have you never played a game of cops and robbers? Have you never watched the Olympic games and tuned into a gymnastics competition?
Cops and robbers tends to have rules... if you can get children to agree on them.
Gymnastics follows quite strict rules and strong guidelines on how to achieve high scores.
>The GM is running the show. Rule zero says he can change or ignore rules when he wants
I thought we got past this back in the late 90s, man.
The GM doesn't run the show. The GM is a player. They're a player with different rules that apply to them, and they're expected to be the most available 'rules reference' but they're a player like everyone else, bound by the rules of the game unless agreed otherwise.
As a GM you can always say "No, you can't do that", and as a group of players you can always say "Yes we do" and keep on roleplaying and playing until you finally manage to work it out like sensible people. And everyone agreeing to follow the rules, or talk it out when they come across rules they dislike, helps with that.
>>47643266
>That's like saying that every JRPG plays exactly the same because you access your abilities through a menu and your party stands in a line opposite their opponents.
They do play the same.
I like JRPGs as much as the next guy but there isn't much variation in terms of gameplay.
>I could make an argument that states that 3.PF is more an MMO than 4e could ever hope to be, since the game is built upon arbitrary restrictions, tiers, builds, and abstractions that only make sense as a game and not as a setting.
Yeah 3.PF is worse in many aspects. I'm not disputing that.
>>47643306
Why is it that every time you criticise 4e people assume that you're defending 3.PF?
Both games are shitin my humble opinion of course
I play 5e and suggest you give it a go as well.
>>47641425
I TOLD YOU, I TOLD YOU
>>47643278
See, and on my side, I'd rather not have to explain to people who've never played a D&D game in their life that no, you can't use anything in the core rule book, no, you can't use anything from the first four years of the game's publication either, no you can't use 70% of the content of the SRD.
yeah, it makes sense - To people who've played it and to people who are already invested or interested in the game and who've taken their time to learn the system. I haven't found very many people who have, though, so I'd rather play the game that I don't need to babysit people through the process.
>>47643324
The first instance of 'per encounter', that I know of, shows up in the description of Barbarian Rage in 3e.
>>47643325
What I see in that is the GM trying to make things up to match the cool things the players are describing... and using the wrong system for it. In that particular case they're either better off using a crunchier system where active blocking and dodging is a thing (so the GM has these already prewritten and doesn't need to try and think of these on the fly), or use a lighter system where these things exist 'in the fiction' and are abstracted away by the rules (like Dungeon World).
>>47643368
Yup, I'm totally agreeing with you. Pathfinder is more enjoyable to ME that way, but it's a ridiculous amount of bullshit to go through for a newbie, and I never claimed otherwise.
>>47643068
>you didn't play an RPG
Played a role in form of a game. What else should there be?
>>47643266
4e is NOT an mmo.
4e is final fantasy tactics.
>>47643350
>Why is it that every time you criticise 4e people assume that you're defending 3.PF?
Because 3.PFags are usually the ones who shit on 4e by claiming that the game having powers and can only be used a certain amount of times per day makes it an RPG.
It's like asking why people assume that you're a racist while having a swastika tattooed on your arm or something.
>>47643350
>Why is it that every time you criticise 4e people assume that you're defending 3.PF?
>I play 5e and suggest you give it a go as well.
Now lets see the post you are replying to....
>>47643306
>using cooldowns to refer to an edition that doesn't have cooldowns in defense of an edition that does have cooldowns
I guess fighter having to sit down for 1 hour to recover his maneuvers in 5e doesn't count as a cooldown for you?
>>47643350
>I like JRPGs as much as the next guy but there isn't much variation in terms of gameplay.
So you're saying that Mother 3, Final Fantasy VI, Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga, and Chrono Trigger all play exactly the same?
>>47643343
>The GM doesn't run the show. The GM is a player.
Yes. The player in charge.
The book doesn't run the show; the GM does. The book holds no authority over you. You aren't beholden to the committee of writers in Lake Geneva or wherever the thing was written.
>>47643369
>or use a lighter system
Moldvay Basic is pretty fucking light.
>>47643399
What's really telling is that any criticism of 4e is "obviously the result of stupid insane people" according to 4e players, even when it's correct and factual criticism.
>>47643350
5e has more explicit cooldowns than 4e.
>>47643343
>bound by the rules of the game unless agreed otherwise.
And one of the rules is "if you don't like the rules change them". Rule Zero exists in every single game ever published. That means the GM doesn't have t abide by the rules. In most games, the GM is even encouraged to cheat if not cheating makes it less fun.
This has been true since the incepton of RPGs, and continues to be standard text in all RPGs.
>>47643399
Are you incapable of accepting any criticism of your beloved system or something?
4e was very poorly received by the D&D and roleplaying community. It's not just me that hates it.
>>47643408
Not exactly, but they're similar enough that once you've grasped one's mechanics the others' will be self-explanatory to you.
>>47643463
Okay, I'll take a bite, you've baited me.
4e being a MMO because of cooldowns is bullshit because every version of D&D has similar mechanics, yet because 4e has powers that can only used a certain amount of times per day, it gets labeled as a MMO?
A paladin can only use lay on hands a certain amount of times per day, does that mean that every edition of D&D that has a paladin is suddenly an MMO?
A wizard only has access to a certain amount of spell slots per day, is every edition that has vancian magic suddenly an MMO now?
Fuck, certain creatures in 3.PF can't even use basic abilities more than maybe once or twice per day.
An Ifrit cannot burn something with their hands more than once per day, a creature born from the shadow realm can only blend into shadows maybe once or twice per day, dragons can only use their breath weapon maybe a handful of times per day, and the list goes on.
That's why people assume that when you call 4e a MMO, you're stupid or insane, because every RPG operates on powers that can only be used a few times per day yet 4e gets shit even though it's much more lenient in how often you can use your powers in one sitting.
>>47643492
I have no problem with cooldowns when there's a thematic reason for them. In 4e they exist purely for balance/gameplay reasons.
I also have a problem with every class being given the same number of abilities (powers) in the name of "class balance".
It's too video gamey.
>>47643519
You said that they all played the same here >>47643408 yet now they don't play exactly the same.
So which is it?
Do they all play the same or do they all not play the same?
Also, see >>47643531 for my feelings towards the first half of your shitpost.
>>47643551
Fuck, meant to link to >>47643350, not >>47643408
>>47643531
Tell me what "cooldown" fighters or thieves had in previous editions of D&D.
The only things that were "cooldowns" were spells which were restricted to a certain number of uses per day for obvious reasons.
>>47643463
Your post is epistemically wrong on so many levels. Watch those generalizations, mang.
Example: I mainly play 4e, and I have accepted that there is a lot of things the system can't do on its own.
Lots of criticism is unjustified, though, which seems to have led some 4e players to believe that all criticism of 4e is unjustified, or at least that there is a burden of proof on the critic ("Have you even tried playing the game?").
>>47643155
>Legend
How does a RuneQuest game get labeled as a follow on to 3.5?
Legend is literally Mythras, which is literally RuneQuest 6, which is literally Legend, which is a streamlining of RuneQuest II - which was specifically designed to spurn OD&D.
>>47643551
They do all play the same.
They're turn based RPGs. Sure there are a few minor differences here and there but that's like saying that Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat are completely different games. They're not.
Also, just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they're shitposting anon.
>>47643598
You just contradicted yourself.
Just because a game belongs to a certain genre doesn't mean that they play the same way.
Which is why I'm assuming that you're shitposting.
>>47643546
>I have no problem with cooldowns when there's a thematic reason for them. In 4e they exist purely for balance/gameplay reasons.
By that reasoning, in every edition they exist purely for balance/gameplay reasons. You don't see Harry Potter running out of level 3 spell slots, or Gimli having to rest for an hour before he can attempt a fancy-ass maneuver. Both are governed by the plot, and "cooldowns" are a way to give player characters limited resources in a way that would fit the plot.
>>47643577
>The only things that were "cooldowns" were spells which were restricted to a certain number of uses per day for obvious reasons.
What about lay on hands or smite?
>>47643577
Have you tried considering that the lack of limited resources among martials in previous editions may have been a problem instead of a feature?
Also, Barbarians had a number of Rages per day.
>>47643623
>Just because a game belongs to a certain genre doesn't mean that they play the same way.
It's a pretty good indication. That's the whole reason "genres" exist. So that games can be classified according their type.
If I buy a JRPG I know by and large what to expect in terms of gameplay and mechanics. Same thing if I buy a fighting game or an FPS or an MMO.
>>47643624
That's true but it was poorly executed in 4e.
Giving every single class the same amount of powers and abilities is just lazy and makes no sense thematically.
>>47643636
They're considered spell-like abilities IIRC. Same thing.
>>47643651
>Have you tried considering that the lack of limited resources among martials in previous editions may have been a problem instead of a feature?
It wasn't. Why do you want to add an arbitrary resource management system to martial classes?
Why do you want martials to function like casters.
>>47643546
>I also have a problem with every class being given the same number of abilities (powers) in the name of "class balance".
Do you feel the same way about everyone getting the same amount of stat points, or gold pieces, or feats?
>>47643665
>Giving every single class the same amount of powers and abilities is just lazy and makes no sense thematically.
Only if you expect different classes to have different systems of limited resources from the get-go.
And making a ruleset by reference to "thematic sense" isn't really viable. Different settings have different thematic ways to explain magic, so you can't really have a system that can be used with different settings work the same across the board.
>>47643546
>I have no problem with cooldowns when there's a thematic reason for them. In 4e they exist purely for balance/gameplay reasons.
Assuming you're the same dumbass from a few days ago, even if you were given a reason that could fit thematically, you still wouldn't accept it because it doesn't make sense to YOU personally.
At-Wills are basic maneuvers that don't take as much out of you.
A warrior cleaving through two guys isn't going to take alot out of him since he's just using his obnoxious strength to slice through two guys at once.
Encounters are powers that either work off of surprising an opponent or are powers that consume a limited resource (like the dragonborn's breath weapon) and are available again after taking a short rest.
A warrior isn't going to just do nothing but slash at a dude's legs or eyes to win him every encounter, so he's going to mix it up by using several different powers to keep an opponent off-balance until he can land a devastating blow and capitalize on the opening provided.
Dailies are abilities that produce devastating effects but put a personal strain on the user's body to where they must take a long rest before they can use it again.
Pushing yourself to the limit to slash a dude for three times your normal damage output is going to put a tremendous strain on your body. Granted, you dealt a hefty chunk of damage to him but you're not going to risk injury by doing the same move before resting.
Of course, you're going to ignore all of this and still say that it's bad because it doesn't "FEEEEEEEEEEEL right" to you personally.
>>47643693
>They're considered spell-like abilities IIRC. Same thing.
What about Rage?
>It wasn't. Why do you want to add an arbitrary resource management system to martial classes?
Martials already operate off of arbitrary resource management systems.
It's called feats.
>>47643695
>Do you feel the same way about everyone getting the same amount of stat points, or gold pieces, or feats?
I don't see the correlation but yes, in general I think classes should have differents stats, abilities and wealth. That's what distinguishes them from one another.
Otherwise we might as well just do away with classes altogether and just say "okay you've leveled up do you want to learn Fireball, Sneak Attack, Bladestorm or Cure Wounds"?
>>47642726
Now you damn faggots got me interested. Can you please post a link to the 13th Age books?
>>47643731
Classes in 4e do have different stats, abilities, and wealth.
You're just being obtuse and only looking at the most shallow aspects of the system to bitch about.
>>47643715
Not you again...
Look, 4e failed. It was poorly received across the board. Nobody liked it apart from you and a handful of contrarians on /tg/.
Ask yourself why that is.
>>47643702
What's the point?
If all classes have similar resource systems and abilities then why bother having classes at all?
>>47643693
>It wasn't. Why do you want to add an arbitrary resource management system to martial classes?
>Why do you want martials to function like casters.
You might as well remove the resource management from all classes then. Or maybe have each class choose if they want a higher general power level or a resource system.
Consider the following:
- Casting a spell draws on a person's energy in some way. This is the apparent reason why spells can only be used once per day per preparation.
- Moving the body in a way that is exhausting draws on a person's energy. This is why the barbarian only has a set amount of rages per day.
The only arbitrary thing here is that some classes have resource management systems while others don't.
There is nothing inherent in the concept of magic that says that you can only throw a fireball a set number of times per day. There IS, however, a FACTUAL limit on how much the human body is able to do.
>>47643131
Let me tell you how I feel when someone comes to a "which of these rulesets do you think is better / like more" thread and starts talking about homebrew rules or ignoring the rules in favour of narrative gameplay:
>Which do you think is better fork for a kid who is getting their first fork: Iron or steel?
>I think that this log is the best fork. You can carve it up and make any kind of fork you like out of it. And if you can't carve wood then it just means that you suck and shouldn't be using forks.
See? This is what it seems like. I mean, I don't deny that making your own game or modifying existing rules can be fun. It's simply off topic when we are specifically discussing the original rules of a game system/edition.
>>47643757
Classes in 4e are exactly the same.
You might as well just have 4 classes in 4e: strikers, controllers, defenders and leaders.
In fact, it's a desservice to WoW to compare it to 4e. Even WoW's classes were more diverse than 4e's.
>>47643693
Every character should have some form of limited resource to use as the player sees fit because it's more fun that way, and it adds a tactical element to even the simplest classes, and perhaps just as importantly it gives the player more agency within the narrative by having the ability to declare they're going all out on whatever it is they're trying to do.
The fighter's resources don't NEED to exactly mirror the wizard's resources, but the game plays a lot better when every character type exhausts themselves on roughly the same schedule. It means you can build adventures that fit any party composition.
>>47643791
>Classes in 4e are exactly the same.
If they play exactly same then how are you getting strikers, controllers, defenders, and leaders?
>>47643767
>Ask yourself why that is.
Bad marketing/presentation, on top of which the market was larger and more vocal than at the time of the first WotC edition so the grognards couldn't be entirely disregarded.
>>47643778
There are already rules for exhaustion.
There's absolutely no need for martials to have a resource management system on top of this.
There's no way that a fighter is going to die of exhaustion unless the fighter literally goes on for hours (which it seems battles in 4e often do)
>>47643799
Yeah let's make every class exactly the same!
That's exactly why 4e failed.
>>47643767
>Ask yourself why that is.
Because of chodes like you who only skimmed through the book and decided to hate on it because it didn't play exactly like 3.PF.
That and poor marketing overall.
>>47643818
Or maybe it was that, you know, the game was shit and nobody liked it?
Ever considered that?
>>47643767
>If all classes have similar resource systems and abilities then why bother having classes at all?
- Theme/Specialization. A holy knight is simply down another path than a mage granted powers by the forces of evil.
- Balance. As a game designer, you might not want a single class to be able to do both X and Y.
- Party composition. If a group of adventurers is meant to work together, a great way to facilitate that is by making sure their class features work better together than apart.
Not that different classes is absolutely necessary - there are classless systems out there. These are just some of the reasons why you might want different classes without taking the fun away from players by making some classes decidedly better or worse off than others.
>>47643791
>Classes in 4e are exactly the same.
Sure, and every class in D&D 3.5 is exactly the same as all of the others. I mean, all of them roll dice!
>>47643833
Which one sounds like it's more involved and requires more player agency?
Keeping track of a limited resource to perform special abilities or just rolling dice until either you or the enemy dies?
>>47643577
>Tell me what "cooldown" fighters or thieves had in previous editions of D&D.
Thief backstab was literally 1/encounter.
I shit you not, it was literally written something like "once per battle if the thief attacks an unaware foe..." or something like that.
>>47643835
>>47643818
>poor marketing
You guys are hilarious.
More people bought 4e than any previous edition so clearly the marketing was pretty good.
The reason it failed is because people bought it, played it, realised it was shit and moved on to PF or some other game.
This thread isn't even about 4e.
The OP was asking about 5e and PF yet the same 3 or 4 4e fanboys have to shit up the thread with their nonsense as usual.
>>47643866
>Which one sounds like it's more involved and requires more player agency?
More involved doesn't mean better.
People who roll fighters generally want a simple and easy to play class. They don't want to have to memorise 30 powers just to hit things.
>>47643822
>There are already rules for exhaustion.
Yes, and yet barbarians still have X rages per day.
>There's absolutely no need for martials to have a resource management system on top of this.
Just like there is no need for casters to have one. I mean, they have even less of a basis in reality, so it's only because you WANT them to have limited resources that they have them. And while we're there, it's only because you DON'T want martials to have limited resources that they don't.
>There's no way that a fighter is going to die of exhaustion unless the fighter literally goes on for hours (which it seems battles in 4e often do)
Well, that just sounds like the system for exhaustion doesn't work, then. And battles in 4e can take just as much time as in any other edition of the game - but, as has been mentioned before, one problem early monsters had was that the math was flawed, which produced longer battles.
>>47643881
>The OP was asking about 5e and PF yet the same 3 or 4 4e fanboys have to shit up the thread with their nonsense as usual.
Only because the same [arbitrarily generated small number] PF fanboys decided that they couldn't argue against 5e and just decided to throw shit like they're used to.
>>47643904
>More involved doesn't mean better.
It does if you want your players to feel like their choices matter.
Nobody ever felt engaged by doing rudimentary shit that you could do on auto-pilot.
>hey don't want to have to memorise 30 powers just to hit things.
As mentioned in other threads, a level 1 character only really gets like 11 powers and even then, you have to choose which ones out of the 11 you wish to have.
You don't really get like 30 powers until mid-late game and even then, there are cards to help you keep track of your powers if you really can't remember everything.
>>47643881
>The OP was asking about 5e and PF yet the same 3 or 4 4e fanboys have to shit up the thread with their nonsense as usual.
Actually, 3.PFags started to throw shit at 5e once they saw that everyone unanimously agreed that 5e was much better for newbies than PF.
>>47641274
Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, by far.
>>47642260
Charles Barkley tried football once at Auburn. First time he got hit in a drill he gave it up. I guess that counts.
>>47643881
No you're right actually, the mere fact of it being the new D&D was marketing enough.
The presentation issue was real though, I experienced it myself. All the classes LOOK the same when they're 30 levels of similarly-formatted tables. The distinctions become apparent in play, but people form an impression of the game long before they get to that point.
Also the artwork in core was dogshit. The same is true in pathfinder and 3e if you ask me, but people seemed to like it. The one thing 5e did really well was making books that look appealing.
>>47641331
First post best post, as always.
>>47643788
Everybody already knows how to play pretend. Having a really complex set of rules to cover every contingency makes things more complicated and not less. Giving a simple base-line (roll X to hit for 1dY damage) and then some suggested parameters for improvisation (+/-2 to attack or +/-1 to damage represents a modest bonus/penalty) makes things easier and keeps them dynamic.
The example of play thing is probably a bit more involved than a noob is going to be, (and hell, not every single action a person takes is going to be quite that involved even under a veteran GM), but it's illustrating a point. And we're talking about old school D&D here where a basic/standard attack is pretty much all you ever got when you weren't casting a spell. If you just roll to see if you hit, then roll damage if you do with no modification based on description or circumstance, it's going to be the most boring game ever.
But it's much easier to give people simple rules and let them wing it than to bog them down with hundreds of pages of rules. 5e has a reputation for being on the simple end of new school D&D and that shit is like 600 pages long without including the monster manual. Something like Pathfinder or 3.5 is incredibly convoluted.
>>47644312 continued
And I'm bring this up a lot recently, but consider how skills work in 3.5. You get a certain amount of skill points based on your class and intelligence bonus. There are class skills and cross-class skills that cost different amounts of skill points. They have different maximum ranks depending on your level and whether they're class skills or not. Some have synergy bonuses that enhance each other. Many are penalized by armor and shields, math that is going to change whenever you put away your shield or change your armor. Oh, and this penalty is reduce if the armor is magical. And of course there's a maximum dexterity modifier. And if a spell or magic item changes the ability score your skill is based on (which is fairly common), then you need to redo the math for your skills. And after all of this, at the end of the day, the skills for 3.5 don't really work that well anyway. So it's a shitload of trouble for very little reward.
A rules-light system might not even have skills. Or a skill might just give you the better of 2 die rolls, or a flat bonus, like +4. There wouldn't be synergy bonuses, different maximums based on levels and whether skills are cross-class and so forth. Things would just be a whole lot simpler.
And I don't think that improvising modifiers and effects really counts as making your own game or modifying the existing rule set as it's standard operating protocol for any game that's halfway decent. It's just that it's trickier in more complicated games (and maybe less necessary to keep things interesting, but at least as necessary to prevent occasionally ridiculous results).
>>47643944
>[arbitrarily generated small number]
three and a half, kekeke
>>47643980
Not really. PF players suggested 5e too.
4e players just can't stand the fact that their edition is dead.
>>47643881
>More people bought 4e than any previous edition so clearly the marketing was pretty good.
Citation needed.
>>47642252
Anon you've been tricked.
>>47642914
how did you infere hat from the post you're quoting?
>>47642855
the DM is not the waiter, he's the motherfucking head chef.
>>47644205
>Also the artwork in core was dogshit. The same is true in pathfinder and 3e if you ask me, but people seemed to like it. The one thing 5e did really well was making books that look appealing.
And thank Christ too. I cannot stand how shitty D&D books looked before 5e. The OSR stuff has charm, but it's all amateur for the most part and the editions with a budget look like garbage.
Pathfinder has garbage art too.
>>47643980
point to the post in question pls
>>47641604
>Even palladium/Rifts is easier to run for the first time.
>>47643739
This is one of the cases in which I'd shill and say you should buy them. However, if one were to search a certain site for people with peg legs and an eye patch, finding a collection of these books should be trivial.
>>47641274
>beginners
Neither.
Mutans and Masterminds and MAID are both better for newbies.
If you must run a D&D, run 4e, because 4e knows what it is (i.e. a combat system) and doesn't try to overstep its bounds with rules clutter.
>>47641274
5E
...
4E
3E
2E
1E
BOOOOM!
>>47641571
> Rather than the rules existing to empower the player, they're an obstacle for the player to "beat" or "master".
Seems reasonable. The point of the game is that the player uses the rules as a framework to beat combat encounters, so maybe using the rules to beat the rules themselves is just an extension of that.
>If you're not having fun, you just need to get "better" at the game.
It sounds bad when you phrase it that way, but take the inverse.
"The amount of fun you have is unrelated to your skill at the game"
At which point I ask what is the point of game skill, and thus, what is the point of the game?
If the game adapts to suit the player's fun, then you might as well play freeform.
>The term "Ivory Tower" refers to how the game seperates the "normal" people from the people who have "system mastery"
Good thing people aren't fixed in each category and can climb the tower, being rewarded for their effort by being able to overcome challenges or bend the gameworld to their will.
>when the real point of a roleplaying game should just be being able to make a character you want to play and telling a story with friends
That may be the point of Roleplaying, but Roleplaying Games also have "Games" in them. That isn't an empty word.
> not min-maxing a set of videogame rules for MAXIMUM DPS.
And that is the point of the Games part. Note that there is also "Roleplaying" before it.
The two interact. Roleplaying gives context and meaning to the Games, and the Games lets you resolve conflicts in how the Roleplaying should go. Both are stronger together, and ignoring one part isn't the correct option.
>>47641571
>>47646935
Overall, I have to wonder why roleplaying purists (i.e. Story > Game Mechanics) flock so hard to 3.x e, when 3.x e is a Game Mechanics > Story system that uses the story to bolster its gameplay mechanics.
You shouldn't be playing an RPG if you're unwilling to both RP and G, since the two are designed to work together. Though there are systems where RP isn't G's bitch like they are in 3.x e. Someone said RISUS? In RISUS, G is RP's bitch, if anything. Try that.
>>47642183
>"It's so people who master the game can sort out the bad cards!" has always been the dumbest excuse for shitty cards in MtG.
The excuse for shitty cards in MtG is to fill out booster packs, so people waste their money on junk.
>>47641604
>Try to find image source
>Google isch doesn't give source
>TinEye doesn't give source
What is source?
>>47642923
The base rules of Pathfinder are pretty unfun (restrictive, everything requires a build) and badly written (vague, intent not clear, overly verbose) compared to 5e in my opinion.
And I'm saying this as someone who's played both a significant amount.
>>47647257
the cover of a game setting book called "sig", which is literally just planescape for an obscure game system.
>>47647579
I know I'm looking at a political meme.
What I can't tell is who this political meme is meant to be supporting, or who it's meant to be trolling.
It's as if someone, somewhere, with no relation to /pol/ or tumblr or any of that, just slapped some random words on a popular painting and said "yep that'll do, I sure did do some politics right there" and left.
>>47641670
>Shocking Grasp
EI NATH
>>47642139
>but that's like saying that bleach is less poisonous than cyanide.
Depends on application.
Inhaled -> Cyanide wins on lethality but loses on brutality.
Ingested -> Cyanide wins THOROUGHLY.
Applied on skin -> Bleach easily beats Cyanide. Cyanide on your skin doesn't even make it blue. Bleach will kill you like you were given 3rd degree burns (because that is what it does, it oxidises).
>>47642855
That's probably the worst analogy I've ever heard. A better one is that the DM is the chef, and the system is the ingredients.
Pathfinder has a bunch of variety of ingredients, but a lot of them are expired or unusable. A good DM knows what to keep and what to throw out, so you can end up with an okay meal. If they aren't, somebody might end up with food poisoning.
5e is a smaller collection of basic ingredients, which means a wider array of chefs can easily work with it. While a bad one might still burn your food, you don't need a great chef to have a nice meal.
>>47646917
I dig it.
Y'know that clock from Lost? What if making new editions of Dnd is how WotC reset it?
>>47647017
There are literally people who are weirded out by the way AD&D 2e just takes it as given that various classes can do some things without requiring rolls, so a thief or other sneaky PC could open a lock without a roll because literally nothing about a game would be lost by a thief being able to do one of his few jobs as though he was a sorceror with Knock as an at will ability.
"what do you mean you can climb a short wall wall without having to roll for just because it's a class feature?"
"what do you mean you can convince an NPC to do something just by providing a good in-cahracter argument without having to roll for it?"
"What do you mean you can walk down a street without having to roll to see if you trip and fall over?"
..3.5 and pathfinder instill a mentality and approach to playing tabletop games that is alien to ANY other set of games, aside from maybe FATAL and a few similar styles of heartbreaker homebrews. Like, the idea that the dice only come into play when there's legitimate ways random chance could fuck things up was destroyed in minds of a generation of TTRPG players and GMs who started with 3.5.
>>47648764
> the dice only come into play when there's legitimate ways random chance could fuck things up
NO!!!!
we need
MORE NUMBERS!!!!
u
FAGG!!!
Roll some dice!
>>47648764
>"What do you mean you can walk down a street without having to roll to see if you trip and fall over?"
I wish I had saved the screencap of the guy who took this to an extreme, where one player character forgets who he is and everything he's ever done because he fails a knowledge check while praying, one guy who shits all over himself while using the latrine because he failed a range touch attack on the toilet, one guy who gets Coup De Grace'd by his morning meal because he provoked an attack of opportunity by failing to hit his potatoes with the fork, and a fourth guy who can't get out of bed because he failed the DC and he can't retry it until a day has passed.
>>47648894
Wonder what happens when you combine this with the "If you nat 20 it means you do SO WELL that you end up screwing yourself over" system.
>Roll to shit in a toilet
>20
>Your character expels waste so forcefully that the toilet is destroyed, and your character goes down by 1 size category due to the lost mass
>Roll to eat with a fork
>20
>The meal explodes violently, bits of it going all over the tavern. You were unable to gain any nutrition from the meal
>Roll to know which god you worship and how to pray
>20
>Your god is so taken by your devotion that he elevates you to become one of his chosen messengers, make a new character
>Roll to get out of bed
>20
>You can never sleep in a bed again
Rolled 14, 15, 8, 11, 10, 3, 17, 3, 13, 9, 3, 19, 12, 20, 2, 18, 20, 1, 6, 12 = 216 (20d20)
>>47648851
k
>>47649375
:[ You rolled more 20s than 1s
you showed me with those hot numbers
I retract my point.
>>47641604
>Even palladium/Rifts is easier to run for the first time.
LIAR
>>47645147
Those players, unlike you, recognize how shitty 3.PF is.
Also if I recall, you were the one who brought up 4e in the first place.
>>47645922
Here >>47642467
>>47649470
4e player here
Hi! I like what you don't like.
This offends you greatly!
>>47649531
How does you eating shit affect me in any way, shape, or form?
We already know 3.PFags have brain damage.
>>47649565
Thx for the (You) I don't actually play 4e tho I play MAID.
>>47649579
How is MAID?
It's that game where you play maids and perform outrageous tasks for your master right?
Is it hard to get into?
>>47649095
Basically everyone becomes so mediocre that nothing exciting happens.
>>47649748
>It's that game where you play maids and perform outrageous tasks for your master right?
A. Yes, but B. The tasks tend to stop involving your master and start involving the other players pretty rapidly, since the goal isn't "Earn favor with Master" it's "Earn MORE favor than the other MAIDs do"
>Is it hard to get into?
Fuck no.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/maidrpg.html
Click some buttons here.
Checks are rolled vs. a dice pool of the relevant stat. Which stat is relevant? whichever you can convince the GM is relevant. Will tends to be the godstat.
Go for it son.
>>47649795
Oh thanks.
It's nice when you meet a nice guy after hours of dealing with inane shitposting.
Anyways, I'll save it and see if I can get some people to play it sometime.
>>47649853
But I -am- an inane shitposter, I play MAID. The system is built around co-operative inane shitposting.
>>47649565
>4e player here
> 3.PFags
What?
>>47649891
Yeah but your shitposting actually makes sense for the game your playing.
The other guy was just spouting pure bullshit that honestly made no sense.
>>47649934
Eh, the moment has passed anon.
It's over.
>>47649978
If you don't like "pure bullshit that honestly makes no sense", don't play MAID.
The game is built on so many random encounter tables, the entries in most of which are bullshit and/or make no sense.
The game has structure. Of course it does. All games have structure, and it comes out in your relationship with the other players and in your character's skills.
But on top of that structure is the most batshit insane "what the fuck are we doing now?" random bullshit, and the goal is usually to funpost HARDER than whatever attempts to funpost upon the mansion.
At least that's how I play it.
I've heard some people play it straight. No idea how. But it's possible.
>>47650050
What I'm saying is, your shitposting is the kind where everyone's in on the joke and nobody's taking it seriously.
>>47650123
Well d'uh, is there any other kind of shitposting?
>>47650139
Well, there's the kind where people are actually taking it seriously.
That kind of shitposting pisses me off honestly.
>>47650186
What, you mean like the shitposter isn't taking it seriously, but other people ARE responding seriously?
Yeah that's kind of amusing, seeing people get all riled up like that.
Or do you mean when the shitposter is taking himself seriously?
... I don't think you can do that. Sort of fails to meet the definition of "shitposting" in that case. Sure, one guy can make low quality posts, but it's not really shitposting. Probably best to ignore it in that case.
>>47650753
Eh, I guess it comes down to how subtle you are and whether or not you're willing to take a step back when you get too into it.
The other guy seemed fucking retarded as hell and he's been shitposting in other threads for the past few days, spouting the same bullshit.
So either he's dedicated or he's legitimately one of those retarded 3.PFags, and honestly it's hard to tell at times.
As has been said before, 5E is much more beginner-friendly, although I started with 3.PF.
>>47641571
>>47646935
See, this is what I enjoy about Roleplaying Games, and why I personally enjoy Pathfinder -although I wouldn't turn down a different system if the players seemed fun to be around.
I enjoy freeform roleplaying from time to time, despite what the general consensus is on /tg/ about it. But when I sit down to play a Roleplaying Game, I want the rules to actually mean something. I want to feel like my character is accomplishing truly astonishing feats, and I think the rules in Pathfinder help establish that in a very clear-cut fashion. I actually enjoy the fact that, the more I play, the more capable I can make my character in relation to the rest of the world and my previous characters.
As an aside, it's obviously a problem if other players feel invalidated by your optimisation, but that doesn't have to be the case.
It just loses its appeal, to me at least, when no matter what you do in a system you'll end up with a character that's roughly equivalent to the all of the others. But whatever, I'll have fun doing what I enjoy and other people can do as they like.
>>47648894
>the guy who can't get out of bed because he failed the crushing depression will save and had to wait until tomorrow
My life
>>47643715
It sounds utterly stupid to me, and I don't mind 4e overall. If it's do or die, why the fuck wouldn't I risk injury to myself when I got a fucking healer right there?
