Re: [Bell of Lost Souls] It's Canon: Baldur's Gate 3 Brings D&D To The Vatican

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 13:29:33 -0600, Jhulian Waldby
<wichitajayhawks@msn.com> wrote:

Kyonshi wrote:

On 11/19/2024 10:27 AM, JAB wrote:

On 19/11/2024 01:31, Jhulian Waldby wrote:

All I know, and excuse me if I'm repeating this story for the 19th
time,
is that my Irish Catholic grandmother bought me a first print 1e
*Deities
& Demigods* for freaking Easter. I asked for it, and she was all
"Yup."
So no, I don't think her priest was railing against Satan in D&D.
>

I'm pretty sure it was an American phoneme.
>

I guess the concern is that players may become unable to
differentiate the truth from the water elemental.  I've noticed this
in some Dungeon Masters who argue rules as if it were a physics
laboratory.  Not one hint of "this is fiction" or "we can't find a
rule for that."
>
Funny though, I haven't heard anyone mention Satanism in D&D for yrs.
That all stopped a week before I picked up Basic Dungeons & Dragons.
>
Who were those people?  I couldn't tell you, I've forgotten.

>
I did read a 'discussion' in I think White Dwarf many, many years ago
about whether sharp weapons should do half damage on skeletons based
on whether they had an 'energy body' keeping everything together. My
thoughts were who cares either way as long as the game world is
internally consistent.
>
I play Call of Cthulhu and someone decided to rewrite the firearms
damage to reflect muzzle velocities and projectile weight. Was it more
realistic, yes but they had made it so that instead of combat just
being dangerous, and best avoided where possible, it was outright
deadly and one hit is time to roll a new character.
>
>

 
I don't want to yuck anyone's yum, if they think it's a good idea for
their game and their players like it...
 
On the other hand I also feel one-hit kills might be driving players off.

>
This might be kind of digressive, but one of the few times I tried my
hand at being DM, the party was fighting a colony of bats when one of
the guys asked, can't this go any faster?  Is there a way to abbreviate
combat for players that don't like to focus on that aspect of the game?
I felt silly sitting there enjoying it while they were more story-focused.

I just had a flashback to facing off against a roomful of mongbats in
Ultima V....

            [Sorry, had to drag the thread back on-topic
             just a little bit. Force of habit.]

With tabletop roleplaying, finding a group who likes playing the game
the same way as you is probably the most important thing. Some people
love the mechanical aspects of it; min-maxing and rules-lawyering is
the fun part to them! Others want the power-fantasy; killing hordes of
monsters, getting amazing amounts of loot, and winning the hand of the
prince (or princess) at the end. And some like the drama of the game;
they like the role-playing.

               [Me, I'm in it for the world-building]

None of them are wrong in how they are playing the game, but if you
put a min-maxer next to a power-fantasieer and play it with a
drama-nerd, none of them are going to have fun. You need to find a
group which matches your -and the GM's- personal style.

Sadly, most people are a mix of these archetypes, which makes finding
the perfect group even harder. But if you find one, never let them go.
;-)

But I'm sure there are some groups who love one-hit kill encounters.
More power to them. It's a perfectly legitimate way to play the game.
It's just not the _only_ way.