On of the things that makes Roleplaying so distinct is the ability to tell any kind of story you want. Primitive man beats up mammoth? Even second edition has you covered. It's harder to extrapolate to future fiction stuff, but you can do it in version without too much of a stretch if you want to as well. It's important, because with magic, you might be helping out Thunk kill the mammoth one day and piloting a SAR-X5 the next, depending on your game goes.

So sometimes, you'll end up with a situation that is, by all normal standards, game breaking. You might end up handing out a sword that destroys undead at a touch, for instance, or end up with a wizard leading an army of efreeti somehow. In most official material I've seen, the discussion is to how to convince the PC that he has to give the sword to a Lawful Good church, who will probably use it as a dildo or something, or quickly get rid of the efreeti army- but given that it's a roleplaying game and not a video game, this is by no means mandated. If the PCs find themselves in charge of an army, a nation, or a galactic empire, there's probably something interesting going on SOMEWHERE right? Something that might challenge the resources of that? If the PC's actions make it plain that he wants to play a strategy game when it comes to combat, throwing unbelievable forces around, even *that* can be accommodated if he's, say, the only player, and you are liking it (though you'll probably have to invent rules pretty quick)- but usually a player that doesn't adventure is retired.

Essentially, I want to talk about D&D as a "reality simulator" for arbitrary realities, something that has been walked away from post-haste since, honestly, even the first edition (regular Dungeons and Dragons was if nothing else, very open ended), and what the best ways to go about keeping a game like that fun for multiple characters.

-Do you consider fantasy novels, which usually have "chosen" characters who often have uniquely powerful items or uniquely important missions, to be a good basis for D&D games?
-How do you handle large scale battles?
-How do you (or would you) handle characters that skirt with (or achieve) godhood or some semblance thereof?

When they start out with really powerful items, it just doesn't work unless you're playing with just one player. I suppose something could be worked out if every player had some unique powerful item, but I bet that would be great meeting. "You enter the tavern with the Sword of Shannara tucked beneath your cloak. Through the smoke filled room you spot a man sitting in the corner. His strong jaw, pointy ears, and stern look mark him as the bearer of the sword of Ashen-Shugar." I think the party has to maintain some balance between the characters in order for all of them to have a good time, so if one is great then they all must be great. Giving each of them a strong special ability, evenly balanced, sounds fine to me.

It could be made to work, but playing a hero destined to be a hero doesn't sound that awesome to me. It removes a portion of the open ended nature of the game. It works for Zelda, though.


I handle large scale battles by telling the characters what happened before they got there. They can go hold a flank, infiltrate to kill an enemy leader, etc, but I don't see how they stand against the main charge. D&D doesn't work that way. "Hang on, your init step will come along in an hour or two. Be patient." Things can be simplified, but by the time you simplify hundreds of soldiers into a time frame that the players will tolerate, you've lost too much information.


I'm not taking the campaign that far.

Just wanted to Legion this thread.

Verbing weirds language.

Actually I guess Legioning the thread would be to move it to the quasielemental forum of steam.

Best C&H quote ev4r.

Oh yeah, I forgot the name and assumed it was some WoW thing. In theory it should be balanced with the whole alignment thing. I guess we'll just have to see where it leads. I'm sure there's nothing else to it...

I challenge you to find say, three instances of wow jargon in any of my posts.


The fixed DC on the sword will eventually result in it not doing cool shit except rarely. It's just a hilarious effect that happens reasonably often. You also put it on a rogue who, in a melee heavy party, really has to work hard for his dinner.

But such a tasty and fulfilling dinner it is.

I'll be curious to see whether the party will stand by their lovable rogue like Leia, Luke, and Lando going to save Han from Jabba, or whether it will be like the sort of thing you don't see in movies because dead lovable rogue don't make for good stories.

After spending 2 wishes when one would have sufficed ("I wish the rogue wasn't a fucking dickbag moron who touches everything labeled INSTANT DEATH and rubs it on his scrotum"), I suspect that cognitive dissonance will force us to throw good gold pieces after bad.

You go ahead and find/remove traps from now on. I'll hang back and try to seduce the half-drow.

Well, we may have to pay the celestial monkeys more, their union will start to complain...

I had no idea that we were paying the monkeys. What a bunch of bitches.

I absolutely love the fact that the first time you guys had a monkey set off a trap, it was a trap based on seeing the flash of light. It was the sort of thing where I thought you guys would accuse me of making shit up on the spot, but I really didn't.

It also wasn't a particularly difficult trap for the rogue to disarm.

That trap was ludicrously good. Like, it was inspiring.

Monkeys have limits of course. I mean, it would take like, at least 5 monkeys to equal a rogue.

5 monkeys = 1 rogue
13 dodos = 1 wizard

I like math.

Dodos? I'd have gone with Bonobo. Or Dancing Hippopotami.