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Wulfboy wrote:

I just realized what the problem here is. Titanum Dragon appears to be dictatorial, arrogant and presumptive. He's not here for a discussion on the Overland Flight ritual, he's here to bludgeon people into unconsciousness then take their silence as agreement with his erroneous opinions. At the end of the day the arguments being presented by this individual boil down to "I know better than you naive fools do!" and unfortunately I don't believe this to be the case.

In fact, the regular refusal to accept that Overland Flight provides overland flight - a form of movement effectively usable only for long-distance travel that prevents the party fighting without dropping out of the sky - rather than super-duper-game-breaking flight is more than enough reason to presume that said TD is in fact just a troll in fairly weak disguise.

I know what is fun in my games. I know what I enjoy when running and playing. I have a good idea of what my players like. So I think the Overland Flight ritual should exist. I plan to use it in my games (which is more than can be said for the irritating Simbuls Healing-rubbish ritual from the recent FR excerpt, but I digress).

I suggest we all stop feeding this troll, let this thread die, and go and find more useful threads to talk on.

So report him as argumentative and get him banned. :D

But you do?
Are you not a person?
If this was even 1/10th true there would be NO fun games as nobody would be able to make them.

When someone says something like "people", they mean "most people" almost universally.

It is very clear from the context that is what I meant.

This is pretty basic English.

Balance does not equal fun. They are unrelated terms. You can have fun (lots of fun) with an unbalanced game. Although this is not for everyone because fun is not universal.

Incorrect. Balance does, in fact, equal fun. People who say they are unrelated are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

We see this time and again, with balanced games being more fun than unbalanced ones.

If balance wasn't important, games wouldn't strive for it.

Actually, a flying FPS could be a heck of alot of fun. I'm surprised people haven't done that.

You just proved my point.

1) "Gee, that sounds cool."
2) People make them.
3) No one hears about them because people don't have fun playing them.

The reality is that FPSs wherein you fly around DO exist. I have played several. They sound cool.

They aren't.

Just saying "no" without trying and testing really giving an idea a bum rush. A flying FPS has as much of a chance to be playable and fun as, oh, a FPS where you have a gun that can make teleportation portals. Because free and easy teleportation would break most games.

This is garbage. Teleportation guns are fun. Games have been made with guns that teleported things you shot before, and they were fun. The idea of Portal being fun isn't outlandish at all.

FPSs that have allowed flight all the time have also existed. However, they have never done well, which is why you've never heard of them.

So report him as argumentative and get him banned.

He can't, now, because insulting someone is, well, trolling. In any event, being argumentative isn't against the CoC.

Ok seriously this guy needs to read the article linked in my Sig.

I've read the article. I've known the advice for years. Its basic DMing stuff.

The reality is that saying yes is a skill.

An even more advanced skill? Knowing when you SHOULD say no.

See, the problem is that saying yes IS a very important skill for a DM to have, and many DMs have not yet progressed to the stage where they say "yes". They simply say "no" out of hand.

But saying yes all the time? That's bad.

The reality is that the ultimate rule is the rule of fun. That is to say, your actions as DM should always increase the fun at the table.

Saying yes often does exactly that. If someone wants to do something odd, you shouldn't say no out of hand. In general, if it is physically plausible for them to do it, and/or it is cool and fun, you should say yes.

The problem is that you should not say yes if it is going to lead to unfun at the table.

4e is much better about this than 3.x. In 3.x, you had to say no. "No, you can't chain together wraiths." "No, you can't gate in an Efreet who will grant wishes." "No, you cannot burrow straight through all these walls and thus circumvent the entire adventure."

In 4e, there is a lot less brokenness. But still, sometimes you have to say no.

Ultimately, a good RPG minimizes the amount of no necessary.

This is what many people don't understand. Your goal, as a game designer, is to enable the DM to say "yes" as much as possible. This means as a game designer, you need to exclude things which force the DM to say no.

This is a good example. It breaks the game, and therefore, as a game designer, you shouldn't put it in because it forces DMs to say no.

strattjw wrote:

This ritual doesn't break the game. If, as DM, you can't take into account overland flight and when it would or would not be used you need work to be a better DM. Want the party to go through the jungle? Create a reason for them to go through the jungle. Design your encounters based around objectives the PCs need to complete as they work on a quest. Bypassing random encounters or encounters that aren't part of advancing the storyline are worth avoiding.

No.

The correct statement is: "If, as a DM, the rules cause issues constantly, then the rules have a problem."

Welcome to the garbage that was 3.x. No, don't argue, you're wrong.

The mentality that the DM can fixed the game is a horribly flawed one. It isn't the DM's job to fix the game; its the game designer's job to make a good one.

If you have PCs that use overland flight to fly a mile high in the sky then all die when the dragon attacks them you can rest assured that the PCs won't make characters as stupid next time. This isn't any different then a party that uses horrible tactics in combat and TPKs.

One bad decision should not destroy an entire campaign. It is a trap, and it is bad for people's enjoyment of the game.

If flying more than 10 squares in the air is a bad idea because it is likely to result in a TPK, then the power shouldn't allow them to fly more than 10 squares in the air. Simple principle, yes?