"Absolutely charming people. I'm glad we've had this talk to get to know each other" Tiral mumbles (now actually being sarcastic), as he now sinks back against the wagon's goods and fishes around his pack for a book he hasn't read more than twice this month and knowing full well he doesn't have one. He turns to Durmindin and Senol. "So what about you, wilden? Human? I don't remember your names. How many murders do you have between you? That's a rhetorical question. You don't have to answer it." Tiral adds for Durmindin's sake, remembering the confusion caused during his few previous encounters with those of his race.
''So this knife is very good at separating the flesh from the bone and severing the tendons...'' Do you have to say it like that? ''Well, how else am I supposed to say it?'' I don't know...you could say "it's good for butchering." ''When did the word "butchery" become a euphemism?''
Durmindin tilts his head and regards Tiral. "We is Durmindin. We is hunter, not murderer." he then turns his green eyes on Path Between, "We is glad to help with problem." He then stis back and stares at the spirit bird in wonder.
"And your religion bull**** had better not get in my way. better to rely on yourself and people you know, than some all powerful creature that may or may not give a damn."
Irritated by the constant talk of goddesses and spirits, Alain begins sharpening his spear.
http://community.wizards.com/play-by-post_haven
The Play-by-Post recruitment hub for the forums. Stop by, join us, and sign up for some games while you are there
"I am still confused as to why you would think I would become a hindrance to my own interests. No matter, as long as we have the same impact, the intent is inconsequential."
Path Between waves his hand and the etheral bird of prey vanishes. The deva was happy to have Durmindin on the trip; he felt more comfortable around the Wilden, as a fellow proponent of nature in general. Path Between spent the majority of his life as alongside the predators of nature, he sensed a kinship in the humaoid.
"Durmindin, a pleasure to have you aboard. I am glad one of your kind is with us; that you were called is a sign of good faith from the spirits. I feel confident that we will succeed in our task."
Sinol watches this scenario with a little bit of concern. If this is going to be the trend, they will kill each other before the problems even get solved.
He makes a point to stop fiddling with his flail and sets it down before sitting up and speaking in a friendly, but forceful manner.
My name is Sinol Rach, and while I have killed people, it was only as necessary. So I guess my murder count is zero.
He turns to address Alain. I can't speak for the others, but I know that Bane is an all-powerful being who gives us the tools and expects us to use them, and I intend to do exactly that. Now, whatever issues you may have had with deities and spirits, we as a team are here now. We were hired to do a job and make the world a better, more secure place. We are on the same side, and we need to be united.
He then looks at Path Between. Although uncomfortable at working with - and now apparently for - a druid, the threat must be great or else he would not have been sent here. I would like to know though, exactly what it is that you needed our help with.
I should probably change my name, but I simply don't care enough.
"Well that sounds like a sensible enough...Did you say Bane is..." Tiral looks around at the group with a suddenly astonished expression. "Excuse me." The eladrin crawls carefully over the cargo towards the front of the wagon, perching behind the wagon driver and tapping him on the shoulder. "Hey wagon man. You've been listening, right? Every one. Every last one of them says and does exactly what they think, don't they? I tried, didn't I? There isn't a dishonest face among them. Look, can you tell me what you know about Restwell Keep and the King's Wall? I haven't traveled down this way too often."
''So this knife is very good at separating the flesh from the bone and severing the tendons...'' Do you have to say it like that? ''Well, how else am I supposed to say it?'' I don't know...you could say "it's good for butchering." ''When did the word "butchery" become a euphemism?''
The Deva looks at the Paladin with renewed consideration.
Bane is not Her enemy outright, but typically his followers are not so quick to do Her good work...
"A meteorite has crashed not far from here. The location of the impact has become a beacon of corruption and evil, twisting the natural world and civilization alike to its alien desires. I wish to cleanse this area by scouring all traces of this unnatural artifact and ensuring that nature will once more run its correct path; any victory here would be a victory for the civilizations around it as well, and for Good."
This could be interesting. A couple of zealots, a hired hand who can't keep his focus, some unnatural (or would that be overly-natural?) thing, and me. And I'm only here because I need to be in order to not be dead right now. Well, you know what they say:
"Necessity never makes a fair bargain," Vitya says to no one in particular, shaking his head.
The teamster responds to Tiral without looking back, his eyes on the road ahead and on his horses. "Restwell? Been going there about ten years, or so, now. Used to be run by a group known as the Blades. Adventurers, sort of like you lot, but... something not quite right; never felt comfortable around them. But they pretty much left everyone to their own thing, so it was a a bit wild in the day." He smiles a little, recalling some dim but probably lurid memory, then shakes his head. "Then a year or two back, they got run off. New man in charge, Drysdale I think? Yeah, that's it. Drysdale. Now, theres a law for every occasion, and an occasion for every law. He and his boys play soldier in half the keep, now." He shakes his head again, "Last time I was there, they were saying that he wants to start converting everyone to Erathis." He spits off the side of the wagon, then makes a vaguely superstitious sign with his whip hand, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
He's silent for a while, you almost think he's stopped talking altogether, when he starts back up again. "Don't know nothing about the Wall; ain't been out there. Furthest I go is Restwell, and then I turn back. They ever want me to go further, I'd quit." He spits again, then continues, "I heard that story about an asteroid. Don't know if it's true; if it is, been a long time ago. Me, I don't believe it. I heard one about it being built by the Gods as a coliseum, for them to take their followers and lieutenants and anyone they didn't happen to like, and face them off against each other. Eventually, some of their 'gladiators' broke free, and decided to do a whole lot more. That was what lead Asmodeus," he spits twice, "and the Raven Queen," he spits once, "to rebel and kill their bosses, they learned it from here. Or so some say." He chuckles. "Me, I think that story sounds a whole lot more true. Asteroid? That's a kid's story."
• Ad Hominem— Attacking the person's circumstances, not addressing the argument. • Ad Hominem Abusive (Personal Attack)— Insulting the person, not addressing the argument. • Ad Hominem Tu Quoque— Saying the person's inconsistent, not addressing the argument. • Appeal to Authority/Belief/Common Practice/Consequence of a Belief/Emotion/Fear/Flattery/Novelty/Pity/Popularity/Ridicule/Spite/Tradition— Using emotion instead of Fact. • Bandwagon— Use of peer pressure. • Begging the Question— Assuming premises which haven't necessarily been agreed to. • Biased Sample— Using a sampling which may not properly represent the whole. • Burden of Proof— Shifting it to the wrong side. • Circumstantial Ad Hominem— Attacking the person's interests in supporting their argument. • Composition— Assuming that the whole has the same qualities as individual parts. • Confusing Cause & Effect— Assuming that one thing causes another because they appear in conjunction. • Division— Assuming that the individual parts have the same qualities as the whole. • False Dilemma— Assuming that only two options exist. • Gambler's Fallacy— Assuming the odds have changed because of past occurances • Genetic— Assuming a perceived defect in the origin of a claim is proof of a defect in the claim. • Guilt by Association— Attacking others who agree with the claim. • Hasty Generalization— Assuming a quality based on too small a sample size. • Ignoring the Common Cause— Assuming there is no outside cause of two connected things. • Middle Ground— Assuming the midpoint of two extremes must be correct. • Misleading Vividness— Assuming a colorful anecdote outweighs statistical evidence. • Poisoning the Well— Using unprovable claims about the person instead of addressing the argument. • Post Hoc— Assuming that something caused something else simply because it happened first. • Questionable Cause— Assuming that one thing causes another. • Red Herring— Using irrelevant evidence to divert a discussion. • Relativist Fallacy— Asserting that a claim may be true for some but not for the speaker. • Slippery Slope— Assuming the inevitability of one event based on another. • Special Pleading— Claiming exemption without justification. • Spotlight— Assuming individuals that get the most attention to be indicative of the whole. • Straw Man— Misrepresenting the opposing argument. • Two Wrongs Make a Right— Justifying something unethical/immoral as response or pre-emption to something else unethical/immoral.
Response to those who like to compare 4e to a Video GameShow
Also, I find that the "D&D 4e is like an MMO" argument is often a sign of someone who is deliberately being obtuse and/or is potentially ignorant of actual MMO play. As someone who only ended a 6-year World of Warcraft addiction a year ago, I can say that most of your bullet points actually don't match up to the truth of it.
In D&D 4e, you can choose a hybrid, you can choose to play one class as though it were another (people played Warlords as Bards frequently, when the edition first came out, and Rangers were refluffed to Monks), you can focus your class on its secondary role (a Warlock who is more controller than striker, for instance), you can multiclass, and you can create a particular concept (a mounted lancer, a charger, etc.) within the mechanics via feats, choice of powers, and choice of skills. You decide which set of stats you use--are you a Chaladin, Straladin, or Baladin?--and you have ultimate influence on how your character turns out in the end. Yes, powers require you to be using a particular weapon within your class's available selection, but the powers are not themselves tied to the gear. Powers tied to weapons or armor are typically powers that belong to the item, not to the character class that's most likely to use it.
Yes, there are only so many powers available, and these will be what you do in battle; this is all that the designers created. Yes, there is a time-frame in which they can be used; this has always been the case, even in the days of Vancian casting. Yes, there are suggested builds, but you can routinely ignore those if it pleases you; the only parts of a class you have to take are the class features, and even those have options at this point. But the only way that this can be considered at all conflatable with MMO character building/playing is if you are deliberately ignoring all of that.
In WoW, you choose a class and you're done. No multiclassing or hybridization, no way to mimic one class with careful building of a different one. There is a firm dividing line on what is a WoW class. No secondary roles or creative concepts, either; you're going to be what the class sets out to be, and that's it. You'll always have the same stat allocation as another of your class, because you get set numbers as you level up, and you've got at best four options--and that's only the Druid class--to build, and if you plan on running dungeons, particularly heroic level ones, or raiding, you'd better not even think of deviating from the single defined best build on the talent tree for what you want to do. It was only recently, with the complete tear-down and recreation of talent trees for Mists of Pandaria, that there was a concept of there being anything but the one best build that people who calculated such mechanical advantages (the folks on Elitist Jerks, for example), and the people who did things like achieve "World First" at various top-tier raids set precedent for.
Also, no class will ever not have a specific set of powers; all Priests in WoW have the same baseline, with deviation only based upon their talent tree specialization, where a D&D4e player could take whatever power in their class pleases them. Any Retribution Paladin will be the same as any other in terms of powers, because that is what a RetPally is. Any Assassination Rogue will always have the same powers as another, etc. All powers are always on specific cool-downs, but will always be there when they start a battle, where a 4e PC might enter an encounter with only At-Wills, or without their Daily powers due to what plot has done up until that point. Furthermore, no power that is not already specifically tied to an item will ever "require" you have that item, to my recollection. Classes get all their powers based on class; gear only gives bonuses to stats, possibly cuts down cast times for abilities or cooldowns, grants temporary extra bonuses to stats (the latter two most often on the raid tier equipment), and on rare occassions an extra power that may or may not be valuable, as some are only special effects instead of valuable abilities.
Most honest/open response on why DDN needs to be InclusiveShow
I've always felt it is in the best interests of D&D to be as inclusive across the playerbase as they can be and still have a game. I've never felt though that making a game that was inclusive within a group was very useful or even desirable. DM's and players can decide amongst themselves what options or restrictions they want for their games. I tend to lean to the DM to make most of those decisions but again that is a group specific thing.
Having said that. I get the distinct impression that there are a lot of players on these boards who come from groups that generally ruled against their own desires. It's almost like they are an oppressed minority from a gaming perspective. I also get the impression that they tend to advocate against things that if available their fellow group members might like and vote them down on.
Do a lot of you feel this way?
Just for clarification...here are some examples... 1. Alignment restrictions as an option. 2. Alignment Mechanics 3. Martial healing 4. Races being included or not.
I know my perspective is not that I often play at tables where my likes are not represented. Instead, my perspective comes from the many years I spent being a bad DM. I was a bad DM because my guidance came from the books, and the books gave bad advice. The books told me that alignment was a useful approach to roleplaying, so I went with it even though it felt kind of weird to me. Now I know that, at least in my style of running games, alignment destroys rp. I trusted the books to give good advice, and it messed up my game. Now I'm much more mature as a DM, so I know how to take advice with a grain of salt. And I still learn new stuff every session I run.
I don't want future DMs to go through my problems again. There's a big enough DM shortage as it is. DMing well is hard.
The biggest thing I had to unlearn in my process of becoming a good DM was the idea that the game is a simulation of a world. I understand many DMs prefer a more simulationist approach, although I am always skeptical simply because I would have said the same thing until I learned and grew as a DM. This doesn't mean their approach is completely invalid, but it still gives me a personal twinge when I see a regression back to 3e era sim style gaming.
I also have noticed many groups where one or two old-school players run a whole group's playstyle because the newer players aren't even aware there are other ways of doing things. The newer players tell me stories of things they hated in the session, and I end up explaining to them how those things they hate are very fixable, and in fact are fixed in the newer edition of the game their older players have told them is terrible.
In regard to things like martial healing, I don't think it's necessary for it to be in the game for the game to be fun. However, the attitude that says martial healing is terrible and shouldn't exist is an attitude that, to me, reveals a wrongheaded approach to the game. Therefore, my fight for it to be an option is to help legitimize the more narrative approach that I think is what most players want, but many don't know is possible, because they've never been exposed to it.
