tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post6652776857066568024..comments2024-03-07T16:20:50.007+00:00Comments on Librarians & Leviathans: Genre-appropriate charactersShimmin Beghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-12229453055244560492013-04-03T16:37:52.892+01:002013-04-03T16:37:52.892+01:00Hmm, okay, I'll grant some leeway over "p...Hmm, okay, I'll grant some leeway over "pacifist" but I'm not really seeing the rest of it. Particularly "swashbuckling" - I mean, there's different flavours of swashbuckling, but the actual swashbuckling is always the distinguishing feature.<br /><br />Priest One is a reasonable character - there's loads of non-lethal swashbuckling out there, and the party can always have moral debates over it if they disagree. Come the inevitable fight, the priest can do his share of the heavy lifting.<br /><br />Priest Three also sounds fine, assuming the meta-game mechanics include indirect contributions to fights - it's your classic D&D cleric. When the party gets into fights, he can contribute a fair share to that even if he's not stabbing anyone. However, I don't know what proportion of games do offer that sort of mgms.<br /><br />OTOH the second one doesn't seem to be able to contribute <i>at all</i> to the "swashbuckling" part of "swashbuckling adventure", which leaves me wondering what kind of compensatory abilities they could have that will support that premise on a regular basis? It's all very well having social skills, but then other characters can have swashbuckling skills <i>and</i> social skills, or swashbuckling <i>and</i> political connections, if you want to play up those elements. <br /><br />I mean, it seems to me like signing up for a game of dungeoneering, then rolling up a character who 'compensates' for a lack of weapon or armour proficiencies by being a decent cook and speaking several languages.Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-53879513342107630752013-04-03T14:18:46.205+01:002013-04-03T14:18:46.205+01:00Sorry, was away over the weekend.
I think the pro...Sorry, was away over the weekend.<br /><br />I think the problem is that campaign descriptions and character descriptions are often very - for want of a better term - "fuzzy". Whether "pacifist Jesuit priest" is a valid character for a "game of swashbuckling adventure" depends a lot on how you interpret "pacifist", "swashbuckling" and for that matter "game."<br /><br />For example, you could want to play:<br /><br />- A pacifist priest who learns to use a sword but just doesn't kill anybody.<br />- A pacifist priest who isn't very good in a fight, expecting to be able to contribute in other areas.<br />- A pacifist priest who isn't very good in a fight, but who contributes via meta-game mechanics.Dan Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05711867728179306264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-74649542541668152362013-03-29T10:49:23.814+00:002013-03-29T10:49:23.814+00:00Oh, absolutely, I think that's where the origi...Oh, absolutely, I think that's where the original debate got lost - although it occurs to me now that I didn't actually mention it except vaguely near the end, so Could Do Better. <br /><br /><i>A "game of swashbuckling adventure" could mean anything from "piracy on the high seas" to "intrigues in the court of the Sun King".</i><br /><br />True, but then if that's seriously the only information you give your players, you've only yourself to blame when your party turns out to consist of a WoD Guybrush Threepwood, a 4E Zorro and a BESM Dogtanian... Presumably the whole description for the game would be a little bit longer than that.<br /><br />You need to make sure people have a good handle on roughly what you're thinking of, although there's no huge reason to me why piracy and court intrigues couldn't be all part of the same game if one turns out to fit better than the other. I think the key point is going back to the original argument, though: <i>a game of swashbuckling adventure</i> could cover a few different games, but I'm pretty sure a pacifist Jesuit priest would be a serious problem in any of them.Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-41014369608143773612013-03-28T17:13:00.512+00:002013-03-28T17:13:00.512+00:00I can sort of see both sides of this one, although...I can sort of see both sides of this one, although to me "sandbox" is a complete red herring here. The problem is that "genre" is actually quite hard to pin down, particularly when you're trying to communicate it in a pithy way. A "game of swashbuckling adventure" could mean anything from "piracy on the high seas" to "intrigues in the court of the Sun King".Dan Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05711867728179306264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-86201768857138583822013-03-26T13:29:27.710+00:002013-03-26T13:29:27.710+00:00I do think this is one of the great advantages of ...I do think this is one of the great advantages of group chargen, when people have the luxury of time for it, or at least collaboration as in the Arcol campaign. As well as the obvious background connections and complementary skillsets, it helps to keep characters in roughly the same sphere, and flag up if people have wildly disparate ideas about what they're going to be doing. It doesn't even have to be conscious, because assuming you're not a complete jerk, you tend to passively absorb other people's notions of the gameworld and genre into your character concept. But it also gives the GM a chance to actively intervene, maybe bringing up possible conflicts in direction, or clashes with the setting that they just hadn't thought of, but also helping plug the characters more effectively into the setting and the party.<br /><br />I think that was one of the things I did quite like about 4E; by framing all the skillsets around dungeoneering, I actually felt like they left you fairly free to run out-of-dungeon parts of the game as you wanted with all characters roughly equal in both cases. Everyone starts out decent at dungeoneering, and so you don't have to worry about basic competence when deciding on other aspects of the character. Otherwise you can end up trying to guess likely playstyle ratios for the campaign at chargen, and if you get it wrong you'd be mechanically penalised.Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-8833183868645663912013-03-26T11:48:54.245+00:002013-03-26T11:48:54.245+00:00People do get oddly dogmatic about what is and isn...People do get oddly dogmatic about what is and isn't a sandbox - even, in the case of TheBigDice, people who don't seem to have much sympathy for the format.<br /><br />The idea that the GM can never set boundaries in a sandbox is obviously absurd, and Black Vulmea's 100% on the money as to why that can't be the case when he points out that there's a difference between "sandbox" and "featureless plain of sand". A more supportable position would be that a GM can't set boundaries in a sandbox which aren't declared in advance. Saying "You play swashbuckling adventurers" and turning down that pacifist Jesuit = perfectly OK. Saying "You can play anyone you like in this particular historical era" and then turning down the pacifist Jesuit = kind of irritating, and downright dickish if you knew all along you only wanted swashbuckling-capable characters but didn't bother to communicate that. Equally, as a player if you start out a campaign which is meant to be about swashbuckling adventure and then unbuckle your swash and avoid adventure you're not enjoying the glorious freedom of the sandbox, you're being a dick. Just because a game is a sandbox doesn't mean there can't be an assumed focus of play.<br /><br />People gripe about 4E D&D making it impossible to play a character who's useless in the dungeon, but actually most D&D characters are actually somewhat useful in the dungeon provided that people don't make completely silly choices about what equipment they buy or what spells they memorise, which I'd say falls under the category of "deliberately making stupid IC decisions" - and no edition of D&D protects you from the consequences of that. Making a D&D character who has no intention of doing any sort of adventuring is clearly against the spirit of the game and would be against the spirit of most campaigns, sandbox or not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com