I Hit It With My Axe: Episode 15: Ambush at the River of Despair

[Noumenon]

when she says she thinks zombies were done to death and something so "unoriginal" would dissapoint her but she has been fighting goblins for the last few sessions i think this is funny. so i made a joke about it. nothing to get mad about, right?

See, that wasn't a joke joke -- it was kind of a passive-aggressive way of saying "I wish to contest your assertion that zombies are not fun because they are not original by pointing out that goblins are also not original." I also read your statement "so what/who do you play during these first levels? a blank sheet?" as being not a question, but an indirect way of saying "I think the practice of not picking a character background makes the early levels boring."

When I read that post, I was thinking "Oh great, somebody wants to start an argument. I hope it doesn't derail the discussion because no good is going to come of it." You can just tell when somebody's really interested in learning about a differing view or when their interest is just in making it look stupid.

 

[shlominus]

when she says she thinks zombies were done to death and something so "unoriginal" would dissapoint her but she has been fighting goblins for the last few sessions i think this is funny. so i made a joke about it. nothing to get mad about, right?

See, that wasn't a joke joke -- it was kind of a passive-aggressive way of saying "I wish to contest your assertion that zombies are not fun because they are not original by pointing out that goblins are also not original." I also read your statement "so what/who do you play during these first levels? a blank sheet?" as being not a question, but an indirect way of saying "I think the practice of not picking a character background makes the early levels boring."

When I read that post, I was thinking "Oh great, somebody wants to start an argument. I hope it doesn't derail the discussion because no good is going to come of it." You can just tell when somebody's really interested in learning about a differing view or when their interest is just in making it look stupid.

well, some jokes missfire. shit happens. there was no hostility intended.

about the blank sheet... i don't think not having a character background worked out makes the first few levels boring. but i do think when you start a campaign your character already has a past. the first few levels are his first experiences as an adventurer and how those shape who he will be, but what happened before greatly helps define who he is now, how he interacts with the gameworld. it can give him a sense of motivation, adds context to every action. a character without a past is somehow incomplete (to me).

han solo had a past before entering the picture in star wars. the character acts the way he acts because his past made him who he is (we see some of his past and how it influences his actions early on). luke has a past. his past is the major plot hook! during the movies both characters change, but they both evolved from a certain starting point. at the start of the "campaign" they were not blank sheets. that's what i mean.

and it's not like you need to write a novel about every characters early years. a simple sketch can be enough. luke's background would be very simple, but a dm can take (father dead, only sketchy knowledge about him) and turn it into star wars. wouldn't that story feel very special for luke's player? i doubt you can create such an epic story by developing it during play (with only in-play actions to build on). maybe you can, i have never seen it happen though.

 

[Noumenon]

Since I appointed myself official psychoanalyzer of your posting style, shlominus, I have to rule on this one: Looks like a 100% positive statement of your case without any implication that somebody else ought to do it different. Nice job.

I'm trying my first character with backstory in an upcoming campaign. In the past, I built characters just on a theme: when I make a druid, he's named after a tree, he lives in a tree, he carries around a bonsai tree instead of a pet, he writes his scrolls on little leaves and sets fire to them... in Star Wars, this would be more equivalent to playing Chewbacca, who's got no backstory and is just themed around "I want to play something really alien, but not really advanced." Chewbacca's loyalty trait might be the sort of thing you could discover while playing the character, actually.

 

[Uri]

again, funny stuff, I really like the way the players just play and Zak seemingly seamlessly throw it all through the rules and a fun game comes out without all the rule-lawyering that can/will kill most games.

ps. Did something happen to Connie? Apart from the awesome diet advice, she seems more, present, in a good way.

[small]also thx for check spelling seemingly seamlessly checking my spelling [/small]

 

[mandymorbid]

when she says she thinks zombies were done to death and something so "unoriginal" would dissapoint her but she has been fighting goblins for the last few sessions i think this is funny. so i made a joke about it. nothing to get mad about, right?

See, that wasn't a joke joke -- it was kind of a passive-aggressive way of saying "I wish to contest your assertion that zombies are not fun because they are not original by pointing out that goblins are also not original." I also read your statement "so what/who do you play during these first levels? a blank sheet?" as being not a question, but an

indirect way of saying "I think the practice of not picking a character background makes the early levels boring."

When I read that post, I was thinking "Oh great, somebody wants to start an argument. I hope it doesn't derail the discussion because no good is going to come of it." You can just tell when somebody's really interested in learning about a differing view or when their interest is just in making it look stupid.

well, some jokes missfire. shit happens. there was no hostility intended.

about the blank sheet... i don't think not having a character background worked out makes the first few levels boring. but i do think when you start a campaign your character already has a past. the first few levels are his first experiences as an adventurer and how those shape who he will be, but what happened before greatly helps define who he is now, how he interacts with the gameworld. it can give him a sense of motivation, adds context to every action. a character without a past is somehow incomplete (to me)....

.

From the thread for episode 8:

"And since some of you have asked for this, a quick summery of our characters:

Me: I'm a tiefling cleric of Vorn. I'm 4th level. I've been playing this character since mid August 2009. I was left as an infant on the steps of the Cathedral of Vorn and as such the recentness of my demon lineage is uncertain. It is suspected among the priestesses who raised me that it's fairly recent and so I had extra vigorous moral instruction. My name is Tizane Ildiko. In Hungarian it means "Gypsy Warrior" but I believe there are alternate spellings to the one I chose. I'm very bossy. I try to be cautious. I seem to be the "mom" of the party, which makes sense since I'm the one who has to heal everyone once they've gotten into trouble, so I tend to sometimes try to think of ways to get everyone else to avoid "excessive trouble". I grew up playing video games and so only played my first game of D&D at Christmas 2008..."


Seriously, if you really want to know something I'll tell you since all that long copy-paste from a previous thread was in response to a question, but it helps to ask nicely.

Clearly I have some sense of my character's backround but it's brief because my current adventures will become her history. And yes some of that has evolved over time during gaming sessions.

And yes I feel like goblins are more original than zombies--how many goblin remake films and comics have you seen?

 

[Nickisimo]

Me: I'm a tiefling cleric of Vorn. I'm 4th level. I've been playing this character since mid August 2009.

A year and only 4th level? I've been out of the RPG-ing world for a long time, so maybe things have slowed down a lot. Then again, when I played it was more of a series of encounters with storyline sprinkled in whereas you guys seem to spend much more time with the story and player interaction.

I'm interested to see who Plan C'd* that goblin encounter and lived to tell the tale later this week.

*Unforgotten Realms reference

 

[mandymorbid]

Me: I'm a tiefling cleric of Vorn. I'm 4th level. I've been playing this character since mid August 2009.

A year and only 4th level? I've been out of the RPG-ing world for a long time, so maybe things have slowed down a lot. Then again, when I played it was more of a series of encounters with storyline sprinkled in whereas you guys seem to spend much more time with the story and player interaction.

I'm interested to see who Plan C'd* that goblin encounter and lived to tell the tale later this week.

*Unforgotten Realms reference

Level 5 as of last week, but like I said (and I think it now says in the episode's intros) we didn't play regularly until this past (late) fall. And additionally when we began filming the show these characters you see in the episodes ONLY get played during filmed game sessions. We have whole other characters for our off-camera games.

 

[shlominus]

when she says she thinks zombies were done to death and something so "unoriginal" would dissapoint her but she has been fighting goblins for the last few sessions i think this is funny. so i made a joke about it. nothing to get mad about, right?

See, that wasn't a joke joke -- it was kind of a passive-aggressive way of saying "I wish to contest your assertion that zombies are not fun because they are not original by pointing out that goblins are also not original." I also read your statement "so what/who do you play during these first levels? a blank sheet?" as being not a question, but an

indirect way of saying "I think the practice of not picking a character background makes the early levels boring."

When I read that post, I was thinking "Oh great, somebody wants to start an argument. I hope it doesn't derail the discussion because no good is going to come of it." You can just tell when somebody's really interested in learning about a differing view or when their interest is just in making it look stupid.

well, some jokes missfire. shit happens. there was no hostility intended.

about the blank sheet... i don't think not having a character background worked out makes the first few levels boring. but i do think when you start a campaign your character already has a past. the first few levels are his first experiences as an adventurer and how those shape who he will be, but what happened before greatly helps define who he is now, how he interacts with the gameworld. it can give him a sense of motivation, adds context to every action. a character without a past is somehow incomplete (to me)....

.

From the thread for episode 8:

"And since some of you have asked for this, a quick summery of our characters:

Me: I'm a tiefling cleric of Vorn. I'm 4th level. I've been playing this character since mid August 2009. I was left as an infant on the steps of the Cathedral of Vorn and as such the recentness of my demon lineage is uncertain. It is suspected among the priestesses who raised me that it's fairly recent and so I had extra vigorous moral instruction. My name is Tizane Ildiko. In Hungarian it means "Gypsy Warrior" but I believe there are alternate spellings to the one I chose. I'm very bossy. I try to be cautious. I seem to be the "mom" of the party, which makes sense since I'm the one who has to heal everyone once they've gotten into trouble, so I tend to sometimes try to think of ways to get everyone else to avoid "excessive trouble". I grew up playing video games and so only played my first game of D&D at Christmas 2008..."


Seriously, if you really want to know something I'll tell you since all that long copy-paste from a previous thread was in response to a question, but it helps to ask nicely.

Clearly I have some sense of my character's backround but it's brief because my current adventures will become her history. And yes some of that has evolved over time during gaming sessions.

And yes I feel like goblins are more original than zombies--how many goblin remake films and comics have you seen?

i guess i missed that background stuff. thanks for posting it again.

 

[Aiberg]

i like it when terrible things happen, if the DM is skillful he will lift the story up again without exhausting players

 

[Daselthechaz]

Zombies were done to death 15 years ago. I'd be so disappointed in my DM if he did something so unoriginal.

Just so we're clear here, are you saying that zombies were done to death in the tabletop landscape 15 years ago, or that their cultural significance in general has been spurious for some time? I'm not gonna' get all that bent out of shape either way, but the damn Twilight crowd has been trying to convince me of the same thing for ages now and it's backfired on them to my continual delight. You guys, however, seem articulate enough to have me hang up my crowbars for a while with a reasonable explanation. That is, assuming that you have a genuine beef with the zombie love outside of your gaming.

 

[Noumenon]

Just so we're clear here, are you saying that zombies were done to death in the tabletop landscape 15 years ago, or that their cultural significance in general has been spurious for some time?

Based on her D&D start date of 2008 I'd have to guess she's referring to movie and videogame zombies.

Has anyone here played a first-level adventure that had a ton of zombies? D&D zombies are boring to fight against -- no tactics, no speed, no speech, and damage reduction that makes them hard to fight. I've only ever run a couple encounters with them.

 

[Satine Phoenix]

**Wakes up, Big Yawn... walks to computer.. loads page.. reads comments... Blinks loudly**

... What just happened?

 

[rddj623]

**Wakes up, Big Yawn... walks to computer.. loads page.. reads comments... Blinks loudly**

... What just happened?

Apparently a lot haha, this comment made me smile.

And yes I feel like goblins are more original than zombies--how many goblin remake films and comics have you seen?

I think Troll 2 killed any form of goblin anything for quite awhile...*sigh* they are such interesting creatures.


OT: Excellent episode! Makes me sit on the edge of my seat for the next one, which thankfully due to my vacation's lack of internet will be right now!

 

[Dave Michalak]

Oh, man. You did not make Frankie shoot herself in the arm. That's so bogus. >_<

Any DM who's using a crit system owes it to their players to have a fumble system as well. The monsters collectively tend to roll far more attacks than players, and only have to win one fight. Figure what level a rogue or a wizard has to be before they can survive even one critical hit from a battle axe (1d8, tripled.) At least with fumbles some of those monsters' attack rolls are helping the party.

I personally am of the opinion that PCs should never look like buffoons unless they knowingly try something stupid. It's one thing to fumble a roll and have your shot spang off an enemy shield and hit a comrade or cause some other trouble, but to shoot oneself with a weapon (with most missile weapons that's really hard to do, unless the weapon itself breaks) implies that one is unskilled with one's weapon of choice. In which case one should not have left the farm.

My preferred way to handle fumbles (and I may have mentioned this before), is to have bad rolls result in Complications rather than outright Failures. So, when you blow a roll, something bad happens, but generally not something that makes your character look like an idiot or a klutz (unless of course it's appropriate- which can happen, but should not happen regularly unless it's that kind of game). Heck, it doesn't even have to be directly related. Blow a roll, and sure, you kill the kobold, but its death cry summons two or three more of them. Roll a 1 to swing across the pit of acid, and rather than falling in, maybe you drop a choice bit of gear. Or the rope breaks and the rest of the party is still on the other side.

Now, when a player has their character do something blatantly foolhardy or ridiculously risky, then, yeah, maybe that 1 does mean they break their bowstring trying to fire three arrows at three different targets at once. Or trip on a chalice and clatter down a hill of gold in full view of the dragon who was just startled out of a nice nap.

Basically, the point is (for me) that failure, when it happens, should be interesting, and should move things forward rather than stalling them. And PCs should not suck at their primary skills. The super stealthy thief may not always succeed at sneaking (because guaranteed success is boring, too), but neither should she trip over her shoelaces and look like a dolt.

Just my 2 cents. Your mileage may vary- everyone's expectations and preferences differ.

 

[Evil Raccoon]

I just noticed the Henry the 8th mug they're using, nice mug!