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Coffee With The Princess!
3 years ago
Coffee With The Princess!
Points Versus Dice!
**Giggles!**
I know a lot of people around here play tabletop role-playing games. Now, let me be clear here. These are the game sessions where you sit in the SAME room with a group of people, at least three people, get characters generated or bring them with you, get some junk food, and toss dice all afternoon or night long. If you do it online, I'm not very knowledgeable about that, but I do role-play online ... y'all who take the time to read my missives should know this, but there might be one or two people who noticed this status update decided to read it. Let's cover the online role-playing later and focus on the tabletop games ... specifically the point systems versus using the dice to generate characters.
My group, which has been together since the late 1970s ... and that was before I joined in early 2000 or so, has been back and forth about this. The group is half-split when it comes to which they like. The Bearded Lantern, like me, is an old-school gamer and has been using the 4d6 dice, pick the best three. I changed things up a bit to make it more fun to make characters over the years: ones are rerolled and if you get all of the same number, that counts as an eighteen! The Bionic Forearm and the Left Fielder prefer the point system that Pathfinder 1st edition uses. Fifteen points for the average game, though I think they often use the epic category being twenty-five. Getting a ten is easy enough since that costs no points, but to get higher numbers, you have to spend points. If you are smart, you can get a character with a maximum of fourteen in three stats and ten in the others ... and then there's a bit of play around depending on if you go higher than the average adventure, which would give you another fourteen and one stat with a twelve and the other one being an eleven.
You with me so far?
Me ... before this year, I honestly hated the idea of the point system for Pathfinder since more often than naught, I saw the characters done by points often overshadowed by the dice rolled characters. Understandable. But when you keep in mind that these are people, not superheroes ... and in a world that is a whole other realm of harshness, you have to respect those who pick up a weapon and go out into the world to make a living. True heroes to be sure! Now, I have never been a great dice caster, but I have something a lot of people don't have: patience. I can sit there and watch TV and cast d6s all afternoon and eventually generate a character that is pretty damned good.
Now, here's the debate among the crew: which is better? According to the Bionic Forearm and the Left Fielder, Pathfinder was designed more to be a point system. At least for the 1st edition. However, the Bearded Lantern has put his foot down, saying that he hates the point system period. "You make characters that are pretty useless," is his point. "The first thing they put in the generation of characters is 4d6, pick the best three."
Here's where things have changed for me. I started to think it through and wonder if I had been wrong. So, over the past few days now, I have been playing around with the point system for 1st edition Pathfinder and then using those numbers to make the characters I use for BESM d20. With an average character, it comes out to about thirty character points, which for an average game of that system, it leaves you with ten points to play around with before you go into weaknesses/defects. With Caitlynn Wildfire and Israfel Vincent, it leaves me about five points, so that's a bit better than what I came up with their BESM d20 versions.
Why am I putting so much attention into all of this? Mm ... it's just that with what I do on the weekends, which is about a lot of role-playing, it is something I have been toying around with. It goes along in enjoying life a bit more and being a better person. What if I have been wrong about the point system?
The dislike for it did not help that we had an ass of a player who made me angry enough to leave the game for a few years, but he was also the highly opinionated, "You are wrong!" type of person. He showed up at the game, invited by the Security Officer, and pretty much spent the whole evening attacking people. It wasn't until the next morning that I got all these text messages back and forth between the group about his bitching about how I do things ... he was pissed with people having the "wrong" way of doing things and now he made it personal. "The point system is how Pathfinder was meant to be played," he argued and I just said at the time, "If that's what the current Dungeon Master wants, I will either bid by it or not show up." But the damage was done unfornately.
No one online has ever seen my temper. It is ugly and something I'm proud of. But I left ... and right before we were supposed to do the "Grilling and Thrilling!" weekend, to which I was told that the Bearded Lantern and the Bionic Forearm did have a few choice things to say to the guy, but he stayed. I tried to return and be nice to him, but it was a problem since he and I clashed all the time. I swallowed a lot of anger for my promise to not start anything at the garage. So, I finally left. The guy did too later ... ironically, both of us went through amputations dealing with diabetes I do believe. Now, I do NOT wish him ill-will, but I refuse to be at the game if he's going to be there. I was told that he's pretty much given it up. While I'm sorry to hear that, I damned sure don't really care.
It was the conversation I had with the Bionic Forearm who's been the rational person to discuss this, though the Left Fielder has tried a few times ... bless his heart. Both are longtime and best friends of mine as much of my friends are these days, so ... I guess I just thought that if I was going to dislike something so passionately, why not see if there is anything good about it. I will say that the point system does allow for a faster and fairer way to generate stats for a character. I'm still on the fence about which is better.
What do y'all think?
BE Happy!
Love and Kisses,
Loonia
Points Versus Dice!
**Giggles!**
I know a lot of people around here play tabletop role-playing games. Now, let me be clear here. These are the game sessions where you sit in the SAME room with a group of people, at least three people, get characters generated or bring them with you, get some junk food, and toss dice all afternoon or night long. If you do it online, I'm not very knowledgeable about that, but I do role-play online ... y'all who take the time to read my missives should know this, but there might be one or two people who noticed this status update decided to read it. Let's cover the online role-playing later and focus on the tabletop games ... specifically the point systems versus using the dice to generate characters.
My group, which has been together since the late 1970s ... and that was before I joined in early 2000 or so, has been back and forth about this. The group is half-split when it comes to which they like. The Bearded Lantern, like me, is an old-school gamer and has been using the 4d6 dice, pick the best three. I changed things up a bit to make it more fun to make characters over the years: ones are rerolled and if you get all of the same number, that counts as an eighteen! The Bionic Forearm and the Left Fielder prefer the point system that Pathfinder 1st edition uses. Fifteen points for the average game, though I think they often use the epic category being twenty-five. Getting a ten is easy enough since that costs no points, but to get higher numbers, you have to spend points. If you are smart, you can get a character with a maximum of fourteen in three stats and ten in the others ... and then there's a bit of play around depending on if you go higher than the average adventure, which would give you another fourteen and one stat with a twelve and the other one being an eleven.
You with me so far?
Me ... before this year, I honestly hated the idea of the point system for Pathfinder since more often than naught, I saw the characters done by points often overshadowed by the dice rolled characters. Understandable. But when you keep in mind that these are people, not superheroes ... and in a world that is a whole other realm of harshness, you have to respect those who pick up a weapon and go out into the world to make a living. True heroes to be sure! Now, I have never been a great dice caster, but I have something a lot of people don't have: patience. I can sit there and watch TV and cast d6s all afternoon and eventually generate a character that is pretty damned good.
Now, here's the debate among the crew: which is better? According to the Bionic Forearm and the Left Fielder, Pathfinder was designed more to be a point system. At least for the 1st edition. However, the Bearded Lantern has put his foot down, saying that he hates the point system period. "You make characters that are pretty useless," is his point. "The first thing they put in the generation of characters is 4d6, pick the best three."
Here's where things have changed for me. I started to think it through and wonder if I had been wrong. So, over the past few days now, I have been playing around with the point system for 1st edition Pathfinder and then using those numbers to make the characters I use for BESM d20. With an average character, it comes out to about thirty character points, which for an average game of that system, it leaves you with ten points to play around with before you go into weaknesses/defects. With Caitlynn Wildfire and Israfel Vincent, it leaves me about five points, so that's a bit better than what I came up with their BESM d20 versions.
Why am I putting so much attention into all of this? Mm ... it's just that with what I do on the weekends, which is about a lot of role-playing, it is something I have been toying around with. It goes along in enjoying life a bit more and being a better person. What if I have been wrong about the point system?
The dislike for it did not help that we had an ass of a player who made me angry enough to leave the game for a few years, but he was also the highly opinionated, "You are wrong!" type of person. He showed up at the game, invited by the Security Officer, and pretty much spent the whole evening attacking people. It wasn't until the next morning that I got all these text messages back and forth between the group about his bitching about how I do things ... he was pissed with people having the "wrong" way of doing things and now he made it personal. "The point system is how Pathfinder was meant to be played," he argued and I just said at the time, "If that's what the current Dungeon Master wants, I will either bid by it or not show up." But the damage was done unfornately.
No one online has ever seen my temper. It is ugly and something I'm proud of. But I left ... and right before we were supposed to do the "Grilling and Thrilling!" weekend, to which I was told that the Bearded Lantern and the Bionic Forearm did have a few choice things to say to the guy, but he stayed. I tried to return and be nice to him, but it was a problem since he and I clashed all the time. I swallowed a lot of anger for my promise to not start anything at the garage. So, I finally left. The guy did too later ... ironically, both of us went through amputations dealing with diabetes I do believe. Now, I do NOT wish him ill-will, but I refuse to be at the game if he's going to be there. I was told that he's pretty much given it up. While I'm sorry to hear that, I damned sure don't really care.
It was the conversation I had with the Bionic Forearm who's been the rational person to discuss this, though the Left Fielder has tried a few times ... bless his heart. Both are longtime and best friends of mine as much of my friends are these days, so ... I guess I just thought that if I was going to dislike something so passionately, why not see if there is anything good about it. I will say that the point system does allow for a faster and fairer way to generate stats for a character. I'm still on the fence about which is better.
What do y'all think?
BE Happy!
Love and Kisses,
Loonia
The second thing is dealing reasonably with asshats whose sole purpose seems to be to ruin everyone else's fun and unfortunately, the way you handled it seems to be the only way, by removing yourself from the situation. It's only unfortunate that others in the game didn't see things the same way and kick them to the curb - if it had been my table, I wouldn't allow a disruptive player to come in and force another long-standing player out!
I concur about the keeping everyone on the same page, but I have decided that if I have to run things, I'm going to do it my way. I love my friends thoroughly. For their strengths and weaknesses. In that thought, I have said over and over again at the top of last year when I was asked ro run "Council of Thieves!" that people are not only to pick which way they do their characters, but they were responsible for their characters. If they are not updated, there are questions that need to be answered, or one person complains about how this or that is done, I will remind them that we settled this last year as far as I was concerned. They also know I get up at 6 am and leave my phone on until 6 pm in the evening. If they cannot reach me through that phone, then that is their problem and they will need to contact someone else until I can respond.
Asshats ... well, they have been called so many different things over the years, but they are still immature people who have problems that are not my concern unless they ask for help. But the stipulation is they have to ask for help. I dealt with broken people over the years, people who refuse to get help or who go around and ruin life for other people. My Big Sister, unfortunately, is one ... she's bitter because of her poor choices have led her to a rough life. She slapped me aside right after Pop passed and I told her kids that I was done trying to help her, trying to make excuses for her, and try to clean up her mess. So, like so many people I have had to deal with, I have removed myself from their lives.
The Bearded Lantern is proud of the point that we have only thrown out one player ... and this guy is so unwelcome that only one guy would be reasonably ok with his return. The rest of us are done with him. And, believe it or not, it's not the guy I mentioned. This fool earned a forever place on two people list of people I will have nothing to do with. Having said that, I'm still a big believer in apologies and second chances, but these people who are constant problems have to make the effort, y'know? Until then, let them be who they have made themselves to be: asshats.
I disagree heartily that one is better than the other; both have advantages and disadvantages, and suit different character generation styles. That said, I wish my work hours hadn't changed recently, which caused me to have to drop out of the D&D group I was playing with online. Had a nice conquest oath paladin I was playing in dragon heist I was having loads of fun with