What was (or is) the worst case of crunch clashing with fluff of any TTG?
Bonus points if the implications are hilarious.
What was (or is) the worst case of crunch clashing with fluff of any TTG? Bonus points if the implications are hilarious.
What was (or is) the worst case of crunch clashing with fluff of any TTG?
Bonus points if the implications are hilarious.
In Inquistor, a Space Marine does more damage throwing his bolter at the enemy than firing it at the enemy.
Still the best game ever tho.
not necessary the worst but:
In Twilight Imperium the Xxcha are a race of peace-loving space-turtels and there entire playstyle was designend around diplomacy and being defensiv.
then, they got a new ability that gives them an absurde amount of resources, that make everyone play them as expansionist warmongers that blow everyone away with Death Stars.
Even in 3rd ed their quick technology acquisition made them combat powerhouses at the end of a typical game.
Ah wait I'm mixed up with the Jol-Nar.
Do you have any examples? Did something make you ask this?
In D&D (especially 4e), powers like arcane, divine, primal, etc. are described as being different, but use the same mechanics.
Yessir, there's no feats or class features that specify certain power sources at all.
No divine domain feats. No arcane academy feats. No martial style, technique or arena feats. No primal tribe feats. No psionic augmentation feats (who am I kidding you didn't even know these were classes). And nowhere has there ever been a class feature, paragon path, item, feat or theme that had any specification for one power source over another. Ever. Keywords? They're just words! They don't mean anything to anyone because I DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ.
Replies like this are why everyone hates 4e fans your games perception is that its shit and the more you try and fight against it the more you look like a sperg turning against you on principle instead of just waiting for 4e to get its turn in the spotlight when he nostalgia cycle hit it.
Also for OP Lv1 characters with absurd backstories especially if they are written into a module or are some sort of preset.
Ah, so only one class has the [at will/encounter/daily/ultimate] juicebox mechanics? My mistake.
Even if they all use those sorts of core mechanics for resource management, what they *do* with those resources is different. Martials have a strong focus on Weapon attacks, Arcane casters have a strong focus on AoE effects, Divine casters have more buffing and healing effects, etc.
Compare a 4e Ranger and a 4e Sorceror (Martial Striker vs Arcane Striker) and tell me that they play the same way at the table.
I have no interest nor have ever played in 4e, but that doesnt seem like so much of a "clash" which implies active tension, more like parrellel mechanisms. like, idk if x is weak vs arcane spells, or y requires divine ritual and that sort of stuff.
>describing things as being different from each other that function exactly the same except for the names isn't a clash
Yeah okay.
The two bosses I've had are completely different. I love how my new boss embezzles money through pyramid schemes; he's nothing like my old boss, who embezzled money through pyramid schemes. Frick that other guy, I'm glad he's gone.
I think you are organizing your thoughts in a weird way. seems to me that this is simply the mechanic by which supernatural abilities are expressed in general. Its simply different domains of the supernatural that are called upon.
It doesnt seem all that different from how mechanically picking a lock and convincing someone of something function exactly the same too. Both role 1d20 plus modifiers and shit vs a target number.
Strange how it's not a problem when cleric, sorcerer, wizard, and every fricking full and half caster all work the same!
>cleric, sorcerer and warlock are all exactly the same
This is your brain on 4e.
>MMM0GM
This is you, because you are nogames.
>cleric
Spell slots and a section of the master spell list.
>sorcerer
Spell slots and a section of the master spell list.
>warlock
Spell slots and a section of the master spell list.
Yeah, they sure do function differently, despite having different sources of power. Thanks for clarifying.
They also all have hit points, does that make them exactly the same?
>hurrdurr they interact with spell slots in different ways so they are exactly the same
Stick with your handler and fellow morons because actual people don't deserve to have the burden of interacting with you.
>the master spell list
Is this some kind of normie 5e thing I'm too busy playing better games to understand?
Also
>Warlock
>spell slots
Maybe if you play Worst Edition.
Where did I say that wasn't a problem?
The fact that I used the word ESPECIALLY implies that D&D 4e ISN'T the ONLY CULPRIT.
Do you know how to read?
40k RPG space marines die from tiny little falls
>Sorcerer: Draconic Bloodline
>Your innate magic comes from draconic magic that was mingled with your blood or that of your ancestors.
>Most often, sorcerers with this origin trace their descent back to a mighty sorcerer of ancient times who made a bargain with a dragon
>or who might even have claimed a dragon parent.
>Dragon Ancestor
>At 1st level, you choose one type of dragon as your ancestor.
>Half Dragon
>Half Dragons are incapable of having natural born offspring
I know it says you can go on a mighty quest to be less impotent, but it still sounds goofy as hell
>Go on a mighty quest to make your dick work
Good a reason as any, really.
D&D style hitpoints.
>he doesn't know about tippyverse
It's stamina
>shock-full
>nooooo you can't use an s instead of a c noooooooo nonono you can't do this noooo
How will English ever recover?
In 5e, races with levelled abilities (usually spells) irk me. How the frick does that work? It’s an ability inherent to your race but you don’t get it until you’re a powerful [whatever]? If the ability is a spell, you don’t even have to be a spell caster to get it, and if you are a spell caster it might use a different spell casting ability to your class.
I know the answer is just “durr same mechanic” but it really sticks out
It irks me for some things that should be innate, but at the same time humans irl can level up and get better weightlifting and running feats, meanwhile it's a chore for me to touch grass. So I guess it makes some sense as an individual of that race enhancing their own natural abilities??? Maybe? idk, I don't play 5e
I'm not that familiar with 5e specifically, but there are similar things in earlier/parallel editions, and I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about it. Yes, sometimes it doesn't seem to make sense, but at a fundamental level it's just about learning to control your innate abilities, no different from a bird learning to fly or a dragon learning to spew fire. Hell, the entire Sorcerer class is based on the concept that you unlock innate abilities as you become more powerful and more adapt at controlling your bloodborne powers.
In Pathfinder you cannot spend more than 8 hours a day working on creating magic items. No explanation is given so it is probably because the Paizo devs have never worked a real job in their life.
Paizo is really good at fricking nonsense like that. Starfinder and Pathfinder 2e is just completely shock-full of it.
My favorite is probably that ships level with you and get better equipment/systems in Starfinder, but it is never even attempted to be rationalized or somehow explained. It just does, and it never makes sense.
We need to find the anon that always posts the stuff about how fricked Starfinder's item treadmill and economy is.
I have been summoned.
Look at the weapon list.
https://starfinder.dragonlash.com/equipment/weapons/
What's wrong here? Look at these levels. What does this mean? Does a Parallax laser do anything interesting with beam convergence or something? What's the difference between an Azimuth and a Zenith laser? NOTHING, except damage, mag/clip size, and slight range increases every 2 levels. These are not labelled as military vs civilian or anything either. These names are insulting scifi sounding word salad.
> A combat rifle is a higher level than a tactical magnetar rifle.
>I don't know in who's universe but apparently this one
> "A magnetar is a type of neutron star believed to have an extremely powerful magnetic field (∼109 to 1011 T, ∼1013 to 1015 G). The magnetic-field decay powers the emission of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma rays."
Is it a fricking gamma ray laser? Nobody knows. It's literally just a label.
An Autotarget Rifle sounds like it aims for you, doesn't it?
No. Not in starfinder.
Neither does a Seeker Rifle, seek.
The only thing that differentiates these weapons is damage, range and occasionally shot count.
And mechanically or narratively; There's no explanation for this, no exploration of what it means for the setting that some people have guns that atomize you and some people have laser glocks. Some people are just higher level than others? What is that even? The book even says "nothing really stops you using a higher level weapon but don't let the players use them". Because the game can't fricking cope with it. THE LEVEL SCALING IS SO FRICKING OFF THE WALL THAT THERE ARE PISTOLS HIT HARDER THAN ARTILLERY LASERS BECAUSE THEY'RE "HIGHER LEVEL". Weapons are an absolute travesty and if you want anything like actual scifi combat, stay FAR away from Starfinder.
It's all gear treadmill. It's fricking madness. All these upgrades are, as I said, just small stat increases, and some fancy name slapped on them.
Thank you for your service.
>No explanation is given so it is probably because the Paizo devs have never worked a real job in their life.
If you work for more than 8 hours a day, you don't have a real job.
>can't spend more than 8 hours a day crafting magic items
It's called "creative fatigue".
Painters and sculptors can gas out in as little as 2 to 4 hours and start making mistakes because their focus wanes. Probably similar when you're trying to make a stick shoot firenolts or control skeletons
All of 4e D&D.
Just fricking all of it.
Its not the worst, and it often works well, but often times it seems a bit innae to role insanity checks in CoC depending on what you see. Yah, some things might be weird, But I dont think seeing a person with an aditional finger will make most people go
>AHHHHH A SIXTH DIGGIT, HELP ME Black personMAN, IM GOING INSAAAAINE
But of course, its a very contextual thing, but the mechanic itself can lead to people having the most fragile of psyches.
the pinkie finger of DOOOOOOOM
In 5e, if you read the rules strictly as written, resurrection spells don't work. They target Creatures. But corpses are explicitly Objects. Since they aren't Creatures, they are not valid targets for the spells.
The more I get to know this awful system, the more I see the wrestling between designers. Mechanics were obviously cut, but not entirely, which starts to cause hilarious interactions.
>rules strictly as written
>corpses are explicitly Objects
Where does it explicitly say that? And don't point to Crawford's Twitter.
Improvised Weapons
Sometimes characters don't have their weapons and have to attack with whatever is at hand. An improvised weapon includes any object you can wield in one or two hands, such as broken glass, a table leg, a frying pan, a wagon wheel, or a dead goblin.
Objects
For the Purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.
Animate Dead
This spell creates an Undead servant. Choose a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small Humanoid within range....
Revivify
You touch a creature that has died within the last minute....
Finally, there is no "Dead" condition.
Animate Object and Locate Object would work on a corpse too. Obviously the distinction is a pedantic nitpick, but it's one of many examples of how bad the designers are.
And yes, Crawford confirmed this reading on Twitter, proving how shitty he is.
None of that is an explicit statement. You extrapolate from an example that corpses can be treated as objects in some circumstances. Even if corpses are objects, nothing states that this is mutually exclusive from being a creature. Creature-object duality is a possible interpretation.
>For the Purpose of these rules
The upcoming rules are for assigning stats to things that don't have a stat block already. Doesn't apply here.
>Finally, there is no "Dead" condition.
No such condition is referred to. Death is defined in the PHB under "Dropping to 0 Hit Points".
>And yes, Crawford confirmed this reading on Twitter, proving how shitty he is.
Mearls answered the same question saying a corpse is a creature, unless it's funnier to treat it as an object.
>Objects
For the Purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.
Unless a corpse is somehow animate (it's not), indiscrete (don't know how you'd swing this one), or composed of many other objects (I'm gonna go out on a limb and say cells don't count.)
Then according to the rules as written for what an object is or can be, a corpse easily falls under that definition.
Creature is never explicitly defined which can allow them some wiggle room for edge cases like this but it's still bad form to leave such an important term undefined in the rules of your own game.
Seriously I don't agree with RAWtism when it comes to playing RPGs because the designers can't account for everything, but his interpretation of the rules are just as correct as yours because creature doesn't have a definition and object does which a corpse meets the criteria of being.
In short D&D 5e is a poorly designed game not necessarily a bad one but definitely a poorly designed one.
They fixed it in the collectors edition, but World in Flames 7E (final. Hah!) is a hex and chit WW2 strategic level wargame. You play one or more of the major powers, and you slug it out.
There are rules for "invasions", which are defined as ampibious attacks into an enemy controlled hex. Think something like D-Day. But, notably, invasions are for hexes a country your guys are at war with controls. You don't invade to your own friendly hexes, you just disembark.
Cue in another rules system, that of "Partisans", representing all sorts of irregular forces that sprung up to cause headaches for occupiers. Partisan units have a few differences from regular land units, and for this purpose, the most important is that they don't take control of a hex when they move into it; they disrupt some of the normal functions of control as long as they hang out somewhere, but they do not in fact control hexes.
So, say I'm playing Japan. I start with quite a bit of China occupied, and say I get a bit careless and unlucky and some partisans pop up in Shanghai. I still technically control Shanghai, even if I can't do much with it until I evict the partisans. So if I wanted to load up the next batch of reinforcements and invade Shanghai to kill the partisans and retake control........... I can't for some reason. I could send them in the teeth of 7 American armored divisions; they'd almost certainly get slaughtered in such a harebrained attempt, but I'm at least allowed to try. Some resistance guys? Nope, can't be done, you'll have to debark somewhere nearby and move up and attack them in ordinary land combat.
Oh, and in case it wasn't clear from my rambling description, while you can normally debark in a friendly hex, opposing partisans prevent that from occurring.
Are you moronic?
in racial holy war, whites are the only race without a racial ability, making them inferior to all other races
Armor makes you harder to hit, but doesn't reduce damage.
Weapons make you hit harder, but don't make you better at hitting.
I'm curious as to how many people in this thread have actually played or read 4e like even a little bit.
I feel like it's at least less than the number of people criticizing it and defending it.
Address points and cite examples to show where people are wrong, instead of pretending to be smart.
In Infinity Shona Carano is one of the best close combatants, the first one to go against robots in Aristeia and win and she now trains elite units such as Aquila Guard in sword fighting.
Aquila Guard are notoriously TERRIBLE in CC. So either they're bad students or she's a bad teacher.
There's also some other silly stuff like fluff saying that "Zeros are so good they never get KIA" when in game they're usually dying early because they're a high risk infiltrating unit and a squishy one at that, but "Shona is a terrible teacher" jumped to mind first. I guess "PanO uses Helots as cannon fodder" when all the Helot loadouts are purely defensive may also count.
I don't think that fluff clashing with rules is really a thing beyond lazy design and playtesting leading to things that are supposed to be strong/weak being weak/strong, like said.
Entire armies of soldiers die to a single round of a sandstorm in 4e.
in 40K, the cyborg armies of the Machine Cult are said to be totally loyal, clear-headed in combat, and detached totally from fear and doubt. Their actual leadership (which governs if units abandon the fight when taking losses) stat however is garden-variety average with little in the way of making it better. Admittedly, it would be absurdly overpowered if their leadership was lore-accurate, but it still bothers me a tad.
To be fair, you can fluff that as it being the logical choice for them to make a tactical withdrawal.
Like Necrons. They don't fear, but their protocols might tell them it's time to phase out if shit is too rough.
A very good argument actually.
>What was (or is) the worst case of crunch clashing with fluff of any TTG?
Shadowrun. The entire game. It wasn't hilarious.
In D&D, fighters are depicted as being rugged generalists while casters are more specialized, but in practice, fighters are actually much more mechanically specialized for single target combat while casters, especially full casters, have a much more generalist playstyle.
Not OP, but what are some of you guys's's's's examples of fluff and crunch being in harmony?
Avalon Hill had this great old 6 player Dune game. Normally, you try to win by controlling, either alone or in a coalition, a certain number of sietches. Each of the six factions (Atriedes, Harkonen, Empereror Shaddam, the Fremen, the Guild, and the Bene Gesserit) have a number of special abilities. One of the Bene Gesserit ones is a special victory condition, which reads as follows
>At the start of the game (before traitors are picked) you write down the name of one other player and the turn in which you think he will win (you can't predict the automatic Guild or Fremen victory at the end of play). If that player wins (alone or as an ally, even your own) WHEN you have predicted, you reveal the prediction and you alone have won. You can win normally, of course.
Suddenly, every little weird play that the BG player does is viewed with massive suspicion and paranoia. Anyone else leaving that sietch lightly defended might just be making a mistake or taking a calculated risk. When it's the BG doing it, there's inevitably a parade of people wondering if that player is trying to shoot the moon.
Well that's just cool.
>that artstyle
Looks like Felix Colgrave's, but I'm not too sure. I definetely would dig a fantasy universe with that sort of atmosphere/vibe.
Not the best example, but somewhere in Deadlands Reloaded my friend found an Edge that was called Whateley's Blood or something. It meant you were apart of the Whateley family and as such had blood magic. The thing is, the Whateleys are all fricking creepy so you get a -2 to charisma. UNLESS, you're a female! Then your creepiness adds to your hotness factor, so you get a +2 instead! The Edge even goes on to say it doesn't wanna hear about it being unfair, sometimes that's just the way things are! I appreciate it willing to play off of cliches despite a slight imbalance.