Who are you? - part XII

[Toad`]

Welcome bootlegbible!

[K-Face]

Haldo!!

I'm Kristen-Face, or just K-Face is fine.

....

Yeah. Uhm, I really love D&D, and I'm currently going through a withdrawal of it, since I haven't played it in a few months. ((Our DM just went off to college, so now I'm trying to figure out how to be a good DM, since no one else will.))

I also love drawing, reading and writing, along with forum RPGs on Proboards. I have several of my own RPs and two of them are work-in-progress comics that I am the artist and co-author of.

Aaaaaaaaand, I like rice.

Let's see... I think that's about it for introductions. So, toodle-pip!

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[Broose the Bear]

After I discovered AD&D I sent most of my time back then trying to imrpove on Gygax and make the game more realistic. Having decided to go back to basics and re-read the original three books before satrting to DM as a grown-up, I was amazed at Gary Gygax. The man is an original thinker with a philosophy and a historuc perspective, especially when compared with the blandness of the "rpfessionally" written "complete" books, whch are a treasure still, when compared with the pure mainstream pop commercialization of the D&D 4th edition. Gygax knew history and occult and fantasy literature, and even though he may have dragged the kitchen sink into the AD&D, his writing was insightful and pleasure to re-read. Witness the btilliand piece, the first ten pages of the description of the medieval (victorian england) underworld and the relative value of different types of coinage, and his historically accurate 'thieves' cant' when compared against "Druidic Speech", which contrived and not grounded in history at all, which is like Mr. Spock denying emotions to show that he is "logical",a caricature, when compared against historical personalities of Einstein, Newton and other throretical scientists, so called "logical" beings.

So, having re-read the original PH, DMG and MM, I discovered the elegance of Gygax's original system. There is also realism, sich as Hit points being psycho-emotional rather than "Life Points". Same people with equal grave injuries. One will stay in the fight and be efective, the other will go into traumatic shock and die. I took critical hit system, but dropped the hit location/gore table for the simpe, reason, that this is narrative aid. You roll 18,19,20 whatever the weapon per table in 3.5, you get the multiplier for damage, you roll 5 greater than "To Hit" and you do the maximum damage. roll second time to "confirm" the crit hit, and if you get the 18-19-20 per 3.5 ed table, that's it - the opponent is dead or out of the fight. A two-handed sword lands full force on the AC2 Cleric's great helm, twists his head to an unnatural angle, there is hit of a crunch and the body collapses on top of a swarm of goblins tryinfg to get their protector back into fight. Short sword cuts the 3 foot centipede through its madibles, it curles around blade and falls into the abyss, taking the sword with it, the thief hung on to the ladder rungs, barely avoiding the surprise attack and kept from dislocating his shoulder, intrepretation of the three D20 rolls no need for advanced table indexing or weapon size or facing dynamics. And if you get this only once in 400 strikes, DM can pretty much improvise, what happened. And evry player has a hope of ending up David against any Goliath in the game. True world parallel to Magic Users memorizing spells lays in the performance arts and the need to rehearse, and if you throw in Proficiencies, then the any spell caster is not as helpless between spells and downright useful, if they have INT 16-18 and use the kanguage bonus to buy additional skills!. Runequest has the best skill system bar none, but it's combat system is not as good, and it suffers from the same problem as the 3.5 editions of D&D - Original AD&D proficiences were for critical moments only - you roll to fail or succeed at a critical moment - use your boating skill to navigate your raft through rapids, akin to pilot using his skill to land a plaen safely when its engine stalls and autopilot becomes useless. Later editions invented oodles of skills such eat laugh and be merry, to cover every facet of mundane character behavior that used to be covered by role playing and player imagination. There is a continuity when role-playing turned to roll-playing and it evolved into feat playing, when the whole fantasy role playing concept degenerated into PNP diablo videogame hack fest.
So, yeah, I like the original Deities and Demigods and even Eldritch Wizardy for inspiration, and it kinds funny how Gyghax classified demons they way they did tanks in WWII or submarines today, but I am a sucker for the original AD&D, Runeuestized proficiensies and lore from Complet Books included.

[Toad`]

Howdy K-Face!

*resists urge to call you K-Fed*

[Zarock]

Hey everyone. thanks for the hey!
I love this site and i'll try to be an active member and contribute to the community!

[Toad`]

Hi there jerok!

[artemis]

Hi and welcome bootlegbible, K-Face,Zarock, and jerok!

[Toad`]

Welcome to the site linden!

[Niemz]

Welcome bootlegbible, K-Face,Zarock, jerok, & linden!

[Niemz]

Welcome tiarrah!

[Niemz]

Welcome darkserendipity!

[Niemz]

Welcome gothicsamurai!

[Niemz]

Wb dmsteve!

[dmsteve]

So, What have I missed?

[Niemz]

About 20,000 posts!