The Gaming Den

FrankTrollman wrote:
The fact is that LotR doesn´t make any fucking sense, and the only reason they don´t solve everything day one by having the elven high magicians cut a hole in Mount Doom with their literally Ëarth-shatteric magic and then have the fucking eagles fly over all the bullshit obstacles and solve everything all at once

-Username17

Indeed, I thought the same thing when those eagles popped up at the end..."you mean Frodo didn't have to do all that carrying all across the whole freakin' continent?"

A few days riding an eagle, and it's game over. Boring story, to be sure, but, considering considering all the wasted effort, I reckon everyone involved (including Sauron) would've preferred it.

Yeah, the eagle totally won't murder the hobbit for the Ring.
And Sauron totally doesn't control Mordor's weather or have hell-hawks.

I love this plan! I'm excited about its chances!

Yeah, the eagle totally won't murder the hobbit for the Ring.
And Sauron totally doesn't control Mordor's weather or have hell-hawks.

Then send Gandalf along with Frodo to take care of these piddling obstacles. Sheesh.

Hell, can't Gandalf just make Frodo, the giant eagle, and himself invisible so they can just fly there? Seems like it would be easier.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Yeah, the eagle totally won't murder the hobbit for the Ring.
And Sauron totally doesn't control Mordor's weather or have hell-hawks.

I love this plan! I'm excited about its chances!

Hmm. For some reason random hobbits, dogs, elves of all sorts, humans all over the place, and some dwarves and horses managed to spend entire fucking days not murdering people for the ring.

I'm sure that if Gandalf can walk all the way to fucking Moria with Frodo without murder, he could ride the eagles with him all the way mordor in a couple days, and I'm sure the Eagles will go entire two days without going insane for an item they can't even pick up.

And no, Mordor doesn't have fucking hell-hawks, as evidenced by the part where the Eagles flew into fucking mordor no problem.

See, that's what gets me about a lot of games that deal with superpowers.

Obviously, goals have obstacles. And part of the heroism is overcoming these obstacles. But sometimes the story wants the obstacles to be solved in a specific way so they stack an obstacle on top of that.

Which would be fine, if it wasn't for the story deciding that after stacking an obstacle on top of another obstacle then the protagonists/players will suddenly start going the path they wanted to.

Kaelik wrote:Hmm. For some reason random hobbits, dogs, elves of all sorts, humans all over the place, and some dwarves and horses managed to spend entire fucking days not murdering people for the ring.

The closer you get, the stronger the compulsion is.

Kaelik wrote:And no, Mordor doesn't have fucking hell-hawks, as evidenced by the part where the Eagles flew into fucking mordor no problem.

They're more commonly called Fell Beasts, and the Nazgul ride around on them. Remember them now?

The eagles flew into Mordor 'no problem' only after the Nazgul forced their steeds to disengage from fighting them.

edit: I notice you don't address the issue of weather control in any way.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The closer you get, the stronger the compulsion is.

No. The more it matters to the plot, the stronger the compulsion. The Original Plan involved fucking Gandalf walking right into damn Mordor next to Frodo, along with the rest of the fellowship.

The Plot has less time to be an asshole if you fly in and drop it.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:They're more commonly called Fell Beasts, and the Nazgul ride around on them. Remember them now?

A Fell beast is not a hell hawk you fucker. Remember how the good guys had over a billion planetars? By over a billion, I mean one, and by Planetars, I mean Gandalf with his powers stripped.

You don't get to redefine shit.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The eagles flew into Mordor 'no problem' only after the Nazgul forced their steeds to disengage from fighting them.

No, the Eagles started flying in without ever engaging the Fell Beasts, or which there were like 4 you ever see ever. Maybe there were nine of them total. It still has nothing to do with the Eagle Army fucking them up.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:edit: I notice you don't address the issue of weather control in any way.

Yeah, I generally ignore senseless bullshit. While we are at it, I'm sure Gandalf had the power to teleport.

There's also the plot forcefield to contend with - one does not simply walk, double-jump, power-slide, multi-track drift, get to ze choppah, e-mail, bittorrent, hide inside a cardboard box, Walken, haxx, bomb, snowboard, wok, cowbell, /join, crash land, Rickroll or Segway into mordor.

Kaelik wrote:No. The more it matters to the plot, the stronger the compulsion. The Original Plan involved fucking Gandalf walking right into damn Mordor next to Frodo, along with the rest of the fellowship.

It's made clear that Gandalf had no specific plan past Lorien. Also, neither Aragorn nor Boromir originally intended to go to Mordor, they were going to Gondor, it was just the same journey for a long way. I know you hate to read, but seriously, man.

Kaelik wrote:A Fell beast is not a hell hawk you fucker. Remember how the good guys had over a billion planetars? By over a billion, I mean one, and by Planetars, I mean Gandalf with his powers stripped.

You don't get to redefine shit.

It's not a redefinition, it's one of the two names actually used for the same creatures in the book. Some people call them one name, some people call them the other, I use the one I prefer because it's more descriptive.

Kaelik wrote:No, the Eagles started flying in without ever engaging the Fell Beasts, or which there were like 4 you ever see ever. Maybe there were nine of them total. It still has nothing to do with the Eagle Army fucking them up.

Okay, seriously? WTF, read the text. It's seriously right there in black and white. The battle of the Morannon begins, the Nazgul show up to participate, the eagles show up and engage the Nazgul, Frodo is revealed at Mount Doom, the Nazul disengage. The eagles don't even follow until after the Ring is destroyed.

And we see the hell-hawks nine at a time.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Yeah, I generally ignore senseless bullshit. While we are at it, I'm sure Gandalf had the power to teleport.

Again, read the text. It's right there. We're told he controls the storms of the Mountains of Shadow, and he really does send a super-dense cloud to block out the sun.


So, yeah. You don't actually know what you're talking about at all, and I don't know why I'm even reading what you write on the subject. I'll stop doing that now.

Koumei wrote:There's also the plot forcefield to contend with - one does not simply walk, double-jump, power-slide, multi-track drift, get to ze choppah, e-mail, bittorrent, hide inside a cardboard box, Walken, haxx, bomb, snowboard, wok, cowbell, /join, crash land, Rickroll or Segway into mordor.

We need more emoticons on this forum for situations like this.

Like this one:

or this one:

Sigged.

Koumei wrote:There's also the plot forcefield to contend with - one does not simply walk, double-jump, power-slide, multi-track drift, get to ze choppah, e-mail, bittorrent, hide inside a cardboard box, Walken, haxx, bomb, snowboard, wok, cowbell, /join, crash land, Rickroll or Segway into mordor.

Thanks now I have this image of Gandalf yelling
"We need more cowbell!"

About LotR derailment: they managed to get the Ring to Mount Doom once before, at the end of Second Age and after removing it from whatever remained of Sauron's defeated ass. Remember how things ended then? The main problem was in the overwhelming self-protective compulsion of the Ring from the beginning, and Gandalf fucking says it out loud and repeatedly.
Also, no, they didn't have people with mountain-shattering power around anymore.

As about DnD 3.X: one of is core flaws is the fact that the game does not admit explicitly how steep and how high its power curve is. 4E tiers would have been actually very useful in 3.X, just to give players and designers a general ideas of abilities, challenges and plots fit for each tier. We got all those heaps of trash prestige classes with piddly abilities precisely because the designers were all too often balancing them against standards of abilties and challenges fit only for low fantasy. Casters avoided this fate, due to inheriting lots of awesomeness from older editions, and thus having their standard set higher from the beginning, but physical characters require narrow and/or complicated builds to remain competent.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:It's made clear that Gandalf had no specific plan past Lorien. Also, neither Aragorn nor Boromir originally intended to go to Mordor, they were going to Gondor, it was just the same journey for a long way.

"Oh hey guys! Only a small group can sneak into Mordor. But yeah, I have no intention of the Fellowship going into Mordor. I'm just telling you guys not to send some elves with us because I'm worried about goblins noticing us!"

Yeah no. Boromir wanted to go to Gondor. Everyone was convinced to go to Mordor and ring that shit. The reason a small group was suggested was because they couldn't bring an army into mordor, not because they couldn't bring an army to fucking Gondor.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I know you hate to read, but seriously, man.

Shove it up your ass and burn off fucker.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:It's not a redefinition, it's one of the two names actually used for the same creatures in the book. Some people call them one name, some people call them the other, I use the one I prefer because it's more descriptive.

Hell hawk is never used by fucking anyone, and it's less descriptive because it implies a mother fucking hawk, which it's not.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Okay, seriously? WTF, read the text. It's seriously right there in black and white. The battle of the Morannon begins, the Nazgul show up to participate, the eagles show up and engage the Nazgul, Frodo is revealed at Mount Doom, the Nazul disengage. The eagles don't even follow until after the Ring is destroyed.

The Eagles weren't even there at first. The Nazgul were sent to fight the physical human army. The Battle of Morannon does nothing at all to show that the Fell Beasts are: 1) capable of winning against an Eagle Army. 2) Would have been sent against some Eagles flying into Mordor. 3) more than eight. (Technically, not even really evidence that there are eight, just that some Nazgul were there.)

angelfromanotherpin wrote:And we see the hell-hawks nine at a time.

We see them eight at a time maybe in Morannon. But there is no reason to think it's actually eight, since there is no clear mention of it being eight, or all the remaining.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Again, read the text. It's right there. We're told he controls the storms of the Mountains of Shadow, and he really does send a super-dense cloud to block out the sun.

We are told that he can make smoke from a forge. That is not weather control. That's making smoke from a damn forge. I don't claim I have fucking weather control because I can light a fire and feed it shit.

And even if he could control the Storms of the Mountains of Shadow, which is not really said anywhere, it would have no bearing, since he would literally have a 15 second period to decide that he really hates eagles as some eagles fly in. And if he does decide he hates them, and he has instantaneous control, he can make it fucking windy, unless they fly higher or something, which the demonstrated they can do when they flew above the stupid smoke clouds.

Making smoke != weather control.

Of course, all that is exactly why Lord of the Rings is inappropriate for most swatches of D&D play.

It relies on a bunch of contrivances that don't do anything but extend the length of the running time. And that's fine, people find the padding interesting, but when I am actually playing in a game there's only so much I can put up with 'sorry, can't bring horses' or 'sorry, this path is covered with huge amounts of snow' or 'sorry, elves own this forest and they don't like intruders'.

It's not even as if these obstacles lead to an amusing diversion like fighting snow yetis or taking on the Elven Imperial guard, they're just excuses to force the plot the way the author wants. DM of the Rings should be plenty of evidence why this is a bad idea.

Koumei wrote:RC2: I instead propose the high powered awesome one be called D&D, and your one be called "Oh god not another LotR game".

Well that's not a good idea, for the following reason. D&D is generally the introductory RPG game for people. Like it or not, if you start playing RPGs, it's probably with D&D. And to get people into the hobby, it's a good idea to have the introductory game be pretty simple and something people can relate to. Everyone can generally relate to LotR and Conan style action, and the rules for that can be simple enough that everyone can use them. So low level D&D is the place for the casual player and beginner.

For the high powered game, you're tailoring not to a newbie anymore, but to experienced players who have already mastered the newbie edition. You can't just throw a newbie into that, because he's going to be overwhelmed. Imagine if your first time playing D&D involved playing a 12th level wizard. I mean fuck, that's going to blow most people's minds. People move to high power play after they get sick of low level play. But that means that they have some experience at basic levels.

But as we know D&D, is basically the brand name that gets most newbies into the game. And the majority of D&D is low level adventures. If D&D eliminated its low level portion and became a complex high level game, then it would really be a blow to RPGs in general, because it would repel newbies who try it.

Where as experienced players generally will research and look at other RPGs and don't just buy because of brand name, people just getting into the hobby do. Even nongamers have heard of Dungeons and Dragons.

I mean like it or not, numbers dictate that the Dungeons & Dragons name stays with the low level style rather than the high level. Honestly I don't really see what's wrong with moving the high power game to a different name. You can even put advertisements for it in the core D&D books. "Sick of playing an elf and looking to play Dragons and deities as your PC? Buy Planes and Primordials today!"

That's only going to help the hobby. You really want to teach people to swim first before you go throwing them out into the deep end.

On the LotR Debate: LotR is a pretty horrible plot. When I talk about copying it, I mean the low magic, sword & sorcery feel to it, not the hole ridden plot. And yeah, I'm aware the Silmarillon had crazy ass mythic shit, but nobody really reads or cares about the Silmarillon because it's just some awful horrible writing.

Mask_De_H wrote: That being said, the biggest problem with D&D is that it is not complicit with the players that this is happening. You get people who want to be Awesome McBadass from level 1 and people who think hitting the thing with the other thing will take them into D&D Joke Book material playing at the wrong ends of the spectrum. If you're in the wrong quadrant for the game you want to play, then the whole thing turns to shit.

Honestly this is a good reason for making two separate RPGs. One for high magic fantasy and the other for classic sword and Sorcery.

Most people really don't want to play both where peasant warriors turn into demigods over 10 levels. In fact, most people are unhappily surprised when the power level of the game runs wild, leading them to go through tons of crap like E6 to control it.

The two games need practically different worlds. Contrary to what Frank is saying, high magic and low magic do not mix. Like at all. They tried to do it with Forgotten Realms and all manner of D&D worlds. It just doesn't work. If you're trying to run medieval Europe (aka Middle Earth), Elminster and Manshoon shouldn't exist. If one of them did exist, it would basically mean an apocalypse for the world. It's why in LotR all the uber stuff is pretty much gone from the world. Yeah Sauron was a total mountain smashing badass when he was corporeal and had the ring. But he's not corporeal anymore and now the most you have are the Nazgul.

Even The Hobbit had a big-ass dragon.

RC2: at first I disliked that idea because it meant too many people would just be content with the shite version and the only way I'd be able to game is by bullying someone into running a game just for me on Elliquiy.

Then it occurred to me that this is largely how it already works (particularly thanks to the dumbfucks who flocked to 4E and PF), and that anyone who plays those games is someone I don't want to game with. Indeed, saying "This is shit, where's the good stuff?" and seeking out Awesome Edition would be the first test that one must pass in order for me to game with them. And given my general dislike of people, a screening process can only be a good thing.

Koumei wrote:Even The Hobbit had a big-ass dragon.

RC2: at first I disliked that idea because it meant too many people would just be content with the shite version and the only way I'd be able to game is by bullying someone into running a game just for me on Elliquiy.

Then it occurred to me that this is largely how it already works (particularly thanks to the dumbfucks who flocked to 4E and PF), and that anyone who plays those games is someone I don't want to game with. Indeed, saying "This is shit, where's the good stuff?" and seeking out Awesome Edition would be the first test that one must pass in order for me to game with them. And given my general dislike of people, a screening process can only be a good thing.

You know, it's a shame about that whole lesbian thing.

I like how the eagles carried Bilbo and the ring around all over hell and gone and didn't even fucking notice.

-Username17

Koumei wrote: RC2: at first I disliked that idea because it meant too many people would just be content with the shite version and the only way I'd be able to game is by bullying someone into running a game just for me on Elliquiy.

Then it occurred to me that this is largely how it already works (particularly thanks to the dumbfucks who flocked to 4E and PF), and that anyone who plays those games is someone I don't want to game with. Indeed, saying "This is shit, where's the good stuff?" and seeking out Awesome Edition would be the first test that one must pass in order for me to game with them. And given my general dislike of people, a screening process can only be a good thing.

I'd actually be excited to play the Awesome edition, just because finally you'd have a game that isn't corrupted by the LotR/wargame cross pollenation which ends up screwing everything up. Half the problem that makes high level D&D unplayable is that the world is still stuck in medieval Europe, and so the moment someone gets flight, they're basically a god, because every monster is a slow groundbased brute with an axe. In awesome edition, you'd just have the creatures being able to do Hulk style leaps that can reach flying creatures.

And maybe we'd finally be able to have a high magic fantasy warrior who doesn't suck once everyone agrees that they're basing this guy more on Hercules instead of Aragorn or Conan.

I'm really surprised actually with all the bullshit d20 products they produced that they didn't try this split. I mean if you're going to make D20 modern, d20 future, d20 Call of Cthulhu and tons of other d20 crap, I don't know why they didn't just start out by forking the D&D product line. Hell, they could even use D&D and AD&D brand names. 4E can be regular D&D, because it's basic as hell, and the high level edition could be AD&D, because it's way more advanced and crazy.

FrankTrollman wrote:I like how the eagles carried Bilbo and the ring around all over hell and gone and didn't even fucking notice.

Yeah, it seems like: so long as they don't see the ring, it can't really do anything to anyone. If Frodo carried the ring around in his pocket instead of that chain around his neck and they never displayed it at the Council of Elrond, it probably wouldn't have corrupted Boromir.

Not to mention, Sauron couldn't even detect the thing unless someone was wearing it. And it's corruptive influence went down as you went away from Mt.Doom. So I don't really know why they didn't just send Frodo on one of the boats with the elves who were leaving Middle Earth, and then just drop it in the middle of the ocean. Good luck finding it there.

I mean, for a guy who spent all that time developing an actual language for Elvish and a bunch of legends and songs for Middle Earth, you'd think that he'd actually bother to think up a concrete plotline, or at least explain why these plans wouldn't work. About all I can think of is that destroying the ring fucks up Mordor pretty good (at least it did in the movie), so maybe they wanted the enchanted nuke effect to destroy the orcs (who were actually the ones killing people).

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Of course, all that is exactly why Lord of the Rings is inappropriate for most swatches of D&D play.

No, all this is exactly why Lord of the Rings is an inappropriate example on an RPG messageboard. Everyone either gives it head or pisses on it.

Draco_Argentum wrote:
No, all this is exactly why Lord of the Rings is an inappropriate example on an RPG messageboard. Everyone either gives it head or pisses on it.

Sorry, Draco, you don't get to lazy your way to a conclusion just because you invoked the Golden Means fallacy.

Regardless, anyone who even just takes a glance at the D&D rules knows that the game borrows more from Lord of the Rings than any other source. I mean, seriously, Halfing/Elf/Orc/Dwarf/Troll. With D&D's depth of LotR-borrowing it is completely appropriate--even mandatory--to analyze just how much gaming philosophy from that story got into the game it's based off of.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:I'd actually be excited to play the Awesome edition...

I'm really surprised actually with all the bullshit d20 products they produced that they didn't try this split. I mean if you're going to make D20 modern, d20 future, d20 Call of Cthulhu and tons of other d20 crap, I don't know why they didn't just start out by forking the D&D product line. Hell, they could even use D&D and AD&D brand names. 4E can be regular D&D, because it's basic as hell, and the high level edition could be AD&D, because it's way more advanced and crazy.

I'm really tempted to start calling the Tomes "d20 awesome."