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Jun. 3rd, 2008 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geebsOh, ha so "Nuke the Fridge" is the new "Jump the Shark"? As I said in my review of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I thought that scene was the most retarded part of the movie. Most people will tell you the main plot of the movie was the dumbest part (eh, I didn't mind it too much), but for me, its that scene. I'm sorry, but even my own suspension of disbelief will only go so far. (And I think I'm extremely accepting of ridiculousness in TV shows and movies!)
Its so dumb, I'm going to be a jerk and give spoilers. Seriously, hiding in a lead lined fridge to survive a nuke?! Hell, if he had hid in the fridge and they made it so he was like in a basement so as to avoid the blastwave and ignore how he got through the irradiated landscape back to civilization after the explosion without dying of radiation poisoning, I would've accepted that. But the frickin' NUCLEAR blast propelling the fridge to safety, where it skids and bounces to a halt on the desert floor and Indy comes out looking a little worse for wear but relatively unscathed? I would've chalked it up to the Grail, except a later scene shows that couldn't be the case. Owel.
Have been reading D&D 4th Edition. Some pretty interesting changes there. Heh, with the popularity of MMORPGs its no surprise that they're incorporating such elements into the game now. This is most evident in their division of the classes into one of four categories- defenders, strikers, leaders, and controllers. Forgive me if I use the following terms wrong, but since I'm not actually a WoW geek, I'm using stuff that has seeped into my encyclopedic brain via osmosis.
Defenders are obviously the equivalent of tanks- using high hit points and good defenses in order to hold aggro. (Though can you really do that on a tabletop RPG? The DM is not a computer!) Leaders (not to be confused with the actual party leader) are actually the healers, providing health and buffs and targetting specific enemies for the party to concentrate on (I assume with spells and abilities that give the rest of the party bonuses against said target?) Controllers do area of effect stuff and negative status effects on enemies. I guess they're doing the equivalent of area DPS? And finally, there's the strikers who do the single target high damage stuff, i.e. rogues and rangers.
See? In the old days, wizards did magic, fighters fought, clerics healed, and rogues snuck around. But the way they explain the roles is straight out of an MMORPG- the fighters hold aggro, stopping the enemy from reaching the more vulnerable players, while the magic user drops spells on the bad guys and the healer keeps everyone strong and healthy. Meanwhile, the rogue and ranger, by hook and by crook, get in devastating hits (either through sneak attack or sniper bow shots/two weapon double offense combat) on specific enemies while said foes are distracted by the fighter. Yeah, that's pretty much the way its always been, except in the case of the rogue. They've always had "backstab", but they didn't have to necessarily use it in a fight, they could just hang back and hide and let the others deal with the bad guys. But here, the rogue's role is more like that in MMORPGs, where its he (or she), not the main fighter, who's actually the biggest non-magical damage dealer. The fighter can hold his own against the big bad, but he's more defense (of the group) than offense, and its the rogues who are going to get in that devastating hit.
Another interesting change is the simplification of alignments- now there's only 5. Lawful good, good, evil, chaotic evil, and unaligned. I think that's actually a good change because the differences between some of the alignments were barely perceptible. Like between neutral and chaotic good? Chaotic neutral, I understood (you're just effin crazy!), but I always found lawful neutral and true neutral a bit esoteric (it means delicious!) I did see the differences between LE, NE, and CE though.
But the new system, unaligned is you're not exactly a bad guy, but neither are you going out of your way to help your fellows. Good is a step above that, where you're basically a nice and conscientious person. I would say the majority of "civilized" society sees themselves in these two groups. Lawful good folks are the ultra goody-goodies. Evil people are basically the pieces of crap who're out for themselves, not really caring who they hurt, and chaotic evil seem to be the sociopaths.
They also changed the starting races. You can no longer be a half-orc, but that's no big deal, because who wants to play those dumb uggos anyways? Its the equivalent of wanting to play a big, ugly, tard. I like the addition of draconics and tieflings as player races. And I'm not seeing the real diff between eladrin and elves. I guess there are no negative racial modifiers, only plusses, with the non-human races getting +2 to two specific attributes, and humans getting to apply a +2 to any one attribute.
That's one thing I miss, rolling attributes. Yeah, you could end up with something crappy, but if you had an especially generous GM who set the rolls up so you'd be rolling above average on everything, it was cool. The whole point building method guarantees you'll have good stats in your primary, but at the expense of one of the other stats. Like if you want to be really great physically, you'll end up being a dullard or socially inept. Okay, its not that bad, but it just doesn't seem as heroic to be really great at something but totally average at everything else. I mean, people can respect the athleticism of the star jock, or the brains of the valedictorian, or the beauty of the head cheerleader, but when someone has high ranks in more than just the physical, mental, or social, that's when people really start taking notice.
Owel, at least Exalted you get more points to apply than you do in NWoD. The way its set up, if you apply it evenly, you'll be average in one of the three sets (though one aspect will still be above average), above average in another, and a paragon in the third.
I've only gotten as far as the alignment and races, and just started on the classes, but one thing I did notice is that they're trying to create more consistency across the classes. Like for mages, rather than having various spells that work in different ways, attack spells are just like attacks (i.e. appropriate attribute + modifier vs enemy's defense stat), rather than having the enemy save against the effect.
But speaking of classes, the one thing I like about white-wolf's system is the classlessness, basically letting you pick and choose what you want. Like some of the traditional classes have extraneous stuff I have no interest in ever working on, so basically you have xp being wasted on stuff you never use. Like I could care less about the Ranger's spellcasting ability, I'd much prefer to get more stuff useful to fighting or sneaking.
HOWEVER, there's nothing like the feeling of levelling up. You get all this cool new stuff to play with at once. WW, you can purchase what you like once you get the points, but the way the xp costs are in both systems, you'll be getting something within the same amount of games, you just get more with a level (though again, it might be one cool thing and a lot of extraneous stuff).
Of course, in the WW systems, it seems to take forever to get enough xp to buy certain things, whereas you'll get increases across the board in a level-based system. Like 4th edition, it seems like your attributes will go up as you level up, but with the high xp costs in WW, you might never even get the chance to raise an attribute since there's so many other essentials to buy. Of course, WW is also based of 5s and 10s, whereas D&D is off 20s. So you might not need to get that high. Still, I'm closer to a roll-player than a role-player, so I do like seeing the various stats growing.
Then again, they talk about all this cool stuff happening at essence/mana/wyrd/potency 5, but whoever reaches that high? Its like why make that stat out of 10 when no one even approaches the halfway mark? Even the big movers and shakers are probably 6-7, with 9-10 being reserved for godly things. But godly things should never have stats because they're godly! One of my pet peeves is when people say they can kick the ass of some big good or bad statted out in the book. (which is why I'm against stating such things) Those are just suggestions! Unless the ST/DM is saying you're a worldshaker yourself, worldshakers should always be higher than the PCs! PCs should never be able to kick their ass. I'm not saying they can't defeat them, but such actions require great skill and perserverance and a whole lotta luck.
Its so dumb, I'm going to be a jerk and give spoilers. Seriously, hiding in a lead lined fridge to survive a nuke?! Hell, if he had hid in the fridge and they made it so he was like in a basement so as to avoid the blastwave and ignore how he got through the irradiated landscape back to civilization after the explosion without dying of radiation poisoning, I would've accepted that. But the frickin' NUCLEAR blast propelling the fridge to safety, where it skids and bounces to a halt on the desert floor and Indy comes out looking a little worse for wear but relatively unscathed? I would've chalked it up to the Grail, except a later scene shows that couldn't be the case. Owel.
Have been reading D&D 4th Edition. Some pretty interesting changes there. Heh, with the popularity of MMORPGs its no surprise that they're incorporating such elements into the game now. This is most evident in their division of the classes into one of four categories- defenders, strikers, leaders, and controllers. Forgive me if I use the following terms wrong, but since I'm not actually a WoW geek, I'm using stuff that has seeped into my encyclopedic brain via osmosis.
Defenders are obviously the equivalent of tanks- using high hit points and good defenses in order to hold aggro. (Though can you really do that on a tabletop RPG? The DM is not a computer!) Leaders (not to be confused with the actual party leader) are actually the healers, providing health and buffs and targetting specific enemies for the party to concentrate on (I assume with spells and abilities that give the rest of the party bonuses against said target?) Controllers do area of effect stuff and negative status effects on enemies. I guess they're doing the equivalent of area DPS? And finally, there's the strikers who do the single target high damage stuff, i.e. rogues and rangers.
See? In the old days, wizards did magic, fighters fought, clerics healed, and rogues snuck around. But the way they explain the roles is straight out of an MMORPG- the fighters hold aggro, stopping the enemy from reaching the more vulnerable players, while the magic user drops spells on the bad guys and the healer keeps everyone strong and healthy. Meanwhile, the rogue and ranger, by hook and by crook, get in devastating hits (either through sneak attack or sniper bow shots/two weapon double offense combat) on specific enemies while said foes are distracted by the fighter. Yeah, that's pretty much the way its always been, except in the case of the rogue. They've always had "backstab", but they didn't have to necessarily use it in a fight, they could just hang back and hide and let the others deal with the bad guys. But here, the rogue's role is more like that in MMORPGs, where its he (or she), not the main fighter, who's actually the biggest non-magical damage dealer. The fighter can hold his own against the big bad, but he's more defense (of the group) than offense, and its the rogues who are going to get in that devastating hit.
Another interesting change is the simplification of alignments- now there's only 5. Lawful good, good, evil, chaotic evil, and unaligned. I think that's actually a good change because the differences between some of the alignments were barely perceptible. Like between neutral and chaotic good? Chaotic neutral, I understood (you're just effin crazy!), but I always found lawful neutral and true neutral a bit esoteric (it means delicious!) I did see the differences between LE, NE, and CE though.
But the new system, unaligned is you're not exactly a bad guy, but neither are you going out of your way to help your fellows. Good is a step above that, where you're basically a nice and conscientious person. I would say the majority of "civilized" society sees themselves in these two groups. Lawful good folks are the ultra goody-goodies. Evil people are basically the pieces of crap who're out for themselves, not really caring who they hurt, and chaotic evil seem to be the sociopaths.
They also changed the starting races. You can no longer be a half-orc, but that's no big deal, because who wants to play those dumb uggos anyways? Its the equivalent of wanting to play a big, ugly, tard. I like the addition of draconics and tieflings as player races. And I'm not seeing the real diff between eladrin and elves. I guess there are no negative racial modifiers, only plusses, with the non-human races getting +2 to two specific attributes, and humans getting to apply a +2 to any one attribute.
That's one thing I miss, rolling attributes. Yeah, you could end up with something crappy, but if you had an especially generous GM who set the rolls up so you'd be rolling above average on everything, it was cool. The whole point building method guarantees you'll have good stats in your primary, but at the expense of one of the other stats. Like if you want to be really great physically, you'll end up being a dullard or socially inept. Okay, its not that bad, but it just doesn't seem as heroic to be really great at something but totally average at everything else. I mean, people can respect the athleticism of the star jock, or the brains of the valedictorian, or the beauty of the head cheerleader, but when someone has high ranks in more than just the physical, mental, or social, that's when people really start taking notice.
Owel, at least Exalted you get more points to apply than you do in NWoD. The way its set up, if you apply it evenly, you'll be average in one of the three sets (though one aspect will still be above average), above average in another, and a paragon in the third.
I've only gotten as far as the alignment and races, and just started on the classes, but one thing I did notice is that they're trying to create more consistency across the classes. Like for mages, rather than having various spells that work in different ways, attack spells are just like attacks (i.e. appropriate attribute + modifier vs enemy's defense stat), rather than having the enemy save against the effect.
But speaking of classes, the one thing I like about white-wolf's system is the classlessness, basically letting you pick and choose what you want. Like some of the traditional classes have extraneous stuff I have no interest in ever working on, so basically you have xp being wasted on stuff you never use. Like I could care less about the Ranger's spellcasting ability, I'd much prefer to get more stuff useful to fighting or sneaking.
HOWEVER, there's nothing like the feeling of levelling up. You get all this cool new stuff to play with at once. WW, you can purchase what you like once you get the points, but the way the xp costs are in both systems, you'll be getting something within the same amount of games, you just get more with a level (though again, it might be one cool thing and a lot of extraneous stuff).
Of course, in the WW systems, it seems to take forever to get enough xp to buy certain things, whereas you'll get increases across the board in a level-based system. Like 4th edition, it seems like your attributes will go up as you level up, but with the high xp costs in WW, you might never even get the chance to raise an attribute since there's so many other essentials to buy. Of course, WW is also based of 5s and 10s, whereas D&D is off 20s. So you might not need to get that high. Still, I'm closer to a roll-player than a role-player, so I do like seeing the various stats growing.
Then again, they talk about all this cool stuff happening at essence/mana/wyrd/potency 5, but whoever reaches that high? Its like why make that stat out of 10 when no one even approaches the halfway mark? Even the big movers and shakers are probably 6-7, with 9-10 being reserved for godly things. But godly things should never have stats because they're godly! One of my pet peeves is when people say they can kick the ass of some big good or bad statted out in the book. (which is why I'm against stating such things) Those are just suggestions! Unless the ST/DM is saying you're a worldshaker yourself, worldshakers should always be higher than the PCs! PCs should never be able to kick their ass. I'm not saying they can't defeat them, but such actions require great skill and perserverance and a whole lotta luck.
