Too Exotic
There are A LOT of ridiculous weapons out there. You’ve got battle ladders, boxing glove arrows, buster swords, the Klingon Bat’leth, and pretty much everything that appears on this page. Of course, if you’ll just take a moment to quell your inner middle schooler, I think we can all admit that these things are a bit silly. If one of these weapons can provide even a slight mechanical bonus though, I’ll be the first in line to toss away my fathers’s heirloom rapier and go to town with a chainsaw lightsaber.
Beyond the question of weapons though, I think there’s a broader issue here of mixing genres. If you’re trying to run Tolkien style fantasy and Johnny the weaboo insists on bringing his katana, you’re well on the road to intraparty conflict. Sure you can just “reflavor” it as a long sword or whatever, but Johnny doesn’t want 1d8 damage and a good crit range. He wants to wield the best sword that the world has ever seen, thrice as sharp as European swords and capable of bisecting a knight wearing etc. etc. He has a fundamentally different view of what kind of game you’re playing, and the words “setting appropriate” don’t really enter in.
I make fun, but my taste runs closer to Johnny’s that I might like to admit. I dig the sci-fi/fantasy mashup that is Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. I like games with premises like Cthulhu Meets the Muppets! I even like the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach of Rifts. If you can let go of your internal censor and admit that yeah, maybe buster swords are a little bit cool, then it’s suddenly possible to enjoy ridiculous weapons and oddball plot additions as the OMG awesome things that they’re supposed to be. It may not be “serious world building,” but for my money it’s a whole lot of imaginary fun. And the best part? The other guy at the table gets to see his ideas included.
Question of the day then: Where do you come down on mixing genres? Are you willing to work ninjas into your old west game, or would you rather keep the different parts of Lego Land walled off?
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Ah, that comic. The post. So many memes, each one danker than the last.
When it comes to weapons and combat styles, I lean heavily towards the flashier side of things. As a Pathfinder player, I lean towards moving as far away from the “Tolkien Standard” as possible. I’m designing a gunslinger who’s primary means of attack is THROWING his knife-pistol at people, only expending bullets as a ‘special attack’ from time to time.
I’m a fan of the RWBY approach to combat when it comes to mid and higher level martials. Without adding flash and style to your combat, it’s easy to see your character as just a low-level warrior making the same old sword swings who happens to have higher mechanical numbers.
Truly, my references are out of control. Everyone knows that.
Ima need details on that gunslinger build. I’m imagining some swashbuckler levels for precise strike on the throwing damage…?
It’s not too complicated. Gunslinger 1 to get proficiency and basic Deeds. Then Fighter 5. Weapon Master archetype is the best bet, but not needed. Pick up the usual feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Rapid Reload. You also want Quick Draw, because you need that and Base Attack Bonus 6 for your key feat: Ricochet Toss, which allows you to “bounce” thrown weapons off of your enemy so they instantly return to your hand after each attack.
I would like to remind you that the Dagger-Pistol’s blade has the same stats as a dagger, including the throwing range.
Last but not least, Advanced Weapon Training (via feat or by modifying the Fighter’s Weapon Training feature) allows you to make the weapon’s 1d4 damage scale up as if you were an Inquisitor equal to your Fighter level.
Wow! Ricochet Toss is one heck of a build-around. Thanks for the tip!
It single handedly makes throwing weapons viable since you can have a single, expensive, enchanted weapon as game balance expects.
Upsate: the blade end of the pistol is not 100% rules-as-written the same as a dagger statwise. It’s a littlw vague. I’ve got a thread running on the Rules Questions section of the Paizo forums for clarification. Fingers crossed on this one.
I like both approaches so I guess for me it would depend on the setting.
If the campaign is an isolated area and the eastern armored drow won’t fit, then just save the character idea for another day.
On the other hand, if the RP is strong with this one, you could play a human who thinks he’s a drow… 😀
Here’s the question though: Who gets to decide what the setting is? Is it the system, which assumes a default setting like the Forgotten Realms or the Weird West? Does the GM get to say “this is what my world is like?” Or is it a collaborative thing between the players, the GM, and the setting book? And if that’s the case, what happens when that one guy really wants to include anthropomorphic vampire squid and the rest of the table hates the idea?
I would still have to default to “it depends”…
Magic can help with those character options too…
We recently adopted Spheres of Power, and I think everything you just said could be accomplished in it… At least in one way or an other.
Running off track here a bit, but have you used SoP yet?
What’s your take on it?
I remember the excitement of “holy crap I can make a Jedi!” when it came out, but I’ve never implemented the system in a real game. While I think you can do nearly any character concept in a system as big as Pathfinder, keeping them competitive from an optimization standpoint is always the hard part. SoP makes weird concepts a lot more viable, and that’s OK by me.
The GM.
I love my players and I value their input and feedback on everything, but that’s because I decide to let them influence the setting. Both they and I know that I have the final word on what goes in the setting and what doesn’t, and I’d have it no other way.
But
That sounds extremely selfish, but my reasoning comes down to one concrete example from personal experience. One time I let my group create a setting with almost no guidance from me. I wasn’t a huge fan, but stuck by my word and agreed to run them a campaign in it. That game lasted all of a whopping, rushed two sessions.
If the GM’s not interested, they’re not going to put the effort into the plot, NPC’s, descriptions, setting, encounters, puzzles, or anything else that makes up a good game. And in the end, as a player, I’d rather play a fantastic game in a mediocre setting than a poor game in a fantastic setting.
So to reiterate, it’s the GM’s decision. They can invite the players to participate in the world creation, but fundamentally they’re the ones putting in the most effort and thus they have the final word.
I’d love to hear your response to this!
-TMG
You’ll have to wait a few months. This is actually my thesis topic for an English MA, and I’m still in research mode.
My general idea is that collaboration is desirable, but that the ratio of who gets how much authority is dependent on the culture of the individual group. Primary (game system/module), secondary (GM), and tertiary authors (players), all have some effect the game world. However, I argue that the higher order authors should assume and anticipate input from authors further down the chain.
My single biggest influence on this topic is Jessica Hammer’s essay, “Agency and authority in role-playing texts.” If you want to delve further into this topic, I’d suggest you start there. 🙂
Hi I’ve been binge reading these comics and its cometaries. And I really enjoy the different points of view.
Have you published your thesis by now? I’d love to read your take on this.
Cheers, Churko! I’m flattered you’d want to see it.
I actually just published a shorter version of the thesis as a book chapter:
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/roleplaying-games-in-the-digital-age/
Parts of it will go into the PhD dissertation (my current project).
If you don’t want to shell out for the book, reach out to me with a DM through the Handbook’s FB or Twitter. I’ll be happy to send you a draft version.
In my experience typically either the GM, or sometimes the Publisher if you’re going that route. I know I’ve had a couple characters shut down because the GM’s world had no room for Elemental Outsiders, which meant I couldn’t do any of the Elemental-kin.
Personally I rather like the way Golarion does it, where just about any genre is possible depending on where you’re from. You may need to explain why a Samurai from the Far East just happens to be in not!Transylvania, but there are ways to explain it if you’re creative enough. Heck, my first character was a Kitsune in Varisia, and my explanation was an escapee from the Slave Trade.
Considering im currently a post-by-post roleplay where the setting is trans-universal (a pokemon can duke it out with vegeta while wielding a lightsaber and a particle rifle), id say i have very little limits on mixing stuff unless the setting is expressively calling for a more toned down theme 😛
Which pokemon are we talking about here? And do feats from the pokedex count? I mean, unless we’re allowed to accept that Machamp’s “four ruggedly developed arms can launch a flurry of 1,000 punches in just two seconds,” I think this is going to be a stomp for the prince of all saiyans, lightsaber rifle or no.
There’s no avoiding the mashup of genres in D&D type games. They already accept Monks as auto-included. Not to mention the monsters are literally grabbed from every mythology on the planet at random.
I really don’t mind this and how people want to play with it. I just want everyone to be consistent with whatever the GM has decided the setting is. Even if that’s medieval European/japanese in space rock and faerie dream powered submersibles where you fight krakens, were-nessy, dinosaurs, and mermaid pirates in aztec-inspired masks with six-shooters.
Did you ever see this setting book I worked on? I think you’d dig it. I worked on the continent dominated by a diesel punk goblin empire. I think we’ve literally got most of the stuff you mentioned.
What’s interesting to me is that you set up the GM as the ultimate authority: “I just want everyone to be consistent with whatever the GM has decided the setting is.” I think that includes the GM too though. For example, I strayed too far into setting weirdness myself recently. I told my players “musketeers but with dragons.” That bit worked out fine. The problem was that they also wound up fighting the giant floating head from Baron Munchausen, and that might have been a little much in a courtly intrigue game.
Yes, yes indeed. The GM is the most important person to have stick to the established setting. Otherwise you somehow have an unreliable narrator in a collaborative storytelling experience and… well unlike a novel that doesn’t really work much at all.
Unless that’s already something that was supposed to be part of the setting I suppose. That game would need serious effort to make work though.
For a short time I ran a game where the players were survivors of a starship crash. They had energy weapons, robots, and power armor, but very limited materials and power. The locals had just about gotten the hang of gunpowder, but also had magic, which none of the PCs thought was real. It was a very fun game while it lasted.
I think that style of game is about to be VERY in vogue: https://paizo.com/starfinder
I know I’m stoked for it. 🙂
If I’m writing a novel, I try to keep the world-building consistent. But if I ever GM a game, the players can bring whatever they want. If the setting is a Tolkien-like fantasy and one player wants to play a gunslinger, then I’ll just have them put in that the character is a foreigner. They get to play what they want and I don’t have to stretch suspension of disbelief.
As for my own characters, I actually hate having them all use the same weapons. I just don’t like it. It gave me fits when I was trying to figure out how to equip my twins, the Swashbuckler and the Rogue. I didn’t want both of them to use the same weapon and had to deal with both the Rogue’s meager weapon proficiency and the Swashbuckler’s class features. I finally gave the Rogue a Rapier and the Swashbuckler a Cutlass. The irony is that both weapons have the exact same damage and crit range, but I felt better that they were different weapons. With all my characters, I now have 3 that use a Rapier and I don’t like it. But there’s no way to change that as the Rogue can barely use anything else and the other two both have a level dip in Inspired Blade. So I have to deal with it.
You can always take a page out of the 5e playbook and use the power of re-flavoring. Who’s to say that your rapier isn’t a battleaxe or whatever, so long as the stats are identical?
lol
I wanted to give one of the twins a sword cane, but it just wouldn’t work out. Stupid proficiency and class features.