Tale

I think the previous poster's example is bad, but he makes a valid point. If anything, an RPG should be rewarding the player for RP, not asking them to RP to make up for its own design failures.

I think we've broadened our discussion beyond combat XP.

Old thread. In the red corner, we have people who want to stick with the tradition of Infinity Engine games. Over in the blue corner, the wide eyed idealists who want fair XP distribution for all players regardless of playstyle. And apparently there's a few people who lept in and started painting another corner yellow advocating for learn-by-doing. Still have plenty of corners in this ring, it's not a triangle. So give your feedback. But I want a nice clean discussion, no low blows or personal attacks.

Welcome to the limit. New thread up.

Still reading Raising Steam. Honestly I'm a bit disappointed. It's not funny and it's dragging. The conflict is only really starting up about halfway into the book. But on the plus side is that it's charming and optimistic as hell. I also just found out that Peter Watts has some ebooks available on his website. http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm I've heard fantastic things about Blindsight.

That sounds like a does-not-follow issue. Just because the game spends more time on one thing does not mean it should reward that same thing extra. In fact, the argument could easily be turned right the other direction. Because the game spends so much time on something, it should reward the alternatives. Both arguments are just people trying to argue that their way of playing is better and the game should validate them. Vaguely equivalent rewards bypasses that nonsense. "Vaguely" is my way of being weaselly here. Extra resources, opportunity costs, I think a good designer can make a passionate argument for one path providing a boost over another. And I don't think people are going to count every XP point possible. But when we venture into territory where you need a thief to get all the trap/lock XP and you can murder all the Goblins for about double the XP even thought you made peace with the Ogre Mage for its own XP bonus, then that niggles. But it is only a trifle. I'm beginning to question whether it's worth it.

Having random people constantly adding me without any idea why, yeah, that would be great. I simply press "ignore" too... I check what groups or friends we have in common. If they're from here it should be someone. Otherwise I ignore them. I violated this rule recently and ended up getting messaged by a guy with a private profile telling me to add some other guy. I ask him who either of them are and then just get the same exact message copy-pasted back to me. That'll teach me to give people a chance.

Old Thread

That was fast. For those who might be unaware, we implement around a 500 post count limit for threads. So I'm going to close this one down and start up a new one. New Thread.

Finished Dragonfall. It was good and I'm sure I'll give the Director's Cut a playthrough when that launches. On to Baldur's Gate EE. Only reason I haven't played it through before now is because that Firebead bug it used to have. I'm really enjoying it.

I used to be the exact same way. The only thing that changed is it no longer tells people when I've done an edit. Which I have already done to this post.

I like this idea and agree. I've created two characters and I always start by saying "Ehh, just raise everything to 9. Oh, there's still tons more, raise it to 12. Great, still more. Just pump Might all the way up. Now I can finally get fiddly."

Old thread. Diverging from the Star Wars naming convention because I'm in denial that we've had six of these.

Past the 500 mark. New thread.

Past the 500 mark, I've started a new thread.

Old thread.

Because, generally speaking, people don't find that fun, but they just do it anyway. People will take the path of least resistance or the path of most reward even if it's not the one they want to take. It's just how they operate. It's why these games don't include level 1 spells that can one shot the final boss with no prep. Because everyone would use it and then complain about how easy it is. You don't see many people in these threads saying they actually really want to double dip to make huge XP minimal additional effort. The primary call for kill XP is that it gives them a constant sense of progression, it's a tradition, and it doesn't cause this issue where people don't get rewards for doing stuff. The double dip is largely seen as an acceptable drawback, not added fun.

That doesn't have to be universal kill XP. I agree with the premise. But it can be XP tied to that encounter as an objective. Really, my objection to kill XP is primarily focused on dungeons and quests. Places where there are clear objectives to accomplish that enable multiple approaches. Get to the 3rd floor, stop the goblins from attacking the town, recover the diamond tiara of Cthulhu. Each of these could have paths of stealth, dialogue, environment, combat, or probably a mix. Each of these should generate an XP reward that is comparable to the others, while disallowing the optimal path double dip where you complete it one way (by stealth), then complete it the other way (by combat), for increased reward. The only goal of this is to allow people to take a variety of approaches to challenges without seeing one as gigantically more beneficial than the rest. In that regard, challenges that only have one viable approach should still yield a reward. Which means if you find yourself stuck in a cave with shades and the only way out is to disincorporate their ectoplasm via stabbing, some XP to be gained would not be inappropriate.

New thread is up. This one has passed the 500 mark.

Big fan of objective XP, but always felt that should include finding things and optional encounters as objectives. Based on what you guys are saying, I can only hope it'll be in release, because it doesn't sound like it's in beta.

I've been told that there's two kinds of bad jobs. The run of the mill job everyone hates where you realize you're replaceable is the first. And then there's the truly terrible one, the job where you realize you aren't replaceable at all. Where it feels like if you took a day off, the entire thing would collapse into a heap. My boss is currently on his fourth vacation of the year while being behind on payroll for the employees. Three of those were vacations to Italy for friends and family. This time, he flew someone from Italy to here so he could show them around. Head meet desk. I need a new job.

I've long been on the "create original" bandwagon, but have found that the quickest way to be educated about something is to be vocally opposed to it. The obvious reasons to use Pathfinder is if Paizo is paying for it. Or if they wanted to catch some of the Pathfinder audience. Seems simple enough. But they could also really like Pathfinder. I know it's strange to think about operating within someone else's restrictions. But it happens all the time for artists who simply enamored with someone else's work and wish to get to play with it for a while.

Wall TVs is the only way I can see 4K getting justified.

Last night I had to double check that this wasn't one of those internet pranks like the hundred times someone claimed Morgan Freeman was dead. Great comedian and actor, he'll be missed. Some people are talking about the stuff he did and I heard good things about Bicentennial Man. Anyone here seen it?

Release order, if the two PC ones run on the crappy laptops I'm stuck with.