Best Version of DnD?

[Jokemeister]

1 hour ago, BlazingTornado said:

Eh, you know what, I like the movie. It's a good guilty pleasure.

 

And it kinda FEELS like a D&D game come to the screen. A DM that can't flesh out villains beyond "gloriously hammy" and makes other NPCs little more than cardboard cutouts... Players who think they're playing clever characters but they're really not... And homebrew settings elements that only seem clever to the DM.

Hell even the thieves guild deathtrap looks like something someone came up with after binging Indiana Jones movies.

 

Short of The Gamers 1 and 2, it's about as D&D as a movie can get.

 

[Club]

I know (Knew?) a guy who says D&D movie 2 was better (Low Bar), and 3 is pretty good. I've seen neither, but I'll pass on his recommendation

 

If you're looking for D&D game sessions on disk, the Slayers anime fits that; possibly too well, at times.

[BlazingTornado]

I've seen both. They're.... better I guess in terms of adhering to the default D&D lore?

 

2nd one I would basically compare to Hawk The Slayer except not as enjoyable.

3rd one is a "paladin infiltrates evil party", and... Eh. It's forgettable.

[etherial]

2 hours ago, Club said:

I know (Knew?) a guy who says D&D movie 2 was better (Low Bar), and 3 is pretty good. I've seen neither, but I'll pass on his recommendation

 

If you're looking for D&D game sessions on disk, the Slayers anime fits that; possibly too well, at times.

The second one was definitely written by people familiar with the source material. All of the characters are introduced as if by the players, and the whole thing goes to broccoli as soon as the Cleric dies.

[Sophie was taken]

7 hours ago, Club said:

I know (Knew?) a guy who says D&D movie 2 was better (Low Bar), and 3 is pretty good. I've seen neither, but I'll pass on his recommendation

 

If you're looking for D&D game sessions on disk, the Slayers anime fits that; possibly too well, at times.

At least one of the sequels is set in a 1e world, where they name drop (I think) White Plume Mountain or the Barrier Peaks and a couple other references. It isn't much, but they at least gave the barest of effort to make it D&D the next time around.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Sophie was taken

[BlazingTornado]

That's the second one, Wrath of the Dragon God.

 

Although it's not set in Greyhawk proper as it's a "100 years later" sequel to the first film... they're just references for those in the know.

[TheAuldGrump]

Midnight Chronicles - based on the D20 setting by Fantasy Flight Games -

 

Think Lord of the Rings, if Sauron Won.

 

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

The party is split in three - one, two, and three in the groups, they are in a dungeon with rotating sections - and someone, other than the party, got those sections to rotate. (And is now hunting the group that has only two members - why she pulled the lever in the first place.)

 

Molly is the one that is all on her own - she has the ability to Dimension Door forty feet total in the course of a day, from a shadowy area to another shadowy area.

 

She doesn't need to see where she is moving to, but she needs to know it is there.

 

Next week... I suspect that we will find out what's more fun than a raging barbarian... A flying raging barbarian! (Against a flying monk.... Fun for the whole family!) Jon (the Barbarian), Megan (Alley Witch) and Jenny (cleric) are the group of three.

 

Mike (Magus) and Duncan are the party of two,

 

Julie (Bard) was not here this week - but we plopped her into the group of two (bringing it to three), for now - she can decide to be in the group of three instead, if she wants. (I want two groups with healing - Swashbuckler and Magus are both good on attack, but kind of soft when caught flat footed.)

 

The Auld Grump - the two big monsters in the dungeon are both Outsiders, so Jon's Totem will be very useful.

[BlazingTornado]

With two players absent I ran a one-shot... And I really wanted to do it freeform. No maps, no path, just a general idea of the encounters and the area and otherwise a lot of theater-of-the-mind.
 

Of course, they show up with a pair of wizards...

I give em a simple set-up, "you need to travel some distance but you know the roads aren't very safe, so you hire yourselves out to help some local guards escort some prisoners over to a magistrate, that way you're helping each other out if trouble arises and you get a decent payoff in the process". Gives em some meatshields for combat without me needing to throw in a DMPC to balance the stuff out.

 

But of course, their wizards are true neutrals, and despite my best efforts to get em to take some initiative and lead the charge, nope. True neutrals suck. They have no agency. So I have to set a path.

[DocPiske]

I do wish TN would be removed as an alignment. No-one is that committed to being not... anything.

 

I wonder sometimes if people who play TN characters even want to play the game, or just want to mess with the DM.

[Doug Sundseth]

There's nothing inherently about playing TN that requires the character to be boring. Just like there's nothing inherently about playing CN that requires the character to be amoral evil. 

 

The character I ran in the last campaign that we finished was TN, but that was because he was mostly interested in building his own power (and building a black wizard's tower, of course). In that case, he didn't much care about extraplanar meddling (or other people, as long as there wasn't something in it for him). He certainly didn't have any particular interested in maintaining some sort of universal balance. For him, TN was mostly, "Meh, whatever. Where's the profit?"

 

And he was a very good teammate, since there was something in it for him, and not just his share of the treasure. Helping out your teammates can have nothing whatever to do with altruism; good teams make good profits.

 

But then I'm not very interested in D&D alignment as a construct; I consider alignment to mostly be something that arises out of play, not something to guide play. I build the character's personality to take care of that.

[TheAuldGrump]

Don't blame the alignment - blame the players.

 

True neutral does not have to mean 'don't get involved' - it means 'what's in it for me?' - and sometimes 'not getting an orc's axe to the face' is the answer.

 

Quote

True Neutral

---

A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil-after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.

Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.

 

Neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion.

 

Neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just because it can represent apathy does not mean that it should.

 

Hell, I can think of a lot of fun to be had with a party of two neutral wizards. (Just because they wear pointy hats does not mean that they can't be scoundrels.)

 

The Auld Grump - I blame Gygax, with his BS that 'Only Druids can be True Neutral!1!!'

Edited October 1, 2017 by TheAuldGrump

[TheAuldGrump]

52 minutes ago, Doug Sundseth said:

There's nothing inherently about playing TN that requires the character to be boring. Just like there's nothing inherently about playing CN that requires the character to be amoral evil. 

 

The character I ran in the last campaign that we finished was TN, but that was because he was mostly interested in building his own power (and building a black wizard's tower, of course). In that case, he didn't much care about extraplanar meddling (or other people, as long as there wasn't something in it for him). He certainly didn't have any particular interested in maintaining some sort of universal balance. For him, TN was mostly, "Meh, whatever. Where's the profit?"

 

And he was a very good teammate, since there was something in it for him, and not just his share of the treasure. Helping out your teammates can have nothing whatever to do with altruism; good teams make good profits.

 

But then I'm not very interested in D&D alignment as a construct; I consider alignment to mostly be something that arises out of play, not something to guide play. I build the character's personality to take care of that.

Alignment is just a quick shortcut for the characters motivations.

 

One of the things that I do kind of agree with Gygax on is that the adventurers are not inherently part of the battle of Good vs. Evil - often they are just caught between the battle of Good vs. Evil.

 

The Auld Grump - there are a lot of things that Gygax said that affect me like nails on a chalkboard.....

[TheAuldGrump]

Gods, now I have an urge to play a paladin with the following code -

I shall be Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent

 

Maybe give him a deaf wolf-dog as a companion....

 

The Auld Grump

[Doug Sundseth]

51 minutes ago, TheAuldGrump said:

Gods, now I have an urge to play a paladin with the following code -

I shall be Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent

 

Maybe give him a deaf wolf-dog as a companion....

 

The Auld Grump

 

I've described the sort of paladin I'm actually willing to allow players to use in my games as the ideal of an Eagle Scout. Works pretty well with players who are scouts. And it turns out that now the only scout or former scout in my campaign that isn't an Eagle is me.