Flavour Vs. Game-mechanics

[The Jew]

i completely agree with your post Osprey. An important note though, in 3.5e the cost of magical skill bonuses have been significantly increase. a +10 item now costs 10,000 gp. The rule is, the bonus squared X 100 gp.

[Osprey]

i completely agree with your post Osprey. An important note though, in 3.5e the cost of magical skill bonuses have been significantly increase. a +10 item now costs 10,000 gp. The rule is, the bonus squared X 100 gp.

Well, thanks be for that! That definitely helps to mitigate this particular imbalnce. Glad to hear they've improved on that issue.

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Osprey" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2003 9:06 AM





> Skills, on the other hand, may reach epic (superhuman)

> proportions very early in the game, and that`s OK.



Skills operate on a scale that is flexible. Since the DM assigns DC`s what

constitutes superhuman is totally within his power to set. DC 40 jump could

mean an olyimpic jump to one DM and leaping tall buildings in a single bound

to another. Those DM`s who allow Player`s to start all their PC`s with

rogue, and have increased all the 2 skill ranks classes to 4 will probably

find my DC`s ridiculously low.



> In Birthright, however, we cannot directly translate D&D and still

> keep things balanced on the political level. Social interactions are a

> key aspect of politics, and skills in general are of primary importance.

> Imagine the modest 5th level general who acquires a 2000gp Crown

> of Command (a minor item in D&D terms) that adds +10 to his

> Warcraft checks. Suddenly he`s one of Anuire`s greatest field

> commanders



Part of this is the design flaw of Warcraft as a skill. Part of this is a

too generous approach of large skill bonuses which operate permenantly. I

prefer a good military commander to have to operate with four skills, not

one. Can you imagine a guilder getting away with guildcraft which allowed

him to use one skill for all activities? The more skills are required, the

more players have to choose what to be good at because they can`t be good at

everything. Even with a Crown of Command.



> Skills are extremely important in Birthright, and in order to keep

> balance I believe a reorganization of rule priorities, and especially

> these magically enhanced bonuses, must be taken into account to

> keep the Birthright world balanced.



I would prefer to see permenant magical items get re-adjusted as you

describe. I am less disturbed by one-shot items, since I think they have

their own built in limits. If a game required frequent skill checks in

compitition with other players then even a small bonus becomes a serious

advantage. The less often you check skills the larger a bonus has to be to

be meaningful. A +10 bonus makes sense if you roll a warcraft check once

per battle, and then get down to the real business of fighting. A +2/+2

bonus (like a feat granting +2 to tactics and +2 to command skills) when

those skills have to be used every time a captain makes a decision in battle

is just as valuable because its a constant application of advantage. I`d

rather see the +2/+2 Crown of Command for my own games than I would the +10

Crown.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[RaspK_FOG]

Considering the situation that is Birthright (low-magic campaign setting), it would be easy to further "increase" the cost of magic items.


That means that we could use the standards presented in DMG 3.5e (just check the prices; they are easy to figure out, but let me remind some of them:
Bonus on Skill checks: squared, by 100 gp (+5, +10, +15)
Bonus to Ability Score: squared, by 1.000 gp (+2, +4, +6)
Armour Enhancement: squared, by 1.000 gp (+1 to +5, virtual up to +10)
Bonus to Armour Class: squared, by 1.000 (bracers)/2.000 (ring) gp
Weapon Enhancement: squared, by 2.000 gp (+1 to +5, virtual up to +10)),
but we could be even dirtier ( ^_^ ) by using higher powers:


Instead of just squaring, then multiplying by 2.000 gp, we could assign a "square and multiply by 5.000 gp", or "cube and mutliply by 1.000 gp"...

[geeman]

I`ve been somewhat slow to respond to this one, so I beg everyone`s kind

indulgence.



At 12:18 AM 10/9/2003 +0200, RaspK_FOG wrote:



>I agree with your point of this thread being in need of a specification

>for what flavour is in contrast to campaign material. However, I have to

>disagree with your notion that the two are separate; in fact, campaign

>material encompasses both flavour and game-mechanics&#33;



I would differentiate between these terms a bit. Flavour text conveys

information about the personality, biases, culture, idiosyncrasies, etc. of

a situation in a way that is not directly related to game

mechanics. "Dervishes of the Hackenslash Wastes wield cruel, black weapons

with serrated blades" is flavour text that tells us these are not so nice

guys--or that they are regional sales representatives for the Ginsu

Corporation.



(What most people seem to mean by flavour text I usually call "colour

commentary" but I think there is even a smidge of a difference between

those two. Flavour text has more of a general, campaign meaning IMO, while

colour commentary is more directly related to individual characters. The

text at the beginning of each awnsheghlien description in BE:AoC is colour

commentary, while the Atlas of Cerilia would be better described as flavour

text. It`s not really a big difference--particular vs. general--but as

long as I`m being anal about defining terms I`d best point out the

distinction.)



Campaign material is information that conveys thematic material that has a

game mechanical effect. "Hackenslash dervishes wield scimitars, while

knights of the Bigbadguy Order wield longswords" is campaign material

because it tells us specific differences between humans of that type and of

another in the campaign.



Game mechanics are the actual gaming effects and stats. "Both scimitars

and longswords do 1d8 damage." There`s very little role-playing aspect of

that information.



From a game mechanical standpoint, there`s no reason to state that

characters wield scimitars or longswords. (In fact, since both do the same

damage in D&D there`s not all that much of a distinction anyway.) All we

really need know is that they do 1d8 damage. Usually games assign a damage

value to specific types of weapons, but several rules sets use an

abstracted damage system that doesn`t account for the types of weapons a

character might wield. It`s a game mechanical decision based on how the

designers want the rules to interact.



There are crossover elements to the concepts, of course. Certain aspects

of each term bleed into one another, but by and large there is a difference

between the three terms and how they might be employed. One major aspect

of flavour text or colour commentary is that they are usually wrong, or at

least they convey more information about personality, culture, attitude,

etc. than they convey about actual game mechanics. "Bob hates Joe" is

colour commentary. When it turns into "gnomes hate giants" it becomes

campaign material because it also accompanies a game mechanical

interpretation "and they gain a +2 on there attack rolls as a result of

this antipathy." "Joe is angry" vs "Joe can Rage."



If I were to boil this relationship down I suggest that colour commentary

is to role-playing what campaign material is to the game mechanics. It

gives us an indication of how we might play a character of a particular

race, culture, etc. while campaign material gives us an indication how

those things are going to be presented in the rules.



How does all this relate to BR? Well, if one can differentiate between

flavour and campaign material one can decide which need to be reflected in

game mechanics and which don`t. The most recent discussion that inspired

this definition of terms (whether dwarven roads are above ground or

subterranean) is IMO campaign material not flavour text and, therefore, we

need some sort of game mechanical way of reflecting that. Their roads

should cost more, take longer to build, should automatically be fortified,

etc. By defining it as colour commentary one assumes not only that it

needs no game mechanical presentation, but that it was intentionally

incorrect when written by the folks who put together the setting. It seems

pretty clearly not to be the latter, and because it is campaign material

rather than colour commentary it can have a more direct influence on the

rules, which is why it is important to make the distinction.



Gary

[RaspK_FOG]

All in all, Gary, that&#39;s what I meant with the overlapping state of Campaign Material: it has both Flavour (that distinct feeling of realism that lends verissimilititude to a Campaign Setting) and Game Mechanics integrated into it, making the important leap from the former to the latter. The problem is defining what is Flavour, and should be kept for the sake of touch and style and what should be changed, since the team followed the path to d20 (a move I appreciate).

One of the things I would comment is the Dwarven Traits: I find that giving a dwarf damage reduction which can be bypassed only by bludgeoning weapons is a good idea, but I have a variant to propose, that of giving them a small amount of Natural Armour Bonus. While this is compatible with the flavour of Cerilian Dwarves, it is very different from the way things are handled in the BRCS now; still, I see no disruption in the way it would affect campaign material. (Not a lot, to be exact, since there is difference&#33

[DanMcSorley]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003, RaspK_FOG wrote:

> One of the things I would comment is the Dwarven Traits: I find that

> giving a dwarf damage reduction which can be bypassed only by

> bludgeoning weapons is a good idea, but I have a variant to propose,

> that of giving them a small amount of Natural Armour Bonus. While this

> is compatible with the flavour of Cerilian Dwarves, it is very different

> from the way things are handled in the BRCS now; still, I see no

> disruption in the way it would affect campaign material. (Not a lot, to

> be exact, since there is difference&#33;)



This is a less-than-pointful variant. For one, the dwarves have

DR/slashing & piercing, it can be bypassed by those two types, not by

bludgeoning; this recreates the original 2nd edition rule of "dwarves take

half damage from blunt weapons" from the boxed set. Natural AC is both a

stronger ability (since most weapons are already sharp ones, DR versus

blunt ain`t that great), and doesn`t recreate the original intent of the

rule, which was that dwarves are physically dense, and blunt things hurt

them less.

--

Daniel McSorley

[RaspK_FOG]

OK, Daniel, it was a mistake of mine (wrote "bypassed" when I meant to write "applied to"). Anyway, the idea for the variant lies in the fact that density would also affect slashing weapons as much as bludgeoning, and piercing - only a little - as well. Natural armour is not really that great as the character advances in levels (see Savage Species for a synopsis on that). Now, to support my idea, I would like to ask you one thing: why would muscle then provide a natural armour bonus? Surely becasue of its density&#33; Now, if you would prefer to keep it to half damage, I would say it should apply to both bludgeoning and slashing (slashing weapons deal damage mainly by slicing or hacking through things, and density effectively reduces both such actions). Basing anything on the line of thought of: "It said so in AD&D 2e." is not much of a thing that should convince me.

[geeman]

At 11:02 PM 10/20/2003 +0200, RaspK_FOG wrote:



>The problem is defining what is Flavour, and should be kept for the sake

>of touch and style and what should be changed, since the team followed the

>path to d20 (a move I appreciate).



Do you mean what the term "flavour" means, or which parts of the original

materials is flavourful?



While it can be sometimes arguable which aspects of the original materials

are flavour and which are campaign material, more often than not flavour

text is off-set in the texts in quotes, italics, etc. so _usually_ one can

decipher which is which without too much difficulty. Unfortunately, the

original BR materials weren`t terribly carefully edited and the

writing/compilation methods were sometimes intentionally (sometimes

accidentally) blurred. I can think of a few things that read like campaign

material, but were really flavour that have caused some trouble in the past

("there are no more than six or seven score true mages") but generally if

one wants to stay true to the original materials recognizing which is which.



Gary

[teloft]

I see no need to tone the blood abilitys down, on the other hand, I think the blood migth sometimes show more power then I have seen in the discriptions.

I would like see something thet can corupt the purest of harts. and something so limber thet the regent migth liquify unwillingly.


As I see it, the human is of subtype Blodded, and blodded humans can have spell like abiletys just like LYCANTHROPES

where the bace animal type would be replaced with the type of blood you have.

then as with templets, you increas the Challenge Rating, and then there is the Level Adjustment, there you see, blodded characters have lower character level then others with the same Xp.

[I started this post to say: No need to incorperate anything, But ended at describing the blood ability as a Templet]

If blodd will be unformal Templet, then we can see blodded animals, monsters, and thus.