What Was Gygax Thinking?

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Arminius said:
I just want to note that this is different from the summary I gave earlier. Either I was mistaken (definitely possible) or HM 1e is different from 3e, which I think is what Rob is using.
Click to expand...
I am using a simplistic example, paraphrasing HM to illustrate the general concept rather than the actual specifics. Sorry for the confusion.
 
Voros said:
Here is the relevant section in the 1e DMG (page 110), in true Gygaxian block of text format.

"Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done"
Click to expand...

It's rather nice of Gygax to want to help his players avoid a visit of the Grim Reaper. But how can he be sure that they don't have it coming? It also gives new meaning to the whole Satanic panic thing. I mean, what kind af deals did Gygax have to make to accomplish this I wonder.
 
TristramEvans said:
As a counterpoint, the more crunch in combat, and likewise the longer it takes, the more you lose the corollary to the frenetic pace of combat in reality and with it the sense of urgency and tension. So the more the rules try to make combat realistic by modeling individual components, the more they lose the overall reality of how combat feels.
Click to expand...

I don't think so: Phoenix Command has super-detailed combat measured in half-seconds. This turns every fight into its own little Sam Peckinpah movie:

22:32

 
Last edited:
TristramEvans said:
you, uh, don't think Phenix Command combats take a long time to resolve?
Click to expand...

No, I just think the way it slows things down reminds me of Sam Peckinpah's slow-motion fight scenes. The tension, the frenzy can be built up before the blood spews all over.

Arminius said:
Key words above are “Sam Peckinpah”. ( Marshal Lucky Marshal Lucky forgot to set the clip to 22:50 or thereabouts.)
Click to expand...

That's right: I typed the wrong starting point. D'OH!
 
TristramEvans said:
Complete tangent, but curious if anyone here has ever used the "team combat results" approach of Jennifer Aniston's Forward to Fantasy Heartbreaker, where every character on each side makes their rolls, tallies the results, then compares them to the other side, and wounds/attritions are partitioned out to the losing side?
Click to expand...
Late to the party, but, yes, I've used it, because I've played Tunnels & Trolls extensively, and that's where that system comes from. Jennifer claimed in the intro to the book that "It came to him in a dream." And here, I thought I was the only one who dreamt of Tunnels & Trolls. I guess Jennifer felt like he had to obscure the origins of that because T&T wasn't OGL.

forward to copyipasting.png

And Forward...to Adventure! is fucking terrible. T&T had different design goals from D&D. It was a reaction to D&D. It was meant to be simpler. F... tA! Took T&T and added a bunch of shit from D&D that was intentionally left out or changed by Ken St. Andre. The result was less like mixing chocolate and peanut butter, and more like mixing pork chops and ice cream.
 
thebigh said:
More like mixing peanut butter and dishwashing detergent; anyone who's washed out an empty tub of peanut butter knows how revolting that smells.
Click to expand...

*shudder*

(once you've cleaned the physical residue out, filling the container with equal parts vinegar and water, and letting it sit for maybe half a day will usually do the trick)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top