MTG Salvation

Hey, coffee people!

I was going to blow in and be all "hey, Magic losers!", but then I remembered it's been forever and a half since I've been in here, and I would probably get reported left and right, so I thought I had better err on the cautious side of things.

Anyway, how are things? This place doesn't look too terribly busy anymore.

Congratulations, Alacar, she's very cute. I'm glad to see you with someone closer to your own age, too, honestly.

While I'm in here, I may as well make an announcement of my own:

So, as some of you know, even though Josh and I will be celebrating our 6th anniversary this October, I'm not out to my family. Even after Mamelon came out last summer, we've stayed quiet about it, because it was just something I didn't see ending well- it would be one thing to come out on my own, but to come out and have to explain that I have been in a committed relationship (with talk of civil ceremonies and adoption no less) for almost 6 years would be really difficult.

Anyway, with all this talk of wanting to start a family, it has become something I have had to think a lot about lately- and in doing so, I started doing a lot of soul searching, a lot of reading, and Josh and I have been doing a lot of talking in general. We've put ourselves completely under the microscope and really evaluated our relationship during this time. I've done a ton of reading, and started to re-explore Christianity again, too- first as a means of helping to form an argument against Christian opponents to gay marriage, but over time I started to find that the only reason I had ever denounced the beliefs I had been raised with is because I was convinced my identity made me incompatible with them. I've found that isn't the case, and in doing so, I've decided that I can't say I believe in equality for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgender if I am hiding my relationship and indirectly saying "Yes, society, you are right about us, and we should be ashamed."

So, I bit the bullet, and came out to my family on Friday, and also told them about my relationship and about our life plans. It was scary and rough, but they took it better than I had ever expected. My dad, apparently, had figured it out years ago and really didn't care that much. My mom was suspicious, but still surprised, but all in all it went well. It's been a very liberating experience, and I feel as if I no longer have any reason now to not pursue my dreams. It will take my family some time to adjust, but for the most part now all those little blockades I had erected to protect my secrets are gone, so now I can move forward. It's been really... I don't know. Empowering. Anyway, time for me to disappear for a while and lurk. I should be around more, though, now that all that is off my chest and I'm not so preoccupied.

Quote from Boros

Hi! Do you guys mind if I join the Coffeehouse? For something about me... I am a Chicagoan, born and raised, with an intense love of cooking (and good tea).

Everyone is welcome here, but before they add you to the regulars list, they typically expect you to stick around for a short while and participate a bit. That said, even if you only stop by for a short while, feel free to join into a conversation or start your own.

What sort of tea do you like? I'm a lover of good tea, too. Do you like Lapsang Souchong by any chance?

Quote from Alacar Leoricar

Those concepts sound awesome, and all those possibilities by level 4? Sign me up already!

Well, for the most part. The stroke ability is possible, but it's not highly effective until later levels, at least not during my testing. Also, in order to have all of those options represented, you sort of have to focus a good deal early on- if you want to dabble in some other things, you may not have enough feat/power slots or stunt points to get ALL of that, but it's very possible to have a character that has some really esoteric abilities from very early game.

Quote from Alacar Leoricar

Mamelon: ______ was a once-honored devoted warrior of his/her kingdom. Now s/he is on the run, having been framed for the murder of his/her lord, and is determined to prove his/her innocence. (some sort of paladin/samurai warrior turned rogue-ish)

That one is actually pretty easy!

It's so easy to bleed concepts that you can basically merge any pre-existing class archetype by just dipping into the right power and feat trees, and you can always select to drop the parts of that role that are iconic that don't fit. She'll give you a better example, though.

Some concepts I've been able to flesh out with the system, just to show you how much you can do-

* A warrior who fights in heavy armor and wields only magical dancing weapons. He uses his telekinetic abilities to leap around the battlefield while orchestrating his dancing blades in accordance with his movements to become a devastating force.

* A witch who can control blood, using her abilities to heal wounds, remove toxins, and also to control emotions by influencing hormone levels in the blood. One of her most potent applications of her abilities is to cause careful and planned blockages of blood flow, causing her foes to go numb, lose mobility in their extremities, and even suffer from a stroke at her command.

* A thief and con man who uses illusion powers to emulate the appearances of legendary heroes and saints in order to bilk village folk out of their cash and prized belongings. He fights with special sharpshooting techniques and deceives his foes by screwing with their ability to perceive reality as he warps light, sound, and awareness around him defensively.

Keep in mind, it didn't take 30 levels and millions of gold worth of equipment to do it, either. All of these characters were possible by level 4 in their entirety, but much of their identities and functionality were solidified in the very first level.

Quote from wamyc

A few quick questions (which reveal some assumptions I think I'm incorrectly making about your system):

1) what's the basic mechanic restricting min-maxing problems and loading up on one thing in a classless system? I'm not saying there's an inherent problem with an open d20 system but I'm curious if you envisioned any systemic oversights to keep the players balanced. (like the standard way that the cost to raise something is X times Y, where X is the rank you're raising it to)

2) So it's settingless? I rember the game (Rise I beleive) being a renaissance ghost/gothic game.

3) And the game is a setting shell that gives players/DMs the tools to design feats/powers/whathaveyou or are there stock abilies in the game?

4) What does "thickety" mean?



I might pick it up. However, as much as I would like to, my list of must gets for video games keeps growing while my time to play does not. I now have to add Ninja Gaiden II, milon's secret castle, N64 paper mario, and dig dug to the list.

I can answer a few of these.

1. Character options in and of themselves are not really scaling for the most part, since they depend on your level bonus to your various attributes. You select an option once, and add further applications to an option as you progress. For an idea of how the power system really functions, a general idea can be gleaned from my d20 mod game Rise: Cogito, which uses a power system that is directly derived from the same source. A character can devote themselves entirely to doing one thing really well, and that's fine because the system doesn't scale- the numbers don't continue to climb higher and higher, it is just that the ability to perform tasks within the predetermined rules of an ability become easier as you focus, and you gain more flexible uses.

Much of the system is still based in feats, and in feat trees. Nothing really stops a character from focusing on "loading up", because that's a perfectly viable build choice for a character. Stunts themselves are purchased, but again, they don't scale. For example, a character with the Eldritch Power power can take a stunt for a small amount of stunt points to gain the Eldritch Blast power. If they wanted to, they could continue adding points to this to further develop that Eldritch Blast stunt. Does it make the Eldritch Blast more powerful? Marginally, yes, but it's always at cost. However, most of the increases to Eldritch Blast will give it other applications.

For example, a character of mine who is fairly focused on her Eldritch Blast has devised ways to use it in a lot of different ways- she can use it as a blast, as an area of effect, she can attach uses of other powers to it, she can make a blast with increased severity, she can make a blast that bypasses defense easier, and other uses. Each of these uses required point investments, and arguably her blast is more powerful than say, someone who also has the same Eldritch Blast but chose to pick up a bit of everything rather than being a specialist. However, at no point could I just throw a bunch of points into her blast and make it do huge amounts of damage, since much of what determines the damage output is based in level, anyway. While a specialized character has a lot of flexibility with one or two options, a non-specialized character has a lot of options in general, and the efficiency of both of these characters is determined primarily by the current level of the party, as opposed to by point expenditure.

I've been told it's very VERY hard to break True20 system, and having played it for over a year now, I'm very much inclined to agree. It just... doesn't have the same elements as D&D. I really can't explain why that is, it just seems to be the case. It's a very high powered system, but there never seems to be an issue with it. Since it's less gamist, game balance seems less important, and yet you never feel like you are just the Xander next to anyone else, because so much of the game is oriented around story telling and is as focused on social situations, problem solving, and skill challenges as it is on combat.

Another thing to remember that the only point-buy elements in the game are in regards to your ability scores (which follow the same conventions and rules as d20), and your stunts. Powers- which range from supernatural abilities to class feature like effects like sneak attack and rage and character qualities like super strength and healing factors and the like- are limited. You pick the power, it has a loose but set field of usage, and then everything else about it needs to be expanded with feats and stunts. However, these options don't just allow you to keep +1-ing the powers. For example, if you had Sneak Attack, you would increase the Sneak Attack rank in order to expand the damage slightly, but you could never go beyond your level's rank limit, so you couldn't just forgo all other options and have a character with a 0 in everything and a 20 in Sneak Attack. Furthermore, you could throw all your stunts into Sneak Attack and augment it with a lot of feats, but even then that just allows you to do more with it, such as sneak attacking constructs or being able to sneak attack with a blast or something to that effect. You can build a character well, but you can't really min-max by sacrificing a lot of crap and then throwing the excess into one really potent option.

I'm not sure if that entirely answers your question, but it's sort of hard to explain it just so. By classless, she doesn't mean you can be a character with full BAB and 9th level spells and full sneak attack and rogue skills and a handful of other useful abilities all at once, nor can you be a character who is a complete gimp but can cast 5th level spells from level 1. The system just doesn't work like that- not even so much in that those elements aren't even a part of the game (spellcasting works like skills, skill choices are determined by concept and background, and not arbitrarily by role, skills themselves are more flexible in their usage, attack power isn't a universal concept like in D&D, etc) but the game itself just has an entirely different milieu that doesn't promote power gaming and min-maxing very much. Min-maxing in True20/M20 is like min-maxing in a freeform textbased RPG, but the system still retains the structure of a very gamist system. It's a nice balance, in my opinion.

2. It is settingless. It's derived from True20, which is a settingless game. Rise was a game for a very setting specific system I was working on, which I later adapted to d20 (not True20 or M20) using specific m20 mechanics.

3. There are stock abilities, but ability design is relatively easy. That said, the GM has to be prudent when it comes to allowing player designed abilities. Because of this, player designed abilities tend to be a bit rarer for balance issues. Most characters won't have an entire set of self designed abilities, but will have a skeletal system of abilities taken from pre-existing material, and the rest is fleshed out with a mixture of flavor choices (many of the options are very flavor neutral), stunt point expenditures (which, in a lot of ways are like spending a character resource to open up meta-magic like effects for your various abilities), and a smattering of custom material.

That said, the power system is so very flexible you never feel like you are boxed in. Want to play a character who has just a general control over water? You blow a single power choice on Water Shaping, and then you can do just about anything you can imagine with water at will- blast people (which requires a cheap stunt), make mists, ice, or control currents (a simple Water Shaping check against a DC determined by difficulty lets you do this), or you can get really really specific and start doing things that are esoteric in their application, such as controlling plants and animals by manipulating the water in their cells (which may require a specific stunt, a feat choice, or a relatively high DC Water Shaping check, but regardless such an option is very possible with a single level's worth of "training"). As such, you feel very free to do what your character could reasonably do without having to justify every single thing with a mechanical ability. It's highly narrative in this fashion, and abuse factors are mitigated by the fact that general absurdity requires heavy dedication. For example, you could try and make a Water Shaper character that used their Water Shaping to do stupid degenerate things like bursting all the cells in a person's body and killing them at level 1, or smashing a person to death with a tsunami generated at will, but the GM would almost certainly set the DC of such a task so high as to make it impossible for someone who otherwise wasn't high enough in level or specialized enough to do so- and anything silly that could reasonably be explained can also be reasonably countered.

Certainly, someone coming at the game from a highly gamist viewpoint will probably start dreaming up ways of being abusive, but since the game is so narrative, there are always significant consequences for acting like a fool. The fact of the matter is that most abusive actions in a game involve heavy metagaming and acting out of character, and this system (and its base system) are just not designed with that in mind- and as such, the tone of the game discourages it pretty significantly.

4. I have no idea what thickety means.

The game is comparable to things like BESM, where the focus is more on creating top down characters. The point of the game is less about the paradigm of overcoming obstacles, and more about providing a framework for collaborative storytelling.

Anyway, I'm a little shocked to see all the departures. Some don't bother me because they are pretty understandable, but others seem a little ... well, I don't know. I guess my thinking on it is "would you go anywhere else on the site and then be upset if they were talking about the most recently released set in excess?" I have to admit that I'm also bored to tears by all the 4e talk, but it's not like anyone is making conversation about ANYTHING else at the moment, right? I can understand not wanting to talk about it, and I know that people tend to just talk over anything that doesn't pique their interest in here, though, so again... I don't know. I don't really get too concerned over MTGS business anyway, these days.

I am also tempted [strongly] to pick up "no more heroes" for the Wii. Any recomendations or warnings about the game?

Haha, that game is a trip. It's really hard to explain it, but I would recommend it. It's a good game, it's just incredibly bloody and as weird as all hell.

I haven't been playing much of anything lately, console, tabletop, or otherwise. Work has been really hectic lately, with lots of clients needing to see out of town specialists and other things. On top of that, I've been reading like crazy lately. I've undergone a lot of changes, I think, and it's been sort of complicated. I guess you could say I've been fairly self-involved, and lately all I really seem to do is read and do a lot of gay-related things. I've been feeling pretty empowered in my identity as a gay man, and been seeking out a lot of different perspectives on that in regards to sociology, politics, and religion- talking to all sorts of people about all sorts of things, trying to engage people of other viewpoints and break down the issues even further, getting involved in a lot of civil rights-ish sort of stuff. It's been an interesting time for me, but it's been helping me to sort of put my priorities straight and put my life in order, though, so I think it's important- but it hasn't left me a lot of free time or energy for other stuff. It's been a month since we last played 4e, and even longer for anything else. Sort of sad, really.

BUT, our FLGS just moved to a bigger place, and they are going to start doing weekly D&D games there. I'm considering running a game there, but I don't know if I have the time or patience!

Quote from Amadi

Technically, though, 4E will get a lot better when more sourcebooks for it emerge, and some of the problems are addressed. (For Example: Some weapons have: "All damage dealt by this weapon is fire damage.". Now, according to PHB weapon never deals damage - The weapon damage is added to the damage you deal with your attack. Therefore, that function of the weapon is useless, unless someone comes up with a way to animate it into an animated object.. Somehow.)

Amadi, I'm just gonna say it-

You're a numbskull. That's all.

2) still really wanting more from multiclassing. A taste is just not going to cut it, sorry. Maybe it will be better once I actually get to play. (also, I'm a little worried that any better muticlassing will cut into the awesomeness of the half elf's racial ability)

I would say being able to devote half of your power slots to your alternate class as being much more than "just a taste".

Also, multiclassing doesn't really cut into Dilettante, because Dilettante changes the functionality of the selected power pretty significantly by taking it from at-will down to encounter. Dilettante is also, for the record, considered one of the weakest racial features in the game thus far. Human is a much better multiclasser than half-elf, not that it is particularly amazing at it, either.

5) Why is this game obsessed with critical hits? They are really going to happen very infrequently it seems, like 5% of the time, and yet epic feats are all over them (like 80% of the epic feats are there to double your threat range with a particular weapon type) and so much of the magical items are devoted to kicking ass with critical hits.

Magic items aren't really devoted to critical hits, it's just that all magical weapons have extra utility when you score a critical hit. Very few magic weapons are actually oriented around critical hits specifically. I'm not sure why the critical hit was given such mechanical emphasis in epic, but when you consider a +6 weapon adds +6d6 or more to your already maxed damage with a critical, I can see why someone in epic would want to facilitate more frequent criticals.

6) Seriously, why did there have to be three strikers and only one controller in core? Would it have been that hard to have two classes for each role? And though I have not played the game, the powers do seem to be all over the place in terms of the class role. I see controller abilites in rangers and warlocks look kind of controllerish in places as well. And yet wizards don't seem to stand out all that much in terms of controlling.

The warlock was originally conceptualized to be a controller, but the powers put it strictly in striker territory. Fey warlock is still very much a controller, though.

All classes have a bit of potential to bleed into other territories. That should be fine, I don't think that all roles need to be strictly walled off into their respective classes at all times.

Also, since you have not played the game, I would withhold a lot of criticism on the power distribution until you actually see it, because how things look on paper are really very different from how they play out. Ranger is NOTHING if it is not a striker- in my experience and based on the experiences of others I have read, Ranger tends to be the most capable striker of the set, although Rogue has it beat for strict damage output most of the time. Both classes have some potential to control, but then again all classes have some potential to control. All classes have some potential to do everything, but each class focuses primarily on a certain role. A ranger or rogue may have a handful of powers on their list that could let them control a bit, but given the fact that you have far fewer slots than powers, you aren't likely to have more than 1 or 2 of such powers on the average character, unless you strictly focused on them.

Wizards, on the other hand, are ideal controllers. No one else handles big crowds like a Wizard, and so many Wizard powers have additional effects that lock down the crowd, and most of their powers lend themselves to controlling. They don't just have one or two that are control oriented, but rather have some way of handling the crowd or bogging down a foe at every level.

I should point out, also, that controller is widely considered to be the least vital of the roles. Couple this with the new attitude for non-symmetrical design, and suddenly only having one controller to start out makes more sense.

The nice thing about m20 is that you can build characters that are incredibly top-down in their concepts and still have them be very effective. m20 is much more gamist than say, the base True20 system, but it's also incredibly narrativist. You really can put together a character that is built entirely around a relatively obscure concept, instead of trying to build a character with available materials and then feeling frustrated when it doesn't quite fit. You can almost make any character from any fictional source and stat them up reasonably well.

Anyone playing FFIV DS, by the way?

So, it looks like Mike quit again- which means Social Security checks are due to be mailed again soon, right? I'll miss the shade of his bosom, and the comforting gravitational field they provided for us here.

Tonight was one of the best nights I've had since I've come to Japan. I have just come back from the theater, where I saw Gake no Ue no Ponyo on its opening night. Waaaaaaaah... I'm still giddy. It was such a great film, but just the fact that it was A) in a movie theater, B) in Japan and C) this was the movie's first debut in any format, made it an otaku's dream come true. I can cross one more off the "things to do before I die" list. Attend a Ghibli movie's opening night in a real theater with a Japanese audience, etc: Check.

How exciting for you! That must have been quite a rush. What was the basic premise of the movie?

you guys promise not to go nuts when we go @ it again in the future?

Do we promise not to go nuts if you return to your old milieu of spammy, self-addressing nonsense? I somehow don't see many people in here wanting to make that promise.

Photon: Apologies for the terminology. I find that there are very few actual words that anyone likes that can be applied to this area. And I'm going to stop saying any more before I go into a rant about political correctness.

It's not a huge deal, I'm just saying I would rather not have my relationship be identified with a term in which falseness is a part of the terminology. It has nothing to do with political correctness, and everything to do with a lack of legitimization that frankly, you yourself probably have never had to endure. You can avoid a controversial statement without having to trivialize. But it's not a huge deal- you harmlessly used a term, and I told you I would prefer that you not use that term, that's all.

I always hate when people cite statistics about gay relationships. There's more than a few warping factors in any conclusion about this subject. You'd find similar or higher records of violence or unfaithfulness in miscegenated households in the early 20th century; which doesn't mean that black and white people can't be happily married, it simply means that when a type of relationship is alternately marginalized, ostracized or criminalized, there's going to be certain repercussions within that social group.

You need to Google The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing the Myths. I found it to be an amazing parody of this sort of shoddy scholarship.

I won't go into too much detail, because this is a rant that might never see an end if I get going about taking demographic information out of context.

@Photon: Congratulations. If your family are a pile of *****es about it, disown them before they can disown you. That'll hit em where it hurts.

Right, because that's the mature and constructive thing to do. I can't see HOW being divisive couldn't help the community at large.

Quote from Omna15

I am also a little sickened by the oft-repeated sexual overtones in relationships...

You may not believe this, especially after the "and one of the twins wasn't even gay" story I told in that one chat, but I actually do, too. Sex is fun, but there are so many more important priorities in a relationship. Sex isn't there for you when things are hard, sex doesn't grow old with you, and sex with someone is a poor substitute for a honest relationship.

I mean... Ryan and I discussed this just last night, and it was really amazing, a great conversation, though it did remind me how differently we viewed sex... but at the same time, I am MUCH MUCH more conservative and aware than I used to be. Yes, I am human, yes, I get horny sometimes, but the sexual element (his guilt after anything happened, my pressuring him, both unintentionally and sometimes intentionally, things getting out of hand to the point where neither of us were clear on what the bleep either of us wanted) of Ryan's and my relationship truly scarred me and made me perceive sex as something that can truly mar and destroy a meaningful relationship.

I've had several friends swear off sex completely because of this.

But the main issue that still divides us is his perception of sex as being basically sinful before marriage, and I believe it can be a beautiful thing... YES, I do believe this is a difference, BUT there ALSO remains the fact that I have changed a LOT in this degree. I have perceived these things happening, I have witnessed the pain he endured, I have endured my own share of horrendous pain from this cursed thing called sex. Because of this, I am much more wary, and careful about the idea of having sex, and discussing it in general has become much more uncomfortable for me. I do enjoy debates in this area, such as explaining my perspective and how it has radically changed in the past two and a half years, but at the same time, casual talk about sex REALLY REALLY bothers me. Perceiving sex as something deadly serious now, has been life-changing. My relationship with Ryan was life-changing. I don't perceive sex as something that can just be thrown around anymore.. the last time Ryan and I did anything sexual it was beautiful, and there is no way I am going to mar that memory. At least until I meet someone especially special, and even then its going to take me a really long time. There are some cases where I rolled my eyes when Ryan would say something relating to his beliefs on this issue, but at the same time, I really finally do understand.

Sex is an activity that comes with a lot of responsibilities. Usually when people say this, they only mean in regards to health issues, but there is more to it than that. Whether we like it or not, sex is ingrained into our psyches and bodies, and not everyone can partake in something that is so powerfully woven into our genetic and psychological urges without risking emotional pain. No one should ever have sex before they are ready, and even if you are someone who enjoys casual sex, you have to be aware of what it signifies. You can't just dismiss it as nothing if the other party doesn't, because you are forming a powerful connection- admittedly, one that can be very limited in duration, but a powerful one at that. When that connection ends, there can be several repercussions.

Quote from Nai

No, I meant the whole thing about changing last names as a pseudo-marriage.

On a side note, talking about homosexual relationships: I realized, while on vacation, that it's -very- rare to see a 40s+ homosexual couple. The -reason- I realized this is because I saw two lesbian couples (trust me) who were well into their 40s if not 50s. It was... An odd experience.

social and filial pressures make it difficult to maintain a gay relationship at times, and so those who are from a less accepting time are just less likely to have been in lengthy lasting relationships that are comparable to the lengths of many heterosexual unions.

However, there are a lot of coupled gay people in this age bracket- in my experience, most committed gay couples are in this age group. Young gay couples like Josh and myself are a genuine oddity because so many gay men are not emotionally ready for a commitment at their age- they often are unclear on just who they are until they reach their early to mid-twenties, anyway, so a lasting relationship is usually just not something they can handle. They're trying to try on their sexuality in general, and usually have to do a lot of this soul-searching without the traditional guidance that a lot of people get from parents, family members, and clergy.

I'm guessing you've probably encountered more 40+ gay couples than you realize, it's just that they haven't been apparent in their relationship. I mean, even Josh and I are rarely intimate in public (partially just because of my personality), so someone from a less accepting generation will have that sort of "stealth" mentality pretty deeply ingrained into their behavior.

also, gay people are just less common. So naturally, you'll see fewer gay couples. We don't exactly dominate the population.

As a sidenote: I don't really like the term pseudo-marriage. We've been through more and have been together longer than many actual married couples, and are discussing child rearing and have a general sense of permanency. We may not have an official ceremony to commemorate our commitment, but that doesn't make it some sort of jury-rigged faux marriage, either.

@Photon: Congratulations to you and Josh. What a great thing to happen.

It hasn't happened yet, but we've decided we want it to happen. He's still feeling a bit odd about it- he feels like he's making me lose a part of my identity, but to be honest I'm thrilled about it.