(no subject)

[olivermoss]

* I've signed up for a 4-sesson D&D mini-campaign... because it takes place on a train. We need to bring level 9 characters, so I am attempting to multi-class. 6 levels of wizard - school of necromancy, and 3 in rogue. I do not know D&D or what it's terms mean very well. I want my nice clean GURPS tables darnnit.

D&D also has a big problem of look at all these choices! But if you want to be effective you only play this short list of builds. If you want to play Dwarf, this is your class and your sub-species and your archetype. Want to be be a rogue? Pick this race, this sub-species, this everything. Anything else, and you are playing a less effective character which effects the whole party.

I will roll with it, but my brain and the mechanics of D&D have never gotten along. Sadly, my system of choice got raided by the Secret Service and was dragged to federal court, so they lost market share due to the financial impacts and it isn't really played these days. (GURPS was never going to have the cultural impact of D&D, but every time I see a thinkpiece about 'why this other system fell off, clearly it must have been deeply flawed' I feel a thousand years old)

* I feel like every video essay or discussion of genre stuff just assumes knowledge of The Mummy (1999) staring Brendan Fraiser. Part of why I've never watched it was because I've seen to many clips, I feel like I've seen most of it. I've seen it discussed so much... I was waiting until like I'd forgotten a few details so I could watch the movie without them being in my head.

At this point I need to just see it. I didn't think before I clicked on the OSP holiday special, which this year was Mummy research, that of course it was just going to start talking about the movie assuming people were familiar with it.

* Before the end of the year, I want to get actually watching The Mummy out of the way, but also I want to watch Easy Rider and National Treasure. Easy Rider is directly responsible for limited access to the most historic cemetery in New Orleans, and one of the many stories I'd heard for the reason behind Nicolas Cage having a crypt there is that it's a National Treasure reference. I have seen National Treasure, but not in ages, I want to see if that tracks as the reason for the design.

* I also want to make a short list of books I will finish before the end of the year, but I am still working on that list. I also need to make posts about my planner stuff, hopefully soon because I have managed to get enough stuff off of my plate that I have at least 3 brain cells left.

* I am still working on becoming a properly accessorized D&D player. I ordered a dice tray off of Etsy and it was lost by the postal service for a month.

* My writing laptop dying means my November writing project is off to a slow start, but I am to be on track by the end of this week.

Comments

[prettyarbitrary]

Honestly the boosts you get from stat-maxing race and class combos are so minor it really doesn't matter. It's like, oooh, a +2 on two rolls. With the way I tend to roll nobody's ever going to notice that anyway.

You get a +1 bonus to Con for playing this race and that makes it a perfect match with Barbarian? Fuck that, I get a +1 to add to a stat every 4 levels anyway. I can play a Dwarf bard if I want to.

Build the character you want to see in the world. It's a lot more fun and in the end, having fun is how you win the game.

[olivermoss]

It's a group game, though, and if we wipe we wipe. Groups have TPK'd. People aren't serious about min-maxing, but a lot of archtypes was way weaker than others. I am really happy with my Necro/Rogue, but I'll always find D&D character creation very convoluted and weirdly limiting.

[mistressofmuses]

I am a big fan of The Mummy and The Mummy 2. (I finally just watched the third one this year and could take or leave it.) I realize my enjoyment is heavily influenced by nostalgia, but I enjoyed them on a rewatch, still.

The D&D games that I did play I tended to only do a few sessions due to scheduling conflicts (a common refrain, but the DMs tended to be great at helping me work in a character who would only be there temporarily on purpose). It didn't come up for me when I played, but I have heard that the way their builds work wind up being a lot less flexible than they sort of pretend. Like you said, certain races pair with certain classes in a way that makes any other combo a marked disadvantage, to a point that you "can't" really do anything else, because it's not easily surmountable/will impact the party as a whole. Which sucks, actually!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it's a group game and in D&D just a +1 can make a huge difference. Getting a +1 sword that will only impact one of my attacks is a major goal for me right now. All the ins and out and synergies give D&D a unique flavor and culture and meme fodder that players like. People don't typically want to change this about D&D.

Also, we are doing D&D RAW (rules as written). A lot of the real plays people follow aren't RAW because they want more flexibility. In RAW you don't get Rule of Cool.

[mistressofmuses]

I do wish that some of the flexibility (like being able to play any race as any class and have it be a viable choice) was more genuine... but I also understand at least some of where those stats and choices come from.

I understand the appeal of allowing for rule of cool or bending the rules to make something work... And when it comes to a lot of the real plays it is because they're more focused on the "collaborative storytelling" aspect, because that's often what's engaging to an audience.

But using the rules as rules is ALSO a good thing! Those constraints make it a *game* instead of just *roleplay.*

[olivermoss]

Roleplay is good, but it's also interesting when it's grounded by the actually rules or informed by having played that way.