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From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: [Bell of Lost Souls] It's Canon: Baldur's Gate 3 Brings D&D To The Vatican
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:01:07 -0500
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On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 13:29:33 -0600, Jhulian Waldby
<wichitajayhawks@msn.com> wrote:

>Kyonshi wrote:
>> On 11/19/2024 10:27 AM, JAB wrote:
>>> On 19/11/2024 01:31, Jhulian Waldby wrote:
>>>>>> All I know, and excuse me if I'm repeating this story for the 19th 
>>>>>> time,
>>>>>> is that my Irish Catholic grandmother bought me a first print 1e 
>>>>>> *Deities
>>>>>> & Demigods* for freaking Easter. I asked for it, and she was all 
>>>>>> "Yup."
>>>>>> So no, I don't think her priest was railing against Satan in D&D.
>>>>>>
>>>>> I'm pretty sure it was an American phoneme.
>>>>>
>>>> I guess the concern is that players may become unable to 
>>>> differentiate the truth from the water elemental.  I've noticed this 
>>>> in some Dungeon Masters who argue rules as if it were a physics 
>>>> laboratory.  Not one hint of "this is fiction" or "we can't find a 
>>>> rule for that."
>>>>
>>>> Funny though, I haven't heard anyone mention Satanism in D&D for yrs. 
>>>> That all stopped a week before I picked up Basic Dungeons & Dragons.
>>>>
>>>> Who were those people?  I couldn't tell you, I've forgotten.
>>>
>>> I did read a 'discussion' in I think White Dwarf many, many years ago 
>>> about whether sharp weapons should do half damage on skeletons based 
>>> on whether they had an 'energy body' keeping everything together. My 
>>> thoughts were who cares either way as long as the game world is 
>>> internally consistent.
>>>
>>> I play Call of Cthulhu and someone decided to rewrite the firearms 
>>> damage to reflect muzzle velocities and projectile weight. Was it more 
>>> realistic, yes but they had made it so that instead of combat just 
>>> being dangerous, and best avoided where possible, it was outright 
>>> deadly and one hit is time to roll a new character.
>>>
>>>
>> 
>> I don't want to yuck anyone's yum, if they think it's a good idea for 
>> their game and their players like it...
>> 
>> On the other hand I also feel one-hit kills might be driving players off.
>
>This might be kind of digressive, but one of the few times I tried my 
>hand at being DM, the party was fighting a colony of bats when one of 
>the guys asked, can't this go any faster?  Is there a way to abbreviate 
>combat for players that don't like to focus on that aspect of the game? 
>I felt silly sitting there enjoying it while they were more story-focused.

I just had a flashback to facing off against a roomful of mongbats in
Ultima V....

            [Sorry, had to drag the thread back on-topic 
             just a little bit. Force of habit.]

With tabletop roleplaying, finding a group who likes playing the game
the same way as you is probably the most important thing. Some people
love the mechanical aspects of it; min-maxing and rules-lawyering is
the fun part to them! Others want the power-fantasy; killing hordes of
monsters, getting amazing amounts of loot, and winning the hand of the
prince (or princess) at the end. And some like the drama of the game;
they like the role-playing. 

               [Me, I'm in it for the world-building]

None of them are wrong in how they are playing the game, but if you
put a min-maxer next to a power-fantasieer and play it with a
drama-nerd, none of them are going to have fun. You need to find a
group which matches your -and the GM's- personal style.

Sadly, most people are a mix of these archetypes, which makes finding
the perfect group even harder. But if you find one, never let them go.
;-)

But I'm sure there are some groups who love one-hit kill encounters.
More power to them. It's a perfectly legitimate way to play the game.
It's just not the _only_ way.