Re: [DL] Re: deadlands D20 [OT]

["Leybourne, Brian - CLM" <Brian.Leybourne@airnz.co.nz>]

I usually stay out of these "discussions" because they're a waste of time
and effort, but this message is wrong on so many levels I just have to
respond.

>     Also, listen to the ways people talk about their D&D 
> characters.  It has
> always been about their stats.  I unload x points of damage 
> per round.  I've got
> a +12 hackmaster.  Seldom do you hear about their 
> achievements.  "Did you hear
> about the time she killed a vampire with a lobster fork?"  
> 'This is the
> character that didn't go insane when we went through that 
> portal to Carcossa."
> Think about the difference in that.

You're wrong. And you're wrong because your comment has nothing to do with
D&D. It has everything to do with the players in question, and that's a
totally different thing. Maybe it's easier to be a munchkin in D&D than it
is in Deadlands, but in my experience (RPGing since the original D&D and the
original 3-book set of warhammer rules) munchkin players will be munchkin
players, regardless of genre or system.

I suppose you've never seen Blessed characters with 7d12 in Faith, or
gunslingers with 8D12 in shootin'. I have. That's really no different to
having silly high stats in D&D, and people get "kewl" arcane stuff in
Deadlands just like magic items in D&D. It comes down to the players and the
GM.

Frankly, I have had some amazing Roleplaying experiences in D&D, and yes, we
love to discuss the old times where we defeated the dragon cult of Ashnar,
and when my character fought his way into the abyss to save his love who was
imprisoned in hell by a card from the Deck of Many Things. We've never once
reminisced about the magic items we had or our stats. Equally, we commonly
go on about my friends Blessed character who with a combination of a legend
chip and a rediculously high roll converted an entire tribe to christianity,
and other great deadlands moments. And Amber moments. And Vampire
moments..... you get the idea.

My point is that you're blaming the system for the foibles of some of the
people who play it. OK, maybe it's easier to ROLLplay than ROLEplay in D&D
than it is in Deadlands, and so maybe the "bad" players tend to gravitate to
D&D but that doesn't necessarily make the system bad. Actually, there's a
lot to like in the D&D system, IMO, it's flexible, its relatively simple to
learn (don't start beating me with the AoO stick either - any person with a
brain can work it out in a few minutes. I'm astonished people find it a hard
concept) and it does the job.

After playing Deadlands for several years now, in fact, I have to say that
although I still really love the game and the setting, the mechanics have
started to get on my wick. I'm sick of rolling so many dice to do anything
(one of the reasons we stopped playing Vampire/Mage as well). I'm sick of
the fact that adding one die to a die pool makes it *more* likely that
you'll botch (the odds of rolling 50% 1's or more on 3 dice is higher than
with 2, likewise 5 is higher than 4 and so on), I'm sick of watching
hucksters get more and more likely to backlash the more powerful they get,
to the point where it's impossible for them to safely cast any spells, I'm
sick of blessed getting it so easy, I'm sick of how damn easy it is to die -
more realistic it may be but when you invest days and weeks into making a
character, only to have it die because you ran out of fate chips (and as
long as you lived, you never had any experience points to spend because you
had to keep the fate chips to keep yourself alive) and.. and.. and..

I could go on for days. I have just as many problems with D&D; I'm not
saying that it's better than Deadlands, what I *am* doing is pointing out
that it's not necessarily worse either. It's different. Viva la difference!

>     Buit worst of all is the straightjacketing, illogical, 
> judgemental morality
> that D&D espouses.  If you're good, you are perfectly 
> justified in murdering
> baby orks in their sleep because they're evil.  If you're a 
> Paladin, it's your
> job.  With CoC and Deadlands, you're on the side of Humanity, 
> because the Other
> Side really is foul, and determined to corrupt humanity.  We 
> aren't just told
> their evil, we're shown it.   Orks just happen to believe 
> that might mkes right.

Oh tish and pish. Any Paladin in one of my games who killed baby orcs in
their sleep would find himself backhanded by his God quicksmart. Again, this
comes down to individual players and (more so in this case) how the GM wants
to run the game. I don't like the alignment system in D&D, that's why I
ignore it and let characters decide their actions and morality on their own,
just like in Deadlands. However, having the alignment system doesn't make
the above any more valid, unless thats how you want to play it, and it's
just as easy to run Deadlands the same way. Again, you're using personal
experiences of (IMO bad) roleplaying to justify vitriol against a different
system, but it just doesn't wash.

>     And finally, this 'feat' stuff makes me ROTFLMAO.  

Feats are basically the same concept as Edges in Deadlands (Merits in
Vampire, etc). They're not as well implemented perhaps, but the concept is
the same - give the character something to differentiate him from another
character of the same class. Some of them are overpowered, some of them are
silly, but on the whole they're OK.

Brian "Looking forward to DeadlandsD20 to see how it plays Leybourne.

--
Brian Leybourne
Enterprise Administration Specialist
Air New Zealand Central LAN Management 

Phone:	+64-9-3064600
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mailto:brian.leybourne@airnz.co.nz

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