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Post by grond on Feb 24, 2011 18:36:25 GMT -5
The same sort of problems come up with cutting down on out of character chatter, metagame thinking, or any other habit related behaviors. You have to form the productive habit, or break the unproductive one. Either one of those things, in my present experience, seems to be nearly beyond any of us, but as long as everyone has fun, then I guess everything is OK.
Speaking of metagame thinking- I like the idea of house ruling that if you haven't seen it directly and you can't make a knowledge check significant enough to know about it (DC 10 + hit dice, or whatever) then you don't know what it is, no matter how common it might be for a veteran player. Also, druid wild shape- You can't turn into an animal unless you have successfully charmed that sort of animal with wild empathy, in game and interacted peacefully with it. Therefore, a Druid could never become something he hasn't managed to get along with. And a druid who only lives around wusey animals is out of luck on that class feature.
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Post by Tomas on Feb 25, 2011 9:21:22 GMT -5
The problem with the Knowledge check idea is Fighters would know nothing. They might have never seen a large scale battle, but they easily could have been taught about them. There has to be some leeway on that one.
Metagame thinking is impossible to remove completely. It is kind of like telling a jury to disregard a statement. It just can't be done. You just have to encourage players to not do it.
The Druid thing I think could also be given some leeway depending on how the player is handling the use of Wild shape. In a game where the players are given no time for other activities, like going into the forest to study animals, would really nerf the wild shape druid. Also how would you handle a higher level starting druid character?
Last thing. Out of game chatter. The only thing that really helps on that is to play more often and with people you see a lot. Both of those are harder to do as we get older.
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Dmitri
Land Owner
D&D Geeks of the World Unite!
Posts: 1,466
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Post by Dmitri on Feb 25, 2011 9:22:35 GMT -5
Not sure about the Wild Empathy part of the Wildshape houserule... it might lead to some fun adventures, like the Druid KNOWING that he had 4 levels to make contact with a bear, and a wolf, and a hawk, and whatever else he wants to change into. But the group would have to understand that the Druid would NEED to go do these things, and since splitting the group is a recipe for disaster... they might have to tag along on safari.
It also COMPLETELY breaks down when you get Elemental Shape and Plant Shape - Wild Empathy does not work on these things. So, we obviously have some things that druids would just have to know about because they're druids... or make the requisite Knowledge check... or something.
I still think doing it based on environment makes a lot of sense.
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Post by grond on Feb 25, 2011 17:31:46 GMT -5
I mostly agree with both of those assessments (especially about metagame thinking and out of character chatter). However, I really think that the game is designed to run with some in character down time for things like making items, studying new spells, studying new wild shape forms (maybe some other spells like charm monster, or the similar one that works on plants? for plant and elemental forms) and for orchestrating elaborate heists. All of this really points toward a more free form game made up of a series of adventures, rather than one epic haul. Just my thoughts really, and all of them need plenty of sound boarding or whatever the expression is.
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