Its really easy to forget, he's doing a good job, although it sometimes slips through. Like in the Episode "Every grunchy dystopian RPG", when Larry explains his character build. Not a critique, just fun to notice :)
"We can use the old Robotech rules!" which is from Palladium. Which would 100% allow you to have a gundam, gundam, dragon according to its rules. Pure genius
It was a very nice system, if you can get over the front loading of character creation, which not everyone could, and the jank of the rule set, which again not everyone could.
In the unfortunate event the joke whooshed, the reason he said "Pass" to Lancer is a reference to an earlier short about Zee convincing the grouo to a cyber-punk rpg made by a novelist.
@@thebohemian814 Lancer was created by Tom Parkinson-Mirgsn and Migyel Lopez. The illustrator is Tom Bloom, aka Abbadon, an entirely different person. And Lancer's combat system us literally just DnD 4e. Edit: Actually, in today's world of incestuous AI slop cligging google, im now unable to tell if the two Toms are separate people. But the other points stand
@elaw7109 they're not different people. Tom Bloom and tom parkinson Morgan are the same person- the dude just got married, or something. Same Tom. Tom Bloom is his correct name.
Ughhhhhh Not you, I just play a ratfolk in Pathfinder and we keep encountering dungeons that have, for some reason, bars with anti-rat enchantments after the one time I squeezed right through a portcullis
*quietly clears throat* ONE of Lancer's designers is an illustrator (who cranks out RPGs like, annually, as a compulsion/side hobby), Tom Parkinson-Morgan. The other designer, Miguel Lopez, is an author and card designer for WoTC.
I feel like the better line would've been "Isn't that one made by a designer from WotC? Pass!" but I can imagine Zee wouldn't wanna burn that sorta bridge
@@bananabanana484 It's a Paladin that worships dark gods instead of good ones. The mechanics are a mix of "just like a Paladin but evil", "mirror opposite of Paladin", and the occasional "this was on-theme so we went with it".
Anti-Paladins are, as pointed out, the original version of the Oath breaker, basically evil Paladins back when playing a Paladin was alignment restricted to only be Lawful Good. They were different from a Paladin who broke their oath (since in the older editions if a Paladin did that OR changed alignment they just straight up lost all of their Paladin abilities and spells) because they were just Paladins....but Evil...and thus had access to inflict wounds, raise dead and all that malarky.
Same energy as the power player and meme-character player. Also, not too different from the gAmEr who thinks being good at Souls-like games is a personality trait.
Same, though if you really wanna go all in on a Darkest Dungeon feel, you gotta go with CoC and adjust the rules so sanity is treated more like HP where enemies can attack your sanity, slowly chipping away until you have a bout of madness rather than “this encounter you roll and you might have a BoM or you might not 🤷♂️”
I actually played a darkest dungeon campaign. GM was great storyteller and world builder but he was a little too extreme with the survival aspects of the game. For instance my artificer was the only healer and the GM required a good full night’s sleep to heal and get spells back. This wasn’t so bad when we were out in the wilderness but when we got to our first city we realized how hard mode this was going to be. We had been screwed out of our pay in the first mission so we only had about 20 gold between us and I was heavily wounded. We get to the inn and find out it costs 15 gold per bed. So the party pools our money just so that my character can heal and rest so that I could heal the rest of the party. Then we had to get out of town and find some income quickly because food was 5s for a days worth of food.
Ok but then you have to define high and low because some people want to play a group of fighters with one Eldritch Knight being the magical element of the story as low fantasy while others think that means not seeing any magic items or wizards as part of random bandit gangs. Meanwhile high fantasy is everyone is magical or "Lets go beat up god in our gundam gundams!"
@@Merilirem well, even in the disparate opinions, a sort of commonality is made. both groups of 'low fantasy' atleast agree magic should be unusual and uncommon at best, and that the heroic fantasy is scraping by, in comparison to other games. It just comes down to nitty gritty, when your low fantasy group all decide to be wizards with high stats for some esotoric reason.
I think you can very easily still have vulnerable High Fantasy characters, less so the other way around but still comfortably powerful player characters in a Low Fantasy; especially as Low Fantasy does not have to be super serious and fully accurate to its own lore. To me this is more about how powerful your players want their characters to be. Do they like being too scared to leave that village, or is it just frustrating? That kind of thing.
"It costs 12000 manna to fire this weapon for 1 second. The Karrakin Trade Baronies have entire economies based on just supplying this thing with bullets. Harrison Armory is putting their pet eldritch abominations to work on teleporting ammo directly into this thing's chamber."
I love it when an argument derails in to a conversation where both parties end up agreeing on something that was said. Gundam/Gundam/Dragon sounds sick.
"Highest Stat is a 12" Larry, you're playing ad&d 1e. You are allowed to reroll until you get an array with at least two scores of 15 or higher going by the phb! What is you doing my guy.
@Shauntheduke. Which is another technicality i love that the video included! Larry's using method zero, which is at least referenced in the ad&d dmg, but it is not detailed fully like the rest since it's from the basic d&d game which I think ad&d is partly assuming you have. It's listed as an option you can use but not the intent for Ad&ds "Heroic Fantasy" and is in fact detailed fully elsewhere. Fun little nod
@schwarzerritter5724 That's correct. Ad&d1e's default roll method is much more generous than 5e's. Ad&d 2e's roll method was not, however. Ad&d 1e was 4d6 drop the lowest and assigned as you please. As detailed in the dmg. The phb had a small section on generating stats that mentions if your stat line doesn't have at least two 15's or higher, you can reroll the array until you secure one that does. It's one of the more generous stat safety nets I've seen, and I was shocked to learn it's from ad&d 1e of all editions. I've actually implemented it for my own games, as two 15s is a really good safety net even for 5e.
This really is how it goes amongst nerds/fandoms in general. Two people with very, very different stances arguing in an incredibly spiteful way and then just abandoning the argument partway through to gush passionately about a specific thing one or the other said. Love it XD
The Lancer setting broke my suspension of disbelief sooo goddamn hard though. Their tech works on non-causality, but they can use it concistently because the've figured out how to consistently CAUSE non-causality. The main faction has given AI full citizen/human rights, and are a peaceful non-violent utopia.... But they still force AIs to get mind-wiped regularly. There are internal inconsitencies eeeeverywhere. The system was fun as heck, but I could just not deal with the setting notes.
@@guus19900I think you just got things wrong, I don't remember many strong contradictions, para-casual is different from non-casual, I'm not sure about AI having rights if I remember correctly, real AI are not that advanced, you are referring to NHP which are something much stranger
@@umbotqualquer7220 Part of the confusion comes from how the NHP lore changed over the course of the game's development. The original NHP lore during the game's beta was that they got mindwiped, the current NHP lore is that it's more like sleep+defragmentation.
there's some in-universe debate about it if I remember correctly. Regardless, I think Union's treatment of NHPs is deliberately at odds with their mission statement. they're trying really hard to be Star Trek's Federation, but they're really bad at it, as demonstrated by their reliance on the Trade Baronies.
Don't usually side with Larry, but if it's a lower power campaign then proposing to use a rolling array that generates statistically high stats is a shitty thing to do. Thanks to Larry for sticking up for the whole group, and not trying to rope the GM into it.
And since it isn't a lower campaign, then? By the way, if they are all 5-12 stats for all characters, therefore all human and all fighters, and the DM then balances the game TO that party, not only are they all the same character, there's no difference either. So instead they roll exceptional characters and now they aren't all fighters and their stats are possibly wildly different, meaning they are now all different from each other, and the DM balances to THAT. So what is Larry getting out of this? Hurting and annoying everyone else.
@@markhackett2302 it's explicitly stated that the players all agreed to a low-power campaign using a specific stat gen system. Any player who then argues for a different stat-gen system, which will statistically generate higher stats, once the campaign is already underway is a dick.
@@RookieREX Darkest Dungeon is a videogame where low fantasy meets lovecraftian horror. where most RPG's will have you showing 1000damage as a low number the highest number you will ever see in Darkest Dungeon is likely 40 and that will blow your mind. you don't get legendary loot, you equip petty trinkets. the classic chivalrous knight character is riddled with ptsd. and héros either die by the dozen with every trip made into the dungeons or make it out alive with their mind completely fractured and succumb to madness. it is a grueling, stressful experience, where your limitations suffocate you at every turn. Thus every victory is a triumph, every step forward is an achievement worth taking pride in, and every enemy slain is sweet delicious catharsis and vengeance for your fallen favorite characters. this kind of experience of "I'm a normal person living in hell, thus when I break out of those gates I will have proven myself a god" is a fantastically fun thing to play, but it is the polar opposite kind of escapism to those who wish to have power and be important in their escapist fantasy. honestly I think I agree with both sides. There is a place for fantasy where we are shown a cruel world that we can carve out a place in by our own hands, and there is a place for fantasy where we are shown a dangerous world that we can make safer by our own presence.
@@charlieterry8506 thanks for enlightening me to other ways of play dnd, im a hard core darkest dungeon fan but didnt know it was used as a term in dnd. thanks! have a good day!
Every time I work a K6BD line into my campaign, I credit it so my players are more inclined to check it out. Soon I'll have all 7 of us involved, and have our own Demiurge council....
My husband heard "Robotech books" from across the room, and I hear "Robotech?" in a happy, hopeful voice. If he had a tail, it would be wagging. The Nerd is strong in this one.....god, how I love him.
*puts on nerd glasses* I believe you are referring to the unholy abomination combining 3 different anime series? ...Which it actually did some pretty crazy stuff with, making 2 of them different generations in a way that kind of made sense, so... fair play I guess?
Gundam gundam dragon sound pretty sick honestly. I wouldn't even be mad if another player in my campaign just switched their character to that and took over the world.
How about a Warforged that's really a Gundam Gundam dragon from a parallel universe that's a lot smaller. Make up your own character motivations but just imagining if the party ever found out the truth. It would be hilarious. Or maybe they're from the future and the time travel method they used caused permanent shrinkage. Maybe their plan was to take over the world to prevent a catastrophe but now they have to deal with being really small while still trying to prevent the future catastrophe. But what if it turns out they were the catastrophe? Dun dun duuuun.
Yep . And if you want to use a different system or method that that’s the other players could’ve have access to ( just like in this video or, A non-standard raise, or a special starting gear) it should be run by the players in the dungeon master (A good dungeon master would tell the other players before the game but sometimes people forget) you know what scratch all this everyone should just have a session 0 (basically a non-canon one shot to test the characters everyone will use in the actual campaign)
1st Ed AD&D was notorious for how nerfed you were at 1st Level, and how OP at 15th+ BEFORE you added in the extra books available. It was also notorious in requiring stats to play as some characters (all Larry could get to play was a Fighter, for example, other races REQUIRE a 13 somewhere and other classes require at least one 13 stat, Paladins required 2 specific stats). So rolling 4d6 to reject one could make you able to play nearly any character, but rolling 6 characters and picking one would likely get you if not the one you wanted, at least one that melded well with the rest of the party, because that too is a requirement. Doesn't work if you are all fighters in the party. Or all mages. A party requires a fighter and a cleric, the other classes at 1st level can't do much and are too weak, the demihumans can just play fighter, but at 1st level, that is pretty much all that is open to them. For example, a 1st Level mage or elf only gets one spell per day. ONE. And then done. So you need another backup fighter to protect the squishies and when the front line fighter gets hit, they can swap places. What Larry was doing was playing a part, but if the part he played were a real person, that person wanted to nerf the characters entirely, the whole party. Other options could be move any stat to any other stat to get the class/role that complements the party, or upping the stat that failed to be high enough to the min required for that stat (but that makes the Paladin rather overpowered since if you lack both charisma and wisdom to be one, you pick that class so you get two boosted stats), or two characters, pick the best one, and then move the stats around.
I've had/heard so many conversations that follow the exact flow of this conversation. I first became a dm around 6 years ago. During my first session 0 when I was describing the world and they were making characters this video happened but a little different. The "discourse" started when one player at the near the end of session 0 changed their mind and wanted to be a homebrew race called foreclaimer. Another player heard this and was annoyed because everyone just made characters and backstories together using no homebrew. It started to get a little heated when one of them said something along the lines of "well I'll play a saiyan then" I interjected saying that was fine but warned them it would be more inspired by saiyans then an actual one because of how scaled down power wise they'd have to be. This side track the group making session 0 go on for another hour or so and by the end everyone was happy and excited to play. That campaign went strong for 5 and 1/2 years before it ended.
Foreclaimers are technically third party, not homebrew. They're from the book Fool's Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds by Hit Point Press. They're basically Borg Elves.
@@SavageGreywolf I couldn't find any definite date but the earliest thing I could find on Fool's Gold is 2021 and we had already been playing for 3 years by then, so when we started foreclaimers were homebrew. I could also be pedantic and say third party is homebrew because it's not official, but I'm more interested in when Fools gold started or first appeared because I couldn't find it.
@@Hogokare Dingo Doodles started posting Fool's Gold videos in 2018, and posted the Foreclaimer race in 2019. So sure I guess it's technically 'homebrew' at that point in history, but like everything's homebrew, even D&D itself started as homebrew hero rules for a wargame.
(1:10) I'm with Sunglasses Larry. You joined the group. But just because you weren't there for the initial agreement doesn't mean that you don't conform to what group agreed upon. No, sir! You're not smooth talking your way outta this, sir! xDDD
Only Larry's word that everyone agreed when we all know Larry kept demanding they use it until everyone gave in. Exactly like he does here. I am Larry hello
@@markhackett2302 The game had already started. He was joining their game *late*. All Larry did was tell him how everyone else rolled. I believe Larry. And the DM was just letting them argue... xDDD
@@rumbleroller2154 No, the game had not "already started", see Zee joining. And since the others were also not rolling Larry's straight 3d6 each stat in order, it isn't in any sense what you claimed it to be.
Ya. I get Larry’s frustration there. He was under the impression they’d be running a lower power start campaign where death was nigh guaranteed, but here comes one player opting to roll stats in a way that made them stronger? And the best argument they had was “the dm will balance the game”? Ya, no. That doesn’t fly.
You can't property balance a game with characters of completely different power levels. And anyone who says you can is either a moron, or is trying to con you into being a side character for their marry sue power trip.
To be fair Larry also picked a weak array for seemingly no reason so even within the balance of everyone else's arrays he'd still be super weak. Holding everyone back being "a Darkest Dragon mutherfucker" can have the same issue as being a X-man.
In principle, I agree; one person doesn't just get to change the ruleset everyone agreed on (especially as a player, not a DM). However, Zee said the others were also picking better arrays and the default had been method 4 (picking the best of 12 rolled charas).
Larry in a room alone agreeing to play it like a darkest souls 1bro run while the others want to actually be able to hit a goblin in under 10 attack rolls
@@almightyk11 I'm concerned with how much paperwork vs gameplay ratio there is. Weak characters spending half an hour of real time to cross a river or fight a goblin is twenty minutes of waste on filler. Pass or fail, do it quickly. Low stats mean more fails to waste time, until the story moves. You pointed out a high risk situation, you don't need weak stats for that. But a good DM cheats
@@adaroben1104 A good GM doesn't need to cheat. It depends on the style of play you want, "Big Damn Heroes" (roll and 'pass or fail' and move along consequence free) or "grim and gritty" (where fail has consequences). I enjoy both, but 'the kids these days'... rambling old manism... get off my lawn!
My favorite build in Lancer was throwing a jetpack onto the Genghis Mk. I "Worldkiller" (canonically one of the first ever mech frames) and becoming one of the fastest players in the group and being able to just shut down heavier enemies by zooming up to them and grappling. And also I could use my reactor like I'm Burning Godzilla from King of the Monsters.
We had a guy run a really fast melee mech, I forget what frame he was using, I think it was something size 1/2, and it was really fun to hack a mech and then see a little guy just destroy it
I wish compcon was a bit easier to understand and navigate, but once you get it down it's a fun system yeah. I like how role-playing combat are separated into like two distinct games
I watched the video and for, I think, the first time I thought, "Wow, Larry is 100% correct here. I'm not sure I can see where Zee's coming from in a fair game." But reading the text below, now I see why. It was a Dragon Gundam Gundam Zee Larry all along.
Absolutely love how Larry likes to either play woefully underpowered characters getting by on the skin of their teeth, or MEGAGODS. There is no in-between.
@@massimocole9689 I feel like former forever DM's have a tendency to do this. Like, you finally get to play and want to roleplay as an active character and steer away from "the meta" picks you could make because you know the system well enough to know how to break it. You want to play as a humble mortal amongst other humble mortals. But if you feel like you are being overshadowed in one way or another, your inner sense of spite will whisper to you to start taking the strong options for real.
My earliest DND experience we rolled 36 stats, in a 6x6 grid, then selected a row or column we liked. Were we powerful? Yes. Did that stop my straight 18s 1e Monk from routinely getting served his own teeth for dinner? Absolutely not.
About 6 months ago I wrapped up a Gundam based TTRPG in a homebrew system I built from scratch just for mech combat. It lasted about 2.5 years and had a proper ending with epilogue and everything. I probably could make Gundam Gundam Dragon in said system quite easily (I was able to make Imperial Star Destroyers work with it as well, so Gundam Gundam Dragon should be doable).
An Arquillian Dragon. That would also help with the balance. Emperor gundam gundam dragon could rule the Elysian Empire (the back yard of a peasant's cottage.) The other PCs are background characters because when the camera is focused on GGD everyone else is furzy background blobs
Listen hear, I am Tortuga pilot… that mean i solve problems. Not problems like "What is beauty?", 'cause that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practically problems … For instance, how am I gonna stop some big mean Mother-Hubbard from moving in on a control point? The answer? Use overwatch. And if that don’t work, use more Overwatch.
I hope this imaginary campaign only involved these 2 fictional characters. I just can't stop thinking about the rest of the group coming to game night with darkest dungeon characters only to see larry making laser noises.
I would love to play in the world of Gundam Gundam Dragon, but as a team of resistance fighters, hopping world to world to gather equipment, resources and allies that can hopefully sway the tide of battle against the seemingly unstoppable might of the ultimate BBEG.
3d6, in order. No rerolls or moving stats. Then 2 mulligans, but the characters you DON'T pick are your character's siblings or close friends. Nothing goes to waste.
I may steal this idea because that's really cool. I think I'm leaning toward 5d6 drop low and high in the future though. I like the normalcy of 3d6 but think that realistically it'd make more sense that most would be more average overall.
@@ryanjones_rheios It kind of works out to be average. There's a kind of dice science we figured out way back in the day. Lets say we're only rolling 1 dice. Equal chances of getting a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Now lets say we're rolling 2 dice. The math gets spicy here. We can get a 1 to 6 on either dice. The lowest total we can generate is 2 (1/1) The highest we can generate is 12 (6/6) But now look at the middle results: 7 can be made in SIX different ways ( 6/1, 5/2, 4/3, 3/4, 2/5, 1/6) So your chances of getting a 7 are 600% higher than getting a 1 or a 12. There are a total of 36 possible dice results and the odds of getting extreme results are each only 1 in 36 but your odds of a 6 or 8 are 5/36 and the odds of a 7 are 6 in 36 (This is why seven is considered "Lucky". It's just the most common number to come up and people generally have no idea how math works) Rolling 3 dice or more keeps with this same rule. The total number of possibilities is going to be the product of all the dice (6x6x6 = Y in this case Y is going to be 216) The lowest total is always going to be "1 in Y" The next lowest will be "2 in Y" etc... Until you get to the middle result, then it mirrors it's results back until you get to "1 in Y" for the highest possible result. So a 3 or an 18 each have a 1 in 216 shot with 3d6. Sorry this went so long. I love dice based math quite a lot.
@@ryanjones_rheios The "drop the highest and lowest" makes for an unexceptional character, but still random so "not my fault I got 18 Con and Str!!!!". The Basic Ruleset said that each PC ought to have at least one stat with a bonus, but also bonuses at that time were earlier than AD&D got, all you needed was 13 for +1 or 16 for +2 and 18 for +3. AD&D got +0 for 15. But plate mail got a higher AC bonus, and STR bonuses went up well beyond +3 for fighters.
I love how the argument presented in this video about the challenges of balancing a campaign for a party of characters with disproportionate stats is a direct counter thesis to Zee's older video about why lower stats are a good thing. That's some real character development right there
I mean there is a difference between someone who is playing a highest stat 12 basically commoner vs good stat character with a low roll or 2 when the rest of the party of 15+ across the board. One is a fun experience and one is a "let me throw a kobold at this guy while the rest are killing the dragon". If someone is playing the commoner and the rest are heroes there needs to be a conversation happening. If someone's character has a deficiency they can run with that is roleplay.
Making a weaker character than the rest of the party is fine, but you've gotta embrace the weakness and turn it into enjoyable roleplay. Larry expected the whole party to be weak, and when that wasn't the case he complained that he was weaker; basically the same as complaining that you're the weakest in a party of strong characters.
Zee's old vid on that was for one bad stat. Your idiot barbarian is not an active drain on the party (or a paper weight doing nothing) because the wizard should be handling most int checks, a d can be an avenue for good roleplaying into that stupidity. But the guy basically playing a commoner or worse is a drain/paperweight, because they do not have the stats to back up any action they'd want to take, even the ones they should be good at.
I actually really like using grim, nasty stats rolling for 2014 5e. I feel like a ton of less-used options really shine when you do it. I went with “3d6, 7 times, drop the lowest, assign at will” because my kid had a character class in mind, but next time it’ll just be 3d6 down the line, pick a class that fits your stats (or don’t!)
Yeah players entering later in a campaign should use the exact same character creation spec than the other players. That's why I'm using point buy and milestone!
@@majestyzx9081no system is immune to min maxing. Its not like rolling stats is gonna stop you from putting the highest in INT if you're a Wizard. It's so weird that people don't like players... Playing well.
@@NaturesFlamerolling for stats usually allows more more interesting character builds in 5e. Pointbuy keeps combat lower level and disinsentivies feats. Less horizontal progression means horizontal classes like wizards and paladins dominate
@@boserboser6870 that can easily be achieved with point buy, just add more points to the pool. Your saying you like higher powered games, which, legit, I do too. Don't see the connection with rolled stats though.
@@boserboser6870if my players want a higher powerlevel and thus more freedom to pick feats i as a dm just play a more epic game with a free lv1 feat or an increase in points for pointbuy rolling for stats because one likes to be more powerful is not the point of rolling for stats
Ironically, having really high attribute scores wouldn't break the game much in 1e AD&D because combat ability was determined almost entirely by your class and level back then. The combat bonuses from your scores were much tamer, and they were used mostly for skill checks.
Honestly, sometimes balance is a pipe dream. I say this as a Savage Worlds GM. Where even a busted character (my girlfriend's 13 toughness tank) can get taken down in one shotby a lucky goblin with a 2d4 slingshot if the dice explode hard enough. XD
I agree with your friend. The old method averages 74.8 points and your new method is 85.4. Those are wildly different numbers, a difference of 10.6, not even close to being in the normal range.
@@braveothello1896 I feel that you're buying into the "stats don't matter, if everyone has fun" false rhetoric. Because fairness among characters is one of the things that enables players to trust each other and GM, and you can't really have much fun without trust. It's ok if everyone agrees on a playstyle, for example - some player may receive a perk of +10 to each stat, or have 10 levels more than everyone else. It doesn't matter, because it's coordinated. But random rolls are not coordinated. Rolling for stats is, basically, wishing to be better and not wishing to take responsibility for wanting your good stats.
So? AD&D doesn't get its first bonus until 15 stat. And since plate mail costs a lot more, much more than even fighters get, your front line fighter will get chainmail and a shield in any case.
I’d love a video about 5e divination. It basically broke the game I was playing in. The way I found to break it is by divining what I should divine if I want to know something, and then divine that thing. It’s been so game breaking we had to ban it. I’d love to see your take on it.
Currently in a lancer game. It fucks. It fucks real hard. Its one of the most boss ass systems I've ever played. I am a 4 armed cowboy robot, WITH 6 GUNS. Now you tell me how that works? I have no clue, but its in the system, its legal.
You know the Raleigh can have 7 hand cannons? It requires LL6 but it's really goddamn funny Replace the Heavy Mount with a Main/Aux using Improved Armament Core Bonus, then have Integrated Weapon Core Bonus for the 7th. If you manage to snag ASURA-class NHP you can barrage + skirmish to fire off one mount, then two mounts plus an Integrated Weapon whenever. Absolutely hilarious.
I like these kinds of conversations because this is all to navigate the simple fact that a fantasy game is gonna have a lot of garbage, and you as a player need to create rules of thumb for yourself so you don't get bogged down. Zee prioritizes fun and freedom, Larry wants the security of hard rules, and Barry just wants a good foundation for the campaign. These are all good things, but you have to negotiate a balance between them.
I mean, both arguments Are valid, to a point. Different fantasies/game-types benefit from different methods of generating characters. By extension, one character being particularly powerful compared to the rest of the group-especially in a game like D&D, where a majority of the game is largely about combat and how everyone contributes to it-can make others feel unimportant.
Thing is leaving it to the dice doesn't produce an even power structure either. Point buy would. Start 8 on everything, buy a stat increase with a point of which you are given a pool of 15 or 25 or whatever the DM decides, max 18.
@@markhackett2302 This is actually a common misconception; Point-buy systems do not produce more balanced characters. They just highlight which character options produce the best results when given ideal stats. Many classes, especially in Dungeons and Dragons-across basically every edition-benefit far more from having ideal stats than others. One of the reasons martial classes were more useful in earlier editions was because they had guarantees from their class that weren't tied into their stats. Full plate and a shield is going to be the same level of effective at keeping you alive, regardless of your stats. Martial weapons are just better than simple weapons, and martial classes can use weapons that allow them to engage at range and in melee. Spell casters, by and far, suffer a lot more from having less than ideal stats than martials do, especially in earlier editions and Especially at lower levels. It meant they knew less spells, had less spells to cast, and that the spells they got were less impactful because monsters were very likely to make saves. All that said; The argument here isn't about balance. It's about low power fantasy versus high power fantasy. Higher stats-which is ultimately what Bashew's character is promoting here-will result in a high power fantasy. Lower stats-what Larry is defending as the existing status quo-will produce a more low power fantasy. Two distinct, but equally valid ways to play the game.
This was great. I felt a little targeted before I read the description because I identified more with Larry's/your point of view. However, in 1e the bonuses and penalties aren't that swingy to make too much difference, but I get it. Method III is pretty superheroic, haha.
I swear, can't tell you how many people I've seen at this point join a game and get mad at the MAIN thing the DM emphasized would be happening in the game. Like "heavy combat" or "lots of roleplay." Not to mention stuff like the day of the week/time of day, character restrictions, theme of the campaign, etc.
Agreed. Both are perfectly valid ways to play, but agreeing to play low powered characters and then rocking up with an all-18s Mary Sue is a dick move.
Breaking out Robotech! I never played Robotech, but I did play Palladium's Rifts which used a lot of the same rules as Robotech and the thought just absolutely slays me. "I do 3 MDC damage with my Vibro-knife." "The Rogue scholar becomes mist." "Oh, they had time to cast a spell?" "No, you just did the equivalent of 300 SDC damage, over powering their 12 SDC and 8 HP. They became a blood mist from the vibrations of your MDC vibro-dagger."
To be clear:
**Lancer seems rad** and not that it needs to be said but: Abbadon's art absolutely rules.
LANCER MENTIONED
REPEAT LANCER MENTIONED
THE GAME I LOVE PLAYING HAS BEEN MENTIONED BY COOL GUY.
Gods no yeah Lancer has… Such incredible art.
Agreed, ran a mini campaign with friends, it unfortunately did not lasy long, also we were alittle bloated
is Lancer one of these cases where it's an Artist/Novelist with near 0 game design talent?
TO BE CLEAR:
Lancer is rad AS FUCK.
I always forget that Larry is literally just Zee with a more nasally voice, he really does sound like a different person
What
For the longest time I thought it was some Zee's friend helping with the videos.
Zee is a great voice over artist.
Its really easy to forget, he's doing a good job, although it sometimes slips through. Like in the Episode "Every grunchy dystopian RPG", when Larry explains his character build.
Not a critique, just fun to notice :)
You broke my immersion 😡
"We can use the old Robotech rules!" which is from Palladium. Which would 100% allow you to have a gundam, gundam, dragon according to its rules. Pure genius
Time to do one d four hundred damage.
@@Seth9809mega damage
It was a very nice system, if you can get over the front loading of character creation, which not everyone could, and the jank of the rule set, which again not everyone could.
i ran palladium for a group who brought adam smasher, a hobo, two magic knights, and a mime to the table
@@jesternarioin rules as written you can destroy a mech with a simple small arms pistol.
“A good DM, someone like Barry…”
*Barry suspiciously furls eyebrows*
"Oh, you are putting this conflict on ME"
Don't do this, players.
I love how he drew the dm in a way that sees his BS :D
Now he rethinks all past actions the player has done in the last years.
Barry knows when a player is trying to butter him up.
The look when you know that's a backhanded compliment!
“A dragon, inside a Gundam, inside a Gundam”
This is just Gurren Lagann
It's also a thing that happens in Gundam proper
Yeah, pretty much.
Gurren Dragann
A mech, inside another mech, inside another mech, inside another mech inside one final mech.
Look up Neo Zeong, its basically what happens in Gundam too.
In the unfortunate event the joke whooshed, the reason he said "Pass" to Lancer is a reference to an earlier short about Zee convincing the grouo to a cyber-punk rpg made by a novelist.
Thank you :)
Though lancer is a good ttrpg, form what I understand
He is a successful illustrator who branched out into ttrpgies
@@thebohemian814 Lancer was created by Tom Parkinson-Mirgsn and Migyel Lopez. The illustrator is Tom Bloom, aka Abbadon, an entirely different person. And Lancer's combat system us literally just DnD 4e.
Edit: Actually, in today's world of incestuous AI slop cligging google, im now unable to tell if the two Toms are separate people. But the other points stand
@elaw7109 they're not different people. Tom Bloom and tom parkinson Morgan are the same person- the dude just got married, or something. Same Tom. Tom Bloom is his correct name.
@@elaw7109 I was thinking about trying it out. Is it being the same as 4e a bad thing? I know 4e was a low point for dnd so I want to get an opinion.
This is the most accurate "hobby shop bullshit" conversation I've heard in forever. Amazing :D
I thought it was just the comment section under any given TTRPG video on youtube.
@@Dorian_sapiens Up until the agreement that the gundam gundam dragon was awesome and they should do that anyway. TH-cam is rarely that civil.
@@FluffyTheGryphon Truuuuue.
@@FluffyTheGryphon That's the part that makes it a hobby shop conversation instead of TH-cam comments.
I play a weekly DnD campaign in the back room of a hobby shop. We've wasted hours of game time on crap just like this.
The defeated "Here we go..." as Larry gets going is pure gold
Unfortunately for you, this goblin has an anti-Gundam-gundam-dragon spray.
Didn't know that silver age Batman was a goblin
Is it urine? It urine isn't it.
Ughhhhhh
Not you, I just play a ratfolk in Pathfinder and we keep encountering dungeons that have, for some reason, bars with anti-rat enchantments after the one time I squeezed right through a portcullis
This has "well I brought my dinosaur that eats forcefield dogs" energy.
@@sethb3090
"All of your enemies have scrolls of dispel kraken."
"All of them?"
"ALL OF THEM!"
That's all I can think of when I see stories like this.
*quietly clears throat*
ONE of Lancer's designers is an illustrator (who cranks out RPGs like, annually, as a compulsion/side hobby), Tom Parkinson-Morgan.
The other designer, Miguel Lopez, is an author and card designer for WoTC.
I feel like the better line would've been "Isn't that one made by a designer from WotC? Pass!" but I can imagine Zee wouldn't wanna burn that sorta bridge
Pass
would you say this falls into the category of that other video of "Failed novelist who has tricked you into reading his micro-fiction"? 😂😅
@@matheusfiorelli8829 👀
@@matheusfiorelli8829 Lancer has a lot of sick ass micro fiction but the rules are also just good and robust
"I'm sorry Gundam-Gundam-Dragon. It seems your master was not strong enough to protect you." Said the Terrasque multiclass Wizard/Anti-Paladin
Wait, what’s an anti-Paladin? Is that an intelligence based class that hunts paladins?
@@bananabanana484 It's a Paladin that worships dark gods instead of good ones. The mechanics are a mix of "just like a Paladin but evil", "mirror opposite of Paladin", and the occasional "this was on-theme so we went with it".
@@bananabanana484 It's the Pathfinder version of Oathbreakers. CE by requirement to be directly opposite to the LG by requirement Paladin.
Anti-Paladins are, as pointed out, the original version of the Oath breaker, basically evil Paladins back when playing a Paladin was alignment restricted to only be Lawful Good. They were different from a Paladin who broke their oath (since in the older editions if a Paladin did that OR changed alignment they just straight up lost all of their Paladin abilities and spells) because they were just Paladins....but Evil...and thus had access to inflict wounds, raise dead and all that malarky.
You can tell Barry hates his players when he suggests the players use a Palladium system.
Shudder the memories of Rifts
It was great fun making characters for TMNT & Other Strangeness. It was a slog getting through a round of combat.
@@johnstuartkeller5244 It was definitely a system that felt like it wanted a computer running it.
Palladium was the only system I knew with reasonable rules for burst damage and automatic fire.
@@Seth9809 So take those and find a better system.
"Why did you elect to play as a Darkest dungeon player).. "
Idk why but this made me happy
Same energy as the power player and meme-character player. Also, not too different from the gAmEr who thinks being good at Souls-like games is a personality trait.
Same, though if you really wanna go all in on a Darkest Dungeon feel, you gotta go with CoC and adjust the rules so sanity is treated more like HP where enemies can attack your sanity, slowly chipping away until you have a bout of madness rather than “this encounter you roll and you might have a BoM or you might not 🤷♂️”
@@BeautifulObscurity I feel like Shadow of the Demon Lord would be perfect for a Darkest Dungeon ttrpg
I actually played a darkest dungeon campaign. GM was great storyteller and world builder but he was a little too extreme with the survival aspects of the game. For instance my artificer was the only healer and the GM required a good full night’s sleep to heal and get spells back. This wasn’t so bad when we were out in the wilderness but when we got to our first city we realized how hard mode this was going to be. We had been screwed out of our pay in the first mission so we only had about 20 gold between us and I was heavily wounded. We get to the inn and find out it costs 15 gold per bed. So the party pools our money just so that my character can heal and rest so that I could heal the rest of the party. Then we had to get out of town and find some income quickly because food was 5s for a days worth of food.
he understands our pain.
:D i mean, i dont, i use mods to cheat the hell out of the game!! AHAHAHAH!!!!!
This is what happens when you get a fantasy TTRPG group together, and realize some want to play High Fantasy and some want to play Low Fantasy
Ok but then you have to define high and low because some people want to play a group of fighters with one Eldritch Knight being the magical element of the story as low fantasy while others think that means not seeing any magic items or wizards as part of random bandit gangs.
Meanwhile high fantasy is everyone is magical or "Lets go beat up god in our gundam gundams!"
@@Merilirem well, even in the disparate opinions, a sort of commonality is made. both groups of 'low fantasy' atleast agree magic should be unusual and uncommon at best, and that the heroic fantasy is scraping by, in comparison to other games. It just comes down to nitty gritty, when your low fantasy group all decide to be wizards with high stats for some esotoric reason.
I think you can very easily still have vulnerable High Fantasy characters, less so the other way around but still comfortably powerful player characters in a Low Fantasy; especially as Low Fantasy does not have to be super serious and fully accurate to its own lore.
To me this is more about how powerful your players want their characters to be. Do they like being too scared to leave that village, or is it just frustrating? That kind of thing.
I stg this comment section is just a continuation of the video
Well luckily enough 5e has that built into the core system wanna be low fantasy play a martial wanna be high fantasy play a caster
"You're not that dumb" Thats a real friend, respects your intelligence enough to call you out on your bullshit.
*GM passes on Lancer*: "Cowabunga it is"- my Drake spinning up the Leviathan Heavy Assault Cannon
"It costs 12000 manna to fire this weapon for 1 second. The Karrakin Trade Baronies have entire economies based on just supplying this thing with bullets. Harrison Armory is putting their pet eldritch abominations to work on teleporting ammo directly into this thing's chamber."
@@BoisegangGaming The OpFor's Operator has invisible. Make a coin flip before your attack roll.
@@thanatos5150 It's got good reliable, it'll still hurt
As soon as that shot of Larry standing ominously in the doorway appeared, I knew we were in for a ride.
Lancer honestly kicks ass
Dude's a cool guy, met him at some of my local cons
@@jamessmall7850 And he made my RP group's hands down favorite system! (Skull Wizards)
yee. i had so much fun playing lancer
indeed!
but it sure dosent do it cause of setting il tell you that much
I love it when an argument derails in to a conversation where both parties end up agreeing on something that was said. Gundam/Gundam/Dragon sounds sick.
I'm glad despite all our different tastes, we can all band together around the fact that Gundam/Gundam/Dragon is awesome.
Great comedy beat
"Highest Stat is a 12"
Larry, you're playing ad&d 1e. You are allowed to reroll until you get an array with at least two scores of 15 or higher going by the phb!
What is you doing my guy.
Playing a darkest dungeon character since it’s even brought up it’s that his method isn’t in the book lol
You are not even allowed to do that in 5e.
My first character was a 13 dexterity monk.
@Shauntheduke. Which is another technicality i love that the video included!
Larry's using method zero, which is at least referenced in the ad&d dmg, but it is not detailed fully like the rest since it's from the basic d&d game which I think ad&d is partly assuming you have. It's listed as an option you can use but not the intent for Ad&ds "Heroic Fantasy" and is in fact detailed fully elsewhere.
Fun little nod
@schwarzerritter5724 That's correct. Ad&d1e's default roll method is much more generous than 5e's. Ad&d 2e's roll method was not, however.
Ad&d 1e was 4d6 drop the lowest and assigned as you please. As detailed in the dmg. The phb had a small section on generating stats that mentions if your stat line doesn't have at least two 15's or higher, you can reroll the array until you secure one that does.
It's one of the more generous stat safety nets I've seen, and I was shocked to learn it's from ad&d 1e of all editions. I've actually implemented it for my own games, as two 15s is a really good safety net even for 5e.
Low roll chars are fun.
Of course Zee, this now means that We The People demand full rules for Gundam Gundam Dragon.
The first Larrymore expansion "Gundam-Gundam Dragon"
It's called Exalted Essence. You can play it now.
Further, we demand the supplement be titled "Dungeons and DraGundams."
Yes, but we can't actually call it that, because Sunrise is notoriously litigious.
I was wondering what the Gundam hashtag was for 😂
This really is how it goes amongst nerds/fandoms in general. Two people with very, very different stances arguing in an incredibly spiteful way and then just abandoning the argument partway through to gush passionately about a specific thing one or the other said. Love it XD
honestly I wonder why we have to be so spiteful about our disagreements some times though as nerds.
It's a way to have an out to an argument without strangling the other person, usually.
LANCER MENTION!!!
Finally, trans representation
The Lancer setting broke my suspension of disbelief sooo goddamn hard though. Their tech works on non-causality, but they can use it concistently because the've figured out how to consistently CAUSE non-causality. The main faction has given AI full citizen/human rights, and are a peaceful non-violent utopia.... But they still force AIs to get mind-wiped regularly. There are internal inconsitencies eeeeverywhere. The system was fun as heck, but I could just not deal with the setting notes.
@@guus19900I think you just got things wrong, I don't remember many strong contradictions, para-casual is different from non-casual, I'm not sure about AI having rights if I remember correctly, real AI are not that advanced, you are referring to NHP which are something much stranger
@@umbotqualquer7220 Part of the confusion comes from how the NHP lore changed over the course of the game's development. The original NHP lore during the game's beta was that they got mindwiped, the current NHP lore is that it's more like sleep+defragmentation.
there's some in-universe debate about it if I remember correctly. Regardless, I think Union's treatment of NHPs is deliberately at odds with their mission statement. they're trying really hard to be Star Trek's Federation, but they're really bad at it, as demonstrated by their reliance on the Trade Baronies.
Don't usually side with Larry, but if it's a lower power campaign then proposing to use a rolling array that generates statistically high stats is a shitty thing to do. Thanks to Larry for sticking up for the whole group, and not trying to rope the GM into it.
by siding with larry you're actually siding with Zee from the real world argument that inspired the video
And since it isn't a lower campaign, then?
By the way, if they are all 5-12 stats for all characters, therefore all human and all fighters, and the DM then balances the game TO that party, not only are they all the same character, there's no difference either. So instead they roll exceptional characters and now they aren't all fighters and their stats are possibly wildly different, meaning they are now all different from each other, and the DM balances to THAT. So what is Larry getting out of this? Hurting and annoying everyone else.
@@markhackett2302 it's explicitly stated that the players all agreed to a low-power campaign using a specific stat gen system. Any player who then argues for a different stat-gen system, which will statistically generate higher stats, once the campaign is already underway is a dick.
The Darkest Dungeon Fandom will remember this.
How quickly the tide turns
what did that darkest dungeon character comment mean again? whats the context behind that
@@RookieREX Darkest Dungeon is a videogame where low fantasy meets lovecraftian horror. where most RPG's will have you showing 1000damage as a low number the highest number you will ever see in Darkest Dungeon is likely 40 and that will blow your mind.
you don't get legendary loot, you equip petty trinkets.
the classic chivalrous knight character is riddled with ptsd.
and héros either die by the dozen with every trip made into the dungeons or make it out alive with their mind completely fractured and succumb to madness.
it is a grueling, stressful experience, where your limitations suffocate you at every turn. Thus every victory is a triumph, every step forward is an achievement worth taking pride in, and every enemy slain is sweet delicious catharsis and vengeance for your fallen favorite characters.
this kind of experience of "I'm a normal person living in hell, thus when I break out of those gates I will have proven myself a god" is a fantastically fun thing to play, but it is the polar opposite kind of escapism to those who wish to have power and be important in their escapist fantasy.
honestly I think I agree with both sides. There is a place for fantasy where we are shown a cruel world that we can carve out a place in by our own hands, and there is a place for fantasy where we are shown a dangerous world that we can make safer by our own presence.
@@charlieterry8506 thanks for enlightening me to other ways of play dnd, im a hard core darkest dungeon fan but didnt know it was used as a term in dnd. thanks! have a good day!
Barry hard passing on Lancer hurt so much i laughed! I love their art!
Indirect Kill Six Billion Demons reference let's Flippin GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Reach heaven
@@Ulubai Through violence
~Kill the gods and tople their thrones
He should have joined one of the OCT's
Every time I work a K6BD line into my campaign, I credit it so my players are more inclined to check it out.
Soon I'll have all 7 of us involved, and have our own Demiurge council....
I love the reluctant agreement that Gundam Gundam Dragon would still be pretty cool even during the statement lol
bro made the gurren lagann by mistake xD
This hits so home. Arguing about balance naturally transitioning into "can we make this crazy idea work". Love it
My husband heard "Robotech books" from across the room, and I hear "Robotech?" in a happy, hopeful voice. If he had a tail, it would be wagging.
The Nerd is strong in this one.....god, how I love him.
*puts on nerd glasses* I believe you are referring to the unholy abomination combining 3 different anime series?
...Which it actually did some pretty crazy stuff with, making 2 of them different generations in a way that kind of made sense, so... fair play I guess?
He sounds like a keeper. Good for you
😅 I got happy at it, too.
Because we Robotech fans are getting older and the odds of us ever actually getting to play a Robotech game become slimmer every year.
@@DevinParker Talk someone into Best Ever, it is the Shadowrun 5e + Battletech: AToW rules
3:52 Abaddon in shambles
Gundam gundam dragon sound pretty sick honestly. I wouldn't even be mad if another player in my campaign just switched their character to that and took over the world.
Even if your character becomes background noise, 10.000 feet from the camera and screaming "Ahhhhh"
@@umarthdc It'd be funny af
How about a Warforged that's really a Gundam Gundam dragon from a parallel universe that's a lot smaller. Make up your own character motivations but just imagining if the party ever found out the truth. It would be hilarious.
Or maybe they're from the future and the time travel method they used caused permanent shrinkage. Maybe their plan was to take over the world to prevent a catastrophe but now they have to deal with being really small while still trying to prevent the future catastrophe. But what if it turns out they were the catastrophe? Dun dun duuuun.
Have a party of just gundam dragons that can Voltron up their gundams to be Gundams gundam dragons.
Could do a Kobold in a Patlabor inside a F91 Gundam and get closer to something manageable in the system.
The glasses guy was 100% correct in every single argument, especially the playing as an emperor gundam gundam dragon in 1e, that would be awesome
from arguing to deciding how to balance a gundam piloted by a gundam piloted by a dragon
I agree with Larry just on the principle of if you join a game you go with what they are going for.
Yep . And if you want to use a different system or method that that’s the other players could’ve have access to ( just like in this video or, A non-standard raise, or a special starting gear) it should be run by the players in the dungeon master (A good dungeon master would tell the other players before the game but sometimes people forget)
you know what scratch all this everyone should just have a session 0 (basically a non-canon one shot to test the characters everyone will use in the actual campaign)
1st Ed AD&D was notorious for how nerfed you were at 1st Level, and how OP at 15th+ BEFORE you added in the extra books available. It was also notorious in requiring stats to play as some characters (all Larry could get to play was a Fighter, for example, other races REQUIRE a 13 somewhere and other classes require at least one 13 stat, Paladins required 2 specific stats). So rolling 4d6 to reject one could make you able to play nearly any character, but rolling 6 characters and picking one would likely get you if not the one you wanted, at least one that melded well with the rest of the party, because that too is a requirement. Doesn't work if you are all fighters in the party. Or all mages. A party requires a fighter and a cleric, the other classes at 1st level can't do much and are too weak, the demihumans can just play fighter, but at 1st level, that is pretty much all that is open to them. For example, a 1st Level mage or elf only gets one spell per day. ONE. And then done. So you need another backup fighter to protect the squishies and when the front line fighter gets hit, they can swap places.
What Larry was doing was playing a part, but if the part he played were a real person, that person wanted to nerf the characters entirely, the whole party.
Other options could be move any stat to any other stat to get the class/role that complements the party, or upping the stat that failed to be high enough to the min required for that stat (but that makes the Paladin rather overpowered since if you lack both charisma and wisdom to be one, you pick that class so you get two boosted stats), or two characters, pick the best one, and then move the stats around.
They aren't power gaming, the man is actively handicapping himself while everyone else isn't
"Gundam Gundam Dragon" absolutely fucking killed me holy shit
I've had/heard so many conversations that follow the exact flow of this conversation.
I first became a dm around 6 years ago. During my first session 0 when I was describing the world and they were making characters this video happened but a little different. The "discourse" started when one player at the near the end of session 0 changed their mind and wanted to be a homebrew race called foreclaimer. Another player heard this and was annoyed because everyone just made characters and backstories together using no homebrew. It started to get a little heated when one of them said something along the lines of "well I'll play a saiyan then" I interjected saying that was fine but warned them it would be more inspired by saiyans then an actual one because of how scaled down power wise they'd have to be. This side track the group making session 0 go on for another hour or so and by the end everyone was happy and excited to play. That campaign went strong for 5 and 1/2 years before it ended.
I'm glad it worked out. It's always more fun at the table when everyone is excited about their character.
Foreclaimers are technically third party, not homebrew. They're from the book Fool's Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds by Hit Point Press. They're basically Borg Elves.
@@SavageGreywolf I couldn't find any definite date but the earliest thing I could find on Fool's Gold is 2021 and we had already been playing for 3 years by then, so when we started foreclaimers were homebrew.
I could also be pedantic and say third party is homebrew because it's not official, but I'm more interested in when Fools gold started or first appeared because I couldn't find it.
@@Hogokare Dingo Doodles started posting Fool's Gold videos in 2018, and posted the Foreclaimer race in 2019. So sure I guess it's technically 'homebrew' at that point in history, but like everything's homebrew, even D&D itself started as homebrew hero rules for a wargame.
Bro whips out Lancers; I'm reminded this isn't set in like 2010
The devolving into a homebrewing "How can we actually make that work." Is so real.
Gundam Gundam Dragon does sound pretty cool.
Gundam Gundam Dragon will be on itch by the end of the week if it isn't already 😂
(1:10) I'm with Sunglasses Larry. You joined the group. But just because you weren't there for the initial agreement doesn't mean that you don't conform to what group agreed upon. No, sir! You're not smooth talking your way outta this, sir! xDDD
Only Larry's word that everyone agreed when we all know Larry kept demanding they use it until everyone gave in. Exactly like he does here. I am Larry hello
And Zee didn't agree, and there is no evidence that the others agreed, only Larry said HE wanted it.
@@markhackett2302 The game had already started. He was joining their game *late*. All Larry did was tell him how everyone else rolled. I believe Larry. And the DM was just letting them argue... xDDD
@@rumbleroller2154 No, the game had not "already started", see Zee joining. And since the others were also not rolling Larry's straight 3d6 each stat in order, it isn't in any sense what you claimed it to be.
Are you assuming that Larry is lying about what the group agreed on?
Ya. I get Larry’s frustration there. He was under the impression they’d be running a lower power start campaign where death was nigh guaranteed, but here comes one player opting to roll stats in a way that made them stronger? And the best argument they had was “the dm will balance the game”? Ya, no. That doesn’t fly.
You can't property balance a game with characters of completely different power levels.
And anyone who says you can is either a moron, or is trying to con you into being a side character for their marry sue power trip.
Which is more work for the DM to run. Why? So everyone else gets a worse game. That doesn't fly.
To be fair Larry also picked a weak array for seemingly no reason so even within the balance of everyone else's arrays he'd still be super weak. Holding everyone back being "a Darkest Dragon mutherfucker" can have the same issue as being a X-man.
Seeing Larry standing in the door way with this look of complete betrayal on his face was the funniest moment for me
I agree with Larry on this one. If everyone is built that way, so should yours.
In principle, I agree; one person doesn't just get to change the ruleset everyone agreed on (especially as a player, not a DM).
However, Zee said the others were also picking better arrays and the default had been method 4 (picking the best of 12 rolled charas).
Larry in a room alone agreeing to play it like a darkest souls 1bro run while the others want to actually be able to hit a goblin in under 10 attack rolls
@@adaroben1104 Older editions had a different focus. Even goblins are something you should avoid if you can.
@@almightyk11
I'm concerned with how much paperwork vs gameplay ratio there is. Weak characters spending half an hour of real time to cross a river or fight a goblin is twenty minutes of waste on filler. Pass or fail, do it quickly. Low stats mean more fails to waste time, until the story moves. You pointed out a high risk situation, you don't need weak stats for that. But a good DM cheats
@@adaroben1104 A good GM doesn't need to cheat. It depends on the style of play you want, "Big Damn Heroes" (roll and 'pass or fail' and move along consequence free) or "grim and gritty" (where fail has consequences).
I enjoy both, but 'the kids these days'... rambling old manism... get off my lawn!
My favorite build in Lancer was throwing a jetpack onto the Genghis Mk. I "Worldkiller" (canonically one of the first ever mech frames) and becoming one of the fastest players in the group and being able to just shut down heavier enemies by zooming up to them and grappling. And also I could use my reactor like I'm Burning Godzilla from King of the Monsters.
We had a guy run a really fast melee mech, I forget what frame he was using, I think it was something size 1/2, and it was really fun to hack a mech and then see a little guy just destroy it
@@nigeladams8321 Size 1/2 would probably be an Atlas, unless someone is running a Melee Caliban or (god forbid) a Melee Goblin lmao
The lancer system is crazy fun.
I wish compcon was a bit easier to understand and navigate, but once you get it down it's a fun system yeah. I like how role-playing combat are separated into like two distinct games
When Barry talked smack about Lancer I could feel myself turning into a Larry
LANCER DOES SLAP THO
I love the dice bingo character build method
This is the most respectful Larry has been.
I watched the video and for, I think, the first time I thought, "Wow, Larry is 100% correct here. I'm not sure I can see where Zee's coming from in a fair game." But reading the text below, now I see why. It was a Dragon Gundam Gundam Zee Larry all along.
ZEE TALKED ABOUT LANCER AAAA
ALSO LANCER IS GOOD PLAY LANCER
The fact Larry starts to get into the Gundam Gundam idea is me every time a friend bring up a system change.
I think we can all agree that a Gundam Gundam Dragon would be a pretty dope character.
Absolutely love how Larry likes to either play woefully underpowered characters getting by on the skin of their teeth, or MEGAGODS. There is no in-between.
There is no difference
The journey from one to the other probably mixes his bisquick, which I can understand.
I think he likes playing underpowered characters. I think he plays MEGAGODS to prove a point.
@@massimocole9689 I feel like former forever DM's have a tendency to do this. Like, you finally get to play and want to roleplay as an active character and steer away from "the meta" picks you could make because you know the system well enough to know how to break it. You want to play as a humble mortal amongst other humble mortals. But if you feel like you are being overshadowed in one way or another, your inner sense of spite will whisper to you to start taking the strong options for real.
My earliest DND experience we rolled 36 stats, in a 6x6 grid, then selected a row or column we liked. Were we powerful? Yes. Did that stop my straight 18s 1e Monk from routinely getting served his own teeth for dinner? Absolutely not.
That's because you picked 1e Monk though. 😂 Speaking as someone who played a we Monk
The delivery on the scream in the distance was amazing!
Friendships have ended
over such as this. Larry;
has given me hope.
Dang it, you can’t just leave us hanging after introducing the concept of a 1E compatible Gundam Gundam Dragon!!
About 6 months ago I wrapped up a Gundam based TTRPG in a homebrew system I built from scratch just for mech combat. It lasted about 2.5 years and had a proper ending with epilogue and everything. I probably could make Gundam Gundam Dragon in said system quite easily (I was able to make Imperial Star Destroyers work with it as well, so Gundam Gundam Dragon should be doable).
I love the gundam gundam dragon.
Plot twist, the Dragon is the size of that tiny alien inside a robot from Men in Black.
An Arquillian Dragon. That would also help with the balance. Emperor gundam gundam dragon could rule the Elysian Empire (the back yard of a peasant's cottage.) The other PCs are background characters because when the camera is focused on GGD everyone else is furzy background blobs
I need Barry to elaborate on his reasoning for passing on Lancer
It's a referece to when they played the Microfiction of a fail Novelist
Seeing that in the actual argument, Zee's opinion was the one Larry advocated, it makes the zoom in and violin intro so much funnier.
Them's fighting words about Lancer, Barry. I think if you've got something to say, you should say it to my Barbarossa.
"Why don't you say that to my face? (As long as it is 5 hexes away at least)"
I agree, he's talking a lot of shit for someone in monarch range
Or near the reality warping powers of any Horus.
Listen hear, I am Tortuga pilot… that mean i solve problems. Not problems like "What is beauty?", 'cause that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practically problems … For instance, how am I gonna stop some big mean Mother-Hubbard from moving in on a control point? The answer? Use overwatch. And if that don’t work, use more Overwatch.
@@juanfranciscomarcos2489Player of mine made the Barbarossa a melee grappling tank.
It used the railgun for Special Occasions.
Emperor Gundam Gundam Dragon sends his regards
Gundam Gundam Dragon is a hell of leap from ROLLING USING THE ARRAY SYSTEM THAT IS IN THE BOOK
I hope this imaginary campaign only involved these 2 fictional characters. I just can't stop thinking about the rest of the group coming to game night with darkest dungeon characters only to see larry making laser noises.
I would love to play in the world of Gundam Gundam Dragon, but as a team of resistance fighters, hopping world to world to gather equipment, resources and allies that can hopefully sway the tide of battle against the seemingly unstoppable might of the ultimate BBEG.
3d6, in order. No rerolls or moving stats.
Then 2 mulligans, but the characters you DON'T pick are your character's siblings or close friends. Nothing goes to waste.
i love that :o
But your backstory states all your friends and family were killed by the BBEG!
I may steal this idea because that's really cool.
I think I'm leaning toward 5d6 drop low and high in the future though. I like the normalcy of 3d6 but think that realistically it'd make more sense that most would be more average overall.
@@ryanjones_rheios It kind of works out to be average. There's a kind of dice science we figured out way back in the day.
Lets say we're only rolling 1 dice. Equal chances of getting a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Now lets say we're rolling 2 dice. The math gets spicy here.
We can get a 1 to 6 on either dice.
The lowest total we can generate is 2 (1/1)
The highest we can generate is 12 (6/6)
But now look at the middle results:
7 can be made in SIX different ways ( 6/1, 5/2, 4/3, 3/4, 2/5, 1/6)
So your chances of getting a 7 are 600% higher than getting a 1 or a 12.
There are a total of 36 possible dice results
and the odds of getting extreme results are each only 1 in 36
but your odds of a 6 or 8 are 5/36
and the odds of a 7 are 6 in 36
(This is why seven is considered "Lucky". It's just the most common number to come up and people generally have no idea how math works)
Rolling 3 dice or more keeps with this same rule. The total number of possibilities is going to be the product of all the dice (6x6x6 = Y in this case Y is going to be 216)
The lowest total is always going to be "1 in Y" The next lowest will be "2 in Y" etc... Until you get to the middle result, then it mirrors it's results back until you get to "1 in Y" for the highest possible result.
So a 3 or an 18 each have a 1 in 216 shot with 3d6.
Sorry this went so long. I love dice based math quite a lot.
@@ryanjones_rheios The "drop the highest and lowest" makes for an unexceptional character, but still random so "not my fault I got 18 Con and Str!!!!". The Basic Ruleset said that each PC ought to have at least one stat with a bonus, but also bonuses at that time were earlier than AD&D got, all you needed was 13 for +1 or 16 for +2 and 18 for +3. AD&D got +0 for 15. But plate mail got a higher AC bonus, and STR bonuses went up well beyond +3 for fighters.
I love Larry. When he started about the Gundam-Gundam-Dragon bit it had me in tears.
I love how the argument presented in this video about the challenges of balancing a campaign for a party of characters with disproportionate stats is a direct counter thesis to Zee's older video about why lower stats are a good thing. That's some real character development right there
I mean there is a difference between someone who is playing a highest stat 12 basically commoner vs good stat character with a low roll or 2 when the rest of the party of 15+ across the board.
One is a fun experience and one is a "let me throw a kobold at this guy while the rest are killing the dragon".
If someone is playing the commoner and the rest are heroes there needs to be a conversation happening.
If someone's character has a deficiency they can run with that is roleplay.
One thing that you have to remember is that both of these characters are technically the same guy.
Think it’s worth mentioning that according to the description Zee was actually making Larry’s argument IRL
Making a weaker character than the rest of the party is fine, but you've gotta embrace the weakness and turn it into enjoyable roleplay.
Larry expected the whole party to be weak, and when that wasn't the case he complained that he was weaker; basically the same as complaining that you're the weakest in a party of strong characters.
Zee's old vid on that was for one bad stat.
Your idiot barbarian is not an active drain on the party (or a paper weight doing nothing) because the wizard should be handling most int checks, a d can be an avenue for good roleplaying into that stupidity.
But the guy basically playing a commoner or worse is a drain/paperweight, because they do not have the stats to back up any action they'd want to take, even the ones they should be good at.
I actually really like using grim, nasty stats rolling for 2014 5e. I feel like a ton of less-used options really shine when you do it. I went with “3d6, 7 times, drop the lowest, assign at will” because my kid had a character class in mind, but next time it’ll just be 3d6 down the line, pick a class that fits your stats (or don’t!)
"Isn't that made by an Illustrator?" "Yeah, it's actually-" "Pass."
You mentioned palladium ROBOTECH!!! You rock Zee!
... heading to the basement to find my old set from the 90s
Yeah players entering later in a campaign should use the exact same character creation spec than the other players.
That's why I'm using point buy and milestone!
You end up with a ton of himbos & Lukemia Wizards with point buy.
Not a bad system in theory, but minmaxing just kills it.
@@majestyzx9081no system is immune to min maxing. Its not like rolling stats is gonna stop you from putting the highest in INT if you're a Wizard.
It's so weird that people don't like players... Playing well.
@@NaturesFlamerolling for stats usually allows more more interesting character builds in 5e.
Pointbuy keeps combat lower level and disinsentivies feats. Less horizontal progression means horizontal classes like wizards and paladins dominate
@@boserboser6870 that can easily be achieved with point buy, just add more points to the pool.
Your saying you like higher powered games, which, legit, I do too. Don't see the connection with rolled stats though.
@@boserboser6870if my players want a higher powerlevel and thus more freedom to pick feats i as a dm just play a more epic game with a free lv1 feat or an increase in points for pointbuy
rolling for stats because one likes to be more powerful is not the point of rolling for stats
I'm with Larry on this one. Everyone should use the same method for generating characters, can avoid a lot of animosity among players
It should also be done together, at the same time, if there's any dice involved.
Barry, deploy the Big Zam Mindflayer
Ironically, having really high attribute scores wouldn't break the game much in 1e AD&D because combat ability was determined almost entirely by your class and level back then. The combat bonuses from your scores were much tamer, and they were used mostly for skill checks.
The comments: LANCER!
Lancer might not be a particularly balanced system, but it still kicks ass.
Honestly, sometimes balance is a pipe dream. I say this as a Savage Worlds GM. Where even a busted character (my girlfriend's 13 toughness tank) can get taken down in one shotby a lucky goblin with a 2d4 slingshot if the dice explode hard enough. XD
Oh my god, larry is talking about his wizard graham from the grappling video with his wizard that did a lot of grappling
Lancer mentioned?!
I’d love to hear a video about the game from you.
I agree with your friend. The old method averages 74.8 points and your new method is 85.4. Those are wildly different numbers, a difference of 10.6, not even close to being in the normal range.
... I feel like you missed the point
On the contrary, that's exactly the point, because at the beginning Zee was trying to con the GM into believing it wasn't.
@@braveothello1896 he's being sarcastic lol
@@braveothello1896 I feel that you're buying into the "stats don't matter, if everyone has fun" false rhetoric. Because fairness among characters is one of the things that enables players to trust each other and GM, and you can't really have much fun without trust. It's ok if everyone agrees on a playstyle, for example - some player may receive a perk of +10 to each stat, or have 10 levels more than everyone else. It doesn't matter, because it's coordinated. But random rolls are not coordinated. Rolling for stats is, basically, wishing to be better and not wishing to take responsibility for wanting your good stats.
So? AD&D doesn't get its first bonus until 15 stat. And since plate mail costs a lot more, much more than even fighters get, your front line fighter will get chainmail and a shield in any case.
I think that was one of the unused proposals for old Unearth Arcana book: 'Method V: Rolling-up a Gundam-Gundam Dragon Mobil Suit Pilot.'
I’d love a video about 5e divination. It basically broke the game I was playing in. The way I found to break it is by divining what I should divine if I want to know something, and then divine that thing. It’s been so game breaking we had to ban it. I’d love to see your take on it.
Always a good day when zee drops a new vid!
I love this level of pettiness that devolved into geeking out. Love your creativity Mr. Zee.
Currently in a lancer game. It fucks. It fucks real hard. Its one of the most boss ass systems I've ever played. I am a 4 armed cowboy robot, WITH 6 GUNS. Now you tell me how that works? I have no clue, but its in the system, its legal.
You know the Raleigh can have 7 hand cannons? It requires LL6 but it's really goddamn funny
Replace the Heavy Mount with a Main/Aux using Improved Armament Core Bonus, then have Integrated Weapon Core Bonus for the 7th.
If you manage to snag ASURA-class NHP you can barrage + skirmish to fire off one mount, then two mounts plus an Integrated Weapon whenever. Absolutely hilarious.
Chest gun. Paracausal gun. Gun juggling. Any way is valid, you make up the presentation.
LANCER mentioned!
I like these kinds of conversations because this is all to navigate the simple fact that a fantasy game is gonna have a lot of garbage, and you as a player need to create rules of thumb for yourself so you don't get bogged down. Zee prioritizes fun and freedom, Larry wants the security of hard rules, and Barry just wants a good foundation for the campaign. These are all good things, but you have to negotiate a balance between them.
I mean, both arguments Are valid, to a point.
Different fantasies/game-types benefit from different methods of generating characters. By extension, one character being particularly powerful compared to the rest of the group-especially in a game like D&D, where a majority of the game is largely about combat and how everyone contributes to it-can make others feel unimportant.
Thing is leaving it to the dice doesn't produce an even power structure either. Point buy would. Start 8 on everything, buy a stat increase with a point of which you are given a pool of 15 or 25 or whatever the DM decides, max 18.
@@markhackett2302 This is actually a common misconception; Point-buy systems do not produce more balanced characters. They just highlight which character options produce the best results when given ideal stats. Many classes, especially in Dungeons and Dragons-across basically every edition-benefit far more from having ideal stats than others.
One of the reasons martial classes were more useful in earlier editions was because they had guarantees from their class that weren't tied into their stats. Full plate and a shield is going to be the same level of effective at keeping you alive, regardless of your stats. Martial weapons are just better than simple weapons, and martial classes can use weapons that allow them to engage at range and in melee.
Spell casters, by and far, suffer a lot more from having less than ideal stats than martials do, especially in earlier editions and Especially at lower levels. It meant they knew less spells, had less spells to cast, and that the spells they got were less impactful because monsters were very likely to make saves.
All that said; The argument here isn't about balance. It's about low power fantasy versus high power fantasy. Higher stats-which is ultimately what Bashew's character is promoting here-will result in a high power fantasy. Lower stats-what Larry is defending as the existing status quo-will produce a more low power fantasy. Two distinct, but equally valid ways to play the game.
This was great. I felt a little targeted before I read the description because I identified more with Larry's/your point of view. However, in 1e the bonuses and penalties aren't that swingy to make too much difference, but I get it. Method III is pretty superheroic, haha.
Honestly that whole conversation should've been left for a new campaign.
This, Zee shouldn't have rocked the boat on an already established game
@@HellecticMojo read the description. Zee is Larry here, the new player is Zee.
@@Xenomorphin1 and I'm commenting on the video
This scenario is literally still in character creation. The campaign hasn’t even started yet!
I swear, can't tell you how many people I've seen at this point join a game and get mad at the MAIN thing the DM emphasized would be happening in the game. Like "heavy combat" or "lots of roleplay." Not to mention stuff like the day of the week/time of day, character restrictions, theme of the campaign, etc.
When Larry is right, he's right.
LANCER MENTIONED YEEEEEAAAAAAAAA
Larry'a right, Zee's wrong. When the group agrees upon something, don't be a prick and try to bypass it...
Everyone did though. When 1E was current, everybody rolled up 10 characters at home and brought the best one to the session
It's a known phenomenon
Agreed. Both are perfectly valid ways to play, but agreeing to play low powered characters and then rocking up with an all-18s Mary Sue is a dick move.
@@HMJ66 And you made up the "all-18s Mary Sue" to make up your argument.... That's a d move right there.
Breaking out Robotech! I never played Robotech, but I did play Palladium's Rifts which used a lot of the same rules as Robotech and the thought just absolutely slays me.
"I do 3 MDC damage with my Vibro-knife."
"The Rogue scholar becomes mist."
"Oh, they had time to cast a spell?"
"No, you just did the equivalent of 300 SDC damage, over powering their 12 SDC and 8 HP. They became a blood mist from the vibrations of your MDC vibro-dagger."