Quick Poll, just vote!

[Soral]

Arrgh I used to be so into that! But I'm the only one in my group who'd actually read the books, so I was constantly forced to DM, and even worse for a load of people with no real concept of "Don't attack Town Guards"

I've watched a game being played a long time ago. It went a little like this, if memory serves.

DM: You see a chest, a mirror and a table covered in many different potions and alchemical ingredients. An Orc approaches you menacingly. There are doors to the south and west.
Fighter: I break down the door.
Barbarian: I break down the other door
Bard 1: I play music.
Bard 2: I play music.
Bard 3: I play music.

Can't say it was very thrilling.

[Rob Zombie]

I know what you mean about "Don't attack Town Guards" - I have a friend who became slightly less of a friend because he did that. all the time. I mean really, all the time. In combination of trying to rape my lady character.

DnD has a verrrry annoying thing that I hate. Final Fantasy has it too. And Shartak.
HP system. Makes no sense. Argamorth the Greater Daemon has 100 HP, Brian the Mighty fights him down to 1 HP where he should actually be covered in so many sword wounds that he's either A) Incapacitated beyond measure, B) Bleeding to death as we speak or C) Has no limbs. Yet somehow, he's still just as dangerous.

Rolemaster is the only pen & paper system I've seen that gets around this problem, with both a generic HP system when your attack is non-lethal and a chance to instantly kill your opponent. It works more on % chances to kill or do damage or miss, that always hitting, always dealing 1-6d. It makes for a more interesting fight too, when you, Valayla the level 40 Knight can be killed by a level 1 Kobald with a broken beer bottle and a 1 in 1000 roll.

[Captain Jacobi]

nah the hp system works. it makes you not want to die.

I made a barbarian, and all I did was murdur people with it. I was level 6 when the party was level 3

[Rob Zombie]

The HP system is only realistic if HP is a combination of your will to fight as well as your injuries.

Think about it. I'm a soldier with 80 HP, it takes 16 bullets to kill me. Six-teeeen. No way does that system 'work'.
It's entertaning because there's other stuff to go with it, but it's totaly unrealistic.

and how does it it "makes you not want to die"? I dont get that.

Waaaagh! (Bit rantish, sorry)

[Mill Wilkinson]

I just call the HP's a "luck points" instead.
You get samashed, but instead of losing seventy hitpoints, you lose some of your luck. When the luck is out, it goes like this: 

I am future and fantasy fan, altough I seem to write future better. 

[Cracker]

just on the point about how orcs coincide with one another, the way i always thought of it is like how barbarian tribes used to work. generally they got along amongst each other within the tribe and the leader was the greatest warrior (or the biggest nastiest orc) but they would occasionally have disputes or duels for power.

 the different tribes would always be warring with each other and raiding each other but they would put aside their differences to fight a common enemy like the romans (or humans in the fantasy world).

it would take an extremely skilled or persuasive warrior i.e. atilla the hun or genghis Kahn (or a powerful wizard/sorcerer) to unite these different tribes, but once united they are a force so powerful they can carve our vast empires very quickly. again like genghis or Temur the Lame. (sauron from LOTR)

on Dragons you could go with the idea of many smaller less powerful dragons like in the movie eragon, or you could go with what i personnally like, the more mythical powerful dragons. beasts which inspire fear in the hearts of the stoutest warrior, creatures who will raze villages on a whim and feast on armies if they fancy. But these creatures have no agenda nor can they be tamed, but with great care and skill (and most probably many deaths) can be killed.

[Keiichi]

The HP system is only realistic if HP is a combination of your will to fight as well as your injuries.

Think about it. I'm a soldier with 80 HP, it takes 16 bullets to kill me. Six-teeeen. No way does that system 'work'.
It's entertaning because there's other stuff to go with it, but it's totaly unrealistic.

and how does it it "makes you not want to die"? I dont get that.

Waaaagh! (Bit rantish, sorry)

Gee, what do you want, a game like Bushido Blade? 

[Blahmicho]

Rolemaster is the only pen & paper system I've seen that gets around this problem, with both a generic HP system when your attack is non-lethal and a chance to instantly kill your opponent.

Well D&D does allow for a massive damage kill or something like that, a chance for them to just die if you do like 50 damage or something (been a while since I played).

I think that's their way of avoiding "A dragon stomps on you for 83 HP, you dust yourself off and charge him."

[Keiichi]

I think it's a critical hit. As long as you roll the right numbers, you'll be just fined in D&D. Well.....unless the dungeon master wants you dead, then your pretty much screwed. I like the race system in D&D the best, because the shorter races escape damage better, ect. I think there is a starwars type table-top RPG that uses the same basic system as D&D, I wonder how fun it is.

[Rob Zombie]

Whatm exactly, are you talkin' about, Boot Strap? Seemed a bit out of place 

[Cracker]

If we're talking about the huge powerful intelligent and overall kickass kinds of dragons, then either rare or extinct. Widespread would mean every other race would pretty much be nothing but pawns in their games, and captivity... Well, see how I described them at first. Would take some godlike stuff to contain these bastards while fully grown.

Rare could still mean they have large influence over areas and their inhabitants, while their longevity and competence could keep them alive against low birth rates and power hungry creatures around. Extinct if they fail at this, or wasnt quite flexible enough to manage surviving as a rare species who has to work with "lower" creatures to attain what goals they can have in the ruins of their own grand time long lost in the past.
Or not at all. Dragons are a stereotype among so many others, and have been abused in so much fantasy that its hard to make anything original about them at all anymore, without it being completely silly.

Orcs? Well, I've always seen them as with Tolkiens style, but the movies made them look... different. Depends on the style you wish to portray with the world, I suppose. The exaggerated style of warhammer might work with certain worlds, but I would make them at least a bit more reasonably physically built. Not just as containers for green stuff and adrenaline, but as a race actually able to live with occationally not smashing eachother to bits as well.

I've always thought of the D&D type orcs, who are able to form a society and keep mostly everything together while at the same time waging war on the settlements around them. The orcs in D&D, while being violent, are still able to live together for the most part without bashing eachothers brains out. And yes, I play D&D. 

i had just noticed the thread and was reading peoples ideas about orcs and dragons, just thought id throw something in there see what people thought.

[Rob Zombie]

For some reason it seemed very out of place, sorry, I may have been really tired.

I am now...
Maybe a nap...