Quote from: Charlie Sheen;641653Really? Seems people want to say:

Whether or not Gleichman is a nice/smart person.
Whether you should post here.
Etc.

I thought you were referring to my post as a derailment? My post was certainly about neither of those things.

QuoteAnd choice already has an attacker bias.

Unpack that for me, would you? What choice? All choice? A particular choice I described?

QuoteFor that matter, systems are offense biased by default.

Firstly: Support this.

Secondly: Your point? Should they not be? Did I claim mine was not?

Quote from: TristramEvans;641638You may be reading "worked up" into cases where its more like "bored at work and found an easy target". Seriously, I don't think anyone here is losing sleep over these little bitchfests. Its just blowing steam at someone who goes running around with a giant target sign on.

Fair enough.

Quote from: The Traveller;641646To be honest the only ones getting worked up are yourself and gleichman. Everyone else appears to be here for the popcorn value. Not that we don't appreciate your ever more infrequent appearances and their accompanying declamations, but really, these threads are a standing joke as far as I can see. A bed I might add that he made entirely for himself. Don't bother replying G, I can't see it and I never will.

Not fair enough. Seeing how venomous you can and usually get, I find it hard to believe you on this, and some people definitely get angry.

Some of my infrequent appearances are to declamate something, and some of them are to start threads about actual games and questions on them, instead of whining because someone somewhere has typed some things I disagree with. Given how many of your posts are devoted to bitching, pretending you are in such an aloof position is not ver convincing.

Quote from: gleichman;641639BRP is slightly wrong

Few people seem to notice that I treat my own game about as badly as I treat others. I'm very hard on all games. It seems for too many people, their game is the same thing as their personal ego.

Yeah, I noticed. Again, to each his own. If very clear criteria work for you and your group, great.

Quote from: Imperator;641693Not fair enough. Seeing how venomous you can and usually get, I find it hard to believe you on this, and some people definitely get angry.

Some of my infrequent appearances are to declamate something, and some of them are to start threads about actual games and questions on them, instead of whining because someone somewhere has typed some things I disagree with. Given how many of your posts are devoted to bitching, pretending you are in such an aloof position is not ver convincing.

I see you've added imaginary assertions to your declamatory skills, have a quick look at the threads I've started in my profile. Sorry that getting annoyed about paedophiles strikes you as 'venomous', though.

Quote from: beejazz;641675Firstly: Support this.

Secondly: Your point? Should they not be? Did I claim mine was not?

Offense bias, I'd like a definition first.

Unless it's something odd, it's stating the obvious in a way that's claiming it's special, i.e. IF your RPG has combat- you have to kill your foe to win and that means doing damage which means offense.

Duh.

A more interesting question however is if it's the case that in ALL RPGs, one's ability to inflict damage have more important to final victory impact than one's ability to avoid damage. With respect to that question making a general statement like "all RPGs have a offense bias" is a rather dumb idea.

Or maybe it's saying that RPGs (again if it has combat at all) favor the bold, and in general terms it's better to be attacking (i.e. invading enemy positions) than defending. Again, Duh, and who cares is my first reaction. How many GMs want their players to sit at home only reacting to stuff that knocks directly on their door? The very idea is counter to most genres (which in truth is where that 'bias' starts, and thus why an RPG should as a result model it).

Quote from: Imperator;641693Not fair enough. Seeing how venomous you can and usually get, I find it hard to believe you on this, and some people definitely get angry.

He's lying as normal. He was so upset that I didn't like his whole "GMs bring the awesome" idea that he's still whining about it in this thread long after I had forgotten about it (had to look it up to remind myself).

Now to be fair to the board, I do think they have great reason to disagree with some of my opinions. I'm a serious critic for common elements of the gaming style of most people here (as they are in turn of elements of mine, the whole OSR is nothing but not critical of every other gaming style, it's a reactionary movement after all).

Why that should cause such levels of hate and venom that it carries over to anything opinion I post (even if it agrees with them) however is a different question.

So you're using the second kind of focus fire, where you make two passes. Not significantly different.

Quote from: beejazz;641675I thought you were referring to my post as a derailment? My post was certainly about neither of those things.

I was saying the thread was already off topic, so might as well. Here though I think that's a good thing.

QuoteUnpack that for me, would you? What choice? All choice? A particular choice I described?

In all systems, the attacker can choose to attack just about anyone they want. If they take some offensive action to make their attacks stronger, the defender can only stand there and hope they can take it.

The defender cannot choose who is and is not attacking them. If they take some defensive action to make attacks less likely to hit or do damage, they'd only succeed in taking fewer attacks if the enemy takes that as an indication to retarget. Which wasn't what you were aiming for.

In some systems it goes as far as the attacker picking the time, place, and nature of the conflict and showing up with a long list of short and medium duration buffs, giving them a massive advantage the moment they enter the battlefield and forcing the defender on well... the defensive, scrambling to keep up and hold out until they can even the odds.

You'd think being a defender would have some advantage, but even if you're in a fortified keep just not being the aggressor is a huge disadvantage.

That's attacker bias.

QuoteFirstly: Support this.

Secondly: Your point? Should they not be? Did I claim mine was not?

Put simply, in addition to what I just said (and how the PCs are protagonists, and therefore will be going on the attack) offense scales faster than defense. Level up some, and you literally cannot play defense as defense is effectively 0.

My point was that worrying about the defender probably isn't going to work. Mostly because defense can't work unless everyone has it, as one person with high defense just says attack someone else... especially if he cannot attack effectively in turn.

If he does have high offense and defense, first I question what the rest of the party is doing, and second if he takes every attack from everything he's gonna die anyways.

Quote from: Charlie Sheen;641707My point was that worrying about the defender probably isn't going to work. Mostly because defense can't work unless everyone has it, as one person with high defense just says attack someone else... especially if he cannot attack effectively in turn.

If he does have high offense and defense, first I question what the rest of the party is doing, and second if he takes every attack from everything he's gonna die anyways.

And this is an excellent example of over-thinking something, it blinds you to even considering the conditions under which it might be important to attack an high defense target or how a game with high defenses for everyone might work.

Quote from: Imperator;641635So, Brian has some personal criteria he uses to determine if a given RPG is shit, and of course, he believes those criteria to be objective and valid. According to those criteria, 99% of RPGs are shit, and only the HERO system and Brian's own Age of Heroes escape being shit.

.

I think he just has a posting style that tends to piss people off. It isn't his opinions themselves that generate the reactions (lots of posters here think other poster's favorite RPGs or playstyles are shit). It's the way he communicates, the way he insults people and his general disposition that trigger the hostile responses. Sure people probably should just ignore him. I think part of the reason that is hard for some is because underneath all the orneriness and inflexibility, he has some interesting things to say. Also he does take personal digs at people and those are hard to ignore (whether its online or real life). I do think he brings the reactions on himself and there really shouldn't be much of a surprise about it.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;641712It's the way he communicates, the way he insults people and his general disposition that trigger the hostile responses.

You're a moderator for a board ran by Pundit, and you're worried about implied insults and general dispostions of a single poster?

How odd.

I am positive that if I was an OSR fan, no one including you would complain at all even if I was worse.

Quote from: Charlie Sheen;641707Put simply, in addition to what I just said (and how the PCs are protagonists, and therefore will be going on the attack) offense scales faster than defense. Level up some, and you literally cannot play defense as defense is effectively 0.

Offense does not scale faster than defense in my game. Unless I am misunderstanding your meaning here.

Beyond that, I was talking about *point* defense, not self defense. Some of your points are still valid, but as far as a defender controlling who can attack who when, that's exactly what a ZOC that stops movement and a choke point can do. The point defender can jam himself in a doorway or hallway and delay a foe from reaching its target until he and/or the rest of the party kills it. In this case it doesn't matter if the attacker says "fuck it" or attempts to move through the choke point unless the attacker finds a way to overwhelm the point defender or bypass the choke point.

Quote from: gleichman;641698Offense bias, I'd like a definition first.

Unless it's something odd, it's stating the obvious in a way that's claiming it's special, i.e. IF your RPG has combat- you have to kill your foe to win and that means doing damage which means offense.

Duh.

A more interesting question however is if it's the case that in ALL RPGs, one's ability to inflict damage have more important to final victory impact than one's ability to avoid damage. With respect to that question making a general statement like "all RPGs have a offense bias" is a rather dumb idea.

Or maybe it's saying that RPGs (again if it has combat at all) favor the bold, and in general terms it's better to be attacking (i.e. invading enemy positions) than defending. Again, Duh, and who cares is my first reaction. How many GMs want their players to sit at home only reacting to stuff that knocks directly on their door? The very idea is counter to most genres (which in truth is where that 'bias' starts, and thus why an RPG should as a result model it).

This was about why I was asking, either it was way too obvious or I was missing something. And I'm still not sure if or why it should be considered a problem.

Quote from: gleichman;641713You're a moderator for a board ran by Pundit, and you're worried about implied insults and general dispostions of a single poster?

How odd.

I am positive that if I was an OSR fan, no one including you would complain at all even if I was worse.

I am not worried about anything, but giving an explanation for the reaction against you and saying why I personally find you one of the uglier posters here. for me its made even worse by the fact that you actually have something to contribute but troll instead. If you think the negative response from me or others has much to do with you not being a fan of OSR, you are very mistaken. I am completely fine with people not liking old school games and not liking the sandbox strcuture (most of my campaigns are not sandbox or OSR). I also think we need a wider variety of viewpoints. I think we are too focused on a particular brand of OSR play (its good that style has representaiton here but we need more points of view than that). You represent a viewpoint this board could benefit from (in that you support the other half of old school play that gets left out in a lot of these old school discussions: realism, comprehensive systems, thoroughly vetted systems, adventure structures other than sandbox, etc). And I actually think a lot of your points are valid (if taken to a silly extreme). It is all the other stuff you mix in with your ideas that gets the reaction, not the ideas themselves. The fact that you used to be taken seriously here is evidence of this.

Quote from: beejazz;641717This was about why I was asking, either it was way too obvious or I was missing something. And I'm still not sure if or why it should be considered a problem.

We'll see what he says.

Charlie Sheen gives me the impression of someone who has written off all games but D&D, and really really over-thought D&D and wants to apply those ideas to every other game. Except that a lot of people don't play D&D because they reject those very ideas he's trying to apply.

He'd could really benefit by boarding his horizons.

The question of if he's right about D&D itself I leave to others, I have no interest in that game's finer points as fails me quickly in its broader ones.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;641720The fact that you used to be taken seriously here is evidence of this.

I was never taken seriously here, not even by you (or if you did, you kept it hidden to yourself and left me in the dark).

Quote from: gleichman;641710And this is an excellent example of over-thinking something, it blinds you to even considering the conditions under which it might be important to attack an high defense target or how a game with high defenses for everyone might work.

Weren't you putting me on ignore? And yet you continue to talk about my points and now respond to them directly.

Anyways, I already know how a game with high defenses for everyone would work because I designed and run it. But when 99.9% of people start talking about defenders, they mean some guy that goes out and "tanks" enemies for their less defended fellows. And when asked why, or how, there is never any answer.

If there's only one guy with high defense you attack everyone that isn't them first, because either:

The other guys have better offenses in addition to lower defenses, so killing them makes you safer.
The other guys have the same offense, but worse defense, so killing them makes you safer.
This one guy is better at both offense and defense... but unless it's by a large margin you still take less damage if you clear the field first. If for some reason it IS by a large margin, that's some serious group balance problems at work.

Quote from: beejazz;641716Offense does not scale faster than defense in my game. Unless I am misunderstanding your meaning here.

The only game in which that doesn't happen is 4th edition D&D... and that's because it's actually defense that scales faster, meaning you eventually can't even hit anything, much less hurt it when you hit. So you're going to have to explain exactly what you mean and how you avoid replacing it with a worse problem.

QuoteBeyond that, I was talking about *point* defense, not self defense. Some of your points are still valid, but as far as a defender controlling who can attack who when, that's exactly what a ZOC that stops movement and a choke point can do. The point defender can jam himself in a doorway or hallway and delay a foe from reaching its target until he and/or the rest of the party kills it. In this case it doesn't matter if the attacker says "fuck it" or attempts to move through the choke point unless the attacker finds a way to overwhelm the point defender or bypass the choke point.

No it doesn't. Attempting to limit who is adjacent to you and who can/will attack you are two different things. Between reach attacks, ranged attacks, and spells there is no practical limit to the number of units that can engage a single unit... and they can pick just about any unit they want.

So some guy wants to stand in front of a door while his buddies hide inside? That's cool, eat an AoE. Want to come at me? No? Eat another. You'll run out of resources before me.

While this is particularly ineffective in D&D (where reach weapons are mandatory to counter enemy reach, and most of the good spells are AoE) I'm speaking system agnostically. I'm also not getting into the many, often system particular means of just bypassing the chokepoint. Or getting into how likely it is any given area has only one way in or out (and if it does, it means you're trapped there).