Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1078575Inspiration is to 5E what crafting is to 3E:  A named mechanic that is a sop to players that want something in the game to call out what they are doing, but without much weight in the game.

I'm definitely not a fan of sop mechanics. They're a waste of pages that could be better used for other things.

At least 3e crafting could be initiated entirely from the player side and had edge case use if you had the leadership feat. Inspiration also inflicted traits/bonds/flaws lists that doubled the space requirements for every background instead of a couple of paragraphs about thinking about who and what is important to your character.

Quote from: Omega;1078560Also what players actually hate is edition treadmills and being forced to re-buy the damn game. And some just dont want to have to relearn a new system, especially when the old one was working just fine. Only the cattle players will happily walk into the edition treadmill slaughterhouse. The rest are going to resist. A little, or alot.

Back on topic. I think Paizo may learn the hard way just how resistant players can be to edition treadmills. Which is hilarious because their fame is built up on attracting fans who hated the 3 to 4e edition treadmill.

So if releasing a new edition of a game after 10 years is an "edition treadmill", what rate of moving to a new edition wouldn't be a treadmill? Every 15 years? 25?

The theory that gamers hate change is shaky. The gaming genre that has seen its popularity grow the most in the last 10 years is hobby boardgaming, and at the hobby level it involves buying and learning 10+ new games a year. Most keen boardgame hobbyists rarely play a game older than two years, with many spending half their table time learning and playing new games.

RPGers are different, owing to the complexity of the games and to the fact that system is often subordinated to other appeals of the game. Nostalgia also plays a bigger part of the appeal of RPGs than with other tabletop hobbies. But RPGers  are not radically different from other gamers. If they can get a better experience for a newer edition with a system that is streamlined or more engaging, they'll make the transition.

As for the cost, most hobby gamers spend hundreds of dollars a year on their hobby. Replacing $150 worth of core books and maybe another $150 of support books every 8 or 9 years is hardly a show-stopping expense (and that's for the GM - players are only in for $50 each edition). RPGs may have a larger player-base of economically vulnerable players than the videogame, boardgame, or CCG hobbies do. But I'd guess that's still only a small fraction of the market. And it's pretty bad business to aim any hobby product at people who can't afford to spend even $150 every few years on their hobby.

The real resistance to change in RPGs is down to classic nerdfury. Some nerds form such an intense personal association with the object of their obsession that any alternative is seen as a personal attack on their identity. These sad folks have always been with us, but their numbers in the real world aren't anywhere near as large as their activity in social media would suggest. As is always the case with social media, the angriest 20 per cent of people account for 80 per cent of dialogue. And emerging channels to connect with the broader customer-base have given RPG publishers more confidence to discount the complaints of the loudest bleaters.

Quote from: Haffrung;1078581RPGs may have a larger player-base of economically vulnerable players than the videogame, boardgame, or CCG hobbies do. But I'd guess that's still only a small fraction of the market.

I really doubt it. Videogamers are basically "everybody" by now. Everybody under 60, anyway, and a good number of 60-70 year olds. That includes a lot of poor people. There are high IQ, low-income RPGers, but not that many I guess - income and IQ correlate positively, and really there are almost no low IQ tabletop RPGers these days, the games are too complex, and videogames offer too good an alternative.

(cue the pointing & sputtering)

Quote from: Chris24601;1078368That said, there IS a specifically calculable mathematical benefit/penalty to "roll twice, use best/worst" in terms of probabilities. The only thing it removes is the fiddly stacking of multiple static modifiers.

In testing my own system I also found there's a HUGE psychological impact to using an advantage/disadvantage system over static modifiers. That second roll with advantage is like a "saving throw vs. failure" and because people tend to remember outliers rather than the norms, what people remember is the huge endorphin rush when they rolled like crap, then either remembered or were reminded they had advantage and then rolled again and did really well (maybe even a crit). The same goes if you've inflicted disadvantage on an enemy and the GM crits, but you remind them it had disadvantage (because the GM legit forgot) and that crit on you turned into a whiff.

It also makes occasions when a modifier gets forgotten a LOT easier to manage because you don't have to remember the original roll; you just roll again (and you only NEED to do that if re-roll might change the outcome... you don't need to reroll for disadvantage if it's already a miss or for advantage when it's already a hit).

Precision is only useful in a game if it adds to the fun. For most people keeping track of a bunch of +/-1-2 modifiers isn't fun. By contrast the bigger, but more variable, modifier that advantage/disadvantage provides, the tactile engagement of rolling more dice and the "save vs. failure" endorphin rushes and outlier results it canncreate provide a meaningful increase in enjoyment for most people.

Quote from: Chris24601;1078465the problem is it requires too much "crosstalk." The DM already has a lot to track themselves and having to remember every PCs traits, flaws and bonds to reward it is just one more thing to keep track of.

I've experienced the same thing with GMs running Mutants & Masterminds and Hero Points (which are also core to that game). It's a lot of work remembering every PCs Complications and when you've only got an hour or so to prep before game, the last thing you're worried about is remembering that one of the hero's has a coworker who is suspicious about all their absences when trouble strikes in the city.

Anything without a schedule to reward (both Inspiration and Hero Points are awarded when the GM feels it's appropriate) is something that's an easy candidate for GMs to skip entirely from their long list of things to keep track of.

It's why 4E's action points are generally superior in implementation to 5e's Inspiration. You start after each long rest with one and gain one more after every two encounters (but can only spend one per encounter, so you're encouraged not to horde them too much... not spending your first action point in the first two encounters (getting you a second one) would let you spend one each on your 3rd, 4th (when you get a third) and 5th encounters, but the system is designed around only 4-5 per day. And the GM doesn't have to track or award them, so the PCs have and use them on a regular basis.

It's also why I've generally found 5e's traits, bonds and flaws to be a waste of design space. I've never seen a DM bring them up in play because the DM is too busy running the NPCs the PCs are actually interacting with and there's no real benefit to the PC bringing them up because the DM won't even remember to hand out Inspiration for doing so.

The only PC backstory elements that ever come up are from the same players who bring them up even in games without rewards for doing so. Basically, the only people who seem inclined to use traits/bonds/flaws are the people who don't actually need those things to develop an interesting backstory.

Quote from: Chris24601;1078566Inspiration is a crap system because it's one more thing for a DM to have to keep track of and the entire rest of 5e's engine is predicated on "Rulings Not Rules" so there's nothing solid to appeal to as a player if they don't think they're getting enough Inspiration (the DMG makes a point that if you think awarding Inspiration runs against the situation you shouldn't give it out... it is entirely the GM's call).

Excellent breakdown of the mechanic.

Quote from: Shasarak;1078550Lets do a scientific experiment with Sports Fans then.  Science has proven that American Football causes brain damage so lets see how long it takes for the AVERAGE Sports fan to stop resisting changes that will prevent players getting brain damage.

Maybe we can compare that time with the AVERAGE DnD edition length?

It sounds like you're trying to use a humorous analogy to make some kind of point, but I have no idea what that is, so I'll just assume we're still talking about sports fans and how change adverse they are, in which case you might want to look at the history of the FoxTrax Puck and XFL.

Quote from: S'mon;1078583I really doubt it. Videogamers are basically "everybody" by now. Everybody under 60, anyway, and a good number of 60-70 year olds. That includes a lot of poor people. There are high IQ, low-income RPGers, but not that many I guess - income and IQ correlate positively, and really there are almost no low IQ tabletop RPGers these days, the games are too complex, and videogames offer too good an alternative.

I meant proportionally.

As for high IQ, low-income RPGers, I subscribe to the theory that the tabletop RPG dialogue has such a contentious and bitter tone (at least online) in part because it has a disproportionate number of highly intelligent but socially and economically marginalized participants. People who have an abiding resentment that their smarts haven't earned them a higher station in the world. These are presumably the sorts of gamers who express seething anger at needing to replace a $50 book every few years.

Quote from: Haffrung;1078586I meant proportionally.

As for high IQ, low-income RPGers, I subscribe to the theory that the tabletop RPG dialogue has such a contentious and bitter tone (at least online) in part because it has a disproportionate number of highly intelligent but socially and economically marginalized participants. People who have an abiding resentment that their smarts haven't earned them a higher station in the world. These are presumably the sorts of gamers who express seething anger at needing to replace a $50 book every few years.

   You may be right, but I think the nasty tone of TTRPG dialogue is more likely the fruit of the generally nasty tone of online discourse coupled with the high verbal intelligence of many participants and the growing need to bring everything into alignment with increasingly strident philosophies.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1078588You may be right, but I think the nasty tone of TTRPG dialogue is more likely the fruit of the generally nasty tone of online discourse in general coupled with the high verbal intelligence of many participants and the growing need to bring everything into alignment with increasingly strident philosophies.

That too.

I still don't quite get it.

First of all, if you're playing with strangers I can see why you might be shy asking for Inspiration as a player. But my group would very likely ask for it when playing to character. Perhaps not consistently but frequently enough.
Secondly, where's the difference between asking for Inspiration in D&D 5E and invoking an Aspect in FATE? I can't see one be a design failure and the other be a raving success, since they operate so similarly.

Quote from: Haffrung;1078586I meant proportionally.

As for high IQ, low-income RPGers, I subscribe to the theory that the tabletop RPG dialogue has such a contentious and bitter tone (at least online) in part because it has a disproportionate number of highly intelligent but socially and economically marginalized participants. People who have an abiding resentment that their smarts haven't earned them a higher station in the world. These are presumably the sorts of gamers who express seething anger at needing to replace a $50 book every few years.

That is a reasonable point.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1078584Excellent breakdown of the mechanic.

No problem. As I said, I've been designing a system of my own for a couple years now and I'll admit, going from discrete static modifiers to an advantage/disadvantage like system was not something I ever expected to be doing.

It was originally going to just an optional rule in my "changing the rules" section for the GM alongside "simple AoEs/diagonals" and "rolling more/less/no damage dice." But when I was play-testing that particular optional rule the response was so overwhelmingly positive that I actually ended up spending a couple of test sessions trying to figure out why.

My conclusion was the aforementioned "save vs. failure" effect (and the resultant endorphin rush and memory for outliers cementing it). I even tested advantage against static modifiers larger than than advantage would provide (a +6 on a d20 at one point) and advantage still won out.

The reason was because every time you rolled a 1-3 (outlier) you still missed if the normal attack needed a 10+ on the die even with the +6 bonus. Conversely, any result from 4-9 on the die just got lost in the general "hit" result.

But if you rolled a 1-3 with advantage your re-roll could not only be a hit, but a natural 20 (outlier) while failing to get a 10+ on the re-roll was lost in the general "miss" condition.

Thus, even though I recorded the results of each attack and the +6 clearly won out mechanically, all the players reported on was the outliers they remembered each time which clearly favored the advantage mechanic.

Which is why my system uses a "re-roll; use best/worst/new*"mechanic instead of static conditional modifiers. The players spoke and found it universally more fun.

The underlying psychology associated with various mechanics is really fascinating to me. It's led me down a number of design paths I never would have considered before seeing the results side-by-side in tests. Things like "tactile engagement" (i.e. rolling dice), "option paralysis", "outlier recollection" and "endorphins" are all things I've found myself learning about as my system has traded "mathematical elegance" for "fun" the more it's been developed.

* "Use new" is for riskier/more random outcomes... you're only going to try to trigger it if you do really poorly (or the other guy does really good), but you absolutely lose the roll you had and the new one might be worse (the opponent might have hit you with a 16 on the die, but the re-roll could be a natural 20). I mostly use it in relation to skill checks where I have grades of success/failure... sure you failed your "first impressions" check by 3 so the guard remains neutral to you (instead of becoming friendly with a success), but your reroll could fail by 5 and now the guard is wary of you.

I've found it especially useful for magical luck-based mechanics (i.e. something a spellcaster or creature chooses to invoke) vs. situational advantages or disadvantages to a situation (where choosing to invoke it would be a bit dissociated as its contingent on knowing the results before you choose to use it to affect the outcome... whereas a momentary magical rewind allowing you to try again or an external element intervening; a gust of wind knocks the arrow back on target; can both plausibly be called upon after the outcome is known or at least all-but-certain).

Quote from: sureshot;1078570I think it will do well if it can show that it fixes some of the flaws of the previous edition, speeds up gameplay at the table, with less math. I thought Pathfinder 1E was the final version of D&D for me. I will still play older editions for sure just easier to find new players in my area. I bought the 5E PHB fully intending to return it and instead it is now my primary version of D&D. I'm still playing PF 1E as it is my group main choice for it. I'm firmly a 5E convert. Paizo is firmly facing a Catch 22 situation. Make it too different and fans will not purchase it. Make it too much the same and fans will not purchase it.



That is what people who played Pathfinder and other editions of D&D said about 5E and look how wrong that proved out to be. Most fans will complain about the purchase of new books. If the new edition actually fixes the flaws of the previous edition while being easier to run most will switch over at the drop of dime. It's only grongnards or those who hate change who complain about the new version. 5E proved so much of a threat to Pathfinder that Paizo was saw the need to make a new edition. Brand loyalty to rpgs gets thrown out the windows as soon as someone can get a better, faster, easier version of the rpg to run imo. It happened with Gurps an the Hero System with Fate and Savage Worlds. The major complaint I can see is the purchase and spending money on a new edition. If PF 2E is better in all respects to run, play and easier to learn than PF 1E most players will switch over. For myself it's too little too late. With 5E I have an easier version of D&D to play and run. If I want more complexity I have PF 1E. So I am definitely not the target market for it.

" If the new edition actually fixes the flaws of the previous edition while being easier to run most will switch over at the drop of dime."

That's a big if. From what I saw of the playtest, they didn't fix anything.


"It happened with Gurps an the Hero System with Fate and Savage Worlds."

Idk what this is suppose to mean. GURPS and Hero seem equally popular. Fate seems to be bigger than Savage Worlds, but Fate isn't a traditional RPG like Savage Worlds. Fate is basically THE storyteller system and goes more head to head with PbtA.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1078592I still don't quite get it.

First of all, if you're playing with strangers I can see why you might be shy asking for Inspiration as a player. But my group would very likely ask for it when playing to character. Perhaps not consistently but frequently enough.
Secondly, where's the difference between asking for Inspiration in D&D 5E and invoking an Aspect in FATE? I can't see one be a design failure and the other be a raving success, since they operate so similarly.

Fate is not D&D and D&D is not Fate.

The underlying assumption of Fate is shared story where players are able to influence the outcome external to their character (I invoke a flaw now so that I can swing a narrative element in my favor later). The players are, in essence, encouraged by the rules to be "junior GMs."

The underlying assumption of D&D, to the point that abandoning "gamist" elements like fighters having abilities usable only once/encounter or once/day after the experiment that was 4E; is one where the GM is essentially God (or at least Judge in the Court of Last Resort) and players have little means of influencing the world outside of their own actions. Having any input on when Inspiration might be granted is seen as a player overstepping his bounds because the entire 5e ruleset hammers home that GM rulings override all rules.

You are free to argue that's a bad system, but that doesn't negate that if you're playing that system, "GM rulings trump everything" is the expectation unless the GM rules otherwise... and that when to award Inspiration (or if to award it at all) is entirely the perview of their whims.

This is probably one of the reasons you're having such a difficult time selling your heroes luck mechanic within the confines of D&D as well. It's a fine suggestion for a system like Fate or a brand new system, but there's four decades of interia you're pushing against with D&D. 4E didn't go a quarter as far and had all manner of problems as a result.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1078597That's a big if. From what I saw of the playtest, they didn't fix anything.

We can only see in actual play test yet if they pull it off properly I can see many fans switching over.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1078597Idk what this is suppose to mean. GURPS and Hero seem equally popular. Fate seems to be bigger than Savage Worlds, but Fate isn't a traditional RPG like Savage Worlds. Fate is basically THE storyteller system and goes more head to head with PbtA.

Gurps is not doing so well and SJGames while not dropping the line is cutting back on the big releases. Hero Games survives on 3PP support and is pretty much on life support. So sure popular within their fanabase. Compared to other rpgs they are not doing well. Savage Worlds and Fate is cutting into their market share. Big difference between surviving and thriving. Both imo are surviving.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1078592...
Secondly, where's the difference between asking for Inspiration in D&D 5E and invoking an Aspect in FATE? I can't see one be a design failure and the other be a raving success, since they operate so similarly.

I would chalk it up to Different expectations from the players.

D&D has very different core assumptions of how the game is played by people in general than Fate.

I can easily see "inspiration" being totally glossed over/ignored by most D&D groups and players.