WARNING: This post is nothing but Stormbringer getting slapped down for being an incompetent illiterate. If that interests you, grab your popcorn. If it doesn't, just skip to the next post.

Quote from: StormBringer;513928(Since your reading comprehension problems are kicking in early today, I will spell it out for you:  both DCs and Modifiers need to be capped)

If you'd said that originally, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Instead, you said that the tables for target numbers should be delimited.

If you meant to say something different than what you actually said, that's not my problem. That's your incompetence.

QuoteIt's a "metaphor". I am sure you have heard of those. You aren't literally "always fighting orcs".

Yes. It's a metaphor that you clearly don't understand.

QuoteThat is exactly what you claim you want the system to do. Always fall in the same range of success values.

That's actually not what I said. Apparently when you started throwing around the "reading comprehension" slur you were really talking about yourself.

(Pro-Tip: Just because there's a range of 18 numbers in which the d20 randomizer is relevant, it doesn't mean that all DCs in the universe fall into that 18 point range.)

Quote from: StormBringer;514077Most of us are not interested in your year old quarrels.  Mention it next time,

He did, dumbfuck. Spike quoted him mentioning it in the post you replied to. Your inability to follow a thread or read the messages you're replying to is duly noted (yet again).

QuoteThe next time you need a game design lesson, schedule an appointment and cut me a check.

Sorry. I have no interest in subsidizing your first grade English lessons with the charity of pretending to indulge your delusions.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;514199WARNING: This post is nothing but Stormbringer getting slapped down for being an incompetent illiterate. If that interests you, grab your popcorn. If it doesn't, just skip to the next post.

Quite an ego, little zebra.

QuoteIf you'd said that originally, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Instead, you said that the tables for target numbers should be delimited.

Ah, so the problem is you don't even read my posts.  I said that AC specifically is better delimited, and later on this led to the obvious statement that any bonuses and target numbers should also have a limit.

QuoteIf you meant to say something different than what you actually said, that's not my problem. That's your incompetence.

I said exactly what I meant.  I can't, however, make you read better.  Everyone else on the thread seemed to understand quite clearly what I was talking about, even if they disagreed with me.  So, my writing appears to be quite comprehensible.

QuoteYes. It's a metaphor that you clearly don't understand.

Really?  Because you thought I was referring to literally fighting orcs and nothing else all the time.  Allow me to demonstrate:

Quote from: Justin Alexander;513869It's only "always fighting orcs" if the orcs level up with you and  always land in the 18-20 point range of relevant numbers. If the AC of  an orc becomes easier to hit and eventually irrelevant (because you  aren't capping bonuses) that is the exact opposite of "always fighting orcs".

You think I am literally talking about orcs as the only monster the players would face when I said 'always fighting orcs'.  It's a metaphor for always facing roughly the same odds for an encounter.  An actual orc with AC20 being attacked by a Fighter with +10 in mods is exactly the same as a grimdark demynchylde with AC90 being attacked by a Fighter with +80 in mods.

I went over this quite extensively before, shall I just re-post all that here, and hope that you read it this time?  Everyone else understood what I was saying just fine.  You are either 'misunderstanding' intentionally, or you need to find someone to explain the big words to you from now on.

QuoteThat's actually not what I said. Apparently when you started throwing around the "reading comprehension" slur you were really talking about yourself.

Very clever.  "I know you are, but what am I?"  Your mind is as a steel trap, sir.  Allow me to get you a Dos Equis.

Quote(Pro-Tip: Just because there's a range of 18 numbers in which the d20 randomizer is relevant, it doesn't mean that all DCs in the universe fall into that 18 point range.)

No, just the relevant ones.  Or do you have your players roll a check when they have more than enough modifiers to exceed the DC?  If they have +40 in bonuses, and the DC is 25, do you have them roll?  Similarly, if they have +40 in bonuses and the DC is 65, do you have them roll?  In other words, if they have +40 in bonuses, the only relevant time they would roll is if the target number falls within the 41-60 range, correct?  So when the DCs and bonuses both escalate without bound, then the only range of numbers worth considering are...   Ta da!  1 to 20.  So the other DCs may as well not exist.  Rather like a first level character facing a DC 75 challenge.  It's not relevant for that character, because they aren't going to make the target number.  See how that works?  Only the results that are possible are relevant.  I don't see much of a fucking point in talking about the irrelevant results, do you?  If the total mods are +90, is there some critical point to be made about DCs 1 through 90?

It means that all relevant DCs fall in the same 20 number range when you allow infinite bonuses and DCs.  When you have +90 in modifiers, the entire range of DCs from 1 to 90 are irrelevant to the game.  As in, 'not pertinent'.  Fuck it, here:

rel-e-vant
                          [rel-uh-vuhnt]
bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent: a relevant remark.
 
And just for shits and giggles, here is a list of synonyms.

That isn't so hard to figure out, right?  If you have +1,000,000 in bonuses and the DC is 1,000,010, you have to roll.  But it's exactly the same as having no bonuses and rolling a DC 10.  See how that works?  See how the bonuses and the DC mystically cancel each other out?  That's because it's simple fucking math.  Subtract the bonuses from the DC, and that is what you have to roll on a d20 to succeed.  And that is why infinite bonuses coupled with infinite DCs is pointless.  It makes them both superfluous.  And for the entire range of numbers below the minimum result, it makes the randomizer superfluous.

QuoteHe did, dumbfuck. Spike quoted him mentioning it in the post you replied to. Your inability to follow a thread or read the messages you're replying to is duly noted (yet again).

And you went and dug around in the threads that were over a year old to see what the conversation was about before it was linked to?  I had a post about a year and a half ago about this very topic too.  How about you go dig that one up so you can follow what I am saying now, dumbfuck?

How about you shut the fuck up and go back to your blog?  This is instance number 10million where it is shown that your entire worldview implodes when someone dares to challenge your poorly conceived opinions.  It's even more of a spectacular meltdown when it is easily and conclusively shown that you stepped in a big pile of shit and can't admit to it.

QuoteSorry. I have no interest in subsidizing your first grade English lessons with the charity of pretending to indulge your delusions.

Uh huh.  Says the guy that can't even puzzle out simple math problems like 'subtraction' and utterly fails to recognize a 'metaphor'.

As I said before, let the flailing begin.  This isn't your little echo chamber here, you get to defend your arguments when you make them.  Or, you can throw a fit like you have all the sand in the world in your vagina.  It's pretty clear which route you always take, so I shouldn't be surprised.  Go douche the sand out, we can wait until you get back.

So, the next time you want to proclaim your super-coolness by announcing a 'slap-down' at the beginning of a post, you better have a shit-tonne more to back you up than a vacant look.  Especially when you want to announce a 'slap-down' on me.  You goddamn well better bring your 110% best fucking game, and not this weak shit you have been.  Now, scurry back to the "StormBringer anti-fan club" and tell them all how you got to talk to me.

[Edit. I completely rewrote the following post.]

Quote from: Justin Alexander;514198Because RPGs aren't boardgames.

Is this really coming as a huge surprise to you?

If boardgames were designed like RPGs, then Monopoly would give you rules for moving around the board and buying properties, but then it would say to the GM: "Here are some tips for how you can design your game boards." (Actually, if it were like a lot of RPGs, it would skip the tips and just assume the GM can figure it out.)

But boardgames aren't RPGs. And RPGs aren't boardgames.

That's all fine, but it doesn't help me to understand whether or not your analogy of RPGs to Monopoly breaks down or not. I had stated that the real estate values and real estate arrangements on a Monopoly board are part of the rules in a sense that scenario design is not.

You take on that by saying: if Monopoly was like an RPG (but as you say, it isn't) then one guy would run the game for the others (say, the guy controlling the bank) and would also design the game board for the other players. This seems straightforward, mostly, if all he is doing is re-theme the board (as Hasbro has done itself with Harry Potter Monopoly and god knows what else). But that's a given, you don't even need a separate GM for that - the players can agree to refer to the prison field as Montechristo. What's more difficult is to know if any other alteration to the game board still qualifies for what in RPG land corresponds to a 'scenario' choice. Getting rid of the prison field entirely (there's nothing like it) seems to change the rules, not just the board and the cards which refer to it. And that's why I insist on my original point that the board layout is part of the Monopoly rules in a sense that a RPG scenario is not part of a RPG ruleset. E.g. your wonderful critique of the H1 module raises many issues that are quite independent of the 4E rules design and what we can critique about it. There's a relation between the two (I think we both agree that many, many decisions in the rules were made to enable scenarios like H1) but what exactly the relation is, in 4E or another RPG, remains elusive to me, and isn't helped by your posts so far. Not that you owe me anything here, I'm just pointing out that this part in your posts was hard for me to follow.

As to the rest of your post - ok, so your diagnosis of Trollman's writings as frequently guilty of 'spherical cows' are rooted in something other than his critique of Iron Heroes. What they are rooted in is anyone's guess. That his verbiage is histrionic is apparent to everyone. But that's not the question. The question is whether the substance of his analysis is guilty of an intellectual fault you've defined very carefully. I've noted that unlike other posters you've at least shown the intellectual decency (and capability) to distinguish these two questions.

Quote from: StormBringer;514203No, just the relevant ones.  Or do you have your players roll a check when they have more than enough modifiers to exceed the DC?  If they have +40 in bonuses, and the DC is 25, do you have them roll?  Similarly, if they have +40 in bonuses and the DC is 65, do you have them roll?  In other words, if they have +40 in bonuses, the only relevant time they would roll is if the target number falls within the 41-60 range, correct?  So when the DCs and bonuses both escalate without bound, then the only range of numbers worth considering are...   Ta da!  1 to 20.  So the other DCs may as well not exist.  Rather like a first level character facing a DC 75 challenge.  It's not relevant for that character, because they aren't going to make the target number.  See how that works?  Only the results that are possible are relevant.  I don't see much of a fucking point in talking about the irrelevant results, do you?  If the total mods are +90, is there some critical point to be made about DCs 1 through 90?

I wonder if this isn't the key to why many old school games don't have this problem to the extent many new school games do. In many old school games the die roll was only made when the GM could not decide what should happen from the player's description. The obvious successes and failures were simply decided by GM fiat. Rolls were only made when the success or failure wasn't clear from the description and the GM's knowledge of the character's abilities and the specific situation.

Simply having the rules say skill rolls are only used if the GM cannot decide on success or failure based on the situation and the player's description of what her character is doing eliminates most of the problems with edge cases and setting-inappropriate results like Frodo using his outrageously min-maxed diplomacy skill to talk Sauron into giving up. I realize that this type of design would annoy the charop/min-maxer players and those players who refuse to trust GMs because they had a terrible GM once, but the hobby as a whole might be better for something like this being more widely used.

Quote from: RandallS;514219I realize that this type of design would annoy the charop/min-maxer players

Ha! One might wish, but no.

Min-maxers will concentrate on what they've always concentrated on since the beginning of the hobby: combat rules. Which are just as complex, just as prone to abuse, just as fraught with edge cases as anything else.

Turning all checks, save combat, into "DM Fiat" isn't a panacea. Appealing as it may be to the "only combat mechanics should exist" crowd.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;514221Turning all checks, save combat, into "DM Fiat" isn't a panacea.

That's not what I am suggesting. I'm suggesting that skill rolls only be made in those cases where success or failure isn't fairly obvious to the GM. Just like a GM doesn't normally require characters to make a roll to tie their shoes or allow a skill roll if some player says his (normal human) character is flapping his arms to fly like a bird.

IMHO, allowing Frodo the min-maxed Diplomancer to roll to to convert Sauron is just as stupid as requiring Frodo to roll to successfully tie his shoe.  This is even more true in systems that treat a "1 roll" as auto failure and a "20 roll" as auto success, because such systems the character has a 5% (or whatever) of doing anything.

Quote from: RandallS;514223That's not what I am suggesting. I'm suggesting that skill rolls only be made in those cases where success or failure isn't fairly obvious to the GM.

There are 2 possible outcomes to this suggestion, so far as I see it:

1.) It's just like most RPG's. Most RPG's have a "don't roll for stupid stuff" and "don't roll for impossible stuff" rules.

"High jump the moon you say? 20 means auto-success you say? 'No, you can't try that', I say."

2.) It becomes a 3 choice DM Fiat: A is no, B is yes, C is "Okay, I'll let your game stats matter. This time."

So, either it makes no difference, or it turns all non-combat checks into DM fiat. Either way, it isn't an improvement.

(Holding up the three AD&D hardbacks)

AD&D the roleplaying game is not defined by the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master Guide. Those are are just rules to a poor wargame. When you add the human referee, using these books as a guidline to adjudicates the actions of players interacting with the setting within a campaign then you have a roleplaying game.

You can't just analyze a roleplaying game based solely on the mechanics of the game. Instead you have to ask, how these rules help or hinder the referee in adjudicating the actions of the player. If they hinder the referee, (take to long to use, poorly written, etc) then it is a bad design for a roleplaying game. If they help the referee then it is a good design for a roleplaying game.

This is separate whether they make a good wargame or not. Many excellent roleplaying are poor wargames and vice versa. Many wargames make for poor roleplaying games. Sometimes a game is both a good roleplaying game and a good wargame.

The issues being brought in the previous posts arise  from treating roleplaying games solely like a warggame. Wargame rules define the "field of play" and the expectation is that the rules are the only things that need to be considered. For example Asteroid Fields in Star Fleet Battles (a star trek starship combat game) are defined in a particular way. And anytime you see asteroids on the playing field that how they are going to be.

In contrast in a Star Trek Roleplaying Game, asteroids may be defined in detail however they are guidelines. There to save the referee some work when he wants a vanilla asteroid field. Referee can and will at times define their own types of asteroid crafted to the needs of the campaign or adventure.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;514221Ha! One might wish, but no.

Min-maxers will concentrate on what they've always concentrated on since the beginning of the hobby: combat rules. Which are just as complex, just as prone to abuse, just as fraught with edge cases as anything else.

Turning all checks, save combat, into "DM Fiat" isn't a panacea. Appealing as it may be to the "only combat mechanics should exist" crowd.

I have to agree with Mr WarPig here.

I ran a game for some kids (my mate's and my daughter all 6 - 9 years).
Fantasy theme
They could pick any character - We had an elf, a witch, a pixie and a digimon
They had +6 to assign to 3 stats, Brains, Charm, and Body (which I explained was their muscles but also their speed , balance and stuff I would have called it Prowess but they were like 7).
They had 3 special 'Abilities' each -  ranging from speedy (for the elf), to shapechange for the digimon - I helped define and 'balance' these
The Game mechanic was 2d6 vers target of 8 with stat bonus

We played for 4 hours they had a great time everyone was involved all loved it and were clamouring for more.
Now .... whilst this worked entirely well after all all the elements of play were there, I wouldn't recommend it as a professional rules system....

I apologize in advance for the long multiquote. I've been out this weekend and this thread (or where it went a few times, if not the original topic) still interests me.

Quote from: Dog Quixote;513832I thought we were talking about Diplomacy?

The thread's about 5e. It became about Frank for a while, became about diplomacy as an example of him overdoing it, and then about diplomacy as sort of a test case for whether rules analysis is valid and when.

My response was to a specific post though. One of many tangents.

Quote from: Justin AlexanderSure there is: 1st level wizards in a one-shot. Low-level thugs that the DM wants to give a little more endurance. Decent for mindless foes up to about 6 HD that you don't want to get too fancy with.

And, according to Monte Cook, that's exactly the sort of stuff the feat was designed for.

Right, I suppose I forgot that one or misspoke, but that right there is a pretty narrowly useful rule. Honestly, vancian magic in a system that assumes situations that call for resource management or attrition is better than toughness in a game that has twenty levels and therefore probably does not assume one shots.

I prefer broad to narrow applicability in rules, but if you're going to narrow things, I also think you shouldn't go for a contradictory narrowing. Toughness might be fine in a game with five levels, but it was placed in a game with 20. As with diplomacy it's a case of a game built for long campaigns and eventual high power... that is also a game that seems hardly to have considered that upper end.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;513838It is impossible to judge the rules of an RPG without taking into account the scenarios in which those rules will be used. This doesn't mean that there aren't bad rules or ineffective rules or poorly designed rules. But it does mean that trying to maintain that the only good rule is one which is equally good no matter what conditions you use it under is an intellectually bankrupt position.

So would you agree that 3x was not built for low levels only (given the wide breadth of high level material) but still included content that would be useless at high levels (toughness) or ridiculously powerful at high levels (diplomacy)?

Is there a case to be made that a game shouldn't be filled with content useless to a context it appears to be built for?

QuoteWith that being said, I'm not going to argue that there aren't better ways to have designed the Toughness feat in order to make it more widely useful. (Personally, I use a variant that gives 2 hp + 1 hp per HD.) But it was designed for a particular purpose and it serves that purpose pretty well.

I just wonder why you would include things that only seem to function at low levels in a game with twenty levels. The designers really should have kept a closer eye on the manner in which things scaled, and the extent to which they remained useful or functional.

Quote from: Reckall;513868Exactly. I'm happy to see that you grasped it at the first attempt.

Because we are not talking about something lying in a field, like a train, that can be unreacheable but still broken, buy about something inherent to the person. So if he will probably die before reaching it, that it is broken is basically moot.

I'll share a secret with you: when I am 200 years old I'll get a power so surpassing that I'll be "broken". Alas, I'm an optimist, but I'm not planning my life around when I'll get to that.

Except that there's no certainty of death before any particular level. Also there are rules for high level play therefore high level play should work. I don't buy a combination printer/scanner if the scanner doesn't work. D&D is a bunch of things and that's fine. One shouldn't expect just one thing, nor should one expect it to be what it isn't. But I certainly expect it to be what it is well.

Additionally some people like high level play, use the game for that, and just start at high level. There are rules available for that. So again, since the game offers the option to play that way, the design should actually work at that level.

QuoteHow Fred does the experience needed to level? What about his adventures in (unexpected monster)land while he is questing for Diplomacy? To get to his goal he needs training, feats, churches, whose availability is somehow lying around where he lives (without this attracting other rival Diplomancer-wannabe intelligent enough to bring along a fighter to ace Fred).

Either that or he has to adventure - alone, remember - to get to what he needs, and pray not to be aced by the stray aberration.

"Delayed some levels" indeed. Maybe first Fred toughens up and then becomes a Diplomancer (which makes the whole "AT SISTH LEVELL!!!!!!!1111!" whine moot). By that point, everybody around him will be Epic anyway.

Of course there is another possibility: that Fred is a superspecial character who sprung out Zeus' head perfectly formed and already at sixth level. Which is the only case min-maxed RainMen consider. I.e. (drumroll) ATHENA IS BROKEN! The news :rolleyes:

So because you can change the rules (requiring training etc.) the rules aren't broken? Might as well buy FATAL since I can just change every single rule then.

If high level play is offered, high level play should function. Actually this is even more true if you're one of the guys who assert that it should be earned. You gotta work your ass off to earn something, then it is especially true that the thing you earn should not be shit.

Oh, and regarding the idea that the diplomacy character would be weak until he attained the high modifier: Diplomacy runs on skill ranks. Which generally don't get used to pump up combat efficiency or anything equally survival necessary. In other words, all the player has to do is quietly max his ranks every round and the game will eventually break under the stress of it. He does not actually have to be weak in cases where diplomacy isn't useful. He just drops down to useful.

Quote from: jeff37923;513957Only if the DM has no common sense and allows it.

There are plenty of ways to stop the Diplomancer. The most obvious one being the Diplomancer and its target audience not speaking the same language. No communication => no diplomacy. Send in a mook who doesn't speak the language to attack the Diplomancer and see how long it lasts.

This arguement is based upon math and the belief that Players and GMs are nothing but bitches of the rules who cannot think outside of those rules.

Such idiocy gets what it deserves.

High level diplomacy is still necessitating that you prep your games around it. So your players can never face the big bad, never fight an intelligent creature that speaks the same language, never fight in melee because your diplomacy character can break all those situations.

In other words the game has lost a lot of its utility so you can throw some enemies at the party that invalidate one player's decision.

There was a better argument in just identifying that there was something wrong and actually fixing it.

Quote from: Spike;513960As a GM I sit there while one of my players repeatedly 'breaks' the game by having almost 20 points more in Spot and Listen checks than any other player. THings that can 'attempt' to sneak up on her characters are essentially invisible to every other player. Things the others can detect might as well be wearing bells as far as she's concerned.

Obviously this creates a problem in scaling encounters for me. Obviously this suggests something isn't working 'as intended' to me, but generally I'm too busy doing other things.

HEY LOOK!  Some nerd-spergers over at the den are talking about diplomaners, and viola! Here at The Site we are talking about 'always fighting orcs' and now I've got a hypothetical reason why my table keeps breaking down on stealthy monsters....

tl;dr: As I've said, the value of looking at the Diplomancer 'problem' is not looking for solutions for a problem that doesn't exist, its in seeing the problems that lead to diplomancer style issues in the first place clearly.

This exactly. The fact that a problem doesn't come up in every context doesn't make a problem not a problem. And this is a place where rules discussion can help with actual play. DMs chat about what's wrong and share their fixes, game runs smoother, people enjoy their games a tiny bit more.

I honestly can't see why this is something worthy of derision.

Quote from: Rum CoveI've found that players can deal with these issues among themselves.  A "Diplomancer" would not last a single session with a group of gamers that have spent just as much time optimizing their characters for combat.

Forget the sixth level shit for a second. Assume all that's been demonstrated is that this skill breaks down at high levels (because at high levels a killer can kill well, but is still challenged by equals whereas diplomacy necessitates mindlessness or language barriers all the time to defend against it). Assume the diplomancer is just someone who maxes skills as a matter of course (like I do and advise new players to do, because it's easy and gives clearer character concepts) and happened to live to high levels.

All he has spent is skill ranks. He can fight just as well as anybody else.

Quote from: Benoist;513980I agree this is the problem. "I can handle it just fine. I just don't want to." It's basically abdicating the development of skill in game mastery to the game designer and forum pundit. It could be kind of sad or funny, depending on my mood, if it didn't become a trend that ends up altering entire game designs just for the sake of the theoretical argument.

So new players should not be allowed to DM until they have developed system mastery. Only the elite may run a game, as only they have the wisdom and judgement to forsee these issues. No one here is calling for AEDU as the fix. People just want the math to work.

The theoretical arguments can find problems and potential fixes that DMs (especially inexperienced or short-on-time DMs) can use to improve their games. Nothing sad about that.

QuoteSo now we have game systems basically searching to make adjudication, common sense, and skill on the part of the GM really, completely moot. "I could get better at what I do, but I don't want to." No wonder then that games end up sucking ass with these marvellous games designs we've been so graciously given from on high over these last few years. Blimey, it's a wonder game systems still need GMs to operate nowadays. Hey, why not fix that, too? I can handle GMing just fine, it's just... I shoudn't have to, really...

Skill in GMing should not be about fixing a broken thing. It should be about preparing interesting adventures, NPCs, locales, monsters. The fun stuff. If it's a chore that only vets and "spergy" types feel up to or interested in, that's a problem.

QuoteYou know, that makes me think, if such a thing as a perfect game system was ever possible to achieve, I don't think I would touch it with a ten-foot pole. I value my and other participants' skills with RPGs way too much to let a game system take charge of everything for me and my buddies at the table, thank you very much.

Nobody here is asking for perfection, or for the alteration of the whole damn game just because toughness is a bad feat or diplomacy's description would have been more useful if there wasn't a description.

Also having math that works doesn't invalidate the actually interesting decisions that revolve around adventures, locales, NPCs, monsters, treasure, and good content. 4e made the mistake of removing fun content but that has little to do with the math side of things and more to do with just bad design.

Quote from: Windjammer;514073What's misleading about the 'crunch whoring' diagnosis - and the Pun-Pun type of examples which invite it in the first place - is to believe that the 'widening gap' problems only come about if the DM allows players to cherry pick stuff from every book. The problem Baker and Slavicsek describe is a common one at that level of play. I've experienced it myself, in a campaign which I ran under the idea of 'every PC build can make use of the PHB and one splat book', with stuff like Tome of Battle excluded from the get go.

Thinking that 'I've never played D&D above level 10' entitles one to say 'Anyone pointing out a problem with play above level 10? Spherical Cows!' is a misuse of the term.

This is closely related to the fact that, so far, no one has shown us how Frank's diagnosis of Iron Heroes was guilty of 'spherical cows' as defined by Justin.

Speaking of that definition, observe the final sentence in the quote given above. It illustrates a way in which encounter design can mitigate a rules fault. But that's a far cry from saying 'the circumstances under which a design fault can arise are so rare that we can discount the fault' (one of Justin's definition of a spherical cow).

No, the claim in that final sentence is this: the circumstances in which the fault shows up become so frequent that scenario design (or monster choice, more simply put) has to mitigate it from now on. (And 'mitigate' is not the same as 'making it go away'.)

This nails right on the head my two biggest concerns.

1)Math breaks down without any special effort, by way of a widening gap. Or by way of optional defense (perception against stealth for example).

2)Broken rules determine what adventures you can and can't run. Instead of the logic of the game world, or what would be interesting to you or your players, or what have you. This is proposed as a solution to the problem, when it is often the problem people have with the rules.

Quote from: beejazz;514232So new players should not be allowed to DM until they have developed system mastery.

No. We should give them a few pages of comprehensive advice and methodologies to run the game on their own and adjudicate when needed, instead of servicing them with hundreds upon hundreds of pages of rules within rules because we'd think they're mentally crippled and can't do that by themselves, as we are doing now.

PS: "Game mastery" is not "system mastery", by the way. I am talking about "Game mastery" as in Gary Gygax's books, Role-playing Mastery and Master of the game. The rules system is only a small part of what the game played encompasses. I thought we were past this sort of confusion, but apparently not.

Quote from: Benoist;514234No. We should give them a few pages of comprehensive advice and methodologies to run the game on their own and adjudicate when needed, instead of servicing them with hundreds upon hundreds of pages of rules within rules because we'd think they're mentally crippled and can't do that by themselves, as we are doing now.

I'm advocating fewer, better, easier to understand rules. Not more, more complicated, harder to learn rules.

Also I've advocated for advice as an at least partial fix. For example, Vancian magic relies on specific contexts to work (wandering monsters, multifight days, deadlines, etc). Therefore it is a good thing that older editions actually tell DMs that sort of thing so they don't have to just know. So you're not contradicting me here.

But widening gaps, "optional saves" (like perception against stealth), non-existent saves against permanent effects (diplomacy), etc. do not improve the game, could be excised in ways that make the system actually smaller and easier to learn, and tend to take prior knowledge to notice and a lot of time and work to fix (if you don't just ditch high levels altogether, which many players do).

No one is asking for "hundreds and hundreds of pages of rules within rules."

QuotePS: "Game mastery" is not "system mastery", by the way. I am talking about "Game mastery" as in Gary Gygax's books, Role-playing Mastery and Master of the game. The rules system is only a small part of what the game played encompasses. I thought we were past this sort of confusion, but apparently not.

One fixes the broken system with system mastery. I would like a system that works, precisely so that system mastery is less necessary. The *rest* of game mastery as a component of play is actually the main draw of the game for me, and (I would imagine) for most players.

Quote from: beejazz;514232Skill in GMing should not be about fixing a broken thing. It should be about preparing interesting adventures, NPCs, locales, monsters. The fun stuff. If it's a chore that only vets and "spergy" types feel up to or interested in, that's a problem.

Here is a hint, every system out there is broken. Fails on some level to simulate the genre or reality.

Part of what the human referee does is handle what the rules can't do.

The criteria whether this an issue does it hinder the referee in preparing or refereeing the campaign.  

It been my experience that most RPG mechanics are of the good enough category. Yes if you push it you get a Pun-Pun or a diplomancer but for 90% of what the game is expected to cover it works and works well.

Doesn't mean there aren't examples of bad and useless mechanics but I find them to be the exception than the rule.

Quote from: beejazz;514235I'm advocating fewer, better, easier to understand rules. Not more, more complicated, harder to learn rules.

First, caveat: I just read your answer to me in your long post above. I didn't read the rest of your stuff.

Now, we do agree on some things, apparently. I think fledging GMs are much better serviced by clear rules principles assisted by strong, well-thought out methodologies (which is where structures like dungeons are extremely useful, because they provide a concrete support for these types of advice) which empower the users of the game instead of trapping them into a box of game mechanics.

We just have different approaches as to the role the rules system itself must play in this picture, apparently. I am advocating the plain fact that the game being played is constituted of different moving parts, including the game system but not only. I am also advocating for games to empower their users, not limit them. I am advocating for developing people's understanding of the games they play (not just their rules), so they can develop true game mastery (i.e. understand these moving parts and actually run the game as competently as they can). Good refereeing, decision making, adjudication, extrapolation, imagination are fundamental aspects of this game (tabletop role playing games) which let their users take charge of their own make-believe. This should be helped, coached, encouraged.

The problem I see is that each time GMs say something like "You know, I could handle that issue, but I shouldn't have to," what they are doing in effect is giving up on a chance to develop true game mastery. I don't see that as a good thing.

The same way, game systems which treat their users as completely unimaginative, subdued, lazy, gutless incompetents drinking the kool aid from the game designers above should be shot in the head and ditched on the side of the road to game mastery.

The elistist here isn't the one you think. I don't believe that fledging players and GMs today are any less competent than we were when we started playing role playing games decades ago. We could help them with our experience running games, with sound advice and methodologies, but instead we choose to obsess over completely pointless issues of rules systems taken in theoretical vacuums.

This is a waste of time that's more appealing to asperger types than real gamers out there. You know, the ones that play and run games, run into something not making sense with the rules, having the GM make a call to then move on with the session.

As for a "broken system", this is a red herring, as far as I'm concerned. If a system is thoroughly non-functional, i.e. "broken", then it's impossible to play it, by definition, without having the game crash and burn. If it is played, and moreover, widely popular, with millions of people having fun with it, the system is by definition not "broken". There may be concerns, issues that would need fixing, maybe, and I may certainly not like it for reason X or Y, but "broken" really is not the appropriate term for 99.99% of the issues discussed by armchair theorists on message boards.

This is not an excluded-middle proposition on my part: rules issues that are really detrimental to game play deserve to be talked about and maybe fixed at the source at some point. But all I see coming from too many forum posters is just over-the-top, doomsday rhetoric based on either corner cases that just do not matter to 99% of gamers playing the game out there, or completely unrealistic scenarios resting on a (willful or not) misunderstanding, or worse, rejection, of the context of the rules system and the game that surrounds it. That is not good.

Quote from: estar;514240Here is a hint, every system out there is broken. Fails on some level to simulate the genre or reality.

Part of what the human referee does is handle what the rules can't do.

The criteria whether this an issue does it hinder the referee in preparing or refereeing the campaign.  

It been my experience that most RPG mechanics are of the good enough category. Yes if you push it you get a Pun-Pun or a diplomancer but for 90% of what the game is expected to cover it works and works well.

Doesn't mean there aren't examples of bad and useless mechanics but I find them to be the exception than the rule.

Ditto. QFT.