I'm not sure what you mean by "feeding the WotC echo chamber."  The Den is just as critical of the company and 5th Edition as The RPG Site is, although for very different reasons.

Or do you mean the reinforcement of WotC defenders' viewpoints as a result of combative arguments?

Quote from: Libertad;573642I'm not sure what you mean by "feeding the WotC echo chamber."

I mean that WotC considers arguments about absolute balance and player entitlement and 'the fighter sucks balls because he doesn't have abilities I can leverage against the DM' lines of thought as 'factions' that matter, that they should cater to in some way, shape or form. The fact that the whole-mechanics-discussion-all-the-time of forum led to a shift in design in 3rd ed that gave us stuff like PHB2 and Book of Nine Swords and heralded the advent of 4e, which now forms its own clique WotC has to respond to with 5e's design in some way in order to fulfill its 'big tent' intent in the first place.

There's no full coming back from that hell WotC built for itself. Otherwise you'll just recreate the fracture 4e was with the previous audience of the game.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;573541If I may respond to this, even though it wasn't addressed to me.

The reason why I think 3e was one of the most popular versions was because it offered a lot of options for established players on building a character from the vision they had in their head.  Also, even though this doesn't really bother me, a lot of people prefer the more intuitive way of ascending AC instead of THAC0 and going to a more universal d20 system.

I firmly believe that 75% of 3e players don't play 3e like the Denners.  I.e., shoot right to max level and min/max as much as possible.  You've always had a percentage of players in every edition who liked to do that, but I can't believe that most players do.

Therefore, if you don't skip right to a level 20 build and eek out every possible + that you can, you probably won't run into nearly as many problems in 3e as the folks who play like that attribute to the system.

I agree with the above, but I will also add that when 3E came out it had the OGL. Because of the OGL, there was an explosion of creativity in general gaming and D&D gaming in particular with tens of thousands of products coming out. This was and is also one of the main reasons why 3E is the most popular versions of the game in existance.

What I learned from this experience is not everyone likes you and some people actually hate or think of me less over a silly game.  Also I learned I like Ben more every day. I may not agree with him on many things but I like him. He has balls and that is always a good thing in a woman's eyes, trust me boys.

Quote from: Benoist;573622It's a good thing to realize that this stuff is a waste of time. Allowed me to disengage, and read through the AS&SH Players' Manual instead. As you know, I read the whole thing in 24 hours (250 pages). I haven't been sucked in a rules book like this for some time. There's good stuff coming on the horizon, folks. I can feel it.

This is why I'm working more and posting less. I see at least 5 games I must try and probably buy.

1. Labyrinth Lord
2. DCC
3. ACKS
4. AS & SH
5. 5e

Quote from: Marleycat;573659This is why I working more I see at least 5 games I must try.

1. Labyrinth Lord
2. DCC
3. ACKS
4. AS& SH
5. 5e

It's a good list. If you've never tried B/X you should definitely give LL a shot. DCC RPG is totally awesome in a 70s Sword & Sorcery HELL YEAH kind of way. ACKS is basically LL plus domain management and a few tweaks that streamline the game (one of the best written, most clearly written RPG products I've ever had the chance to read, honestly). 5e ... meh, I just lost faith, but whatever. Try it.

AS&SH... I'll talk a lot more about it in the future. Stay tuned.

Quote from: Benoist;573662It's a good list. If you've never tried B/X you should definitely give LL a shot. DCC RPG is totally awesome in a 70s Sword & Sorcery HELL YEAH kind of way. ACKS is basically LL plus domain management and a few tweaks that streamline the game (one of the best written, most clearly written RPG products I've ever had the chance to read, honestly). 5e ... meh, I just lost faith, but whatever. Try it.

AS&SH... I'll talk a lot more about it in the future. Stay tuned.

Jeff gave me all his LL stuff on flash drive it's a beautiful and simple game.  I have Moldavay Basic (thanks again Jeff), haven't played it but it looks simple and fun. I know we disagree about 5e but that's ok. As for AS & SH I await what more you have to say. So many good games and no time. That's not even counting my preferred games like Dark Heresy and Mage the Awakening.

I think we all need to take a step back and give our heads a shake.

No human is perfect, and no human will write the perfect rules. Perfection is an imaginary concept that only exists in peoples' mind.

Can someone write the perfect rules? No.

Can people enjoy something that is imperfect? Yes, people do that every day.

That doesn't mean we should slum and accept mediocrity, but, just as a child's tantrums will not meaningfully solve the whatever is distressing the child; trying to create a perfect RPG will not create a perfect RPG.

No iteration of the D&D rules will ever make everyone who plays them happy with them as long as there is more than one human being. There is not "fixing" it. You can massage, tweak and radically restructure it, but as long as people have opinions it will not please everybody.

There is no "fix"; the "fix" in in your own head.

I play & run oldschool D&D. It's not perfect. I used to try and houserule it into perfection, but I realized I was chasing a pipe dream. Now I just try to run a good game, intellectual exercises be damned.

Quote from: gleichman;573613My impression is different. You're generally right in there siding with the bully gang, and I can't recall you ever opposing them.

But perhaps I just failed to notice. Do you have an example of your independence?

Sure. I shop at Hot Topic like all the other non-conformists.

Seriously: If I had a gang here, they all left years ago for, I dunno, Gamer Haven or some crap.  

Oh, wait: To prove my independence there's like... some sort of test right? I gotta spit in the eye of The Man or something?  You know, prove it to all the other independents?

Grow the fuck up, man.   We both know that the only thing you'd accept as proof is me attacking targets you approve of, which would make me exactly... not independent at all.

Quote from: gleichman;573613My impression is different. You're generally right in there siding with the bully gang, and I can't recall you ever opposing them.

But perhaps I just failed to notice. Do you have an example of your independence?

What utter horseshit.  "If you don't protest enough, then you support them."


This is exactly the kind of shit attitude that made me stop posting in Tangency years ago, and then rpg.net as a whole.

Quote from: Spike;573690Grow the fuck up, man.   We both know that the only thing you'd accept as proof is me attacking targets you approve of, which would make me exactly... not independent at all.

You overstate my request, It wouldn't have to be a 'target' I approve of, or even an opinion that I approve of. It could be as simple as Black Vulmea saying it agreed with McGuy or myself on something. It could be something you've already done, just pass on a link.

But I understand your refusal, and shall ignore you claim. Thus I'll stick with my current impression of you as in lockstep with the tone and nature of therpgsite as represented by the likes of Benoist and Sacrosanct.

Hey, whatever gets you through the day, man.


I'm not the masochist who insists on returning to a forum where he hates everyone, and they hate him right back.


Meanwhile, I'll be over in Mom's Minivan... its less conformist than the bus.

Quote from: MGuy;573573Here you're reasonable. You sit down and offer up a proper exchange. Then you turn around and post this:



and this:

And this is what you bring to the table. So how do you think posts like these two, completely ignorant and divorced from any of the points and arguments others and I have actually presented, make you look to me? That was the point of my final conclusion. If I were curious about how older editions are actually played the willful ignorance of people like you are showing towards people who disaree with you only further cements my lack of desire to participate in those games. Perhaps if someone who HAS been reasonable throughout this entire thing offered (such as anybody who hasn't been an asshat about it like jibba) were to offer I'd consider it. You may at least not be as bad as some of the worst offenders but you do little to sway me when you are unwilling to address points I actually made.

As for why I value 3rd ed: While it has many problems (enough to set me on a course to makin my own game) it has a lot of things I straight up enjoy. For one the math is easy. With a range on a d20 I can flexibly edit the system and figure out the outcomes and consequences of simple number tampering. For 2 it has a lot of distinct, flavorful abilities and skills with definite effects along with solid DCs, DC adjustments, and ways fo reasonably adjusting these numbers given a number of variables so I as a GM can easily adjuticate resultant TNs and I as a player can reasonably gauge the likelihood of my own success divorced from whether or not I can "play the GM". In other words "Player Empowerment". 3E is home to my favorite campaign setting (Eberron) has a lot of tinker parts that I can fiddle around with. It's an all around solid system that leaves me free as a GM to adjust as I like to get the kind of play experience I desire while being solid system on its own. 3E/Pathfinder/whatever is the closest to what I want.

I don't like rules lite games as much but I'll play them if the settin can take my mind off of it. I don't like dicepools as much because the math is harder and it's a bit harder to gauge what I can and can't do. I don't like 4E for more reasons than I care to name. I never had a good experience playing 2E and the MOST of the 2e crowd here are definitely not making it seem more appealing. The fact that so few people are actually speaking out against the people being loud and ignorant only further pushes me away (though not by the same magnitude the actual ass hats are).

Edit: Now keeping in mind that 3E is my favoriteg ame I should point out that most of the time I've spent here I've been pointing out problems with it. That is because while I enjoy something it does not blind me to issues with it (which is why I started making my own game). So you can perhaps understand that while I enjoy doing one thing (making house rules) that I can separate that from what I'm talking about (how the rules actually work).

I am always reasonable.

The post you singled out there was humor.

I'm telling you, man. MGuy would fail the Turning Test. He doesn't have a conversation, he looks to see if something obviously agrees with him or if it appears to disagree, then vomits forth responses to keywords.

Eliza has broader depth than he does. He just has more volume per response.

Quote from: Spike;573709I'm telling you, man. MGuy would fail the Turning Test. He doesn't have a conversation, he looks to see if something obviously agrees with him or if it appears to disagree, then vomits forth responses to keywords.

Eliza has broader depth than he does. He just has more volume per response.

I have tried reason and humor, and it seems not to help.