Quote from: Sacrosanct;752966You're doing it again.  Either totally having blinders on, or are being deliberately obtuse.  Why you insist on accusing defenders of 5e for having disproportiate responses yet continue to ignore things like:

"Anyone using a pregen is missing the entire point of the game."
"Without chargen rules, the starter box is little different than a boardgame"
"Screw the starter set, it can die in fire"

and many others is beyond me.  Unless for some reason you agree with those statements.  I actually asked you point blank yesterday if you did because you are adamant about defending them, and you dodged the question.

You know, I responded to your question regarding what I meant and you have ignored my response in favor of the overdramatic retort from you that if you don't like using pre-gens and would like to create your own PC that you are a charop twink from The Gaming Den. Why? Is it because it allows you to double down on your own stupid? Not 5ancrosanct enough?

Pull your head out of your own ass first. Please.

Quote from: Benoist;752971And it goes on.

So it does.

Quote from: Rincewind1;752970You should've known Benoist well enough by now, that even when he writes FUCK YOU in bold large letters and you assume he's angry, he'll then say that how dare you misinterpret that because he's ever the calm and reasonable one. Because you see, I am totally calm and you're just too sensitive for Internet, you little pussy.

Bet your ass I'm going to tell people who keep comparing me to some sort of outlandish, insane, pompous grogtard to GO FUCK THEMSELVES in capital letters. The thing is, the reason I have to write this sort of thing is precisely because of these sorts of all-or-nothing, you're-with-us-or-you-are-an-insane-fat-basement-dweller, one-criticism-so-you-must-want-the-game-to-fail arguments. That's what actually made me melt a fuse earlier. Not the game, no. This kind of completely boneheaded rhetoric did, does, and will still occasionally, I'm sure.

Quote from: Benoist;752971And it goes on.

how about you just answer the question?  do you agree with those statements?  Do you think those statements are disproportionate to the actual issue?

Let's start there.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;752975how about you just answer the question?  do you agree with those statements?  Do you think those statements are disproportionate to the actual issue?

Let's start there.

I'm going to repost my answer because apparently you're doing some selective reading on this thread.

From this post, five posts down after you asked:

I am one of those people who believe that one of the chief aspects that differentiate tabletop role playing games from any other type of game, role playing or not, is the ability to explore the worlds of YOUR OWN imagination, and that includes the ability for the starting player to create his or her OWN alter-ego in the game-world from scratch. It is not rocket science, and if 5e does indeed live up to its promises, it shouldn't take more than a page spread to explain how to do it in the starter set.

Skipping on this is kinda like not including color on a flat-screen TV because you can always download that option from the internet later on. It doesn't make any sense to me. It is missing one of the chief defining attributes of tabletop role playing games, and what makes them distinctively attractive in addition to all the other sources of entertainment that already exist out there.

It's dumb. Flat out stupid, to me.

And requiring even just one more step, to have to go to a website and download more out of it to finally get to the actual thing that differentiates these games from everything else, is one step too much that already loses X number of newbies who could have been hooked with it if it had been in the starter set to begin with. If you do any kind of website design or anything having to do with ergonomics, you'll know that that one single additional step represents an obstacle for some people who'll just not consider it, move on to something else before they get around to do it, and so on, so forth.

Is it the end of the world? Nope. Does that mean that 5e itself will suck? I don't know. Will I check it out? I will, I have to. Do I have a grudge against WotC, do I want it to fail? Nope, quite the contrary, actually. Is it still super-dumb to not have character generation in the starter set? It is!

That's my actual position on the subject.

Yeah, again, you're dodging the question.  I read that earlier, and nothing there said you agreed or disagreed with the statements I presented, nor does it answer the question if you think those statements were disproportionate (to use your phrasing).

Since you have gone on and on with this postion of saying that only the 5e defenders have been using disproportionate phrases or reacting with hyperbole, I think you directly answering my question is very relevant.  Not sure why you keep dodging around it.

Well, I have a few ideas, but I'd rather you answer directly rather than come to my own conclusion.

No, I'm not dodging the question: That is my actual answer, and YOU are actually dodging my actual position to try and make me subscribe to someone else's. I also didn't say that 5vengers have been the only ones to overreact: I just wrote I melted a fuse earlier on this very page, for fuck's sakes. That's the rhetorical bullshit you are yourself guilty of.

If you want to talk to me, address MY points, don't try to tape someone else's on my back. Thank you.

Quote from: Benoist;752980No, I'm not dodging the question: That is my actual answer, and YOU are actually dodging my actual position to try and make me subscribe to someone else's. That's the rhetorical bullshit you are yourself guilty of. If you want to talk to me, address MY points, don't try to tape someone else's on my back. Thank you.

For Christ's sake Benoist, grow a pair for once.  You have repeatedly said that the 5e defenders are the ones blowing everything out of proportion.  When directly presented with these other statements, which certainly seem like nothing but a bunch of reactionary hyperbole to me, you not only can't admit that maybe you were wrong and it's not only the 5e fans who are being "disproportionate", but you don't even have the guts to say if you agree with them or not.  No one gives a shit about what your three paragraph answer is because no one is actually arguing against that.  People are arguing against those phrases I pointed out to you.

Simple question.  Do you think those responses are disproportionate?  Yes or no.  Everything you've been ranting about the past two days is directly tied to that answer, so it's a very valid question.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;752725Who made that argument?  No one I can see.  What I can see is someone saying that anyone who doesn't make their own character is missing the point of the whole game.  And that reeks of the Denners, since it implies that the whole point of the game is char gen, which is the primary thing they focus on, and not on actual play.

The point of RPGs is to play an imagined character in another place experiencing various situation. So yes I agree with Benoist that character generation is very much the "point" of the game.

The disconnect here is some people are associating character generation SOLELY with a series of dice rolls, formulas, and mechanics. While others are talking about character generation in its broadest sense.

You HAVE to make a character to play an RPG, the game doesn't work otherwise.

Now where I disagree with Benoist and others is that pre-gens are inferior to going through a series of steps using the game's mechanics. I say it depends on what you are trying to do.

The combination of a substantial PDF and Starter Set oriented toward Referee with pre-gens so far is acceptable to me. Not ideal but good enough. I would have done it slightly differently. But hey! It may work better than the ideas I had.

Quote from: estar;752984 The point of RPGs is to play an imagined character in another place experiencing various situation. So yes I agree with Benoist that character generation is very much the "point" of the game.

Being able to create your own character is an important part of the game, but certainly not the entire point of it.  Otherwise, by that extention, you could do nothing but do char gen (no adventuring, nothing else) and say you've played the entire point of the game.

That's just silly.  And why I made reference to the Denners because that's all they seem to place emphasis on: chargen and char op rather than actually playing the game.

QuoteYou HAVE to make a character to play an RPG, the game doesn't work otherwise..

Outright false.  You have to *have* a character to play the game.  You don't have to *make* a character to do so.  Seeing as how people have been "playing the game" with pregens for decades clearly disproves your statement.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;752895My only concern, and for me it is a big one, is whether content will also be shifted out of the PHB/DMG.

It seems clear to me that all the content in Basic is just a selected subset of the stuff in the Big Three, rather than being stuff exclusive to the basic book. (In other words, it's an implementation of the rules from the Big Three with a more limited set of races and classes and most of the optional rules not included).

Quote from: Haffrung;752950To a first-time player, the difference between a 16 or 17 Con is likely going to be meaningless.

I dunno, the first time I ever played D&D I was pretty sure 17 > 16 and therefore wasn't meaningless.

The real issue with all the bitching about Starter vs. Basic vs. free PDF vs. PHB is that none of us are in any real position to legitimately analyze which is better for the market. Say what you want about Hasbro, I am sure they know wtf they're doing.

Quote from: Warthur;752990It seems clear to me that all the content in Basic is just a selected subset of the stuff in the Big Three, rather than being stuff exclusive to the basic book. (In other words, it's an implementation of the rules from the Big Three with a more limited set of races and classes and most of the optional rules not included).

That's how I see it.  Basic rules, most common monsters (orcs, goblins, etc) will be part of the Basic set.  The Big Three will have feats, subclasses, exotic classes, beholders, mind flayers, etc.  I.e., you could play both side by side in the same game if you wanted.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;752988Outright false.  You have to *have* a character to play the game.  You don't have to *make* a character to do so.  Seeing as how people have been "playing the game" with pregens for decades clearly disproves your statement.

Not to say I necessarily agree with estar, but I believe he meant "create a character" in the broadest possible sense, which would include the "creation" that happens as you play said character.

Quote from: Benoist;752952Actually, this is you 5vengers who need to step back for a minute and think about the scope of this issue, along with the disproportionate response you're offering on forums like this one in order to defend what amounts to a fuck up.

Given the tear you've been on since the Starter Set was announced, you're the last to really talk about disproportionate responses Baked Beans.