Quote from: CRKrueger;768657If I'd taken up Ben's mantle I'd form a company and start putting out RPG product.

As far as calling bullshit on the liars who claim "One-True-Wayism" when all someone is doing is drawing a distinction, I've always done that, always will do it.

This whole "there's no such thing as association/disassociation", "metagame mechanics don't exist", "RPGs are a literary art form", etc. are all bullshit memes that come around every once in a while with a new round of forumgoers, and some of the older members join in to toss their little barbs.  Some of us just stand there and say "Nope".

Then it all dies down.

The current state of the forums are proof that 5e is succeeding on bringing players of all editions to the forums.  Most of them though come from a place where their special game gets unchallenged due to mod enforcement, so there will be an adjusting period, and then people will get along as best they can.

We do tend to get a little pissy when new folk come around and think their little anecdotal experience negates the history of the industry and tens of thousands of posts, just on this one little site.

And it is, as said, a good thing in general when people are being brought together to look at a new edition and see what it has to offer.  I may not be thrilled with this particular somewhat dissociated mechanic, but it is actually nice to see this edition stretch a bit and offer options for different types of game.

N

Quote from: CRKrueger;768657If I'd taken up Ben's mantle I'd form a company and start putting out RPG product.

As far as calling bullshit on the liars who claim "One-True-Wayism" when all someone is doing is drawing a distinction, I've always done that, always will do it.

This whole "there's no such thing as association/disassociation", "metagame mechanics don't exist", "RPGs are a literary art form", etc. are all bullshit memes that come around every once in a while with a new round of forumgoers, and some of the older members join in to toss their little barbs.  Some of us just stand there and say "Nope".

Then it all dies down.

The current state of the forums are proof that 5e is succeeding on bringing players of all editions to the forums.  Most of them though come from a place where their special game gets unchallenged due to mod enforcement, so there will be an adjusting period, and then people will get along as best they can.

I hope so because honestly I'd rather hear about how and someone made 4e work for them outside combat at this point a game I really dislike then argue about rules that are going to be modified individually anyway. In my experience I haven't seen any 2 Dnd games run under the same rules yet it works.

Quote from: Marleycat;768709N

I hope so because honestly I'd rather hear about how and someone made 4e work for them outside combat...

Okay. In 4E I run the stuff outside of combat exactly as I did for 30 years in AD&D - through roleplaying, exploration, and problem-solving. In the campaign I'm running right now we average two combats per five hour session, of about 60 minutes each. So 2 hours of combat, 3 hours of other stuff. It's no harder to do that with 4E than with any other edition.

Did you use skills or just ability checks? For example I tend to use ability checks more often then skills unless it's highly specialized or I'm wanting multiple checks like research or magic rituals on the order of a large summoning or rite.  That comes from running White Wolf games frequently.

Quote from: Marleycat;768728Did you use skills or just ability checks?

Skills. But rolelplaying and problem-solving without rolling dice mostly.

Quote from: Haffrung;768732Skills. But rolelplaying and problem-solving without rolling dice mostly.

So what's the big issue with skill challenges then? It sounds like you run things like normal.

Quote from: Marleycat;768736So what's the big issue with skill challenges then? It sounds like you run things like normal.

I've used them a few times. They work fine.

Quote from: Haffrung;768747I've used them a few times. They work fine.

I should have known it was mostly a non-issue made up by people that don't actually play the game. It's something I never understood given they made complete sense to me just from a readthru.

Quote from: Marleycat;768753I should have known it was mostly a non-issue made up by people that don't actually play the game. It's something I never understood given they made complete sense to me just from a readthru.

I use the system written up in the Essentials DMG, and then improvise and freelance as needed.

Quote from: Marleycat;768736So what's the big issue with skill challenges then? It sounds like you run things like normal.

I did. I found skill challenges to be kind of pointless dice fests. I never needed them when I was running 4E.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;768915I did. I found skill challenges to be kind of pointless dice fests. I never needed them when I was running 4E.

Interesting.... but why? Was it too obvious? I ask because it's normal in White Wolf to roll an ability check and roleplay it and then role a secondary check and roleplay it.....

I think language should be a tool of communication: just define your terms and move on. It's rarely a sign of intellectual honesty to argue with the other person's definition when they are just trying to capture a concept in a short phrase. (The main exceptions are when the concept behind the word is self-contradictory or poorly-defined--such as "Narrativism", or when the word is deliberately used either in the service of formal equivocation or rhetorical baggage as in "GM Fiat".)

Anyway CRK, LV, and Phillip have done the heavy lifting here. I'll just give my opinion of the rule as written in the Basic PDF. To me it comes off as a half-hearted gloss of Burning Wheel Artha. (Or maybe Keys in The Shadow of Yesterday, except TSoY reads as a fun game while BW is pretty dreary in my limited experience.) The important elements, that can't be separated in the overall evaluation, are how you earn Inspiration, how you spend it, and what it does for you. The specifics matter. For example there are games that give you a "benny" each time you go up a level and that's it. The effect is entirely different from handing out incentives to good roleplay. You never have to think about how to earn them, only whether to spend them, and their rarity encourages being very stingy. (The game I'm thinking of also has you succeed automatically when you use them, which makes them doubly valuable.)

In the RAW I'm pretty put off by the dancing monkey effect. BUT there's another side to "paying people for RPing" which is "compensating people for doing what they want to do, even when that thing isn't exactly prudent". It seems to me that it can be a lubricant that allows a looser style of play, which can be fun.

However the "banking" aspect is pretty lousy because it does encourage thinking out of character. Lars is right to turn this into a a Rule of Cool/Passions--really most like The Riddle of Steel Spiritual Attributes or traits in Dogs in the Vineyard or Aspects or whatever they are in Hero Wars/HQ: if it applies to the situation, you get the bonus immediately but you can't bank it. For flaws by contrast I'd allow players to bank the benny (possibly as a distinct type of benefit, let's say "fortune") however I'd explicitly tell the DM it's their solemn duty to mess with the character or not to give the award. You can't indulge a flaw just for show--it has to entail real consequences.

Of course using Inspiration/Fortune at all is going to produce a rather different game and I'm not saying one ought to use them in any form. But while the RAW doesn't appeal to me at all, a few tweaks turn it into something I could see using for some games.

I had been contemplating grafting Fate Aspects onto D&D, so Inspiration made me point and go 'aaaah!'

One of my big motivations was to make Alignment more meaningful... have alignment let you DO something special because of it.

Being limited and then inspired by your alignment... sounds like a great way to make it relevant.

huh? I was going through my old Dragon magazines and in issue 118 I thin was a article for introducing "hero" points onto the game. Which allowed you a +5%/+1 on a roll later per point spent.

3.5e also has Action Points
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/actionPoints.htm

(I was thinking of hooking that to Fate-like Aspects, including alignment)