Quote from: One Horse Town;523540Here, in principle, i don't agree.

We've always, at least, when someone runs away from an engagement in a  melee, allowed a 'free' attack. In its simplest form, that's an attack of opportunity.

The difference here is that I have always used AoOs in their simplest form. They make sense in the real world.

But several different types of actions, interrupts, and other such fiddly bits that may or may not draw AoOs make the game more complicated. 3e's and 4e's design may work for a computer that can handle all of the stuff that bogs down a game run by a human being, but in my opinion makes for weak tabletop rules when every aspect of the game needs them to function as written.

I think it would be better for a core set of rules to allow combat to flow smoothly with the caveat that it may not necessarily be ultra-realistic. The rules need to be just realistic enough to make sense and not ruin verisimilitude. TSR's combat is realistic enough for me (discounting the one minutes rounds).

But if 5e can pull it off, have Advanced Tactics that add that type of realism for people that want it. Hell, in important combats I want it. But I don't want it as a default. I want those types of rules as ones I can turn on and off as the pace of the game dictates.

I'd love to see jousting rules. I'd love to see Wizard Duel rules. I'd love to see one-on-one duelist/fencing rules. But building a single combat system that would allow all to work together would be too complicated.

3e's and 4e's combat in trying to be more realistic became less because I can't sit back and visualize it. I have to keep thinking about the rules instead of playing a role. Both games became deep tactical/strategy simulations instead of role-playing games for me. Does that make sense?

Quote from: JasperAK;523549I'd love to see jousting rules. I'd love to see Wizard Duel rules. I'd love to see one-on-one duelist/fencing rules. But building a single combat system that would allow all to work together would be too complicated.

I think it can be done.

Jousting rules. Wizard-dueling rules. Fuck yeah!

Quote from: JasperAK;5235493e's and 4e's combat in trying to be more realistic became less because I can't sit back and visualize it. I have to keep thinking about the rules instead of playing a role. Both games became deep tactical/strategy simulations instead of role-playing games for me. Does that make sense?

I think so yes. I think the problem with a lot of games is the rules end up not really representing the reality they where supposed to and you end up with reality having to warp to obey the rules. Of course, I have exactly the same issue with a ton of stuff from other games too.

If that is a problem that can ever actually be fixed is another issue. Because I suspect everyone's tolerance is slightly different.

I *like* the concept of marking, which is basically of you ignore someone there are consequences. And on paper it actually improves the game, it makes fighters better at deeding people rather than something to ignore. But the rules for it are badly explained, don't really fulfil the real world premise and give it a really dumb name. So I want Marking in 5e, just with different rules and ideally a different name.

Attacks of opportunity on the other hand, although they make sense and I can visualise them, still need to be take out and shot because they are the number one cause of static dull combat. I just don't care that I can visualise it if its fucking over the game play.

But that is my balance point, and its unlikey 5th is going to hit it on the head, which is why I am really hoping a lot of stuff goes back to being optional rules that can be added in as people want.

Quote from: JasperAK;523549The difference here is that I have always used AoOs in their simplest form. They make sense in the real world.

But several different types of actions, interrupts, and other such fiddly bits that may or may not draw AoOs make the game more complicated. 3e's and 4e's design may work for a computer that can handle all of the stuff that bogs down a game run by a human being, but in my opinion makes for weak tabletop rules when every aspect of the game needs them to function as written.

I think it would be better for a core set of rules to allow combat to flow smoothly with the caveat that it may not necessarily be ultra-realistic. The rules need to be just realistic enough to make sense and not ruin verisimilitude. TSR's combat is realistic enough for me (discounting the one minutes rounds).

But if 5e can pull it off, have Advanced Tactics that add that type of realism for people that want it. Hell, in important combats I want it. But I don't want it as a default. I want those types of rules as ones I can turn on and off as the pace of the game dictates.

I'd love to see jousting rules. I'd love to see Wizard Duel rules. I'd love to see one-on-one duelist/fencing rules. But building a single combat system that would allow all to work together would be too complicated.

3e's and 4e's combat in trying to be more realistic became less because I can't sit back and visualize it. I have to keep thinking about the rules instead of playing a role. Both games became deep tactical/strategy simulations instead of role-playing games for me. Does that make sense?

Makes sense to me but I have big hopes they do exactly what you're saying put a core game simple as 1e or earlier out and go to town with add on modules, let me build "Marley's Frankenstein Dnd".  Who cares if some dude on the interweb hates it, they don't have to play it.

The problem with attacks of opportunity is that they aren't dangerous enough. So they're fiddly instead of something to worry about. If you do something stupid while somebody is trying to kill you, it should be a real risk.

On the other hand they should not be triggered so much by movement (which is also fiddly). Do you think you get a free strike at somebody IRL if they run away from you? Not really! Especially if you don't chase them!

Quote from: Imp;523559Do you think you get a free strike at somebody IRL if they run away from you? Not really! Especially if you don't chase them!

Generally, in real life, you don't have a sword or spear to hand, so it's hard to tell.

I'm happy with a free strike in a game in such circumstances.

Quote from: Marleycat;523556Makes sense to me but I have big hopes they do exactly what you're saying put a core game simple as 1e or earlier out and go to town with add on modules, let me build "Marley's Frankenstein Dnd".  Who cares if some dude on the interweb hates it, they don't have to play it.

If we look at twenty-five years ago, that WAS D&D. Everyone had their own critical hit tables, and they didn't break the game.

D&D used to be a toolbox, but something changed. I don't know if it was because 3e's interdependence of all the rules on each other, or maybe the community's desire to play a game that was recognizable across all different tables (or RPGA?).

But regardless, IMO, the style of play changed. I am currently writing up a story hour for a B/X game and I realise that it probably isn't me but the system that governs how a game plays out at the table. An old-school style emerged naturally through play. For me it is superior and resembled the game I played more than 25 years ago, but I understand that is not what everyone is looking for. If WOTC wants my money, 5e must allow this.

Quote from: JasperAK;523564If we look at twenty-five years ago, that WAS D&D. Everyone had their own critical hit tables, and they didn't break the game.

D&D used to be a toolbox, but something changed. I don't know if it was because 3e's interdependence of all the rules on each other, or maybe the community's desire to play a game that was recognizable across all different tables (or RPGA?).

But regardless, IMO, the style of play changed. I am currently writing up a story hour for a B/X game and I realise that it probably isn't me but the system that governs how a game plays out at the table. An old-school style emerged naturally through play. For me it is superior and resembled the game I played more than 25 years ago, but I understand that is not what everyone is looking for. If WOTC wants my money, 5e must allow this.

I totally get you.  Check it out if they did the simple core and add on modules to ad nauseum they have a ticket for a larger supplement mill than 3e if done in a certain way and under their direct control. Yes it was the presence of the RPGA or more exactly Wotc 's desire to make it viable that was major reason for the shift in the communities shift in playstyle, 4e is apex of this attitude, it's a game built for and by the RPGA.

Quote from: Benoist;523546Yes, and I actually agree with that. What I mean is the way it's formulated and predicated on the use of the grid in 4e and 3e. Call it a free attack, name conditions, like say, fleeing away from melee, that bestow free attacks without necessitating to get used to jargon or the use of a grid, and I'll be cool with it.

I allow another type of "opportunity attack" on people trying to move past you just as I have since 1975 or so. It's basically a "zone of control" rule borrows from board waergames. Here's the rule from M74:

QuoteOpportunity Attacks: Anyone not surprised and with a ready weapon who is not already involved in a melee combat gets a free attack on opponents trying to move past them – this attack is in addition to their normal attack for the round. If the attack is successful, the opponents takes damage and can move no further that round.

This allows characters to try to block opponents from moving past them, allowing characters to defend the characters behind them. Combine this with a free attack on opponents who are running away and you cover the majority of the realistic/common "interrupt" attacks without the complex AoO rules of 3.x. No grid needed, either.

Quote from: One Horse Town;523511Indeed.

Two Fishes has suddenly become full of shit.

I blame alcohol or possibly brain-damage. Maybe both.

Damnit!

Why doesn't anyone remember tertiary syphilis anymore?!

Won't people think of the syphilis?!

Quote from: jeff37923;523577Damnit!

Why doesn't anyone remember tertiary syphilis anymore?!

Won't people think of the syphilis?!

I DO NOT want to know, nope move along, nothing to see here.

Quote from: One Horse Town;523524I figured you for a Polish Aos, with less to say about gaming.

:rotfl:

Now I feel justified in reading this thread. That alone makes it all worth it.

Quote from: JasperAK;523564D&D used to be a toolbox, but something changed. I don't know if it was because 3e's interdependence of all the rules on each other, or maybe the community's desire to play a game that was recognizable across all different tables (or RPGA?).

The goal is to make the experience replicable regardless of the skill or experience of the referee.

In other words, to make it like Candyland.

Quote from: Imp;523559The problem with attacks of opportunity is that they aren't dangerous enough. So they're fiddly instead of something to worry about. If you do something stupid while somebody is trying to kill you, it should be a real risk.

The primary purpose of AoOs is to avoid some of the weirdness that comes from abstractly running combat in a sequence of turns. If someone runs past you, you can take a swing at them because everything is actually happening simultaneously.

This applies even to the AoOs that provide a consequence for ignoring melee opponents (ranged attacks, spellcasting, drinking potions, etc.): If you were standing 3 feet away from a guy with a knife in real life, you could not blithely aim your revolver at a guy standing 80 feet away in the opposite direction because "it's not that guy's turn, so he couldn't possibly stab me with that knife while I ignore him".

The game is not trying to punish you or deal lethal consequences: It's providing a veneer of simulated simultaneity.

Quote from: Benoist;523546Yes, and I actually agree with that. What I mean is the way it's formulated and predicated on the use of the grid in 4e and 3e.

This wasn't the case in 3.0. You could probably just go back to those rules.

Although the real problem with AoOs is the long list of actions that do or do not provoke them: There's no way to memorize that list, so the only thing you can do is check it whenever an unusual action is taken. (After nearly 13 years of using the system, I still have to check the damn thing on a routine basis.)

What you need is a simple, straight-forward guideline which the DM can use and interpret.

If I was looking to simplify the AoO guidelines I would probably go with something like this: "If you can be hit by an opponent's melee weapon, you are considered to be in a melee. Any character in a melee who moves more than 5 feet or who takes any action which is not a melee attack, defensive in nature, or purely mental provokes an attack of opportunity. Speaking does not provoke an attack of opportunity."

Quote from: Benoist;523500Guys like Ron Edwards, Ryan Dancey and others are nothing without the legions of people who are either (1) sucking their dicks for reason X or Y, whether they like their bankrupt ideas or worse, because they'd like to get in on the action themselves, or (2) just not caring because well, they don't give a shit about it so ... the game might go down the trash, who cares?

Well. I do.

I'm sorry: it's not because you're not one of the big shots that I should give you some slack when you're saying something that I not only don't agree with, but think damaged the hobby in recent and not-so-recent years. I don't want to give a pass to that shit anymore. Live with it.

I don't have to "live with it" because, to me, all of this is immaterial. Actually, it is to you, too. And to everyone in this site. I already have the D&D I like and want (BECMI), plus several others I also like, but less (AD&D, 3.0, and the least of all, 4.0, though I played some games and it was fun).

Is someone impliying that if D&D 5e turnos out to be shit, thedungeondelver or Philotomy or you or I will stop playing the D&D we like and love best? This maybe could have been a possibility in 1990. Not now.

Arguing with fans of 4e in places not relevant to WotC is not changing shit. It is not even furthering your cause, or helping make the next edition of D&D the game you want. It's something you do for shits & giggles probably, but is disingenous to pretend that it means something to the future of the game.

Is someone seriously thinking that people at WotC (or even better, Hasbro), will say, "Hey, we better watch out these two fucking nerds having a sissy fight over the meaning of the word "story" because that is surely as fuck going to determine if we use bennies in the next edition or not"? Really?

I don't think so.

If Ron Edwards had any influence on 4e designers it surely wasn't due to him getting in Internet fights with nerds. It was because he explained his ideas and worked to make them arrive to the persons who mattered, persons who, by the way, are mostly NOT HERE.

At the end of the day all these ridiculous fights are about people wanting to be consulted, people not being able to tolerate that the guys at the helm of game XXX would dare to do things other way than their way. Actually, they may succeed: look at the controversy over the ending of Mass Effect 3. It is a sickening thing to see Bioware bending over and taking it in the ass to appease a bunch of stunted manchildren.

I'd rather have game designers do their own thing without polls and all that bullshit. Let the designers create the game they want and vote with your pockets.

QuoteMy gaming is secure whatever happens. I'd very much like for the D&D game to be a great game in its own right, however, and not some piece of shit New Coke brand cattering to the lowest common denominator out there.

D&D is a great game in its own right already, and it's been so for such a long time you are all decades late to the party. Thousand, maybe millions of persons are playing it around the world in some edition or other every fucking day. As far as I know, at least 300 persons are going to play Classic D&D in Barcelona just in a Barnalúdica con, not counting the many gamers out there that will be playing at home because it's Saturday. And that is only one city in one country in Europe. You edition warriors are like those mythical Japanese soldiers forgotten in a lost island, ignoring that the war ended. You are fighting to defend something that cannot be attacked, because D&D is beyond that. If D&D 5e has a conflict resolution system based on flinging feces and jizzing all over the GM you just have to ignore it, get your AD&D books and set up a D&D game on your merry way.

The advances of the OSR has not been made by nerds arguing with nerds: they have been achieved by people creating and publishing stuff they liked, and being enthusiastic about it. Pretendind that all the shitty arguments and edition wars around here and RPG.net and ENWorld mean fuck all is one of the most pretentious travesties of reality I've seen. The weight of edition wars in the advance of the game amounts to zero.

"Oh yeah, I call this guy a Forgite cunt. This will surely save D&D FOREVAH".

I don't think so.

Quote from: One Horse Town;523505Well, IMO, 4e was fucked, WFRP 3e is fucked, The One Ring is fucked, looks like the latest Marvel game is fucked.

One of the only games that i like that hasn't been poisoned is Rolemaster - thank the Lord.

So what? You get to play the version of those games you like with the people you want, as often as you want. You can promote previous versions of the game at cons, FLGS, and make people see how fun they are and encourage them to get them. You can create a webzine, blog or whatnot. If enough people stops buying the edition because they think the previous one is better you may find that someone starts producing stuff for your favourite game. Or you can do it yourself.

Quote from: Benoist;523510And that's what makes your feedback super important Jasper: the guys at WotC need to know that. I think that in large part, one of the problems at least, is that there's be a sort of ... "game design groupthink" effect that's been taking over the "industry", and WotC as well as others, and I further think that some echo chambers on the web, like RPGnet and ENWorld, have only amplified the effect over the years.

Not unlike echo-chambers like this with their own groupthink. Come on, man.

Game designers should listen to no-one. Not me , not you, not the whiners at RPG.net. No fucking polls, no teasers so people can throw around their ignorant opinions, nothing like that. Release the game and let the market decide.

QuoteWe're gamers too. We should have a say in what's going on, and what form the game takes from there so we can enjoy it too.

We have it by choosing our purchases.

QuoteDon't you think it's about fucking time for him to get a D&D game he might want to play, too?

He already has it. If he is not able to find a group to play it no publisher is going to solve that. Rulesets cannot fix bad GMs, and the industry cannot fix your life if you can't find players.