Quote from: Benoist;558866Actually, that's not my case. Back in the day the totally nerd-wrecked assholes were the ones shrieking about variants like Chivalry and Sorcery like they were the second coming of Christ, the guys obsessing on stuff like GURPS, and later the Magic the Gathering players flooding the FLGS in search of a Mox.

Sorry, I was thinking mostly in terms of North America.

Quote from: Benoist;558871I heard stories about the Tao dude but honestly have never bothered reading his blog. How awful is he, exactly? Do you have links to the most outrageous shit he posted? I'd like to see that.


Speaking for myself, I must say I'm not caring about WotC at this point, in the sense that I think this company needs to have a fucking reality check, is really shooting itself in the foot repeatedly, and though it pissed me off repeatedly as well (honestly, pulling Dragon and Dungeon from print was the worse, for my selfish self), I did offer my feedback on Next and hope against all indications to the contrary that they'll publish a decent D&D game this time around. And 4e well... meh. Whatever.

But the grave dancing to piss off the fucking assholes that have been poisoning the well for YEARS on so many message boards and happen to be the same douchebags congregating around SA and going on crusades against publishers like Mongoose? Maybe you haven't noticed, but guys like Ettin, Professor Cirno, Red Mage.. these are the very same guys who were 4venging like total fuckwads all these years... man, just seeing them bitching and moaning at everything we post is a great reward in itself.

I contend, as I always have, that 4e spawned no more assholery than 3e, see the fighters vs mages thread for a fucking prime example of this.

As for noticing the 4e defenders, you have to understand I never had a beef with those guys to begin with, so, yeah, I still don't care and I'm not going to retroactively give a fuck either. If you look back on those threads, mostly what I did was what I always do.

RE: The Tao of D&D- you're on your own, just understand that I'm not making it up, but I'd rather that you believed i were than inflict any of that shit on you or anyone else. I am not, after all, asshole.txt.

Quote from: Benoist;558871Speaking for myself, I must say I'm not caring about WotC at this point, in the sense that I think this company needs to have a fucking reality check, is really shooting itself in the foot repeatedly, and though it pissed me off repeatedly as well (honestly, pulling Dragon and Dungeon from print was the worse, for my selfish self), I did offer my feedback on Next and hope against all indications to the contrary that they'll publish a decent D&D game this time around. And 4e well... meh. Whatever.

Killing dead-tree Dungeon and Dragon was the absolute worst thing WotC ever did.  It's possible that Dragon and Dungeon would have died with 4th edition anyway, but by cancelling the licenses, they basically turned Paizo from a magazine publisher into a direct competitor.  I bet they wish they hadn't.  

In any case, 4th edition wasn't for me.  Every thing about the way they presented it was a turn-off.  From attacking 3rd edition, killing the magazines, trying to move everything to some DDI Vaporware and then GLEEMAX???   But I always told myself that if they ever get a fucking clue, I won't punish myself by not forgiving them.  It doesn't look like I'll ever have to, but here's to hoping.

Quote from: Benoist;558871But the grave dancing to piss off the fucking assholes that have been poisoning the well for YEARS on so many message boards and happen to be the same douchebags congregating around SA and going on crusades against publishers like Mongoose? Maybe you haven't noticed, but guys like Ettin, Professor Cirno, Red Mage.. these are the very same guys who were 4venging like total fuckwads all these years... man, just seeing them bitching and moaning at everything we post is a great reward in itself.

Since I don't talk to many people that play 4th edition, I don't take any personal satisfaction in seeing WotC abandon it.  However, I do hope that WotC will be smart enough to woo some older gamers that have moved on to other games (or back to earlier games) - if they make the kind of edition that is an improvement on earlier editions (technically possible), that'd make me pretty happy.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;558708No sense of the important of math, of statistics, of fucking game balance, or of anything else that remote resembles competent game design.

Are you trying to make me *like* the people behind 5e?

Quote from: talysman;558886Are you trying to make me *like* the people behind 5e?

Look, while the guys at the Gaming Den do get carried with with it, understanding things like probability and statistics and interactions between elements makes any game better- and for the sorts of games we here tend to favor, that is a big deal because there's less room for failure.  A game whose ruleset is strong, robust, and easy-to-understand is also a ruleset that is very friendly to house-rules and homebrewing because you--the guy making shit up for your table--are far more likely to make up stuff that won't break the game due to knowing what its limits are.

Seriously, this is a good thing.  It's far easier to take a well-balanced game and make it purposefully unbalanced than to go the other way, and that applies to all of the other things that come of our common sensibilities in TRPGs.  We are well-served by insisting upon technical competence in game design because it greatly increases the frequency of quality products being produced.  Rulesets that are easy to master make for better gaming.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;558826I wonder if this isn't deliberate: if they're not trying to replicate the "try random things, if it's fun for us then it goes in the game" approach of original D&D's "design" (and that's not to denigrate original D&D - I really like the game, it's a close second favorite D&D of mine).

I don't think it's deliberate at all. I think that--given that Mearls also gives off these vibes, and he's Head Monkey on this one--this is an institutional level of incompetence coupled with an institutional earnest yearning to make Best D&D Evar.

QuoteThe badness of that is entirely incumbent on how bad you want or need precision machining in your rules, I guess.

It is far easier to take a precision-made rifle, with proper documentation in the manual, and modify it to suit my needs than to take a bodge-together frankengun and guess my way to that same end.  It takes less time, costs less in resources, and is far easier to explain to others- which means that it is far more likely to be adopted and used by others.

So it is with any form of product design where modification is not uncommon; a well-made game with a transparent design scheme is easier to make into a form that will please any given user's wants and needs than the alternative- and since this is done using common jargon and lingo, it's also easier to tell others what you did, how you did it, and why you did it than the alternative.  That means it's easier to convince others to try your mod out, to play it, and to see why it can be fun.  As it is in other media, so it is here.

And I, without fear, want far more people to play TRPGs- something that can not happen so long as unthinking as well as deliberate obfuscation remains a thing.

QuoteI'd have liked to have been a fly on the wall for that revelation.  What specifically did they display in terms of not getting the history?

They had no clue about the old-school domain management endgame, why hirelings and henchmen were important (and how the decline of those two lead to the emergence of "character progression" as the sole marker of value in gameplay), and they actually said that story was a thing.  In other words, if Old Geezer were there, even he--and I know him to be quite a laid-back sort--would go "Bullshit! I was there, and that shit DID NOT HAPPEN!".

(It didn't help that I explained the history in terms of "I know OG, and this is what he's on record as saying actually happened.")

QuoteOh that's just sad.  Despite sales data to the contrary?  Despite that the year it debuted, World of Warcraft made more in a month than all of the RPG industry did that year?  And the gap between those numbers has only continued to grow larger?  That's some serious cognitive dissonance.  

Also regarding PF - WE, THE GAMERS can see the sales data!  How could they deny what's right in front of them!

They could do that because I was one of two people in the room that knew it; everyone else, despite being online and shit, had no clue as to where to get this information until I told them where to look.  

Quote/Pondsmith's been rattling around between 1994 and 1996 for 20 years now.  Leave the poor man alone.  80mb hard drives and 4mb RAM computers FOREVAR, YO.  (Which is to say: I agree with you.  Seriously, CP2020?  Who gives a fuck, Mike.  What's next, a giant robot game where you fill in armor boxes and track damage on flowcharts?)

Yeah, Mikey needs to retire.  This shit is sad, and the thread on this at TBP is just as sad.

Quote from: talysman;558886Are you trying to make me *like* the people behind 5e?

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;558940Look, while the guys at the Gaming Den do get carried with with it, understanding things like probability and statistics and interactions between elements makes any game better- and for the sorts of games we here tend to favor, that is a big deal because there's less room for failure.  A game whose ruleset is strong, robust, and easy-to-understand is also a ruleset that is very friendly to house-rules and homebrewing because you--the guy making shit up for your table--are far more likely to make up stuff that won't break the game due to knowing what its limits are.

I disagree.

It's not that you shouldn't understand the probabilities behind new mechanics you introduce. It's that, for the most part, you shouldn't be introducing new mechanics. New non-mechanical rules, yes, like "red doors only open with red keys". But most of the rules we need for RPGs as a pastime have already been created; we can re-purpose old rules from one or more RPGs for new concepts, if all we want is role-playing.

The obsession with crap like level-by-level balance between classes and "damage output per round" is what ruined RPGs. Some people just don't get that most people who play RPGs are really playing them as pastimes, not as games.

Quote from: talysman;558953I disagree.

It's not that you shouldn't understand the probabilities behind new mechanics you introduce. It's that, for the most part, you shouldn't be introducing new mechanics. New non-mechanical rules, yes, like "red doors only open with red keys". But most of the rules we need for RPGs as a pastime have already been created; we can re-purpose old rules from one or more RPGs for new concepts, if all we want is role-playing.

The obsession with crap like level-by-level balance between classes and "damage output per round" is what ruined RPGs. Some people just don't get that most people who play RPGs are really playing them as pastimes, not as games.

See, this is where I think you're wrong. I think that the players that matter are playing them as games, not pastimes, and the evidence is that both PF and D&D4 (and D&D5) are focused around Organized Play as the baseline of player participation.  Home games, quite frankly, are an afterthought and I can't blame any TRPG publisher for doing business that way.

While I don't think that organized play is as big a deal as Bradford C. Walker seems to believe, I absolutely believe that rules can be simplified and better mechanics can be developed.  Or better mechanics can be synthesized by pulling together different existing games...  

Some of this is simply preference, and that can't be discounted...  For example, which is better, 2d12 (added together) or 1d20?  1d20 is definitely simpler, and it produces a flat probability curve.  But the 2d12 is more likely to produce an 'average' result - an ace is 1/144 instead of 5% - depending on the way you want the game to work, that can be a major advantage.  

But the designers absolutely need to know what the differences are if they're going to commit to one.  Using the same example, if you have something like critical hits and you want them to happen 5% of the time, making them only happen on an ace (12,12) is bad design.  That type of thing actually does happen all the time - the game doesn't work mechanically the way the designers intended it to...  

I absolutely believe that good rules help good games - and all of Bradford C. Walker's posts on the subject of clear, concise and simple rules are 100% correct.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;558944Yeah, Mikey needs to retire.  This shit is sad, and the thread on this at TBP is just as sad.

No, someone needs to get him a recording contract.

Quote from: Gib;558879I contend, as I always have, that 4e spawned no more assholery than 3e, see the fighters vs mages thread for a fucking prime example of this.

No, fighters vs mages have been argued for thirty years, and still manage to produce almost three thousand posts in five days.

This is what happens when you have a game system where the magic users are based on "I fought the Balrog and I won" Gandalf and the warriors are based on "A halfing got away from me " Boromir.

Its not going to be fixed, or even settled. Its fundamentally unbalanced. If you can deal with that great, if not, that's your life trickling into the hourglass there.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;558944It is far easier to take a precision-made rifle, with proper documentation in the manual, and modify it to suit my needs than to take a bodge-together frankengun and guess my way to that same end.  

Don't tell the Kalishnikov Design Bureau!  No, I kid, I think it matters what you're looking for going in to a game.  I wouldn't ever hold up the rules of original AD&D as a model of precision and succinct design.  However, they are Fucking Awesome (and I'll fight dirty anyone who says otherwise), so I'm entirely OK with the Franken-design of the game (and it is - it's 50% OD&D, 25% OD&D and supplements + early Dragon magazine and The Strategic Review articles and 25% brand new stuff).  However, that's AD&D.  Something brand new?  Yeah, better bring your A game if you're asking me to spend $90 on core books.

[stuff I don't disagree with in the large]

QuoteThey had no clue about the old-school domain management endgame, why hirelings and henchmen were important (and how the decline of those two lead to the emergence of "character progression" as the sole marker of value in gameplay), and they actually said that story was a thing.  In other words, if Old Geezer were there, even he--and I know him to be quite a laid-back sort--would go "Bullshit! I was there, and that shit DID NOT HAPPEN!".

(It didn't help that I explained the history in terms of "I know OG, and this is what he's on record as saying actually happened.")

Oh wow.  That's.  Yeah that confirms some of my worst fears that welled up when I'd read Mearls' 'blog regarding AD&D (and OD&D).  They really haven't taken a look at those venerated icons they have on their bookshelves, have they?  

What did they say back?  What was their response?

QuoteThey could do that because I was one of two people in the room that knew it; everyone else, despite being online and shit, had no clue as to where to get this information until I told them where to look.  

Jaw-on-floor.  Wow.  And they were still dismissive of it?

QuoteYeah, Mikey needs to retire.  This shit is sad, and the thread on this at TBP is just as sad.

No, again, he needs a recording contract or at the very least a job with Williams Brothers as a voice actor because despite of his...charmingly antediluvian...views on game design that man could out Barry White Barry White.

Quote from: Benoist;558871But the grave dancing to piss off the fucking assholes that have been poisoning the well for YEARS on so many message boards and happen to be the same douchebags congregating around SA and going on crusades against publishers like Mongoose? Maybe you haven't noticed, but guys like Ettin, Professor Cirno, Red Mage.. these are the very same guys who were 4venging like total fuckwads all these years... man, just seeing them bitching and moaning at everything we post is a great reward in itself.

I find the easiest thing to do is ignore every fucker who posts to a board that i don't post to.

Quote from: One Horse Town;558977I find the easiest thing to do is ignore every fucker who posts to a board that i don't post to.

That's the beauty of it. I don't even have to look or care at this point. They do all the caring for me. All I have to do is state an opinion that flies in the face of all the crap they think is true and "fact" on their interwebz and they'll pay attention.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;558976Oh wow.  That's.  Yeah that confirms some of my worst fears that welled up when I'd read Mearls' 'blog regarding AD&D (and OD&D).  They really haven't taken a look at those venerated icons they have on their bookshelves, have they?  

What did they say back?  What was their response?

Nothing, really.  A faint "I didn't know that" from one of them--I don't recall which--and a lack of response to my question of (in response to their claim of playing pre-3e editions) "To what level?".  They brushed it off, as if I was giving them a leg-up on a pub quiz.

QuoteJaw-on-floor.  Wow.  And they were still dismissive of it?

Yep.  Flat out dismissal along with "we make boardgames" as a dodge.

QuoteNo, again, he needs a recording contract or at the very least a job with Williams Brothers as a voice actor because despite of his...charmingly antediluvian...views on game design that man could out Barry White Barry White.

Okay, I'll go with that.