TheRPGSite

Looks like D&D Next is using the action economy I thought up a few years ago on theCBG in a previous stab at the core of my homebrew system. I doubt they're going around picking up homebrew shit from tiny boards in the corners of the internet, but IIRC they picked up the Shadowfell in the same place.

http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/blog/2012/06/22/reacting_to_the_reaction

Here's the core system as of this past Febuary (I'm pretty sure the action economy came from the pre-d20 iteration, back when I was using a different core mechanic):

http://www.thecbg.org/index.php/topic,209545.0.html

I'm pretty certain they'll lump in AoOs, not sure if they'll keep the trade down rule, and I'm almost certain they'll stick with passive AC. So it might not be the same system entirely.

Still not sure what to think when stuff like this happens.

All the time, mate.

I've been tinkering with 'Advantage' for months before i heard it mentioned for 5e, shit even some stuff from 13th Age seems to be startlingly similar to stuff i've been working on.

Yep, I had a whole Advantage based fencing system that sounds very similar to what Honor + Intrigue has done (I have not read it) and now also looks similar to D&DN.

And I also had one super secret project that I was just about to start serious working on after two years of setup when someone announced the exact same project and then someone else stole what I was going to call it as well.

Yeah me too! Posted about a few instances of those some time ago on the board. Happened again recently as I was tinkering with the playtest rules for Next. I learned they were working on a fighting maneuvers module the day after I sent an email throwing a few ideas into the pond to that effect.

And it's not just rules, mind you. I came up with a group of evil Roman Mages for my Paris by Night some 20 years ago, for instance, only to find find the very same name (the Mercurialis Circus) and group description in the Book of Nod when it was published! The only difference was that they had not given up their souls to infernal powers as in PbN. LOL

Quote from: beejazz;557155Still not sure what to think when stuff like this happens.

Be flattered?

It's understandable for this to happen, since we're all reading and playing the same stuff, getting inspired from very close sources and so on. It's pretty cool when that happens IMO.

Ask me about my Higgs-Boson equations I worked out when I was in grade-school.

Mother-grabbing bastards!

Quote from: Bobloblah;557178Be flattered?

Heh, I think I might just stick with "I must be on to something." It's a little better than when I wrote up zone based movement rules and then found out they were fucking everywhere (including Japanese games well before my own work). At least this time I'm pretty sure I'm a little closer to being first (cue links to three games that already do this).

But yeah, it's kind of a natural extension of having AoOs and interrupts and stuff. If you're codifying actions anyway, and you want to limit out of turn stuff to speed things up, it's a sensible solution. I would not be surprised if I wasn't even first on this one.

Sounds like convergence of design if something is good and the goal is to speed up combat while still giving players some tactical choice points it's a near certainty that imiliar ideas will occur to more than one person.

Beejazz...

Yeah.  Hard to deal with, but it happens all the time.  I can't even count.  Some CBG stuff, some from other boards, but it is a smaller pond than people think.

Quote from: beejazz;557189Heh, I think I might just stick with "I must be on to something." It's a little better than when I wrote up zone based movement rules and then found out they were fucking everywhere (including Japanese games well before my own work). At least this time I'm pretty sure I'm a little closer to being first (cue links to three games that already do this).

But yeah, it's kind of a natural extension of having AoOs and interrupts and stuff. If you're codifying actions anyway, and you want to limit out of turn stuff to speed things up, it's a sensible solution. I would not be surprised if I wasn't even first on this one.

Yeah, I love your zone stuff, by the way; yours was the first implementation of it I'd read in this context. I immediately grabbed it as a house rule, and am using it as the default in my own build of "D&D for me" (otherwise known as a Fantasy Heartbreaker).

Quote from: Bobloblah;557200Yeah, I love your zone stuff, by the way; yours was the first implementation of it I'd read in this context. I immediately grabbed it as a house rule, and am using it as the default in my own build of "D&D for me" (otherwise known as a Fantasy Heartbreaker).

Well, now I'm flattered. Always good to find out something you made sees actual play.

Well, I did post a backgrounds system on the old Microlite20 forums years ago, and later on my blog. It was more freeform than what I hear described for the 5e system, but at one point I did give examples on how to describe the abilities of completely made-up professions and cultures by picking 3 to 5 specific skill sets. Of course, my backgrounds didn't provide hard bonuses, but acted more like an advantage system.

I'm not seriously bothered by convergence or even inspiration, but I do worry when a large, litigation-happy borrows something, because you just know they won't be as easy-going as any of us.

When SWSE came out, I sent a couple of e-mails to Rodney & Gary, asking when my check for writing the space combat section was coming (I had a mega-thread on the old boards, detailing how'd I change starship combat in the OCR/RCR ruleset).

It wasn't a perfect lift, but I got a number of PM's from the community asking me if I DID write it...

Quote from: Benoist;557182It's understandable for this to happen, since we're all reading and playing the same stuff, getting inspired from very close sources and so on. It's pretty cool when that happens IMO.

This also implies something else, though: look beyond the usual boundaries. Or as Greg Costykian put it to video game designers,

QuoteDon’t be a vidiot!  If your sole experience of games derives from the arcade, the console, and the home PC...You will see only what exists in the here and now...Your palette of techniques, your grasp of the possible, will be limited.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;557187Ask me about my Higgs-Boson equations I worked out when I was in grade-school.

Mother-grabbing bastards!

Heh.

(Also, as we can see from all the Internet drama, they are Comic Sans-using bastards. Yep, that's right (http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/4/3136652/cern-scientists-comic-sans-higgs-boson)! Someone ought to take back those medals. ;))

Quote from: Melan;557219This also implies something else, though: look beyond the usual boundaries. Or as Greg Costykian put it to video game designers,

A good quote. I'm sure whatever I come up with will be differentiated as a whole from DDN, in any case. I'm after a different pace, and an ever so slightly different genre (My "Appendix N" would include stuff like Hellboy, Princess Mononoke, Fullmetal Alchemist, and A:tLA for example).

It's inevitable, I think. I had a bunch of notes written up on a rules system using a "roll 3d10, keep the best" core mechanic when Blue Planet v2 came out.

Theirs was better.

Notebook, meet trashcan....

Quote from: Melan;557219(Also, as we can see from all the Internet drama, they are Comic Sans-using bastards. Yep, that's right (http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/4/3136652/cern-scientists-comic-sans-higgs-boson)! Someone ought to take back those medals. ;))

(http://achewood.com/comic.php?date=07052007)

I'd think "I wonder if they got that from the same place I did?"

Chances are good your ideas aren't completely original in the first place. People who read and think a lot about RPG mechanics absorb a lot of things from a lot of different places. There's a good chance any "original" idea you had was influenced by something, even subconsciously.

Back in Canada, I ran a Star Wars D20 campaign, the campaign started after Episode I was released, but before episodes II or III.  The speculative way I ran the events that would play out in the next two movies proved to be eerily similar to how the movies actually went.

Though, I think, somewhat less lame.

RPGPundit

Quote from: One Horse Town;557168I've been tinkering with 'Advantage' for months before i heard it mentioned for 5e, shit even some stuff from 13th Age seems to be startlingly similar to stuff i've been working on.

I tried a form of what 5e is calling the advantage system back in the early 1980s. It worked pretty much like 5e's but I called them a bonus die and a penalty die. We did not like it because the odds varied so much with what roll you needed for success. (The same basic reason we never liked bell curve die rolls as success rolls (e.g. the 2d6 in Traveller or the 3d6 in GURPS): the amount of bonus/penalty on received per +1/-1 was too variable.) I was amused to discover that my Sunday group quickly came to a similar conclusion about the Advantage roll in 5e, but were willing to put up with it because it was such an improvement on the bonus tracking needed for 3.x/4e.

However, on the original topic, there aren't many entirely new ideas that haven't been used in RPGs (or house rules for RPGs) at some point in the past 40 years or so. So it isn't surprising to me when something I've seen, used or even believed I had thought up is used in a new game and considered a "new creation."

Quote from: RandallS;557663I tried a form of what 5e is calling the advantage system back in the early 1980s. It worked pretty much like 5e's but I called them a bonus die and a penalty die. We did not like it because the odds varied so much with what roll you needed for success. (The same basic reason we never liked bell curve die rolls as success rolls (e.g. the 2d6 in Traveller or the 3d6 in GURPS): the amount of bonus/penalty on received per +1/-1 was too variable.) I was amused to discover that my Sunday group quickly came to a similar conclusion about the Advantage roll in 5e, but were willing to put up with it because it was such an improvement on the bonus tracking needed for 3.x/4e.

However, on the original topic, there aren't many entirely new ideas that haven't been used in RPGs (or house rules for RPGs) at some point in the past 40 years or so. So it isn't surprising to me when something I've seen, used or even believed I had thought up is used in a new game and considered a "new creation."

Aye.

This past weekend, at CONvergence (http://convergence-con.org), I sat on "The Future of Dungeons & Dragons" with three WOTC employees (Jennifer Wilkes, Peter Lee and Terry O'Brien) to talk about D&D5.

They mean well.  They're all pleasant, sincere, and earnest in their desire to make The Best D&D Evar.  I'd socialize with them, even play with them, but that doesn't mean I want them making the game.

They are all utterly incompetent.  No sense that game design is anything other than throwing shit together, tossing it at the wall, and hoping that no one sees the man behind the curtain ever fucking left their lips.  No sense of the important of math, of statistics, of fucking game balance, or of anything else that remote resembles competent game design.  No sense of D&D's history (which, as they want a modular game based on prior editions, is fucking important).  No sense that they had any competition from competing media--they specifically denied that MMOs and boardgames were eating their lunch, or that PF honestly posed a threat--and I had a hard time keeping it polite for the duration.

Bloody hell.  Thank the Dice Gods that CONvergence is not a gaming-specific convention.

(Also, Mike Pondsmith's announcement of a new CP2020 edition produced a similar demonstration of utter fucking incompetence.  Retire already.)

As much shit as I get for not knowing earlier editions (despite having played them all and having the books on my shelf), the D&D Next designers do not have any experience with D&D before 3rd edition.  

That wouldn't necessarily be a problem if they didn't think they were going to be inspired by earlier versions, but that was their intent.  I think D&D Next is going to have too much of 4th edition because that's what the designers know and like - heck, it's what they came up with when left to their own devices.  

I don't have much hope that D&D Next will be any good.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;558708This past weekend, at CONvergence (http://convergence-con.org), I sat on "The Future of Dungeons & Dragons" with three WOTC employees (Jennifer Wilkes, Peter Lee and Terry O'Brien) to talk about D&D5.

They mean well.  They're all pleasant, sincere, and earnest in their desire to make The Best D&D Evar.  I'd socialize with them, even play with them, but that doesn't mean I want them making the game.

That's how I've felt about everyone who's touched D&D in the last 30 years, so I get you.

QuoteThey are all utterly incompetent.  No sense that game design is anything other than throwing shit together, tossing it at the wall, and hoping that no one sees the man behind the curtain ever fucking left their lips.  

I 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).

QuoteNo sense of the important of math, of statistics, of fucking game balance, or of anything else that remote resembles competent game design.  

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

QuoteNo sense of D&D's history (which, as they want a modular game based on prior editions, is fucking important).

I'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?

QuoteNo sense that they had any competition from competing media--they specifically denied that MMOs and boardgames were eating their lunch, or that PF honestly posed a threat--and I had a hard time keeping it polite for the duration.

Oh 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!  

Quote(Also, Mike Pondsmith's announcement of a new CP2020 edition produced a similar demonstration of utter fucking incompetence.  Retire already.)

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?)

Quote from: deadDMwalking;558807I don't have much hope that D&D Next will be any good.

D&D next killed 4e so from where I'm sitting, I'm happy with it.  Moreover it did it in grand style.  It wasn't like Essentials, where they totally pulled out before coming.  No, they straight up said "screw 4e, we're sorry we trolled 3e, 2e and 1e and original & Basic D&D fans, we're really sorry.  We're throwing 4e out and starting over."

Now...maybe they didn't reinvent AD&D, maybe 5e is just awful but and again, 4e is dead so from where I'm sitting, mission accomplished.  Also: neener neener neener.

Honestly, I don't get either the grave dancing nor the upset surrounding the demise of one's edition. So the game had some noisome fans, but so does every single edition of every game ever. EVER. Spend some time at some of the classic D&D forums or even peruse the blogsphere. Visit the Tao of D&D. That guys got enough asshole all on his own to eclipse nearly the entire 4e fanbase at its worst- and I'm not fucking exaggerating. Even the most apologetic of OSR apologists have given up defending the dude.
Personally, in meat space, I've known far more asshole 1e players than the total numer of of 4e players I've met- by an ordrr of magnitude, at the very least. And I'm thinking that if you're over 35 and honest with yourself you have too. And if it is WoTC that has pissed you off, there are far worse companies that have done far, far more terrible things. I mean fuck, how long does the grudge get held? And really, if you're all orthodox and TSR D&D only, in the wake of 3e, 4e was just sodomizing a dead horse, anyway.

Quote from: RPGPundit;557619...I ran a Star Wars D20 campaign, the campaign started after Episode I...The speculative way I ran the events that would play out in the next two movies proved to be eerily similar to how the movies actually went.

Though, I think, somewhat less lame.

Like that's an accomplishment.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;558827Now...maybe they didn't reinvent AD&D, maybe 5e is just awful but and again, 4e is dead so from where I'm sitting, mission accomplished.  Also: neener neener neener.

You probably need to get out more. Plus, you owe me for the time it's going to take to get this smile off my face.

Quote from: Gib;558863Personally, in meat space, I've known far more asshole 1e players than the total numer of of 4e players I've met- by an ordrr of magnitude, at the very least. And I'm thinking that if you're over 35 and honest with yourself you have too.

Actually, 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.

Quote from: Gib;558863Honestly, I don't get either the grave dancing nor the upset surrounding the demise of one's edition. So the game had some noisome fans, but so does every single edition of every game ever. EVER. Spend some time at some of the classic D&D forums or even peruse the blogsphere. Visit the Tao of D&D. That guys got enough asshole all on his own to eclipse nearly the entire 4e fanbase at its worst- and I'm not fucking exaggerating. Even the most apologetic of OSR apologists have given up defending the dude.

I 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.

Quote from: Gib;558863And if it is WoTC that has pissed you off, there are far worse companies that have done far, far more terrible things. I mean fuck, how long does the grudge get held? And really, if you're all orthodox and TSR D&D only, in the wake of 3e, 4e was just sodomizing a dead horse, anyway.

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.

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.

But dude, you obviously do care; hence the grave dancing.

I think grog.txt is kind of funny, intentionally and otherwise. In some ways, it's a bit of a microcosm of rpg discussion in general: talking points posted as objects of ridicule and countered/argued against with more talking points. The thing is largely the same talking points posted again and again and argued against the same way again and again. Really, as far as I can tell the only time it varies from this is when someone finds some creepy rpg sex stuff to post. However, I've only read about 100 pages, so perhaps there are hidden depths that I am missing. However, however on the current last page of the thread there is a lovely little save or die justification followed by a 'characters should mean something' style refutation.
It really shows how gamers of both the new and old schools can't get enough of pointless and repetitive arguments and don't have anything new to say to one another. I assume that is part of the thread's point and why they hang out there. there really isn't any need to engage in a dialogue. It isn't going to go anywhere. I find it as a whole no more worthy or shameful than any other rpg discussion wherein one group of nerds tries to show that they are better than another group of nerds, which is to say pretty much every online rpg discussion. I do like the way that they cop to their own hypocrisy as if that somehow makes it less hypocritical. Speaking as a confessed hypocrite, i must say, that it does not.

Assholes are always telling you they are assholes like its some kind of get out of jail free card. It's part of what makes them assholes.

T -4

Quote from: Gib;558984Assholes are always telling you they are assholes like its some kind of get out of jail free card. It's part of what makes them assholes.

Hey, i resemble that remark!

Hmm.  FOr once a thread got longer and actually better.

Thanks, Brad.

It is funny you mentioned this becasue I spent days online defending my hypothesis that the designers really did not understand how each generation of the game had been fundamentally balanced or the term (game length) it had been balanced for.

And now, after defending the position with only logic (if they had known 'x', they would not have done 'y'), I get some backing.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;558708They are all utterly incompetent.  No sense that game design is anything other than throwing shit together, tossing it at the wall, and hoping that no one sees the man behind the curtain ever fucking left their lips.  No sense of the important of math, of statistics, of fucking game balance, or of anything else that remote resembles competent game design.  No sense of D&D's history (which, as they want a modular game based on prior editions, is fucking important).  No sense that they had any competition from competing media--they specifically denied that MMOs and boardgames were eating their lunch, or that PF honestly posed a threat--and I had a hard time keeping it polite for the duration.

It sounds like the only real answer, then, is for someone to put together a presentation of exactly how they are about to do damage to the D&D brand again, put on a suit and tie, and take a road trip to Rhode Island and see if someone at Hasbro (http://www.jigsaw.com/id69763/2/hasbro_inc_company_directory.xhtml) will be willing to pay attention.

Quote from: John Morrow;559004It sounds like the only real answer, then, is for someone to put together a presentation of exactly how they are about to do damage to the D&D brand again, put on a suit and tie, and take a road trip to Rhode Island and see if someone at Hasbro (http://www.jigsaw.com/id69763/2/hasbro_inc_company_directory.xhtml) will be willing to pay attention.

Oh, that should totally be me. Suit and tie guys love me.

Quote from: Gib;559006Oh, that should totally be me. Suit and tie guys love me.

Start a Kickstarter to fund the trip and I'll donate some money to it. :D

And so began the end of days. :)

Quote from: John Morrow;559004It sounds like the only real answer, then, is for someone to put together a presentation of exactly how they are about to do damage to the D&D brand again, put on a suit and tie, and take a road trip to Rhode Island and see if someone at Hasbro (http://www.jigsaw.com/id69763/2/hasbro_inc_company_directory.xhtml) will be willing to pay attention.

I can sum it up thusly: I would rather that the current team running WOW work on D&D5, because they actually have technical skills and experience with using them (however badly and ineptly) than the current D&D5 team.

Quote from: LordVreeg;558999It is funny you mentioned this becasue I spent days online defending my hypothesis that the designers really did not understand how each generation of the game had been fundamentally balanced or the term (game length) it had been balanced for.

There are quite a few different bad smells emanating from this project.  See Frank Trollman's comments about broken math in this thread (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=23127).  See also my rant here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=549572&postcount=21).  And the Forge Kool Aid still seems to be flowing freely in their comments, too. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=548380&postcount=45)

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;559019I can sum it up thusly: I would rather that the current team running WOW work on D&D5, because they actually have technical skills and experience with using them (however badly and ineptly) than the current D&D5 team.

Yeah, but the problem is (A) getting them to grasp their own incompetence and the damage they are about to do to the flagship game of the hobby, their employer, and their careers, or (B) getting their superiors at Hasbro to realize that WotC has given the keys to one of their potentially valuable brands to a bunch of people who are going mess things up a second time on them.  If they still don't get it at this point, I'm not really hopeful on (A), nor do I have much faith that RPGPundit is going to be able to turn the Titanic around from his perch in Uruguay.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;558708This past weekend, at CONvergence (http://convergence-con.org), I sat on "The Future of Dungeons & Dragons" with three WOTC employees (Jennifer Wilkes, Peter Lee and Terry O'Brien) to talk about D&D5.

They mean well.  They're all pleasant, sincere, and earnest in their desire to make The Best D&D Evar.  I'd socialize with them, even play with them, but that doesn't mean I want them making the game.

They are all utterly incompetent.  No sense that game design is anything other than throwing shit together, tossing it at the wall, and hoping that no one sees the man behind the curtain ever fucking left their lips.  No sense of the important of math, of statistics, of fucking game balance, or of anything else that remote resembles competent game design.  No sense of D&D's history (which, as they want a modular game based on prior editions, is fucking important).  No sense that they had any competition from competing media--they specifically denied that MMOs and boardgames were eating their lunch, or that PF honestly posed a threat--and I had a hard time keeping it polite for the duration.

Fortunately, they're at least good at picking the right Consultants. Perhaps in recognition of certain blind spots.

RPGPundit

Quote from: John Morrow;559022nor do I have much faith that RPGPundit is going to be able to turn the Titanic around from his perch in Uruguay.

I'm going to do my best, and so far I certainly have no complaints; and I'm not just talking about the excellent pay and the free AD&D reprints, I'm also talking about the sense that they're trying to listen to me and get it when I'm telling them how something is a bad idea (or conversely, a good one).  Obviously, thus far they haven't implemented everything I've said (I couldn't really expect them to), but there are quite a few things from one evolution to the next to the next of the rules thus far that have been a product of my advice, and I'm pleased with the overall direction in which things are going.

I can't promise you guys the moon, nor will I claim that all your concerns are without foundation, but I can tell you that the design people I'm dealing with directly (mainly Mike Mearls) are taking all kinds of things, including mechanical issues, very seriously and have absolutely NOT been pigheaded about sticking to something when they've been shown how it could be problematic (either mechanically, in terms of progression, in terms of what it could do in actual play, or in terms of how it will be received in certain demographics). They're not just stampeding around without consideration, and have been willing to do major rewrites to get things working better.

RPGPundit