Quote from: Marleycat;535898What I would like to see is an option for "retraining" feats. So if you did pick a subpar choice you wouldn't be stuck with it forever.

Fuck that shit.

You wanna tinker around with parts pick a hobby like rebuilding engines. I hate spending time analyzing characters as optimized mechanical contstructs and tinkering until they are just right. :banghead:

I wanna generate a character, develop him in play and focus on the game world and the adventures, not mentally masturbate over what my pretend guy can do mechanically.

Wow, way to overreact to a proposed OPTION. The situation never happened to me but I have seen people pick feats that end  up being something different than they thought or dislike or not work with the concept they had in mind and so on. So I feel it wouldn't hurt anything if you could swap out say a single feat each time you reach a new tier 10/20/30 or 6/12/18 whatever.

I may even try it as a houserule to see if it works out next time I run a Dnd game,  it can't possibly be as bad as some houserules I had the "joy" of dealing with.

Quote from: Marleycat;535916Wow, way to overreact to a proposed OPTION. The situation never happened to me but I have seen people pick feats that up being something different than they thought or dislike or not work with the concept they had in mind and so on. So I feel it wouldn't hurt anything if you could swap out say a single feat each time you reach a new tier 10/20/30 or 6/12/18 whatever.

I would just rather not have such fiddly bits there to begin with. If themes and backgrounds could be about shaping character and leave crunch out of things it would be much better. Fiddly added crunchy bits lead to suckage and power creep every...single...time.

Quote from: Benoist;535897Toughness is a worthwhile feat if you are playing a one-shot at a convention and you are a 1st level Wizard.

Point is that the "trap" feats weren't traps because they were for non-combat purposes. The trap feats were traps because of things like being more useful for specific classes and metagame situations (like toughness). Smart players didn't ignore toughness because toughness was a social feat is what I'm saying. So they're attributing the problem to the wrong source and potentially fixing something that was never broken.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;535917I would just rather not have such fiddly bits there to begin with. If themes and backgrounds could be about shaping character and leave crunch out of things it would be much better. Fiddly added crunchy bits lead to suckage and power creep every...single...time.

I agree but it seems feats are here to stay so I want to deal with them in a way that will work for me and my players.  It would be very cool to have an option of no feats at all also.

Quote from: Marleycat;535854I can understand that but if we must have feats make them worth it and don't require me to have 15 of them that give me +2 to this or that.

Can't stand numerical bonus feats myself. All that shit should just be handled by abilities and skills. I prefer feats that actually give you a single specific new trick as opposed to a bonus or a rules exemption.

QuoteI also would just love it if the game required less feats overall. Roll alot of them up into your class or theme or background or race or anything really if they're just going to be similar to 3/4e style.

I think they're lumping feats into backgrounds or themes or something. So you just pick a theme at first level same as you would a class while fiddlier guys like me can pick 'em level by level. Seemed like a good idea to me.

Quote from: beejazz;535919Point is that the "trap" feats weren't traps because they were for non-combat purposes. The trap feats were traps because of things like being more useful for specific classes and metagame situations (like toughness). Smart players didn't ignore toughness because toughness was a social feat is what I'm saying. So they're attributing the problem to the wrong source and potentially fixing something that was never broken.

I think they are addressing the wrong problem, but not for the reason you think. Most of the example - the Running Paladin - is actually about the conflict between a character built to support a character concept vs. building a character for the biggest bonus. The example character's running feat probably doesn't help him at all in personal interaction, even though I think from the article he's considered it to be a "roleplaying feat".

So they're getting confused between two different things that are both being called 'roleplaying' -  talking in character, and building a character to match a character concept. I think you can want mechanics to support your concept without necessarily wanting a bonus to Diplomacy/Intimidate checks say.

You could have a list of feats that are purely combat-oriented and some players will take the combat feats that they think really fit the character well, while others will pick the feats with the biggest bonus. That's probably what happens with new players and Toughness too - they have to build by concept since they don't know the rules. (Although yes, Toughness can have its uses).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;535924I think they are addressing the wrong problem, but not for the reason you think. Most of the example - the Running Paladin - is actually about the conflict between a character built to support a character concept vs. building a character for the biggest bonus. The example character's running feat probably doesn't help him at all in personal interaction, even though I think from the article he's considered it to be a "roleplaying feat".

As far as I'm concerned, if there's a feat (or whatever) that says "go fast" it should unconditionally be the best way (or at least a good way) to go fast. There is absolutely no problem when going fast doesn't help you with things that aren't going fast. Thieves should be the best thieves, Wizards should be the best at magic, and so on and so forth. As long as things are intuitive, there's no problem.

And if feats are never math patches, the biggest bonus stops mattering as much. Hate numerical bonus based feats.

QuoteYou could have a list of feats that are purely combat-oriented and some players will take the combat feats that they think really fit the character well, while others will pick the feats with the biggest bonus. That's probably what happens with new players and Toughness too - they have to build by concept since they don't know the rules. (Although yes, Toughness can have its uses).

Yeah, my issue with toughness is that it isn't good for tough characters (like barbarians) nor for making characters tough.

This whole "pillars" paradigm is worrisome to me. It reminds me too much of "roles" in 4e, where a class is defined by a metagame concept and not how it exists within the game. The idea itself is not problematic, but I see the developers attempting to codify elements of 5e which resist codification. You can attempt to break a game down into singular data points--Roleplaying, Exploration, and Combat--but it will fail in the same way that attempting to classify a game as Gamist, Narrativist, or Simulationist fail.

The reason it fails is because it is an artificial form of game design. It excises the creative process in favor of a logical, analytical construction of ordered game mechanics producing a sterile result. A game ought to arise naturally and organically. It can be analyzed and refined once it has been created, but to attempt to create a game out of preconstructed building blocks that fit together perfectly will result in a stale, uninteresting game. Can you imagine a movie that was created in that sort of manner? The director saying, "This scene will have one-fourth of our total Emotional Drama Quotient. I require at least one character crying, but no more than two. Next we will have Action Scene #2. This will need five gunshots and one explosion. Our surveys show that if we do less than this, people won't stay interested, but if we do more, they'll get bored."

Ridiculous. And yet, I fear, this is what 5e is going to do with the paradigm of pillars: "This is an Exploration option. It should not increase your ability to explore by more than 1.75, which we have calculated by averaging the possible number of scenarios that it might apply and then dividing it by pi."

The reason that this will fail is because things do not fall into discrete packages in role-playing games (or life in general). When my thief decides to hide from some orcs, sneak behind one, and backstab him, is he exploring (because he's scouting the area), is he roleplaying (because he's afraid to enter direct combat with them), or is he having a combat encounter (because he's sneak attacking them)? If we're fighting and I convince the guards to surrender, am I roleplaying (because I used a social skill) or am I having a combat encounter (because we were fighting)? If I use magic missile to break the lock on a prison cell, am I exploring (because we're in a prison cell) or am I having a combat encounter (because I used a combat ability and potentially used up a daily combat resource)?

The above questions are rhetorical. (Given this is the Internet, I feel compelled to point this out, lest the forest be missed for the trees.) The point is, an entire game session will have encounters that are blends of the three. Attempting to rigidly define them and shoehorn classes into one of the three pillars--and trying to balance them around this, no less!--cannot succeed.

Quote from: B.T.;535941This whole "pillars" paradigm is worrisome to me. It reminds me too much of "roles" in 4e, where a class is defined by a metagame concept and not how it exists within the game. The idea itself is not problematic, but I see the developers attempting to codify elements of 5e which resist codification. You can attempt to break a game down into singular data points--Roleplaying, Exploration, and Combat--but it will fail in the same way that attempting to classify a game as Gamist, Narrativist, or Simulationist fail.

Holy fuck B.T.! You ACTUALLY make sense this time. You are scaring me...

Quote from: B.T.;535941Can you imagine a movie that was created in that sort of manner? The director saying, "This scene will have one-fourth of our total Emotional Drama Quotient. I require at least one character crying, but no more than two. Next we will have Action Scene #2. This will need five gunshots and one explosion. Our surveys show that if we do less than this, people won't stay interested, but if we do more, they'll get bored."

Ridiculous.

Very, very large numbers of Hollywood movies are made exactly this way, I should point out.  Now, it results in forgettable and predictable formula pap, but it's an extremely common and lucrative way of creating mass entertainment, so I don't think we ought to be too surprised when this approach finds its way to our neck of the media woods.

Quote from: Benoist;535847Also, I want feats to enable role playing, and not raise barriers around it (i.e. "if you don't have that feat, you can't do it" or "you could try anyway but you'd be so poor at it you'd have to have the feat to be even remotely competent at this task" are shit ideas - don't do that).

This is always my primary complaint about feats. They should be enabling, not a subsystem of hidden barriers to improvising.

Quote from: Ladybird;535873I think I've missed something in these articles; "roleplaying" as a pillar, distinct from combat and exploration?

I don't think you can make a character "roleplayable" by giving them some incidental bonuses; if the player wants to roleplay them, then they will, and they don't they won't... a few points here and there won't change anything.

I could accept "world immersion", though... items that cement your character's place in the game world, and help show what they do when they aren't adventuring. I don't think "cut to the combat-relevant stuff and p42 the rest", like 4E, is inherently a bad design scheme, but it does limit the potential for adventures for your group and removes ways to show how your character was able to survive long enough to become a PC.

Good points, all.  However, the 'pillars' really feel more like a gussied up GNS re-hash to me:  Gamist = Combat, Narrativist = Role playing, and Simulationist = Exploration.  Your idea of 'world immersion' is a far better category, because it is something you can actually interact with mechanically.  'Roleplaying' is something your group kind of does or doesn't, and how they do it varies wildly between tables.  The drama club kiddies might like to get into their pantaloons and speak in their finest Elizabethan while others may prefer descriptions mostly in third person for everything except what their character says.  I can't really see any one set of guidelines or parcel of advice covering all the different styles.

Hell, I don't even think 'combat' should be a separate pillar, if that paradigm is necessary.  Maybe 'mechanics' or even just 'rules', although the latter is possibly a bit broad.  Instead of 'immersion', how about 'engagement'?  As in, the degree with which players engage the milieu through their characters/avatars.  Even the 4X computer game genre offers more versatile categories; explore, expand, exploit and exterminate.  Those have as much to do with a typical RPG session as the three 'pillars'.

Luckily, I now have some time to explore these ideas and perhaps get some writing done.

Quote from: B.T.;535941This whole "pillars" paradigm is worrisome to me. It reminds me too much of "roles" in 4e, where a class is defined by a metagame concept and not how it exists within the game. The idea itself is not problematic, but I see the developers attempting to codify elements of 5e which resist codification. You can attempt to break a game down into singular data points--Roleplaying, Exploration, and Combat--but it will fail in the same way that attempting to classify a game as Gamist, Narrativist, or Simulationist fail.

Great post B.T.

Quote from: Benoist;535847Ditto. It's like Rob's discovering role playing games.

To tell you the truth, I think they are, in a sense.  The creative culture of WotC is based around Magic, it's their raison d'être.  The true Cult of Raw attained pre-eminence at Wizards where their focus is on card and board games.  They delivered the ultimate expression of that gaming concept and it failed as an RPG.  I think that was truly surprising to them, because the people they specifically marketed 4e to like it a lot.  It's the "fundamentally isolating the rest of the hobby" that I think they got blindsided with as designers.  They knew some people preferred 3e, they didn't know how many until those people organized around Paizo.  They knew people preferred earlier editions, they didn't know how many until those people organized around the OSR.  Now WotC can look right at the people who they lost as customers, by their own hand, and count them.

As they design 5e to try and bring those people back into the D&D fold, they are discovering why people didn't like 4e, which is leading them back to the roleplaying part of the game, the part that, to be honest, wasn't even remotely a design concern.