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To improve the potential of the RPG experience, it is actually better to limit the choices in character creation.
#dnd       #ttrpg   #osr

This entire argument is so alien to how I make characters. I mean sure, players that are uncreative/power gamers could maybe get more emersion from builds they don't choose, but I like my GM to respect my abilities enough to let me loose.

I cannot wait to hear how bad randomizing character creation is from some of the usual suspects...that said, I played in a 100% random B/X game last weekend at a gaming con and 8 characters were created in about 10 minutes. Try doing that with 5th edition, much less something like GURPS/HERO. And it was a fun game for sure, but I think I'd like SOME level of control when rolling up a PC, even if it's only to pick from a couple character classes my die rolls qualified for. AD&D with the Secondary Skills table is probably my ideal character generation method simply because you can almost always meet the requirements for one of the main classes, while the subclasses are much, much rarer if the DM enforces legitimately rolling using one of the methods described in the DMG.

Still, I might run a similar "100% random" game in the future, just to see what happens. We used the tables in the two d30 books here to do the rolls and they're really fun: https://www.newbigdragon.com/accessories.html

Preach to your choir man.

I have found that after around 43 years of GM and player experience that boatloads of character options lead to rules bloat and obsession with optimization. Players will spend hours making sure the character is optimal for whatever it is they want to dominate whether it be combat, social interactions, magical hacks,etc. They spend almost no time on consideration of things like being fun to play, or interesting. They spend so much time putting the character into such a deep pigeonhole that when actual play takes them away from being able to exercise their specialty to the fullest extent they just pout and sulk. This stuff really got started in 1st edition with UA. Oh how the double specialized melee fighters griped when attacked by flying creatures that wouldn't land and engage on the ground. They were forced to use their sub optimal missile weapons. A B/X fighter doesn't have all that shit to worry about. The fighter equips the best variety of weapons that are affordable & available at any given time. So many times have I heard the bitching and griping of players of 3rd edition fighters not finding a magical obscure weapon that they have invested specialization and a bunch of feats toward mastering. They expect the universe to conform to the narrow focused choices that they made. A standard B/X fighter can be a soldier, mercenary, barbarian, knight, ranger or any flavor of martial character that the player wants to play.

The syndrome that grips players once option overload hits is that their entire focus during play is on what their character can do mechanically and waiting for an opportunity to press those buttons. What is going on in the game world becomes background noise. All attention and focus is on character capabilities instead of what is actually happening to and around the characters. That kind of shit makes me not want to GM.

Meh. Random generation is good for quick character creation or coming up with character concepts when you're stumped. But the idea that it's somehow preferable/superior because it's "realistic" or whatever is dubious on multiple levels.

First of all, not everything in life is completely random. Even if some (arguably many) aspects of our lives are beyond our control we still get to pick plenty of stuff (according to some, we even get to pick what family we're born into and have a buncha karmic baggage we come prepackaged with, but that's debatable stuff that's impossible to ascertain and must be taken on faith, if you even believe it). I remember specifically choosing to learn how to draw back when I was a kid. I've also chosen to practice martial arts at various points in my life. I've also chosen to neglect various skills I could've practiced, and plenty of people choose to train their Strength, which is a totally possible and doable thing...unlike in D&D where your attributes are set in stone (even in recent editions where you get X points every Y levels, you're still stuck with what you start with).

Second of all, even to the degree that some things are random that still doesn't mean that whatever random method is used in game is gonna produce comparable results to what people experience in real life. I'm still not convinced that people IRL diverge in ability as much as D&D random ability score generation allows. And it's pretty unlikely that you're going to come up with every conceivable life event that could impact a character's background when writing up a TTRPG setting. Not to mention that you would need to tailor make random tables for every campaign, just to cover every GM's concept.

Lastly, people generally play games like TTRPGs for a reason. And that reason is not to relive real life during play. If living real life was so awesome we wouldn't waste time playing time consuming AF games like TTRPGs. We'd be out there adventuring IRL or sharpening our skills and such--actually, according to the idea that everything is random we wouldn't even be able to do that last part, cuz skill development is not a choice. It's some random event that happens because reasons. So just adventuring in a straightjacket profession we can't diverge from. But we don't, cuz real life sucks.

And TTRPGs aren't about emulating real life, but escapism, which can take many forms. And sometimes that escapism can be open to new experiences or trying out totally random stuff. Other times you have a specific type of hero in mind, and rolling for everything would just get in the way. Sometimes it's a combination of both (random rolls for ideas, then ignore rolls you don't like and pick the stuff goes along with your emerging concept). But the whole thing about totally random vs freeform selection supremacy in TTRPGs is a false dilemma.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 06, 2023, 03:20:35 PMBut the whole thing about totally random vs freeform selection supremacy in TTRPGs is a false dilemma.

Yes, but it does mean the type of play that was once the sole type of play, is now one among many, and that comes as a bitter pill to swallow for the people that like that sort of play.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 06, 2023, 03:20:35 PM
Meh. Random generation is good for quick character creation or coming up with character concepts when you're stumped. But the idea that it's somehow preferable/superior because it's "realistic" or whatever is dubious on multiple levels.

First of all, not everything in life is completely random. Even if some (arguably many) aspects of our lives are beyond our control we still get to pick plenty of stuff (according to some, we even get to pick what family we're born into and have a buncha karmic baggage we come prepackaged with, but that's debatable stuff that's impossible to ascertain and must be taken on faith, if you even believe it). I remember specifically choosing to learn how to draw back when I was a kid. I've also chosen to practice martial arts at various points in my life. I've also chosen to neglect various skills I could've practiced, and plenty of people choose to train their Strength, which is a totally possible and doable thing...unlike in D&D where your attributes are set in stone (even in recent editions where you get X points every Y levels, you're still stuck with what you start with).

Second of all, even to the degree that some things are random that still doesn't mean that whatever random method is used in game is gonna produce comparable results to what people experience in real life. I'm still not convinced that people IRL diverge in ability as much as D&D random ability score generation allows. And it's pretty unlikely that you're going to come up with every conceivable life event that could impact a character's background when writing up a TTRPG setting. Not to mention that you would need to tailor make random tables for every campaign, just to cover every GM's concept.

Lastly, people generally play games like TTRPGs for a reason. And that reason is not to relive real life during play. If living real life was so awesome we wouldn't waste time playing time consuming AF games like TTRPGs. We'd be out there adventuring IRL or sharpening our skills and such--actually, according to the idea that everything is random we wouldn't even be able to do that last part, cuz skill development is not a choice. It's some random event that happens because reasons. So just adventuring in a straightjacket profession we can't diverge from. But we don't, cuz real life sucks.

And TTRPGs aren't about emulating real life, but escapism, which can take many forms. And sometimes that escapism can be open to new experiences or trying out totally random stuff. Other times you have a specific type of hero in mind, and rolling for everything would just get in the way. Sometimes it's a combination of both (random rolls for ideas, then ignore rolls you don't like and pick the stuff goes along with your emerging concept). But the whole thing about totally random vs freeform selection supremacy in TTRPGs is a false dilemma.

I think you are missing the point about choices. There is nothing about gameplay that attempts to emulate real life. I don't see limited choices as any sort of hinderance or authenticatiom of realism. It is simply a model that focuses play on personality and character development, as well as on what is happening during play  rather than navel gazing about what the character can and cannot do mechanically.

A general unwillingness to play a randomly generated character tells me that the player is an identity-obsessed snowflake.

Random, pregen, roll your own, I like them all. Each method has pros and cons and the choice depends on the game, mood, table, alignment of the stars, what have you. I had one table recently where players used different methods, which is cool, too.

Sometimes I customize my character and only roll for the choices I don't give a shit about.

I hope the video is about this because I haven't watch it yet.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 06, 2023, 04:04:53 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 06, 2023, 03:20:35 PM
*snip*

I think you are missing the point about choices. There is nothing about gameplay that attempts to emulate real life. I don't see limited choices as any sort of hinderance or authenticatiom of realism. It is simply a model that focuses play on personality and character development, as well as on what is happening during play  rather than navel gazing about what the character can and cannot do mechanically.

I was addressing claims made in the video in support of the idea that random generation is superior to freeform/point-buy on the basis that it's more like real life. My points are relevant to those claims, which do involve some degree of reality emulation as part of the implicit goal.

I also disagree that random generation (what primarily gets discussed in the video) focuses on personality or character development. Random generation focuses on selection being random. Personality or character development is a secondary byproduct that may or may not arise either way, regardless of what method gets used. And what the character can and cannot do mechanically does have an impact on what happens during play, so concerns about that are not as navel gazing as holding up random generation as some supreme standard on the basis of reasons.

Quote from: rytrasmi on June 06, 2023, 04:24:36 PM
A general unwillingness to play a randomly generated character tells me that the player is an identity-obsessed snowflake.

I have often seen this claim made whenever this or similar topics come up, but I have yet to see anything supporting it other than superficial similarities between the idea of character customization and the idea of "snowflakes". As well as a general dislike on these boards of ID politics/wokeness, therefore anything shiting on it by proxy must be A-OK, even if made purely on the basis of a spurious connection.

The reasoning basically goes like this: "Customization (may) leads to 'snowflake' characters. SJW/woketards are 'snowflakes'. Therefore people who want control customizing their character must be identity obsessed."

Meanwhile, inside the delusions of some GMs...

GM: "So what do you say?"
Player: "Huh?"
GM: "Were you even listening to the King's speech?"
Player: "No, sorry, the dazzling range of options available to me demands my full attention, and I'm
           unable to focus on the narrative, for constantly flicking through the rulebook seeking power."
GM: "Curse you, choices! If only I'd enforced strict randomness, my players would be focused and
        attentive!"


The suggestion that wanting to craft characters to your specifications makes one a snowflake is also a nice touch. Is this the fabled OSR fart-sniffing I've heard of?

Sigh. I've got nothing against customization.

It's people who refuse to play otherwise that I find to be obnoxious.

I thought "general unwillingness" was clear, but I guess not.

For maximum roleplay, construct personality charts for your characters. Then roll on them as responses for all scenarios.
Otherwise, that player may choose an optimal choice in a scenario instead of sticking to their character.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 06, 2023, 05:59:12 PM
For maximum roleplay, construct personality charts for your characters. Then roll on them as responses for all scenarios.
Otherwise, that player may choose an optimal choice in a scenario instead of sticking to their character.

That sounds very random, couldn't the GM just run all the characters, then email details of what the characters did to the players? That way you know everyone will be run correctly.

Quote from: Grognard GM on June 06, 2023, 06:13:52 PMThat sounds very random, couldn't the GM just run all the characters, then email details of what the characters did to the players? That way you know everyone will be run correctly.

Sounds pretty good. As we know things controlled and not randomly determined by the GM are double-plus good. The less the GM is weighed down by any sort of metric for evaluation, the better. Just have them describe 100% what happens. Random tables are for players.
The players can just sit there are occasionally offer suggestions. Maybe they could scribe whats going on, so the output can be saved for the future for maximum accuracy. Then somebody else can edit for clarity. And I mean hey, maybe this could be shared for a fee?

Those story-game losers don't know what they're missing.

Restricted choices is a well-known means of making the choices that remain meaningful.  Restrict too much, such that the person choosing dislikes all the remaining choices equally, they'll disengage.  Give them too many, they'll miss the forest for the trees.  The art is in finding the fertile middle ground. A big part of finding that middle ground is removing fake choices, which have no real effect, thus encouraging the participants to zero in on the ones that matter.

The flip side of this is being wiling to engage with the game/setting/system on the grounds for which it is presented.  The oft-cited player who insists on playing Merchants and Moneylenders in an otherwise standard D&D adventure game illustrates the issue. 

I likewise have nothing customization, only those who refuse to engage absent some particular customization that they have decided must be present, no matter how irrelevant it might be to the game at hand.  In my own games, I try to maximize customization options that matter while ruthlessly refusing to pretend that ones that don't, do.  There are some players that, given such constraints, will invariably push against them out of sheer perverse contrariness.  I no longer play with such people. 

The problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice. I think there are three motives players might have to play a roleplaying game: use the escapism fantasy to be able to make a choice and be something other than what you are IRL, remain your comfortable self in an unfamiliar circumstance, or to let the Heart of the Cards guide you into your character.

This may surprise Brad, but rolling for stats is not objectively obsolete. D&D's distinction between Ability Scores and Ability Modifiers which have to be manhandled together by stepping the modifier on the even score increase when you could just use a bloody number or die size like a sensible system? I have a less charitable opinion of that bit of nonsense.

Problem One: Do you really need to randomly assign the attributes to successfully prompt roleplay?

Trying to emulate a reality is not a priority of mine, so I won't particularly comment on it. Well, with one exception; of the many ways you can create genre feel...rolling to determine your character's incompetences isn't exactly high on my list. No, the real question in my opinion is if you can prompt the player to roleplay, and in that regard I think assigning attribute scores is grotesque overkill. This is fundamentally a creative writing prompt, and with most creative writing prompts, less is more. The way I would do this in my preferred published system--Savage Worlds--is to let players randomly draw a free Edge their character gets before they even start character creation. Bonus points if it's something above what their character's advancement would normally permit, so the player will actually want to build around it.

If you have a point-buy system which isn't an overbuilt mess, I see no reason to tamper further. Great way to get strange edges like Tactician and Common Bond see some love; I rarely see those edges in action.

Problem Two: Rolling for attributes is the wrong way to randomly generate attributes.

I suggest cards instead of dice for a simple reason; dice have no memory of their previous roll, so they are inclined to give you extreme results. Anyone familiar with dice should know that they give strings of extremes; that's just how the implementation of RNG via dice works. That isn't ideal here because it can generate an uncontrolled intra-party competence difference or outright hand players unusable stats. A deck of cards remembers the cards you've drawn out of it because the cards are literally not in the deck. You can customize the RNG's range by taking out cards before drawing, or you can reset the memory effect by reshuffling the deck. Playing cards control the amount of randomness they give, guarantee the outputs will not be a string of repeats, allow the GM to fine-tune the output range at the table, offer resets in the form of a reshuffle, and allow for weird flavor applications like playing Blackjack against the GM for an attribute reroll. Dice don't do any of that.

The tradeoff? It's slower and requires the GM to actually think about how much randomness is appropriate rather than going, "hur de dur, D20 roll." Speed is good, and easy is good, but the fastest and easiest solution is not always the best one.

If you insist on making random stats, actually think out what you are doing and use cards, not dice.

 8) I just say Character Generation can be its own Mini-Game.

It's like art. Sure you have all those colors, media, line widths, textures, and techniques. But then there's those who are paralyzed by the options (a very real thing). And then there are those who are fixated on an ideal they never actually practice to achieve, forever chasing new art supplies and reference images but never mastering anything for themselves. Meanwhile you have artists who gleefully embrace momentary restrictions to push themselves into making something new and beautiful.

If you never experience creation in all its glorious mess, you'll forever be preserving an ideal unrealized.  ;) Go risk. Be disappointed. Grow up. Rejoice.  ;D

This feels like an argument for a lifepath system. I don't have an issue with random generation, but I also don't really want to be stuck playing something I don't want to play either. That was the weakness, I think, of the older idea of prime requisite requirements for classes (though it has other strengths for simulation purposes). If I really want to experience what it's like to play a Paladin or whatever, I'm going to be playing and churning through characters for a while before I meet those requirements. I don't see an issue with a less useful and strong Paladin - arguably it could be more interesting. What I'm less enthusiastic about is this more modern idea that everything should be pure choice (point-buy, attribute arrays). I understand the reasons and the desire, but it just makes me sad.
'
I ended up with a compromise in my game. Characters get an attribute array from their race (humans start out basic, dwarves start tougher but with other drawbacks, whatever). Characters then modify that starting array based on background and a few allocatable points/penalties. This gives variety without having a bunch of Dwarf PCs end up weirdly frail compared to a human PC who just happened to roll well. I think that delivers on the fantasy of playing a Dwarf better than pure random roll with modifiers. It's always bugged me when demihumans get these attribute bonuses but sometimes they're outclassed by another RNG PC who is supposed to be thematically less competent in that area (unless they're putting points in that attribute).

As for picking feats, I feel like it's a false dichotomy. I think free choice is fine but yes it will lead to some players starting to optimize/character build. I think it's perhaps a good compromise to roll randomly on a table 3 times and let the player pick from among those options. That's a system I'm looking at building since I'm noticing a lot of players fall into certain patterns with their characters if given total control over their choice of character development.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 07, 2023, 03:17:55 AM
As for picking feats, I feel like it's a false dichotomy. I think free choice is fine but yes it will lead to some players starting to optimize/character build. I think it's perhaps a good compromise to roll randomly on a table 3 times and let the player pick from among those options. That's a system I'm looking at building since I'm noticing a lot of players fall into certain patterns with their characters if given total control over their choice of character development.

While character creation works fine even with random elements, random character advancement is absolutely wrong and immersion breaking in the extreme. You don't randomize training, especially if it is self training: as long as it is plausible and justifiable in-world (you spent the last 6 months in game in a desert wasteland fighting goblins every day and you want to take the "Masterful Florist" feat at level up ? Fuck no) the player should evolve his character however he likes.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 07, 2023, 03:49:08 AM
While character creation works fine even with random elements, random character advancement is absolutely wrong and immersion breaking in the extreme. You don't randomize training, especially if it is self training: as long as it is plausible and justifiable in-world (you spent the last 6 months in game in a desert wasteland fighting goblins every day and you want to take the "Masterful Florist" feat at level up ? Fuck no) the player should evolve his character however he likes.

This is a hypothetical system, I'm not 100% sold on it myself. All I can say is that I've noticed that giving people free reign over their development choices leads to a certain level of character building/optimization and I've noticed that players tend to fall into certain grooves of common choices. If you provide a lot of options (as I do), you also have to reconcile with how to constrain options enough that people can make sense of their choices. I currently categorize and group feats by class, which gives a little context. The only people getting a "master florist" feat would be Druids or something like that. So the concept is maybe you pick which class tables you want to roll on, and you roll some number of them, and then you pick one from that set. That way you're always getting Druid feats if that's what you want, but you have less fine-grain control over exactly what you want.

Some feats conceptually are stuff like "courageous", and that presents a problem with the idea that you're purely in control and the training is straightforward and intentional. "Courageous" feels like something you can discover about a character (ie perhaps random). I might consider providing a small set of fallback feats for each group which are more straightforward in terms of training so you can pick those if you don't like the options you rolled. Again, this is pure hypothetical but it's something I've been thinking about for a little while.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 07, 2023, 04:12:10 AM
This is a hypothetical system, I'm not 100% sold on it myself. All I can say is that I've noticed that giving people free reign over their development choices leads to a certain level of character building/optimization and I've noticed that players tend to fall into certain grooves of common choices. If you provide a lot of options (as I do), you also have to reconcile with how to constrain options enough that people can make sense of their choices. I currently categorize and group feats by class, which gives a little context. The only people getting a "master florist" feat would be Druids or something like that. So the concept is maybe you pick which class tables you want to roll on, and you roll some number of them, and then you pick one from that set. That way you're always getting Druid feats if that's what you want, but you have less fine-grain control over exactly what you want.

Some feats conceptually are stuff like "courageous", and that presents a problem with the idea that you're purely in control and the training is straightforward and intentional. "Courageous" feels like something you can discover about a character (ie perhaps random). I might consider providing a small set of fallback feats for each group which are more straightforward in terms of training so you can pick those if you don't like the options you rolled. Again, this is pure hypothetical but it's something I've been thinking about for a little while.

Again, this doesn't work. Experiences can be random, but training never is. I'm either going to a specific master that'll teach me his thing or I'm training on my own to reach a desired outcome; in other words, character optimization is a good modeling of in-world practices and represents proper immersion.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 07, 2023, 04:23:46 AM
Again, this doesn't work. Experiences can be random, but training never is. I'm either going to a specific master that'll teach me his thing or I'm training on my own to reach a desired outcome; in other words, character optimization is a good modeling of in-world practices and represents proper immersion.

I think part of the issue is that there's no clear idea or definition of what a Feat is since the very beginning. Training your footwork in combat is obviously a learned skill. "Courageous" is essentially a trait - something which can be discovered or summoned up but not something trained in any straightforward manner. So the hypothetical randomness is not modeling your training, it's modeling what you'd discover about your character through the training process. I agree that if the concept of feats tries to straddle courage, shield training, and footwork all in the same domain, it's going to be hard to make randomness feel good for two-thirds of that setup. I'm not too interested in just killing an idea because it has problems - I'll think more and see if there's anything worth salvaging.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 07, 2023, 05:53:03 AM
"Courageous" is essentially a trait - something which can be discovered or summoned up but not something trained in any straightforward manner.

Just to cherry pick a bit: "Courage" is a trained skill, not a trait. The ability to handle dangerous situations without fear (or better: the ability to channel and keep fear under control in dangerous situations) is something you learn, not something you're born with. And it's also fairly easy to train: repeated exposition to dangerous situations in progressively less controlled environments will do the trick (ask any soldier or firefighter).

So (again), your idea of semi-random advancement doesn't really work as it is right now.

I make a distinction between opportunity and training.  Because some opportunities arise, some are pursued, and all have opportunity cost. 

In my system, characters get some education and some practical training as part of their background.  The can also improve that as they adventure. 

The background training gives you limited control.  The amount of education and practice you get is somewhat random (tied to culture which you pick and parents' family/social status which you don't) and mixed in with some other things not related to skill.  For every point of educational background you randomly get, you also roll randomly on a chart.  Any roll typically lets you pick from 2 or 3 very different options, and sometimes the option itself has some choices.  Likewise with the practical background.  You don't control your opportunities but you do decide what to do with them.

The adventure training is less constrained.  You get most of it from the next "path" you want to pursue, which could be a new one or could be another rank in one you already started.  Paths only have 2 or 3 ranks, so you max out fairly quick.  Paths are bigger than feats but less than classes.  Skills are only one thing provided by paths, and probably one of the weaker things.  Each path provides from a very limited list of skills, and not at every rank.  The player has complete control of which path they take (within role play reasons and a handful of mutually exclusive, obvious choices that can block you from a few).  In effect, every rank in  a path provides a set list of things (like a class level). You don't get to mix and match, but you do get to decide what path your pursue next.  If that rank has skill choices (or weapon choices or language choices), you get to make those choices, often from a subset of the wider choices. 

If you had in mind that you really wanted to a ranger-type character from the very beginning, then it is highly unlikely that all of your random background choices will provide nothing that fits.  You'll probably get 1 or 2 oddball things mixed in to round out the background in stuff that otherwise fits.  It won't take nearly as long as optimizing every choice from the full list, and will likely provide a hook for role play.  Then when you start adventuring, you'll probably pick early ranks from some combination of the archer, champion, hunter, or scout paths.  Unless you think a ranger has some minor magic, in which case you might pick paths to go after that, if your class choice didn't.  Your choice, but you don't get to optimize the perfect "archer" in your view.  If you can't make a playable character that suits you with the options provided, then chances are you don't intend to, and wouldn't in any system.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 07, 2023, 04:23:46 AM
Again, this doesn't work. Experiences can be random, but training never is. I'm either going to a specific master that'll teach me his thing or I'm training on my own to reach a desired outcome; in other words, character optimization is a good modeling of in-world practices and represents proper immersion.

Depends on granularity, too.  If you decide that you want to learn to fence, for an example that at least somewhat matches early practices, you can pick the fencing master.  Or at least you can within the choices available to you in budget and location and your dedication to fencing compared to other things.  You don't get to pick the program of training, which is highly likely to include some things that are more important to the master than you.  Unless of course you happen to be the humble sort that assumes the master knows what he is doing and you don't.

In theory, practice is under your control.  In practice, it is not.  Besides other people, it also tends to smack up against reality. Many skills, especially those in pre-modern society, are easy enough to learn adequately, but very difficult to master, and in some cases completely out of reach.  That's because every skill worth mastering is usually, in fact, a combination of a lot of different skills working together.  That's still true even in modern society, though we have many more opportunities and more ways to specialize around a lack.

The issue with things like feats is that there are inevitably going to be winners and losers. Some systems do better than others and leveling the field, 5E is much better in this regard than 3.5 for example. The issues still exist and what you get is the optimized choices being chosen over and over again leading to standardized builds for each character type. This is why I prefer systems that do not feature these kinds of things whether or not initial character generation is random or not.

Quote from: Brad on June 06, 2023, 01:44:00 PM
I cannot wait to hear how bad randomizing character creation is from some of the usual suspects...

Quote from: Fheredin on June 06, 2023, 10:05:32 PM
The problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice.

So? If a player wants to play a paladin and rolls too poorly, they don't get to choose a paladin. So what? My kids don't get to pick fucking candy for breakfast, either. Limiting player choice isn't inherently bad; it CAN be bad in some instances, but your arbitrary "limiting player choice is BAD!" is just pure garbage. Hell, why limit the players at all? If you're running a pseudo-medieval campaign and a player wants a SAWS and some 21st century body armor, why not? Surely limiting their choice to a list of melee weapons like swords and axes is BAD! Whatever...

QuoteThis may surprise Brad, but rolling for stats is not objectively obsolete. D&D's distinction between Ability Scores and Ability Modifiers which have to be manhandled together by stepping the modifier on the even score increase when you could just use a bloody number or die size like a sensible system? I have a less charitable opinion of that bit of nonsense.

It doesn't surprise me that you wrote this sentence, but I am surprised why it matters to you since I doubt for one second you play D&D at all. Considering it's a terrible game, right?

QuoteProblem One: Do you really need to randomly assign the attributes to successfully prompt roleplay?

Nope. Do you really need to use point-buy or some other system to assign attributes to successfully prompt roleplay? Nope. For some games randomized rolls are good, and for some games point-buy is good, and for some games it might be a combination of both, or neither. This one-true-way bullshit is exactly why your opinion is irrelevant. I would never advocate randomized attributes for a game like Amber because the auction is what literally generates conflict within the game itself. It's a vital part of creating the environment that will ensure plenty of fun and mayhem. But for a B/X game? Roll those D6s.

QuoteIf you insist on making random stats, actually think out what you are doing and use cards, not dice.

So...use randomization, but use the kind I LIKE INSTEAD! YOU FOOL! I cannot tell if this is a troll or you are really this fucking stupid.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 07, 2023, 07:07:31 AM

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 07, 2023, 05:53:03 AM
"Courageous" is essentially a trait - something which can be discovered or summoned up but not something trained in any straightforward manner.

Just to cherry pick a bit: "Courage" is a trained skill, not a trait. The ability to handle dangerous situations without fear (or better: the ability to channel and keep fear under control in dangerous situations) is something you learn, not something you're born with. And it's also fairly easy to train: repeated exposition to dangerous situations in progressively less controlled environments will do the trick (ask any soldier or firefighter).

So (again), your idea of semi-random advancement doesn't really work as it is right now.

So, please delineate for me, down to the last second, exactly how long it takes every soldier to lose their fear in combat.  I want the number that applies to everyone, please.

Different qualities and skills manifest at different rates, based on personal aptitude.  To use a sports analogy, both I and a teammate may practice slapshots the same number of hours per day, but it doesn't mean our slapshots will be equivalent.  Something may click for him and his be much better sooner, despite the same amount and intensity of training.  I might, however, pick up backward crossovers after just a few attempts, whereas he may struggle with them for months.  So just because you train for "courage" doesn't mean you will get courageous, nor does it mean you will do so at the same rate as others.

In an RPG with fixed experienced costs for advancement (unlike AD&D where every class had its own cost/table), you can't really appeal to "realism" for training and advancement.  A real person is not guarantied to ever learn a particular skill or quality, much less do so on the same time-table as everyone else.  So a random table that is associated with the class/profession that fits the character's pursuits could be just as "realistic" as any other method.  If your character keeps rolling to increase Strength, rather than to gain a weapon feat, it may just represent your character's aptitude for physical improvement over their difficulties with coordination (hence they can't pick up a new weapon skill).  That's no less "realistic" than everyone picking up dual wield at 2nd level.

I actually can dual wield in real life, and I'm self taught (though, I'm formally trained in other martial arts), and didn't even grow up in a warrior culture, or become a soldier, cop or any other type of combat oriented profession. I'm not even very physically fit and don't exercise much other than occasionally training martial arts or walking. I learned how to dual wield and do spinning tricks and shit as a hobby entirely on my own. So I tend to lean heavily on the side of "absolutely everything can be learned (even if you don't have a teacher handy)". Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.

Are there people less capable than others at doing this? Sure. And they invariably don't want it enough. Just like characters in a TTRPG who don't want to dual wield more than they want to learn more spells, for example, won't end up learning how to dual wield, but pick stuff that would grant them more magic instead. You don't need random selection to enforce this stuff. Player/character priorities will sort it out on their own. Insistence on things being handled otherwise is just a neurotic OSR fixation.

That being said there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of random or semi-random creation or advancement, other than the idea that to do so is the "one-true(best)-way". Just be upfront about it if that's the way you handle it in your game and don't be a pompous asshole about how superior that way of handling things is. But I still prefer freeform selection and have no interest in micromanaging player selections or forcing them to roll for it.

Pundit must have been smoking that 'Godfather OG' when he formulated this video  ;D

Because he's wrong. Role-playing games are about taking on the characteristics of another being. 'Character' involves mental/moral aspects of being. So - if I have less options regarding what that other being's characteristics will be, I'm limited in exactly who/what that being can/will be.

Comparison: various versions of D&D/WotC Game™ offer background characteristics which is fun. But, the gap between what those games offer and what a system like GURPS offers is expansive. Galactic. Even.

Let us consider another game: Football (not soccer). When they were just running around and kicking the ball it was cool, but when they gained the option to pass the ball the whole thing took off like a Marine on payday.

I know this idea is revolutionary, probably get me burned at the stake, but: MORE IS BETTER.

Shit, if less was better, Gary never would've done all the BECMI & AD&D splat. He knew what he was doing. And it shows how stupid WotC is since they haven't dumped a billion setting and kit books on the market. "D&D is under-monetized." Really? Wonder why.

Pundit only makes sense here if the world was still stuck playing Chainmail or OD&D. THEN, you could try to say "Oh yeah this really limited BS is the apex of gaming, people!"

Quote from: Brad on June 07, 2023, 09:57:00 AM

Quote from: Brad on June 06, 2023, 01:44:00 PM
I cannot wait to hear how bad randomizing character creation is from some of the usual suspects...

Quote from: Fheredin on June 06, 2023, 10:05:32 PM
The problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice.

So? If a player wants to play a paladin and rolls too poorly, they don't get to choose a paladin. So what? My kids don't get to pick fucking candy for breakfast, either. Limiting player choice isn't inherently bad; it CAN be bad in some instances, but your arbitrary "limiting player choice is BAD!" is just pure garbage. Hell, why limit the players at all? If you're running a pseudo-medieval campaign and a player wants a SAWS and some 21st century body armor, why not? Surely limiting their choice to a list of melee weapons like swords and axes is BAD! Whatever...

Nope. Do you really need to use point-buy or some other system to assign attributes to successfully prompt roleplay? Nope. For some games randomized rolls are good, and for some games point-buy is good, and for some games it might be a combination of both, or neither. This one-true-way bullshit is exactly why your opinion is irrelevant.

Please finish reading the paragraph? There's only one more sentence.

QuoteThe problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice. I think there are three motives players might have to play a roleplaying game: use the escapism fantasy to be able to make a choice and be something other than what you are IRL, remain your comfortable self in an unfamiliar circumstance, or to let the Heart of the Cards guide you into your character.

Wherever did I imply that one of these paths was better than the other? I understand that this isn't practical, but if I were to conceive of an "ideal" RPG, it would have options. Options for power-user point buys, options for pregenerated templates, options for RNG-generated characters, options to turn options off if that overwhelms you. Once the game designer hands the game off to the GM and players, it's no longer the game designer's baby; it's the player's beast of burden. They should have the freedom to do with it as they please, at least within the confines of what's reasonably possible.

Would I personally go through character creation with RNG? No. But I don't judge a player who disagrees with that assessment.

QuoteIt doesn't surprise me that you wrote this sentence, but I am surprised why it matters to you since I doubt for one second you play D&D at all. Considering it's a terrible game, right?

I have played D&D. Not a lot, mind you--probably only about 5-7 sessions--and I do have some fond memories of those games. The GM I last played D&D with had a gift for polishing turds into pieces of postmodern art. I took him an idea for a martial artist character who would grow into a master of disguise and he immediately went, "I know; how'd you like to be an emissary of Mask? Take this homebrew mask. When you put it on, it'll give you a random appearance, but when you take it off, you will never see that face again."

Still, one should not judge D&D for what a GM who has been running the system for 20ish years can do.

D&D isn't a "terrible" game. It's more mediocre and archaic. It leverages skilled players and GMs, but performs poorly at a table of beginners. Combat consumes too much time for what it is. The monster manual is brittle to metagaming, leading to petty intraparty squabbles as immersion competes with odds to achieve victory. A lot of the rules which worked fine 20 years ago are Chinese Water Torture today. It has never had a designer actually try to put it on a diet because the fanbase would have a Tasmanian Devil tantrum.

QuoteI would never advocate randomized attributes for a game like Amber because the auction is what literally generates conflict within the game itself. It's a vital part of creating the environment that will ensure plenty of fun and mayhem. But for a B/X game? Roll those D6s.

That would be a good system reference, except this forum has an Erick Wujcik subforum. I'll give partial credit brownie points, anyway.

QuoteSo...use randomization, but use the kind I LIKE INSTEAD! YOU FOOL! I cannot tell if this is a troll or you are really this fucking stupid.

Insults cover for a lack of comprehension if and only if the other guy doesn't call the bluff.

Quote from: Fheredin on June 07, 2023, 09:31:18 PM

Quote from: Brad on June 07, 2023, 09:57:00 AM

Quote from: Brad on June 06, 2023, 01:44:00 PM
I cannot wait to hear how bad randomizing character creation is from some of the usual suspects...

Quote from: Fheredin on June 06, 2023, 10:05:32 PM
The problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice.

So? If a player wants to play a paladin and rolls too poorly, they don't get to choose a paladin. So what? My kids don't get to pick fucking candy for breakfast, either. Limiting player choice isn't inherently bad; it CAN be bad in some instances, but your arbitrary "limiting player choice is BAD!" is just pure garbage. Hell, why limit the players at all? If you're running a pseudo-medieval campaign and a player wants a SAWS and some 21st century body armor, why not? Surely limiting their choice to a list of melee weapons like swords and axes is BAD! Whatever...

Nope. Do you really need to use point-buy or some other system to assign attributes to successfully prompt roleplay? Nope. For some games randomized rolls are good, and for some games point-buy is good, and for some games it might be a combination of both, or neither. This one-true-way bullshit is exactly why your opinion is irrelevant.

Please finish reading the paragraph? There's only one more sentence.

QuoteThe problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice. I think there are three motives players might have to play a roleplaying game: use the escapism fantasy to be able to make a choice and be something other than what you are IRL, remain your comfortable self in an unfamiliar circumstance, or to let the Heart of the Cards guide you into your character.

Wherever did I imply that one of these paths was better than the other? I understand that this isn't practical, but if I were to conceive of an "ideal" RPG, it would have options. Options for power-user point buys, options for pregenerated templates, options for RNG-generated characters, options to turn options off if that overwhelms you. Once the game designer hands the game off to the GM and players, it's no longer the game designer's baby; it's the player's beast of burden. They should have the freedom to do with it as they please, at least within the confines of what's reasonably possible.

Would I personally go through character creation with RNG? No. But I don't judge a player who disagrees with that assessment.

QuoteIt doesn't surprise me that you wrote this sentence, but I am surprised why it matters to you since I doubt for one second you play D&D at all. Considering it's a terrible game, right?

I have played D&D. Not a lot, mind you--probably only about 5-7 sessions--and I do have some fond memories of those games. The GM I last played D&D with had a gift for polishing turds into pieces of postmodern art. I took him an idea for a martial artist character who would grow into a master of disguise and he immediately went, "I know; how'd you like to be an emissary of Mask? Take this homebrew mask. When you put it on, it'll give you a random appearance, but when you take it off, you will never see that face again."

Still, one should not judge D&D for what a GM who has been running the system for 20ish years can do.

D&D isn't a "terrible" game. It's more mediocre and archaic. It leverages skilled players and GMs, but performs poorly at a table of beginners. Combat consumes too much time for what it is. The monster manual is brittle to metagaming, leading to petty intraparty squabbles as immersion competes with odds to achieve victory. A lot of the rules which worked fine 20 years ago are Chinese Water Torture today. It has never had a designer actually try to put it on a diet because the fanbase would have a Tasmanian Devil tantrum.

QuoteI would never advocate randomized attributes for a game like Amber because the auction is what literally generates conflict within the game itself. It's a vital part of creating the environment that will ensure plenty of fun and mayhem. But for a B/X game? Roll those D6s.

That would be a good system reference, except this forum has an Erick Wujcik subforum. I'll give partial credit brownie points, anyway.

QuoteSo...use randomization, but use the kind I LIKE INSTEAD! YOU FOOL! I cannot tell if this is a troll or you are really this fucking stupid.

Insults cover for a lack of comprehension if and only if the other guy doesn't call the bluff.

LOL

Far be it for me to get in the middle of your pissing match.

I see randomly generated stats as kind of like organic and GMO-free food. There are people who swear it's good and amazing and awesome, and they have all kinds of reasons why everyone should totally do it, yet for some reason during lockdowns when we had food shortages and supply chain issues, all the organic stuff was still on the shelves.

Randomly generated stats are awesome. They're the best thing ever to happen in RPGs, and everyone should totally do it all the time, every game, every character, and fuck you, you didn't roll a 17 charisma so you can't play a paladin. It's really too bad nobody wants to play that way.

Quote from: Corolinth on June 08, 2023, 11:27:03 AM
Randomly generated stats are awesome. They're the best thing ever to happen in RPGs, and everyone should totally do it all the time, every game, every character, and fuck you, you didn't roll a 17 charisma so you can't play a paladin. It's really too bad nobody wants to play that way.

No one ever said that, fucktard.

Quote from: Brad on June 08, 2023, 11:35:39 AM

Quote from: Corolinth on June 08, 2023, 11:27:03 AM
Randomly generated stats are awesome. They're the best thing ever to happen in RPGs, and everyone should totally do it all the time, every game, every character, and fuck you, you didn't roll a 17 charisma so you can't play a paladin. It's really too bad nobody wants to play that way.

No one ever said that, fucktard.

It's a measure of someone's argument how much they need to strawman in order to make it...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 08, 2023, 12:31:39 PM
It's a measure of someone's argument how much they need to strawman in order to make it...

This whole line of argumentation is just tiresome...it's like it is IMPOSSIBLE for random character generation to possibly anything other than Supreme Unfun. I literally said multiple times non-random character generation methods are appropriate for certain games, but unless I concede non-random is the ONLY way to make characters, I'm just too stupid to understand proper game design.

I would really like to see the stone tablets brought down from the mountain that codify the One True Way these clowns keep obliquely referring to because that'd make this whole thing moot.

Quote from: Brad on June 08, 2023, 01:52:56 PM
I would really like to see the stone tablets brought down from the mountain that codify the One True Way these clowns keep obliquely referring to because that'd make this whole thing moot.

That limits can be good for imagination is a learned appreciation.  In order to learn it, it is almost necessary to have personally experienced a good limit in action, seen the result, and then tied the result to the limit.  Not everyone gets those experiences.  Some that do don't make the connection.  In fairness, it's not always an obvious connection.

What you are doing is akin to this:  Consider trying to explain that some green vegetables are tasty to a person who would like asparagus and raw spinach leaves if they tried them, but so far has only tried green bean, broccoli, English peas, and that truly awful limp, canned spinach--and virulently hated all of them to the point that they have now internalized the "fact" that green vegetables are icky.  And vegetable taste is a whole less complicated to recognize than RPG tastes.

You are trying to reason someone out of an emotional response.

Quote from: Brad on June 08, 2023, 01:52:56 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 08, 2023, 12:31:39 PM
It's a measure of someone's argument how much they need to strawman in order to make it...

This whole line of argumentation is just tiresome...it's like it is IMPOSSIBLE for random character generation to possibly anything other than Supreme Unfun. I literally said multiple times non-random character generation methods are appropriate for certain games, but unless I concede non-random is the ONLY way to make characters, I'm just too stupid to understand proper game design.

I would really like to see the stone tablets brought down from the mountain that codify the One True Way these clowns keep obliquely referring to because that'd make this whole thing moot.

The most interesting part of the claims here is that no one has made any of these arguments either. Yet you did make claims could be construed the way that @Corolinth implied right here while raging at @Fheredin's post...

Quote from: Brad on June 07, 2023, 09:57:00 AM

Quote from: Brad on June 06, 2023, 01:44:00 PM
I cannot wait to hear how bad randomizing character creation is from some of the usual suspects...

Quote from: Fheredin on June 06, 2023, 10:05:32 PM
The problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice.

So? If a player wants to play a paladin and rolls too poorly, they don't get to choose a paladin. So what? My kids don't get to pick fucking candy for breakfast, either. Limiting player choice isn't inherently bad; it CAN be bad in some instances, but your arbitrary "limiting player choice is BAD!" is just pure garbage. Hell, why limit the players at all? If you're running a pseudo-medieval campaign and a player wants a SAWS and some 21st century body armor, why not? Surely limiting their choice to a list of melee weapons like swords and axes is BAD! Whatever...

...but are pretending that OTHER people are just arguing a strawman while you're thrashing arguments no one's ever made (even in the sample post quoted above, since I'm not sure Fheredin was talking about any of that stuff. You just had a hard on for him since the "The Biggest Mistake in RPG Design" thread), and were already prepared to do so since your first post in this thread...

Quote from: Brad on June 06, 2023, 01:44:00 PM
I cannot wait to hear how bad randomizing character creation is from some of the usual suspects...

...which makes me wonder how much you're actually reading what people actually posted, as opposed to reading into it what you want to read there. And the answer to your last implicit query (if I understand it correctly)...

Quote from: Brad on June 08, 2023, 01:52:56 PMI would really like to see the stone tablets brought down from the mountain that codify the One True Way these clowns keep obliquely referring to because that'd make this whole thing moot.

...was Pundit's video, where he declared his preferred methods as superior.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 08, 2023, 03:36:43 PM

Quote from: Brad on June 08, 2023, 01:52:56 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 08, 2023, 12:31:39 PM
It's a measure of someone's argument how much they need to strawman in order to make it...

This whole line of argumentation is just tiresome...it's like it is IMPOSSIBLE for random character generation to possibly anything other than Supreme Unfun. I literally said multiple times non-random character generation methods are appropriate for certain games, but unless I concede non-random is the ONLY way to make characters, I'm just too stupid to understand proper game design.

I would really like to see the stone tablets brought down from the mountain that codify the One True Way these clowns keep obliquely referring to because that'd make this whole thing moot.

The most interesting part of the claims here is that no one has made any of these arguments either. Yet you did make claims could be construed the way that @Corolinth implied right here while raging at @Fheredin's post...

Quote from: Brad on June 07, 2023, 09:57:00 AM

Quote from: Brad on June 06, 2023, 01:44:00 PM
I cannot wait to hear how bad randomizing character creation is from some of the usual suspects...

Quote from: Fheredin on June 06, 2023, 10:05:32 PM
The problem with rolling stat in order isn't that it infringes on player choice.

So? If a player wants to play a paladin and rolls too poorly, they don't get to choose a paladin. So what? My kids don't get to pick fucking candy for breakfast, either. Limiting player choice isn't inherently bad; it CAN be bad in some instances, but your arbitrary "limiting player choice is BAD!" is just pure garbage. Hell, why limit the players at all? If you're running a pseudo-medieval campaign and a player wants a SAWS and some 21st century body armor, why not? Surely limiting their choice to a list of melee weapons like swords and axes is BAD! Whatever...

...but are pretending that OTHER people are just arguing a strawman while you're thrashing arguments no one's ever made (even in the sample post quoted above, since I'm not sure Fheredin was talking about any of that stuff. You just had a hard on for him since the "The Biggest Mistake in RPG Design" thread), and were already prepared to do so since your first post in this thread...

Quote from: Brad on June 06, 2023, 01:44:00 PM
I cannot wait to hear how bad randomizing character creation is from some of the usual suspects...

...which makes me wonder how much you're actually reading what people actually posted, as opposed to reading into it what you want to read there. And the answer to your last implicit query (if I understand it correctly)...

Quote from: Brad on June 08, 2023, 01:52:56 PMI would really like to see the stone tablets brought down from the mountain that codify the One True Way these clowns keep obliquely referring to because that'd make this whole thing moot.

...was Pundit's video, where he declared his preferred methods as superior.

Sure, whatever.

And thus two threads in a row have degenerated into Brad posting GIFs and one-liners which make ChatGPT look like a genius...while calling everyone else stupid.

(https://media0.giphy.com/media/sQBHqZ9AKJs8KomyDr/giphy.gif)

If you're going to troll me, put your back into it.

In the meantime, I have to say I'm pretty content with how this thread turned out. Character creation for Selection was one of the things I have struggled with for a while, and this thread reminded me of that old Savage Worlds trick of handing out a random Edge. It's not true RNG-built character...it's a bit of suggestion phrased as a gift. I quite like that.

Quote from: Fheredin on June 08, 2023, 06:04:04 PM
And thus two threads in a row have degenerated into Brad posting GIFs and one-liners which make ChatGPT look like a genius...while calling everyone else stupid.

(https://media0.giphy.com/media/sQBHqZ9AKJs8KomyDr/giphy.gif)

If you're going to troll me, put your back into it.

In the meantime, I have to say I'm pretty content with how this thread turned out. Character creation for Selection was one of the things I have struggled with for a while, and this thread reminded me of that old Savage Worlds trick of handing out a random Edge. It's not true RNG-built character...it's a bit of suggestion phrased as a gift. I quite like that.

Here's a "big brain" word for you: cockwomble. As in, you are one.

Also I apologize to anyone who actually has a remote sense of self awareness and need to remind myself that arguing with mentally retarded monkeys is stupid. Alas, I was drunk.

Quote from: Brad on June 08, 2023, 07:33:55 PM

Here's a "big brain" word for you: cockwomble. As in, you are one.

Also I apologize to anyone who actually has a remote sense of self awareness and need to remind myself that arguing with mentally retarded monkeys is stupid. Alas, I was drunk.

Drunk? You were drunk for six hours on a week day? On a time difference which either means you were day-drinking or which put you somewhere between Turkiye and India?

Might I suggest alcoholics anonymous?

Quote from: Fheredin on June 07, 2023, 09:31:18 PM
D&D isn't a "terrible" game. It's more mediocre and archaic. It leverages skilled players and GMs, but performs poorly at a table of beginners. Combat consumes too much time for what it is. The monster manual is brittle to metagaming, leading to petty intraparty squabbles as immersion competes with odds to achieve victory. A lot of the rules which worked fine 20 years ago are Chinese Water Torture today. It has never had a designer actually try to put it on a diet because the fanbase would have a Tasmanian Devil tantrum.

20 years ago, you must be thinking 3rd Edition? I'm working on a "3E lite" project. Which rules would you discard? I have my own list, based on personal preferences and the wisdom of the forum. 

Quote from: Aglondir on June 08, 2023, 09:52:27 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on June 07, 2023, 09:31:18 PM
D&D isn't a "terrible" game. It's more mediocre and archaic. It leverages skilled players and GMs, but performs poorly at a table of beginners. Combat consumes too much time for what it is. The monster manual is brittle to metagaming, leading to petty intraparty squabbles as immersion competes with odds to achieve victory. A lot of the rules which worked fine 20 years ago are Chinese Water Torture today. It has never had a designer actually try to put it on a diet because the fanbase would have a Tasmanian Devil tantrum.

20 years ago, you must be thinking 3rd Edition? I'm working on a "3E lite" project. Which rules would you discard? I have my own list, based on personal preferences and the wisdom of the forum.

3.5 is the version of D&D I have most familiarity with.

Really, take my opinions with a grain of salt. D&D is not a system I have spent a lot of time with and my advice would cut VERY deeply into the system, enough that you would have to make sweeping changes. What I would make  is arguably no longer D&D, and it would probably be easier to build from scratch than to build with the D&D foundation.

The core problem with D&D is that it takes absolutely no regard for the time it takes to implement a mechanic at the table. Ttable time is the biggest opportunity cost there is, so every saving throw and missed attack and confirmed crit roll which didn't need to happen burns time which players could have spent roleplaying out of combat or in another encounter. This is why all editions of D&D are at least somewhat slow. With this in mind, I would discard most saving throws in favor of forfeiting actions. You wouldn't be "on fire" and need to roll to save, you would have "tier 3 fire" and need to spend a major action to clear it or a minor action to reduce it to tier 2 fire. Because this both gets rid of the saving roll and the player loses actions to reduce or remove the effects, the system's speed will notably increase. I would say that saving throws should be for spectacular and memorable events, like death saves. If it doesn't make sense to penalize the actor at least a minor action just to make the save, it doesn't make sense to make a saving roll.

I make no secret I absolutely revile having both ability scores and modifiers, but I really don't know what to do about that because WotC baked both of them into the game so deeply. If the game used ability scores properly you wouldn't need modifiers at all and vice versa.

But the bottom line I have is to just not let players play with dice needlessly because it burns up too much time.

Quote from: Fheredin on June 08, 2023, 10:53:56 PM
The core problem with D&D is that it takes absolutely no regard for the time it takes to implement a mechanic at the table. Ttable time is the biggest opportunity cost there is, so every saving throw and missed attack and confirmed crit roll which didn't need to happen burns time which players could have spent roleplaying out of combat or in another encounter. This is why all editions of D&D are at least somewhat slow. With this in mind, I would discard most saving throws in favor of forfeiting actions. You wouldn't be "on fire" and need to roll to save, you would have "tier 3 fire" and need to spend a major action to clear it or a minor action to reduce it to tier 2 fire. Because this both gets rid of the saving roll and the player loses actions to reduce or remove the effects, the system's speed will notably increase. I would say that saving throws should be for spectacular and memorable events, like death saves. If it doesn't make sense to penalize the actor at least a minor action just to make the save, it doesn't make sense to make a saving roll.

I've found table time in D&D is mostly an issue at higher levels. Lower levels go about as fast as most RPGs, which is the deign space I'm interested in. I'm aiming for classic design, evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

You might like FATE. One feature is "aspects" where you can declare "You are on fire!" and it has mechanical meaning. Tried it a few times, not my cup of tea.

I'm good with games where chargen is wide open or very constrained, with the caveat that it has to be done well.

On the highly constrained end, I love LBB Traveller chargen.  The player has little input on what comes happens, but I've always enjoyed the results.  I think it helps that the system is very sparse with skills, so the skills are important.  At the end you just get stats, a few skills, and a professional history.  It's like a Japanese painting – I see the few things there and my imagination fills in the rest of the picture.  It's never something I would have decided to play on my own, but it's always something I'm intrigued to try.

On the wide open end there are things like TOON, Torg, or GURPS.  All fine games with enormous customizability, but the setting fits with that.

With few exceptions, I don't think there are problem games with respect to chargen, just problem players.  Customizability is very nice, but it always opens the door to system abuse.  If you have players who are willing to refrain from abusing the system, which I think is an aspect of maturity, then highly customizable games are fine.  If not, then not.  As a working definition of system abuse, I'll say that it's making chargen choices that interfere with the experience the rest of the group wants to have.  I can think of a couple of easy examples.

There's the guy that just has to have a character that doesn't fit the intended genre of a game.  The group decides to play a game of Arthurian chivalry, and he rolls up a sneak thief, an Eskimo, or and aardvark.  All of those can work if the group is happy with it, but sometimes you just want to play a game of pure chivalry.  Or the group wants to do stealth ops and he rolls up a gun bunny who can't sneak his way out of a paper bag.  He'll blow every single op, then complain that the other characters can't keep up in fighting out of the messes he makes.

There's the guy that overspecializes.  Frex he puts all of his skills in melee in a game with a variety of challenge types.  Then he's bored in non combat activities because he can't do anything, and the other players are bored in combat because he does all of the fun stuff.  This is usually the guy who says "It's not my fault you don't know how to build a strong character."

There's the guy that looks for combinations of choices that are massively stronger than the typical power of characters.  Any sufficiently complex system will have these no matter how hard the designers try to remove them.  This is the guy that will tell you that if you don't specialize in the halberd and trip skill then you're lousy at character design.  SOL if you just want to play a sword and board guy because that's your character concept.

Basically for any complex system there are going to be chargen choices that screw up the play experience of the rest of the group.  If you do those you're doing it wrong.  It's a player issue not a system issue.

Quote from: Fheredin on June 08, 2023, 10:53:56 PM
The core problem with D&D is that it takes absolutely no regard for the time it takes to implement a mechanic at the table. Ttable time is the biggest opportunity cost there is, so every saving throw and missed attack and confirmed crit roll which didn't need to happen burns time which players could have spent roleplaying out of combat or in another encounter. This is why all editions of D&D are at least somewhat slow. With this in mind, I would discard most saving throws in favor of forfeiting actions. You wouldn't be "on fire" and need to roll to save, you would have "tier 3 fire" and need to spend a major action to clear it or a minor action to reduce it to tier 2 fire. Because this both gets rid of the saving roll and the player loses actions to reduce or remove the effects, the system's speed will notably increase. I would say that saving throws should be for spectacular and memorable events, like death saves. If it doesn't make sense to penalize the actor at least a minor action just to make the save, it doesn't make sense to make a saving roll.

To echo what another poster said, at low levels every edition of D&D other than 4e runs pretty quick. Things slow down at higher levels for different reasons depending on edition. In 2e and prior the slowdown was fairly minor because there weren't all that many options, so it was mostly spellcasters or magic items that slowed things down. In WotC editions it's the same problem plus all the fiddliness, crunchy bits, weird exceptional pieces of rules you get for your one weird ability on your animal companion and how it interacts with a feat or a spell...

It's worth noting that saving throws were long ago something fairly exceptional. It was 3.5 and onwards IIRC that integrated them (and opposed checks in general) into what felt like every aspect of the game (needed to show off the new unified saving throw rules). You see this also in the designs which followed 3.5 - it became a sort of received "wisdom" that nothing bad can happen to a character unless they have a chance to roll a saving throw first (even if the DC is high). I agree that Fire and things like that shouldn't always get a saving throw and it's faster just to say "you're on fire" and let the players react by spending actions or spells or items or whatever cleverness to extinguish the flames. I do that in my game and it works fine.

There are numerous slowdowns in D&D but they're of a fundamental sort that is widespread in most RPG systems I've played. Consider how many times you need to exchange information across the table to resolve an attack roll. The assumption in D&D (and really, most games with a variable DC or target) is that you'll roll the die, do the arithmetic (remember all your bonuses and penalties which different people around the table might recall), ask the GM for the outcome, and then depending on the answer you might then resolve a subroutine like rolling for damage (which uses its own distinct set of dice) to get the real desired outcome (is the critter dead or not). Even by distributing the process and the arithmetic around the table, there's more overhead than I think most people consider, since people like us learn to be very snappy about it and soon it's second nature. The friction points become really obvious when you play with people who are new to TTRPGs. People can't figure out which dice are which. People can't do arithmetic right or forget bonuses or penalties. They ask questions about the process itself and get lost. They forget when they need to follow up with a subroutine and don't roll their damage dice at the same time as their attack. They don't understand why some info is public and why some info is hidden. Just the ability to know your test's DC and your bonuses/penalties without asking around the table is such a huge quality of life improvement. Systems with large variance in DCs IMO can be a headache to GM for inexperienced players.

Quote from: Fheredin on June 08, 2023, 10:53:56 PM
I make no secret I absolutely revile having both ability scores and modifiers, but I really don't know what to do about that because WotC baked both of them into the game so deeply. If the game used ability scores properly you wouldn't need modifiers at all and vice versa.

I think most D&D variants I've seen for a while now use modifiers directly rather than the score. It's a nice streamlining for games that make the same assumptions as a WotC flavors of D&D. For TSR editions, the growth of modifiers isn't quite so formulaic so it's not quite so obvious that there's little/no loss or change from dropping the score itself.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 09, 2023, 03:47:29 AM

I think most D&D variants I've seen for a while now use modifiers directly rather than the score. It's a nice streamlining for games that make the same assumptions as a WotC flavors of D&D. For TSR editions, the growth of modifiers isn't quite so formulaic so it's not quite so obvious that there's little/no loss or change from dropping the score itself.

Yes.  In WotC designs, the ability scores are vestigial.  As soon as they went to +/- 1 for every 2 points of ability score, it's use went away.  They slapped a few bits here or there at times to pretend that it hadn't, but those could have been easily worked around.

There is, however, value in scaling the modifiers unevenly, as earlier D&D does.  As soon as you do that, the scale is useful outside its expression.  At least it is when there are reasons for the scaling baked into the design. It can also happen, depending on the math, that the scale is a much easier way for players to deal with the thing, than if it was reduced to a formula, just because.

One can, of course, deliberately design the scale out of the system, thus taking us back to no need to have it.  Depending on other aspects of the design, this could be a good or bad thing, and shouldn't be assumed.  That's in the realm of the art of design and testing to validate a design, rather than theory, though.

Quote from: Aglondir on June 09, 2023, 01:05:38 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on June 08, 2023, 10:53:56 PM
The core problem with D&D is that it takes absolutely no regard for the time it takes to implement a mechanic at the table. Ttable time is the biggest opportunity cost there is, so every saving throw and missed attack and confirmed crit roll which didn't need to happen burns time which players could have spent roleplaying out of combat or in another encounter. This is why all editions of D&D are at least somewhat slow. With this in mind, I would discard most saving throws in favor of forfeiting actions. You wouldn't be "on fire" and need to roll to save, you would have "tier 3 fire" and need to spend a major action to clear it or a minor action to reduce it to tier 2 fire. Because this both gets rid of the saving roll and the player loses actions to reduce or remove the effects, the system's speed will notably increase. I would say that saving throws should be for spectacular and memorable events, like death saves. If it doesn't make sense to penalize the actor at least a minor action just to make the save, it doesn't make sense to make a saving roll.

I've found table time in D&D is mostly an issue at higher levels. Lower levels go about as fast as most RPGs, which is the deign space I'm interested in. I'm aiming for classic design, evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

You might like FATE. One feature is "aspects" where you can declare "You are on fire!" and it has mechanical meaning. Tried it a few times, not my cup of tea.

Fate isn't really my cup of tea, either. It's not terrible, but it's also lovelessly crunchless. I have a high opinion of Savage Worlds precisely because it carries the most important parts of the crunch from 3.5, but is a leaps and bounds faster system, so the crunch that's lacking can usually be added back without too much of a hassle and the end game is still playable...provided you're a competent homebrewer.


My experience with D&D was that even at the low levels it was at best a kinda slow system, but my experience is also colored by GMs who would start campaigns off at Level 3 or Level 5. At that point the system slowdown has already begun. It just hasn't gotten bad.

Quote from: Old AegidiusThere are numerous slowdowns in D&D but they're of a fundamental sort that is widespread in most RPG systems I've played. Consider how many times you need to exchange information across the table to resolve an attack roll. The assumption in D&D (and really, most games with a variable DC or target) is that you'll roll the die, do the arithmetic (remember all your bonuses and penalties which different people around the table might recall), ask the GM for the outcome, and then depending on the answer you might then resolve a subroutine like rolling for damage (which uses its own distinct set of dice) to get the real desired outcome (is the critter dead or not). Even by distributing the process and the arithmetic around the table, there's more overhead than I think most people consider, since people like us learn to be very snappy about it and soon it's second nature. The friction points become really obvious when you play with people who are new to TTRPGs. People can't figure out which dice are which. People can't do arithmetic right or forget bonuses or penalties. They ask questions about the process itself and get lost. They forget when they need to follow up with a subroutine and don't roll their damage dice at the same time as their attack. They don't understand why some info is public and why some info is hidden. Just the ability to know your test's DC and your bonuses/penalties without asking around the table is such a huge quality of life improvement. Systems with large variance in DCs IMO can be a headache to GM for inexperienced players.

Yeah, I can see that. D&D doesn't handle wide power differences as well as it thinks it does.

I think the problem I am reacting to is that D&D has a lot of placebo mechanics. Sure the designer can see that 2d4 damage is less than 2d6, and that a DC 15 check is harder than a DC 13 check, and the player can tell that picking up the dice, but you can't actually tell that these are different if you were just looking at your pass-fail rate or your average damage from 3-4 swings. It's needlessly granular, and the quest for trivial amounts of granularity costs the system a great deal of usability.

Quote from: Fheredin on June 08, 2023, 09:16:50 PM
Drunk? You were drunk for six hours on a week day? On a time difference which either means you were day-drinking or which put you somewhere between Turkiye and India?

Might I suggest alcoholics anonymous?

This is either a bot or an extremely autistic person with no sense of humor...or both.

Quote from: Brad on June 09, 2023, 08:38:35 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on June 08, 2023, 09:16:50 PM
Drunk? You were drunk for six hours on a week day? On a time difference which either means you were day-drinking or which put you somewhere between Turkiye and India?

Might I suggest alcoholics anonymous?

This is either a bot or an extremely autistic person with no sense of humor...or both.

Welcome to the Internet! Take your coat?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 06, 2023, 03:47:31 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 06, 2023, 03:20:35 PMBut the whole thing about totally random vs freeform selection supremacy in TTRPGs is a false dilemma.

Yes, but it does mean the type of play that was once the sole type of play, is now one among many, and that comes as a bitter pill to swallow for the people that like that sort of play.

It was not even the only type of play back then.
 
Players could and did recruit monsters into their hirelings with intent to play them.
 
And even with O and BX D&D players still had the freedom of choice and the ability to shuffle points around if they did not like the rolls. At a 2 for 1 cost. But if you rolled a 9 for STR but really wanted to play a fighter you could shuffle some points from INT to bump it up a little.
 
Or just play a fighter with 9 STR, back then stats were not as be-all-end-all. Not even in AD&D were exact stats a must have past a point.

Quote from: Grognard GM on June 06, 2023, 05:36:09 PM
Meanwhile, inside the delusions of some GMs...

GM: "So what do you say?"
Player: "Huh?"
GM: "Were you even listening to the King's speech?"
Player: "No, sorry, the dazzling range of options available to me demands my full attention, and I'm
           unable to focus on the narrative, for constantly flicking through the rulebook seeking power."
GM: "Curse you, choices! If only I'd enforced strict randomness, my players would be focused and
        attentive!"


The suggestion that wanting to craft characters to your specifications makes one a snowflake is also a nice touch. Is this the fabled OSR fart-sniffing I've heard of?

Pretty much.
The usual wah wah wah D&D is for teh RUINED because mean ol players want to play different things! The horror the horrrrrrorrrrrrr!"
News at 11.

For fucks sake people 5e still has probably the least number of races and classes of any edition short of O and BX. Possible AD&D as well.

2e still has hands down the most races and classes of any edition. Complete Book of Humanoids added 25 races all on its own. AND 19 new class kits.

As much as I dislike 5e in general, it also has the option to roll ability scores alongside array and pointbuy options and no one is stopping anyone from just using the stats in order and picking your race and class off the results.

Hell, I threw in some optional rules for randomly generated attributes, races, backgrounds and classes into my own system just because I know some players like that.

But this claim of "if you don't do random rolls you're doing it wrong" just reinforces my impression that some people are less mad about the SJWs enforcing their views onto other peoples' games, but rather, they're mad they're not the ones with the power to tell other people how to play.

Immersion is something entirely player dependent and, surprise, players aren't all immersed by the same things.

Case-in-point, a friend of mine considers me a Star Wars fan (and I am, of the OT and EU). So when he found out I hadn't watched Andor insisted I watch it with him... because it's so amazing.

He's engrossed and what I see is the supposed hero of the piece accidentally kill a guard accosting him when he decides to fight back, then murdering the second in cold blood to keep the second guard from being able to ID him, and then recruiting his friends to lie for him about an alibi... SO heroic. So much like Star Wars. [/sarcasm]

And SO glacially paced. Stormtroopers were mowing down Rebels on Leia's ship before Andor even made it out of the bar. Needless to say, I checked out because I had no immersion in the property at all. To be fair, it was probably better than I would have found Obi-Wan (which is what he wanted to watch because I hadn't watched it either before he found out I hadn't watched Andor too).

Some people like random rolls for character generation, others don't. There's no right answer, just preferences in this area. Trying to claim anything as objectively better for all people is just silly.

Besides the moral and philosophical issues, randomized character generation vs. some variation of point buy has very different mechanical implications.  Making some classes more difficult to qualify for adds an additional balancing mechanism. 

In 1e, Paladin, Monk, Ranger, Barbarian, and Cavalier and objectively superior to a standard fighter.  However, if ability scores are determined randomly, dozens of standard fighters will live and die or every 'elite class' that shows up at the table.  If you allow players to select their class, relative parity among classes is at least theoretically necessary. 

I don't find that this makes one objectively superior to the other, but it does create a different set of considerations from core mechanics and the way down through adventure design.  This potentially becomes a real problem where the rules allow from both, something I noticed from 2e on. 

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 06, 2023, 07:23:20 PM
Restricted choices is a well-known means of making the choices that remain meaningful.  Restrict too much, such that the person choosing dislikes all the remaining choices equally, they'll disengage.  Give them too many, they'll miss the forest for the trees.  The art is in finding the fertile middle ground. A big part of finding that middle ground is removing fake choices, which have no real effect, thus encouraging the participants to zero in on the ones that matter.

The flip side of this is being wiling to engage with the game/setting/system on the grounds for which it is presented.  The oft-cited player who insists on playing Merchants and Moneylenders in an otherwise standard D&D adventure game illustrates the issue.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 08, 2023, 02:20:55 PM
That limits can be good for imagination is a learned appreciation.  In order to learn it, it is almost necessary to have personally experienced a good limit in action, seen the result, and then tied the result to the limit.  Not everyone gets those experiences.  Some that do don't make the connection.  In fairness, it's not always an obvious connection.

For me personally, I don't find that I have a medium sweet spot.

If I'm going to do randomized creation, I prefer it as highly random -- roll for race, sex, attributes in order, etc. -- and possibly a lifepath or similar. I enjoyed HarnWorld and Traveller, say. Often I'd create 3-5 characters - pick one as my PC, and then have the others around as backups or give them to the GM as NPCs.

If I'm going to do character design, I'd prefer to avoid random roll. In D&D, I dislike roll-and-arrange, as it gives no inspiring details to base on.

---

Regarding appreciation being learned...  Back in the 1970s (especially prior to the DMG in 1979), everyone was introduced to D&D as roll 3d6 in order. Despite experiencing this introduction to restricted choice, most D&D players abandoned 3d6 in order in favor of other methods with more choice, especially roll-and-arrange.

Quote from: jhkim on June 09, 2023, 01:32:42 PM
Regarding appreciation being learned...  Back in the 1970s (especially prior to the DMG in 1979), everyone was introduced to D&D as roll 3d6 in order. Despite experiencing this introduction to restricted choice, most D&D players abandoned 3d6 in order in favor of other methods with more choice, especially roll-and-arrange.

Not exactly the point.  Each restriction only "works" for a subset of people.  Everyone that played early D&D got to experience restricted choices.  Not all of them got to experience restricted choices that fit them, and thus sparked their imagination through those restrictions.  (Not to be confused, by the way, with other ways D&D might have sparked imagination in ways that has nothing whatsoever to do with restricted choices.)

If every time you hit a restricted list, it doesn't fit you, then it becomes very difficult to appreciate what a better fit might accomplish.  On the other hand, if you didn't like, say, B/X wizards not using swords, but did appreciate that fighters and wizards had their own things, and the interaction of those things had an effect on the party dynamics in ways that you did appreciate, you might still gain an appreciation for the limits in the abstract--despite still being firmly in the camp of not liking the wizard/sword restriction.  You'd just prefer that the particular limitation be replaced with something you found more interesting.

Some people think the wizard not using a sword is a sign that classes don't work, or that limits don't work, or other throw the baby out with the bathwater thoughts.  Others realize that there's nothing inherently wrong with classes or limits or any number of similar ideas--just that they'd pick a different place to put the boundaries. 

This is hardly restricted to D&D, either.  There are limits in Fantasy Hero that I don't particularly care for.  No, really, there are.  There's some classic fantasy bits that are ludicrously complicated and over-priced in Hero, probably because those things are seldom found in 4-color comics and/or are priced appropriately for that genre.  Others are just inherent in the core design of Hero.  That's not a criticism of the system.  Every system has limits somewhere.  It's merely a statement that were I motivated to build something like Hero from the ground up, I'd do a more limited design catering to a subset of the Fantasy genres, and put my boundaries in different places.

Quote from: jhkim on June 09, 2023, 01:32:42 PM
If I'm going to do character design, I'd prefer to avoid random roll. In D&D, I dislike roll-and-arrange, as it gives no inspiring details to base on.

"Inspiring" is a good word for what's going on. The goal here is to inspire the player to create the character without providing too much handholding. As a matter of personal preference, I don't like limiting players entirely to the results of RNG, but there can be a case-by-case exception in that regard.

I think the basic idea for original Roll-in-Order was to determine your stats, use your stats to figure out what class your character could reasonably be, and then go from there. Roll-and-arrange adds freedom to become whatever class you want, but that in turn removes the roleplay information your pseudo-assignment of class gave you, so you're exposing yourself to all the things which can go wrong with RNG character creation and receiving none of the benefits.

The core fallacy of any of these designs is that your attributes don't make your character. Roleplay vices are probably at least as important as a character's attributes.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 09, 2023, 02:13:16 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 09, 2023, 01:32:42 PM
Regarding appreciation being learned...  Back in the 1970s (especially prior to the DMG in 1979), everyone was introduced to D&D as roll 3d6 in order. Despite experiencing this introduction to restricted choice, most D&D players abandoned 3d6 in order in favor of other methods with more choice, especially roll-and-arrange.

Not exactly the point.  Each restriction only "works" for a subset of people.  Everyone that played early D&D got to experience restricted choices.  Not all of them got to experience restricted choices that fit them, and thus sparked their imagination through those restrictions.  (Not to be confused, by the way, with other ways D&D might have sparked imagination in ways that has nothing whatsoever to do with restricted choices.)

OK, fair - but Pundit's video from the OP is talking specifically about D&D roll-in-order restrictions. That's the thing that he says works objectively better than arranged or point-buy attributes.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 09, 2023, 02:13:16 PM
Some people think the wizard not using a sword is a sign that classes don't work, or that limits don't work, or other throw the baby out with the bathwater thoughts.  Others realize that there's nothing inherently wrong with classes or limits or any number of similar ideas--just that they'd pick a different place to put the boundaries.

On the one hand, sure, nearly everyone could broaden their tastes by trying a greater variety of games. But taken too far, this argument is a generic defense of any game feature. i.e. People who say they don't like classes just haven't played the right class-based game for them. Or people who say they don't like point-buy just haven't played the right point-buy game for them. etc.

I'd say most people have a decent handle on their own tastes in games. I'll sometimes pitch things like "c'mon, give it a try" - but I don't push very hard.

Basically what I've learned from this thread is that some people cannot differentiate blatant hyperbole in jest to illustrate a point from 100% pure seriousness, and also that RPGs are not just games, but a raison d'etre. Those two views seem to have a massive amount of overlap.

No it doesn't

Quote from: Grognard GM on June 06, 2023, 11:49:40 AM
This entire argument is so alien to how I make characters. I mean sure, players that are uncreative/power gamers could maybe get more emersion from builds they don't choose, but I like my GM to respect my abilities enough to let me loose.

What abilities are those? Because 'charop' is not an ability that helps anyone but yourself. In fact, it generally annoys/harms/ruins the rest of the group depending on how much you do it.

Quote from: Theory of Games on June 07, 2023, 06:56:40 PM
Pundit must have been smoking that 'Godfather OG' when he formulated this video  ;D

Because he's wrong. Role-playing games are about taking on the characteristics of another being. 'Character' involves mental/moral aspects of being. So - if I have less options regarding what that other being's characteristics will be, I'm limited in exactly who/what that being can/will be.

Comparison: various versions of D&D/WotC Game™ offer background characteristics which is fun. But, the gap between what those games offer and what a system like GURPS offers is expansive. Galactic. Even.

Let us consider another game: Football (not soccer). When they were just running around and kicking the ball it was cool, but when they gained the option to pass the ball the whole thing took off like a Marine on payday.

I know this idea is revolutionary, probably get me burned at the stake, but: MORE IS BETTER.

Shit, if less was better, Gary never would've done all the BECMI & AD&D splat. He knew what he was doing. And it shows how stupid WotC is since they haven't dumped a billion setting and kit books on the market. "D&D is under-monetized." Really? Wonder why.

Pundit only makes sense here if the world was still stuck playing Chainmail or OD&D. THEN, you could try to say "Oh yeah this really limited BS is the apex of gaming, people!"

If you have all the options to decide what you want to be in an RPG, and no option is prevented to you, and you can make literally anything you could think up, then the one thing that is limiting you is your own Ego. But that's far worse than any number of rules, because WHATEVER YOU PICK it will just end up being some kind of projection of your own ego. You will only be able to create what you are capable of thinking up, and you will never ever end up creating anything that you wouldn't have thought up.

Randomization adds an outside factor. It is God playing dice with the universe. It forces us to have to adjust to things we wouldn't have thought up. So it is much more liberating. It  liberates you from your own smallness.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 09, 2023, 09:16:31 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on June 06, 2023, 11:49:40 AM
This entire argument is so alien to how I make characters. I mean sure, players that are uncreative/power gamers could maybe get more emersion from builds they don't choose, but I like my GM to respect my abilities enough to let me loose.

What abilities are those? Because 'charop' is not an ability that helps anyone but yourself. In fact, it generally annoys/harms/ruins the rest of the group depending on how much you do it.

I'll admit to being a bit of a power gamer myself. That said, I think so long as the goal is to help the party and build a character/concept effectively, system knowledge can be used for good. Not that I have a problem with random assignment or with pregenerated and assigned characters/parties. I guess charop isn't necessarily system mastery and responsible decision-making, though.

Also, on that second post of yours, that's kind of part of why I hate the idea of fudging dice. It takes away the randomness and game part of the adjudicated rpg. There's something to be said for randomness and its contribution to honest gaming, for sure.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 09, 2023, 09:16:31 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on June 06, 2023, 11:49:40 AM
This entire argument is so alien to how I make characters. I mean sure, players that are uncreative/power gamers could maybe get more emersion from builds they don't choose, but I like my GM to respect my abilities enough to let me loose.

What abilities are those? Because 'charop' is not an ability that helps anyone but yourself. In fact, it generally annoys/harms/ruins the rest of the group depending on how much you do it.

Since your arguments are just stating your views as fact, I'll just say you're wrong. Saying less choice is freeing is some real "war is peace" stuff.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 09, 2023, 09:16:31 PMRandomization adds an outside factor. It is God playing dice with the universe. It forces us to have to adjust to things we wouldn't have thought up. So it is much more liberating. It  liberates you from your own smallness.

(https://media.tenor.com/orxWgpBcUCIAAAAC/fart-south-park.gif)

I've said it once and I'm sure I'll say it again; in every other game, players who spend time learning and mastering the game are assets, not liabilities. Only in RPGs do we call them "power gamers" and view them as a problem. RPGs with a power-gaming problem focus too much on using RNG to emphasize the difference between PC and player; it deflects all the system mastery effects into character creation, which is one of the most jarring places to put differences like that because instead of creating a learning environment where one player learns from another...one PC is permanently stronger than another.

This is a permanent defect in the D&D RPG paradigm. Yeah, you can fix it, but doing so means leaving D&D behind (possibly encountering other problems.)

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 09, 2023, 09:32:13 PM

If you have all the options to decide what you want to be in an RPG, and no option is prevented to you, and you can make literally anything you could think up, then the one thing that is limiting you is your own Ego. But that's far worse than any number of rules, because WHATEVER YOU PICK it will just end up being some kind of projection of your own ego. You will only be able to create what you are capable of thinking up, and you will never ever end up creating anything that you wouldn't have thought up.

Randomization adds an outside factor. It is God playing dice with the universe. It forces us to have to adjust to things we wouldn't have thought up. So it is much more liberating. It  liberates you from your own smallness.

Player characters are extensions of the player's ego by their nature. I get the argument that RNG-creation will encourage players to play characters they never would have, but it isn't like that breaks the connection between the  player's ego and the PC's ego.


Let me ask a general question: would you want to play a game where you randomly rolled for leveling up options? Why is leveling up different from character creation when presumably the PC existed before the game began.

From my point of view, this is really a question of what flaws you're willing to tolerate. D&D-paradigm games all enable power-difference between player characters. If you roll for stuff, it's an exercise in gambling. If you use a set option like point-buy or a set array, then power-gaming becomes an issue...but power gaming was always going to become an issue. You give the power-gamer 3-5 level ups and yeah, their character may have been RNG at the start, but that's not true, anymore.

And then there's the question of sub-par roleplay because players don't want to leave their shells. Meh. Roleplay is a skill players learn with time and effort, so just throwing them into a completely alien character probably won't help them learn. It could, but it could also be counter-productive. It's not something where one size fits all, but I can see one size fitting set applications well, and even in the case of generics, one size can fit most players comfortably.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 09, 2023, 09:32:13 PMRandomization adds an outside factor. It is God playing dice with the universe. It forces us to have to adjust to things we wouldn't have thought up. So it is much more liberating. It  liberates you from your own smallness.

Chutes and Ladders: The Enlightened Mans RPG.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 09, 2023, 10:40:00 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 09, 2023, 09:32:13 PMRandomization adds an outside factor. It is God playing dice with the universe. It forces us to have to adjust to things we wouldn't have thought up. So it is much more liberating. It  liberates you from your own smallness.

Chutes and Ladders: The Enlightened Mans RPG.

Okay, admittedly that was rather hilarious.

Still, RPGs without randomization tend to be either raw tactical exercises or left entirely to the whims of whatever the DM/collaborative storygroup/author feels like today. Or at least that's my understanding based on what I can think of satisfying that premise at the moment.

Quote from: jhkim on June 09, 2023, 07:01:54 PM

On the one hand, sure, nearly everyone could broaden their tastes by trying a greater variety of games. But taken too far, this argument is a generic defense of any game feature. i.e. People who say they don't like classes just haven't played the right class-based game for them. Or people who say they don't like point-buy just haven't played the right point-buy game for them. etc.

I'd say most people have a decent handle on their own tastes in games. I'll sometimes pitch things like "c'mon, give it a try" - but I don't push very hard.

It's not about "like".  It's about whether something can work or not.  I don't much "like" generic systems anymore, for various reasons not germane to this topic.  I've never said that generic systems can't work for other people.  Just that they don't work for me, for reasons. 


It's exactly the same way that some people confuse "I don't like armor as hit avoidance" with "armor as hit avoidance is this horribly stupid thing that nobody should ever use, and anyone that says that they do is mistake or outright lying or some caught up in nostalgia that they can't see what they really don't like". 

3.5 is the version of D&D I have most familiarity with.

Really, take my opinions with a grain of salt. D&D is not a system I have spent a lot of time with and my advice would cut VERY deeply into the system, enough that you would have to make sweeping changes. What I would make  is arguably no longer D&D, and it would probably be easier to build from scratch than to build with the D&D foundation.

The core problem with D&D is that it takes absolutely no regard for the time it takes to implement a mechanic at the table. Ttable time is the biggest opportunity cost there is, so every saving throw and missed attack and confirmed crit roll which didn't need to happen burns time which players could have spent roleplaying out of combat or in another encounter. This is why all editions of D&D are at least somewhat slow. With this in mind, I would discard most saving throws in favor of forfeiting actions. You wouldn't be "on fire" and need to roll to save, you would have "tier 3 fire" and need to spend a major action to clear it or a minor action to reduce it to tier 2 fire. Because this both gets rid of the saving roll and the player loses actions to reduce or remove the effects, the system's speed will notably increase. I would say that saving throws should be for spectacular and memorable events, like death saves. If it doesn't make sense to penalize the actor at least a minor action just to make the save, it doesn't make sense to make a saving roll.

I make no secret I absolutely revile having both ability scores and modifiers, but I really don't know what to do about that because WotC baked both of them into the game so deeply. If the game used ability scores properly you wouldn't need modifiers at all and vice versa.

But the bottom line I have is to just not let players play with dice needlessly because it burns up too much time.
[/quote]

3rd edition added so much needless complexity that chewed up time. I agree with that, having run and played quite a bit of it. It is one of many reasons why I prefer B/X as my favorite version of D&D. The original game designed combat to move and be resolved quickly so that exploration and interaction could resume. By the time 3rd edition came around the whole idea and basis of the game with treasure won providing the bulk of XP had been ditched in favor of XP for combat encounters being the center of play. At the same time combat was being made the core of play about a hundred different things were added to make that process more complicated and chew up more game time. Set piece encounters became the norm and at higher levels an entire gaming session was easily spent on a single combat encounter.

All of that baggage and wasted time is why I like B/X . Character generation takes about 15 minutes and play moves quickly, not weighed down with feats, long skill lists, tons of action types in combat and npc statblocks that are a pain to prepare. I suppose it would be called D&D lite these days but back when learned how to play it it was simply D&D.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 09, 2023, 09:32:13 PM
Randomization adds an outside factor. It is God playing dice with the universe.

"God does not play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein

Not everyone is looking to be "liberated" from their preferences, particularly when they've lived long enough to figure out what their preferences are by doing enough of everything to figure out what you do and don't like.

Because I've tried all the RNG I've cared to over four decades and found little to no enjoyment in any variety. I've looked at what you consider enjoyable and would honestly prefer sitting alone at home watching reruns to your "liberation."

My experience tells me RNGs don't encourage creative anything... players just pick whichever class best fits the results and if they really can't stand the PC they suicide them at the earliest opportunity for another spin on the RNG lotto machine... which just wastes everyone's precious time when you've only got a few hours a week to actually run or play something because of everyone's real lives.

There's nothing creative in "my Intelligence is my highest score, I guess I have to play a wizard again." Having a PC you don't have any investment in because you had no real decisions to make in creating them isn't going magically make people invest themselves further into a game.

It works for you, and I'm happy it works for you, but its not for me. Not everyone likes the same things. There is no one size fits all method of gaming that will appeal to everyone.

I've got four decades of gaming under my belt so don't bother with any sort of appeal to my inexperience... "real socialismRNG character generation hasn't been tried yet." Uh huh, sure.

The OSR playstyle is not for me. It wasn't 35 years ago and it certainly isn't now. There's only one edition of D&D that ever truly spoke to me (martial heroes in light armor with codified mechanics for doing more than "I hit it with my sword"? Spellcasters whose magic works like it does in most fantasy stories? Yes please) and its the one I know you most hate.

That alone should be proof enough that people are so different that your claim to having some revealed truth that will be a panacea to all gamers if they'd just try it is just silly.

Quote from: KindaMeh on June 09, 2023, 10:51:16 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 09, 2023, 10:40:00 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 09, 2023, 09:32:13 PMRandomization adds an outside factor. It is God playing dice with the universe. It forces us to have to adjust to things we wouldn't have thought up. So it is much more liberating. It  liberates you from your own smallness.

Chutes and Ladders: The Enlightened Mans RPG.

Okay, admittedly that was rather hilarious.

Still, RPGs without randomization tend to be either raw tactical exercises or left entirely to the whims of whatever the DM/collaborative storygroup/author feels like today. Or at least that's my understanding based on what I can think of satisfying that premise at the moment.

You can have randomization in play without requiring it in character generation.

Personally, as a GM, I like to have my players talk out what they're going to play amongst themselves and encourage them to create connections between their PCs to give context to why the party is together (I always start with the group already formed) and what they might hope to accomplish by adventuring together.

Random generation is pretty anathema to that approach, particularly if the players hit upon a concept they mutually like... like one group decided they would all be travelling entertainers. Another was they'd all be non-magic human members of an urban gang trying to grow their territory (this was 4E so the warlord was available as a class for hit point recovery and enough options among fighter, ranger, rogue and warlord for all five players to define themselves as individuals.

Quote from: Brad on June 09, 2023, 07:58:08 PM
Basically what I've learned from this thread is that some people cannot differentiate blatant hyperbole in jest to illustrate a point from 100% pure seriousness, and also that RPGs are not just games, but a raison d'etre. Those two views seem to have a massive amount of overlap.

>:( I AM the 3d6 straight down!

;D Nah. I'm not that cool.

I think Pundit makes a lot of good points in the video. I enjoy both the more random-class based approach and the more point build approach. I see them as both perfectly functional so long as you are aware of the limits, strengths and downsides of each. But I have often found people will sometimes dismiss randomness or dismiss classes as limiting, when the limits are what make them good (much more so than they are of point buy). That may just be the waters I travel in. Not sure what attitudes would look like if you took a poll

Both more choices and fewer choices has its pros and cons. Even OS D&D lets you choose race and class (with some limitations). And it is not impossible to "change your stats" in real life with training, study, etc. - although there are soem obvious limitations.

It is fun to play a PC out of your comfort zone and its also fun to play exactly the PC you want.

I do think players are a bit spoiled and sometimes unable to try the first option, however.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 09, 2023, 11:40:59 PM
The OSR playstyle is not for me. It wasn't 35 years ago and it certainly isn't now. There's only one edition of D&D that ever truly spoke to me (martial heroes in light armor with codified mechanics for doing more than "I hit it with my sword"? Spellcasters whose magic works like it does in most fantasy stories? Yes please) and its the one I know you most hate.

Chris,

Which edition do you like? (Not being sarcastic, I'm just not sure from the criteria you provided.)

Quote from: Aglondir on June 11, 2023, 06:07:41 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 09, 2023, 11:40:59 PM
The OSR playstyle is not for me. It wasn't 35 years ago and it certainly isn't now. There's only one edition of D&D that ever truly spoke to me (martial heroes in light armor with codified mechanics for doing more than "I hit it with my sword"? Spellcasters whose magic works like it does in most fantasy stories? Yes please) and its the one I know you most hate.

Chris,

Which edition do you like? (Not being sarcastic, I'm just not sure from the criteria you provided.)

The hated and reviled one. The one so many claim isn't even D&D at all... i.e. 4th Edition.

It was the first edition ever where I didn't need a bunch of homebrew and house-ruling to play the type of characters I enjoyed... martial heroes who didn't require magic items to keep up with the spellcasters. Wizards who could let loose with minor spells at-will just like you see them do in most fantasy novels not deliberately spun off of D&D. Warlords to inspire and urge the PCs to keep fighting without needing some pagan warpriest (another thing you literally only see in D&D spin-off media) in the party for healing.

It also had a cosmology that wasn't needless symmetry based on alignment, but of primordials (elementals) vs. gods (astral beings) and light (fey) vs. darkness (shadow)... that was actually usable in play (i.e. no elemental plane of endless 3d10 fire damage per round or negative energy plane that drains a level every round from you... but an Elemental Chaos where the elements all blended together in weird ways that meant even lower tier adventurers could journey into it and a Shadowfell and Feywild that you could accidentally step into at the wrong crossroads just as happened in many myths and legends about fairyland and the lands of the dead. It had its own Titanomachy and eschatology and a more cohesive establishment of the various races and monsters than the Great Wheel had ever provided me.

It wasn't perfect; if it was I'd have never bothered building my own system to take the best parts of it and merge it with elements that worked better; but it was the closest any edition of D&D ever came to providing me with what I enjoyed out of the box (the next closest for me would be 1e Palladium Fantasy; ETA - and it should be noted that we almost immediately house-ruled into something resembling an array for attributes for all the Palladium stuff we played).

Look, whether you're an enlightened being of higher intelligence, that realizes that more control over char creation can only aid player immersion; or crusty old luddites, sticking with lame old rules just because that's how they did things in dinosaur times, there's something I think we can all unite on...

Namely relentlessly insulting and mocking Chris for liking 4e.

Quote from: Grognard GM on June 11, 2023, 06:47:06 PM
Look, whether you're an enlightened being of higher intelligence, that realizes that more control over char creation can only aid player immersion; or crusty old luddites, sticking with lame old rules just because that's how they did things in dinosaur times, there's something I think we can all unite on...

Namely relentlessly insulting and mocking Chris for liking 4e.

I'm a Conservative Catholic Heterosexual Caucasian Male... I'm used to being insulted and mocked for my beliefs. ;D

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 11, 2023, 08:06:22 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on June 11, 2023, 06:47:06 PM
Look, whether you're an enlightened being of higher intelligence, that realizes that more control over char creation can only aid player immersion; or crusty old luddites, sticking with lame old rules just because that's how they did things in dinosaur times, there's something I think we can all unite on...

Namely relentlessly insulting and mocking Chris for liking 4e.

I'm a Conservative Catholic Heterosexual Caucasian Male... I'm used to being insulted and mocked for my beliefs. ;D

4e is a worse hill to die on than Hill 937.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 11, 2023, 06:39:34 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on June 11, 2023, 06:07:41 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 09, 2023, 11:40:59 PM
The OSR playstyle is not for me. It wasn't 35 years ago and it certainly isn't now. There's only one edition of D&D that ever truly spoke to me (martial heroes in light armor with codified mechanics for doing more than "I hit it with my sword"? Spellcasters whose magic works like it does in most fantasy stories? Yes please) and its the one I know you most hate.

Chris,

Which edition do you like? (Not being sarcastic, I'm just not sure from the criteria you provided.)

The hated and reviled one. The one so many claim isn't even D&D at all... i.e. 4th Edition.

It was the first edition ever where I didn't need a bunch of homebrew and house-ruling to play the type of characters I enjoyed... martial heroes who didn't require magic items to keep up with the spellcasters. Wizards who could let loose with minor spells at-will just like you see them do in most fantasy novels not deliberately spun off of D&D. Warlords to inspire and urge the PCs to keep fighting without needing some pagan warpriest (another thing you literally only see in D&D spin-off media) in the party for healing.

It also had a cosmology that wasn't needless symmetry based on alignment, but of primordials (elementals) vs. gods (astral beings) and light (fey) vs. darkness (shadow)... that was actually usable in play (i.e. no elemental plane of endless 3d10 fire damage per round or negative energy plane that drains a level every round from you... but an Elemental Chaos where the elements all blended together in weird ways that meant even lower tier adventurers could journey into it and a Shadowfell and Feywild that you could accidentally step into at the wrong crossroads just as happened in many myths and legends about fairyland and the lands of the dead. It had its own Titanomachy and eschatology and a more cohesive establishment of the various races and monsters than the Great Wheel had ever provided me.

It wasn't perfect; if it was I'd have never bothered building my own system to take the best parts of it and merge it with elements that worked better; but it was the closest any edition of D&D ever came to providing me with what I enjoyed out of the box (the next closest for me would be 1e Palladium Fantasy; ETA - and it should be noted that we almost immediately house-ruled into something resembling an array for attributes for all the Palladium stuff we played).

I wasn't sure if Pundit's most hated edition was 5E (due to Woke) or 4E (due to... 4E... LOL)

I agree that there was much to like about 4E. I prefer 4E's planes over the Great Wheel. The pantheon and the Dawn War is my favorite setup of any edition or setting. "Points of Light" is an excellent premise regardless of the system used. And tactical combat hums like a well-tuned machine.

But the thing that bothered me is that combats took forever. I only played a few games, but if I were to return to it, my instinct would be to halve the HP amounts and healing surges. But that might create unforeseen problems.

Quote from: Aglondir on June 11, 2023, 11:54:34 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 11, 2023, 06:39:34 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on June 11, 2023, 06:07:41 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 09, 2023, 11:40:59 PM
The OSR playstyle is not for me. It wasn't 35 years ago and it certainly isn't now. There's only one edition of D&D that ever truly spoke to me (martial heroes in light armor with codified mechanics for doing more than "I hit it with my sword"? Spellcasters whose magic works like it does in most fantasy stories? Yes please) and its the one I know you most hate.

Chris,

Which edition do you like? (Not being sarcastic, I'm just not sure from the criteria you provided.)

The hated and reviled one. The one so many claim isn't even D&D at all... i.e. 4th Edition.

It was the first edition ever where I didn't need a bunch of homebrew and house-ruling to play the type of characters I enjoyed... martial heroes who didn't require magic items to keep up with the spellcasters. Wizards who could let loose with minor spells at-will just like you see them do in most fantasy novels not deliberately spun off of D&D. Warlords to inspire and urge the PCs to keep fighting without needing some pagan warpriest (another thing you literally only see in D&D spin-off media) in the party for healing.

It also had a cosmology that wasn't needless symmetry based on alignment, but of primordials (elementals) vs. gods (astral beings) and light (fey) vs. darkness (shadow)... that was actually usable in play (i.e. no elemental plane of endless 3d10 fire damage per round or negative energy plane that drains a level every round from you... but an Elemental Chaos where the elements all blended together in weird ways that meant even lower tier adventurers could journey into it and a Shadowfell and Feywild that you could accidentally step into at the wrong crossroads just as happened in many myths and legends about fairyland and the lands of the dead. It had its own Titanomachy and eschatology and a more cohesive establishment of the various races and monsters than the Great Wheel had ever provided me.

It wasn't perfect; if it was I'd have never bothered building my own system to take the best parts of it and merge it with elements that worked better; but it was the closest any edition of D&D ever came to providing me with what I enjoyed out of the box (the next closest for me would be 1e Palladium Fantasy; ETA - and it should be noted that we almost immediately house-ruled into something resembling an array for attributes for all the Palladium stuff we played).

I wasn't sure if Pundit's most hated edition was 5E (due to Woke) or 4E (due to... 4E... LOL)

I agree that there was much to like about 4E. I prefer 4E's planes over the Great Wheel. The pantheon and the Dawn War is my favorite setup of any edition or setting. "Points of Light" is an excellent premise regardless of the system used. And tactical combat hums like a well-tuned machine.

But the thing that bothered me is that combats took forever. I only played a few games, but if I were to return to it, my instinct would be to halve the HP amounts and healing surges. But that might create unforeseen problems.

Halving healing surges just halves your adventuring day. Unlike 5e's hit dice which are extra healing, 4E's healing surges are a CAP on healing that only applies to PC's (if you have 7 surges you can only receive healing (for a bit over a quarter of your hit points) seven times between long rests.

Halving hit points would make fights more deadly, however, depending on when you checked out of 4E it may not be the problem you think it as since right around year two/Dark Sun they did a total revamp on monster hit points and damage towards less hit points but more damage and combat expectations from 5 rounds originally to about 3 rounds by the time Dark Sun rolled around.

However, the biggest issue I found to be slowing down combats in 4E was actually something that ties directly into this topic about less choice making play better. Specifically, in play option paralysis.

It's not so bad at first level where you've got two at-will attacks, a once/encounter power, a once/day power, a feat, and probably a class-based feature (like the Paladin's or Ranger's marking feature).

However, by level ten you're up to three different encounter powers, three daily powers, three added utility powers and 5 more feats... so you've gone from keeping track of about 6 exceptions to the normal rules (powers and feats) to 18 things... well beyond what your short term memory can retain, meaning people are constantly having to reference sheets or power cards (and those who refuse to write it down go and flip through the books).

By level 16 you've got a fourth encounter power, two more utilities, four more feats and three paragon path features on top... and in my experience that's where nearly every campaign I've ever played of 4E effectively broke down. A few were able to drag themselves to the end of paragon tier, but it was only sheer determination in the face of too many options to track that got us there.

A related element in the option paralysis that slowed things down was Minor and Triggered actions. Imagine the option paralysis of having to pick through all those options above the first time. Now add in several of them being minor actions (meaning you can do it in addition to your standard and move actions) and triggered (i.e. they happen when another action or effect triggers them).

Players often wasted more time trying to make sure they weren't wasting their minor action each turn than they did in making their standard action, because minors were typically 1/encounter powers so you both wanted to use them, but didn't want to waste the use either.

Now, to be fair to 4E the entire point of Essentials was to correct this. It's classes were more stripped down (more abilities baked into the regular stats instead of being situational) and there were genuinely simple classes like the Knight, Slayer, Thief, Scout, Hunter, Executioner and Elementalist (an actual "I hit it with my spell" simple caster) that had a basic attack, 1-4 uses per encounter of a "power attack" and a few utilities.

But Essentials came too late to save 4E. Only it's diehards were still playing it by then and didn't appreciate the simpler builds... and so were annoyed with WotC over it (only to be thrown under a bus by WotC a year and a half later with "D&DNext/5e" and deliberate mischaracterizations*).

Cutting way back on the option paralysis of so many choices was one of the first things I did with my own system... both by chopping the levels down to 15, reducing the options per level to 1 new thing at a time (4E averaged about 1.5 new things per level), and making many of the options you gain modifications to things you already have.

I also gave every class a default at-will minor action that players could default to if they didn't have a more appropriate one for the situation. This meant most players wouldn't flip through their stack of minor action cards five times... they'd maybe look once at any limited options then go to their default without fretting they were wasting an action they could have taken.

The point is, yes, 4E had its issues, but a lot of the issues were being dealt with (and some were not caused by things that would be assumed) and many successor projects are based on removing those issues entirely.

* One of the most memorable examples being Mike Mearls ragging on 4E for allowing Warlords to "shout people's hands back on." Except 4E had zero rules for dismemberment related to hit point loss... so a Warlord couldn't actually reattach someone's severed hand; at least not without using a magic healing ritual to do it.

But that wouldn't let them crap on 4E to appeal to all the players who'd left for Pathfinder... either that or Mearls was an idiot who didn't even know the system he was in charge of... sorta like how Ed Greenwood when he was briefly brought on for 5e tried to present "Passive Perception" as some new idea for streamlining the game experience when it had been part of 4E from its launch.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 11, 2023, 08:06:22 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on June 11, 2023, 06:47:06 PM
Look, whether you're an enlightened being of higher intelligence, that realizes that more control over char creation can only aid player immersion; or crusty old luddites, sticking with lame old rules just because that's how they did things in dinosaur times, there's something I think we can all unite on...

Namely relentlessly insulting and mocking Chris for liking 4e.

I'm a Conservative Catholic Heterosexual Caucasian Male... I'm used to being insulted and mocked for my beliefs. ;D

  I am a Conservative Catholic Cishet White Male who also likes 4E ... and AD&D 2nd Edition, which is nearly as despised. We are not alone. :D

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 12, 2023, 08:53:18 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 11, 2023, 08:06:22 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on June 11, 2023, 06:47:06 PM
Look, whether you're an enlightened being of higher intelligence, that realizes that more control over char creation can only aid player immersion; or crusty old luddites, sticking with lame old rules just because that's how they did things in dinosaur times, there's something I think we can all unite on...

Namely relentlessly insulting and mocking Chris for liking 4e.

I'm a Conservative Catholic Heterosexual Caucasian Male... I'm used to being insulted and mocked for my beliefs. ;D

  I am a Conservative Catholic Cishet White Male who also likes 4E ... and AD&D 2nd Edition, which is nearly as despised. We are not alone. :D

Yes... yes you are...

I have tried alot of methods and I still like O and BX's system of shuffling points around after rolling.

Alot of bitching about later editions conveniently ignores this little fact. From the start players had some control over chargen.
 
Roll and assign works perfectly fine as you have more freedom of choice. But are still at the whims of fate.
 
Array and point buy work when playing online and I want everyone on the same page. 5e's system works for making the players work to get those big stats.

6e looks to be heading towards appeasing the complainers and now every race will just be generic assign where you want racial bonuses.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 11, 2023, 06:39:34 PM

The hated and reviled one. The one so many claim isn't even D&D at all... i.e. 4th Edition.

It was the first edition ever where I didn't need a bunch of homebrew and house-ruling to play the type of characters I enjoyed... martial heroes who didn't require magic items to keep up with the spellcasters. Wizards who could let loose with minor spells at-will just like you see them do in most fantasy novels not deliberately spun off of D&D. Warlords to inspire and urge the PCs to keep fighting without needing some pagan warpriest (another thing you literally only see in D&D spin-off media) in the party for healing.

It also had a cosmology that wasn't needless symmetry based on alignment, but of primordials (elementals) vs. gods (astral beings) and light (fey) vs. darkness (shadow)... that was actually usable in play (i.e. no elemental plane of endless 3d10 fire damage per round or negative energy plane that drains a level every round from you... but an Elemental Chaos where the elements all blended together in weird ways that meant even lower tier adventurers could journey into it and a Shadowfell and Feywild that you could accidentally step into at the wrong crossroads just as happened in many myths and legends about fairyland and the lands of the dead. It had its own Titanomachy and eschatology and a more cohesive establishment of the various races and monsters than the Great Wheel had ever provided me.

It wasn't perfect; if it was I'd have never bothered building my own system to take the best parts of it and merge it with elements that worked better; but it was the closest any edition of D&D ever came to providing me with what I enjoyed out of the box (the next closest for me would be 1e Palladium Fantasy; ETA - and it should be noted that we almost immediately house-ruled into something resembling an array for attributes for all the Palladium stuff we played).

I had many issues with 4th edition but gave it a good try. I ran a campaign using 4E and at first it was not too bad. Then the hard drive that I had the offline GM tools on died. By that time they were not available for re installation and only the online crap was available. I got a subscription briefly but it was horrible compared to the fairly decent original tools. I run a lot of sandbox homebrew content and found that creating the stats & mechanical bits for that content was just too much like work to be fun. I remember B/X and AD&D adventure prep was fun. At that point I decided my criteria for a tabletop rpg included the ability to prep homebrew content without special software or even a computer to do so, and that game prep should be almost as fun as playing the game. I do enough work at work. I don't need my hobbies to feel like work as well. This meant that a return to old school systems was the fix. I found that 5E was fairly easy to prepare homebrew content for also after giving it a try and we still play that as well as OSR games. Not everyone who is a fan of older systems likes them because they refuse to try anything new.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 12, 2023, 10:57:01 AM
Not everyone who is a fan of older systems likes them because they refuse to try anything new.

I've never claimed otherwise.

I have however had people try to explain how I just haven't tried 'proper' OSR play as if I'd never tried Basic or AD&D before.

Quote from: Omega on June 12, 2023, 10:04:38 AM
I have tried alot of methods and I still like O and BX's system of shuffling points around after rolling.

Of the existing D&D editions, that's my favorite method.  The only thing I didn't completely like about it was that isn't something that necessarily translates well to another edition, with the assumptions it makes about the scale of the attributes. 

When I did my own game, I used something similar for awhile.  Then I discovered I could get 90% of what I really liked about it by allowing the player to swap any two scores after rolling.  It's not perfect, and it leaves some nuance out--but it is so easy to explain to new players, I'm wiling to make that trade.

In the larger subject about choices, this is another thing that matters to me.  I like simple choices with big implications.  It's a lot of control over the kind of character you are going to play while still getting most of the benefits of randomized character ability scores. 

The other two things I address is an equally simple rule for unplayable characters that makes them playable, and the related fact that I have a system for ability score improvements as an integral part of the design.  A big part of the gripe with the randomization is it mattering and being stuck with it.  Make it matter a bit less, and not being stuck, it's a lot more palatable.

In terms of actual editions of D&D and not spinoff/inspired products: 4e is the best.

If I wanted to run something OD&D-inspired, I would use Kevin's stuff from Sine Nominee. I feel those actually make randomized character creation fun through the use of carrot and not stick. Because it presents it's reasoning for why doing so may be fun and interesting, instead of puffing up the idea as "Liberating you from your smallness".

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 12, 2023, 11:33:08 AM

Quote from: Omega on June 12, 2023, 10:04:38 AM
I have tried alot of methods and I still like O and BX's system of shuffling points around after rolling.

Of the existing D&D editions, that's my favorite method.  The only thing I didn't completely like about it was that isn't something that necessarily translates well to another edition, with the assumptions it makes about the scale of the attributes. 

When I did my own game, I used something similar for awhile.  Then I discovered I could get 90% of what I really liked about it by allowing the player to swap any two scores after rolling.  It's not perfect, and it leaves some nuance out--but it is so easy to explain to new players, I'm wiling to make that trade.

In the larger subject about choices, this is another thing that matters to me.  I like simple choices with big implications.  It's a lot of control over the kind of character you are going to play while still getting most of the benefits of randomized character ability scores.

What do you see as the benefits of randomization?

I personally prefer randomization when I don't want to have a lot of control over my character. When I want a lot of control over my character, then I'll use non-random methods.

Not that I agree with him - but that's also Pundit's point in the video of the OP. He suggests that not having control over the character is vital to immersion. I just see random-roll as a flavor I sometimes prefer. I'm curious about Pundit's own Lords of Olympus, which is diceless not only for character creation but also for play.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:22:26 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 12, 2023, 10:57:01 AM
Not everyone who is a fan of older systems likes them because they refuse to try anything new.

I've never claimed otherwise.

I have however had people try to explain how I just haven't tried 'proper' OSR play as if I'd never tried Basic or AD&D before.

Every single time without fail any topic involving criticism of old D&D (or praise of it that gets criticized by one of the four, maybe five people tops in these boards who're ever critical of it) at the bare minimum Steven Mitchell has to bring up Chesterton's Fence, like almost every single regular or semi-regular poster in this forum hasn't played older editions of D&D, if not B/X outright (the edition I was introduced into the hobby with), and is proposing changing things without knowing why they're there. Hell, I can't even think of anyone who's posted here recently who hasn't tried older editions of D&D, other than maybe Fheredin and (I think) weirdguy.

It can't possibly be that we tried old ed D&D and it just didn't do what we wanted from it. Or that we want things from RPGs that are antithetical to what old ed D&D have to offer. We must be ignorant fuck wits who haven't drowned enough in lack of options and historically revisionist OSR notions of old ed D&D, like pure forcible randomness that never truly existed.

Quote from: jhkim on June 12, 2023, 02:29:59 PM

What do you see as the benefits of randomization?

I personally prefer randomization when I don't want to have a lot of control over my character. When I want a lot of control over my character, then I'll use non-random methods.

Not that I agree with him - but that's also Pundit's point in the video of the OP. He suggests that not having control over the character is vital to immersion. I just see random-roll as a flavor I sometimes prefer. I'm curious about Pundit's own Lords of Olympus, which is diceless not only for character creation but also for play.

For me, not having control over all aspects of the character creation is useful, but it's an 80/20 thing for me.  Give up 20% of the control, get 80% of the benefits.  Skip out on the last 20% of random side benefits, also gain most of the benefits of having some control (though not the full benefits of more wide spread control, obviously).

Immersion to me is not a big deal, either with or without control.  I see the benefits more in the lines of time, guiding players, exploring options, and general imagination.  Others may see a direct link for immersion and imagination, but they've always been separate for me.

To be more specific, I've run games with too many players that aren't all that good at manipulating a system to get the character they want, or even "settled on".  Many casual players need guard rails. If the system doesn't provide the rails, then someone else--the GM, a friendly other player in the group, etc---has to do it.  It's not the way I want to spend my time as a GM, and you can't always count on the friendly player being that interested in doing the job.  Even when you do have the GM and savvy players involved, even in a game of GURPS or Fantasy Hero or some other wide open setup--half the time the player has a difficult time deciding what they want or expressing it.  In general, players are good at saying what they do or don't like, but not good at explaining why or working out the details. 

Then when you do kind of get such players comfortable with the huge list of options, what they typically do is focus on a handful of things that they've liked in the past, and do those all the times.  I've explicitly heard many times, "I'd like to play a character that does, X, Y, Z, but I've never done one before, and it seems too complicated."  It's much more rare for a casual player to be up for something new all the time.  (Sometimes casuals get blamed for being in a rut because they don't want to do anything else, but my experience is that as often as not, it's that they are hesitant to make a leap into something new because of the perceived learning curve.)  I also have a few exceptions that prove the rule.  They make it rather stark in contrast.

There is very much a sense in which classes should be "what the players will play anyway".  Which is why it's not an accident that some people have gone through the trouble to build characters in Hero, then make the characters classes for a game.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 12, 2023, 03:09:44 PM
It can't possibly be that we tried old ed D&D and it just didn't do what we wanted from it. Or that we want things from RPGs that are antithetical to what old ed D&D have to offer. We must be ignorant fuck wits who haven't drowned enough in lack of options and historically revisionist OSR notions of old ed D&D, like pure forcible randomness that never truly existed.

No, you just have shit taste.  Which is fine.  Lot's of people like Outback Steakhouse, and I'm happy for them, and I hope they enjoy every steak.  But if I want a good steak, I'm not going to them for advice on how to cook one.  Just like I'm not going to any fan of D&D 4e for advice on how to write an immersive TTRPG (how to write a tactical skirmish game might get them a little more of a hearing on my part, but I don't need one of those right now).

I'm just as entitled to my opinion that your taste in games is garbage as you are entitled your opinion that OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory.  Of course, we're both discussing this on an OSR-themed message board...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 12, 2023, 04:05:45 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 12, 2023, 03:09:44 PM
It can't possibly be that we tried old ed D&D and it just didn't do what we wanted from it. Or that we want things from RPGs that are antithetical to what old ed D&D have to offer. We must be ignorant fuck wits who haven't drowned enough in lack of options and historically revisionist OSR notions of old ed D&D, like pure forcible randomness that never truly existed.

No, you just have shit taste.  Which is fine.  Lot's of people like Outback Steakhouse, and I'm happy for them, and I hope they enjoy every steak.  But if I want a good steak, I'm not going to them for advice on how to cook one.  Just like I'm not going to any fan of D&D 4e for advice on how to write an immersive TTRPG (how to write a tactical skirmish game might get them a little more of a hearing on my part, but I don't need one of those right now).

I'm just as entitled to my opinion that your taste in games is garbage as you are entitled your opinion that OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory.  Of course, we're both discussing this on an OSR-themed message board...

The difference being, I'm saying that the OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory FOR ME. I am not calling your opinions objectively wrong for disagreeing with me. You are, and that's some weak sauce SJW reasoning there; "Eating bugs is objectively the best. If you don't like eating bugs you have shit taste and your opinions about food are invalid."

If your opinion was anything more than personal preference you wouldn't need to resort to name-calling and trying to declare opposing opinions illegitimate; you'd be arguing the merits of your position.

For example, I can argue that in addition to Array and Point Buy options, 4E also included the option to roll your stats just like every other edition of D&D and there's nothing stopping you from using them in the order rolled and picking a race and class based off the results. The only thing keeping that from being the way a given table plays is that table's preferences.

Similarly, I've played it as Theatre-of-the-Mind since practically the beginning and it runs just as well as any version of D&D in theatre of the mind does in my experience. Once you internalize that a "square" is just "5 feet" its as easy to do as any WotC editions increments of 5' distances and OSR's measurements in inches (AoEs are just as much judgement calls too... Blast 3 (a 15' long by 15' wide spray out out from the caster) is just a 15' cone from other editions and just as easy to ajudicate.

"But there's no roleplaying"? I thought Rulings not Rules was a good thing? How many pages of rules does OD&D devote to social interactions again? 4E's skill system is every bit as developed as TSRs, has frameworks and advice (i.e. how to make rulings) for resolving non-combat elements and has transparent math so its easy for the DM to figure out how difficult the encounter they're creating will be for their party (if you want a TPK, you can certainly place a TPK... you just can't pretend it wasn't deliberate in 4E).

They get too many hit points? They start higher sure, but 4E has the lowest hit point totals of any WotC edition and, with the way they adjusted damage modifiers back in 3e, some extra starting hit points were needed just to achieve parity in survivability with the TSR editions... I won't bore you with the math, but a starting 4E PC facing off against Kobolds and Dire Rats will go down in about the same number of hits as their TSR equivalent... and the 4E PCs advance in hit points more slowly (they don't get 100% of their starting hit points every level, they get about +20% of their staring hit points with every additional level) while monster damage escalates more quickly than in the TSR editions.

"Their encounter powers only being useable once per fight and fighters with daily powers makes no sense?" Then only allowing the Essentials martial classes (Knight, Slayer, Thief, Scout, Hunter and Executioner) is easy enough for a GM to declare and resolves that matter entirely.

"There are too many feats/classes/etc." Core only (though Essentials only would give you a much more AD&D-like feel) is a thing ANY DM can do and Essentials pared the Feat list down to a very manageable number (if you used only Essentials "Heroes of Fallen Kingdom" you'd have only simple Fighters and Thieves, plus spellcasting Clerics and Wizards for classes, and only Humans, Dwarves, Elves and Halflings for races... sounds like exactly the sort of limits the OSR loves).

The main reason I prefer 4E though is that it doesn't require any house-ruling at all to run a no-magic setting (I mean you can kinda run it with prior editions, but without magical healing you're going to be facing a lot of downtime to regain hit points... which are supposed to be mostly skill, stamina and luck past the first hit die or so worth of hit points.

It is also super-easy for the GM to set limits on specific races and classes without needing to worry about all the unintended consequences of removing core classes like the cleric and wizard (4E Dark Sun worked amazingly well with no magic items and no Divine classes needed, again because of its solid design work).

You also don't have every fighter in the party trying to get into plate mail at the earliest opportunity and setting where medieval plate armor just isn't available aren't going to skew the game math such that a GM needs to pay more attention what they're putting the PCs up against.

In other words, I've found it to be a far better system for low-to-no magic (for the PCs anyway) swords & sorcery (or sandals) type campaigns in my experience... particularly if you plan around only running until about level or so and allow the simple Essentials classes for those who do only want to "hit it with their sword."

I mean, if you want to do something like Conan (i.e. all the PCs are non-spellcaster warrior types) in the OSR you're basically running Fighters and Thieves, maybe Rangers, Assassins and Monks if you're doing AD&D. 4E has Fighters, Knights, Slayers, Rangers, Scouts, Hunters, Rogues, Thieves, Warlords, Executioners, Berserkers and some Skald builds as class options, so everyone can be mechanically distinct as well as distinct in their backstories and personalities.

And again, 4E is not perfect by any stretch, but its done the best job delivering what I'm looking for in a tabletop fantasy RPG of any of the editions of D&D out there.

I don't expect this to change the minds of anyone; you have your preferences just as I have mine. I just felt like highlighting how "your taste is shit" is just an opinion with no evidence provided to support it that is being paraded as objective fact whereas I can speak at length of actual reasons why, in my opinion, 4E offers aspects I find far more enjoyable.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:19:57 PM
The difference being, I'm saying that the OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory FOR ME. I am not calling your opinions objectively wrong for disagreeing with me. You are, and that's some weak sauce SJW reasoning there; "Eating bugs is objectively the best. If you don't like eating bugs you have shit taste and your opinions about food are invalid."

Obviously, your shit taste is only your second biggest issue, since your reading comprehension is definitely your biggest.  I said nothing like what you are arguing against.  I never used the word "objectively" once.  In fact, your entire rant is nothing but straw men.  Now, if you'd like to discuss all the reasons I think 4e fails as a good TTRPG, start a thread (since this isn't the topic of this one) and I'll be happy to oblige.  But, considering your bias against D&D (from your DM "trauma "... Lol), I'm thinking it will serve very little purpose, since you either can't read what I wrote, or only intend to argue with the voices in your head ('cause it sure as heck wasn't my words you were arguing against).

Oh, and pro tip:  if you have to argue that the game doesn't have an issue because the DM can "fix" it by the way they run, as opposed to the rules of the game, you've already conceded the point...

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 09, 2023, 11:40:59 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 09, 2023, 09:32:13 PM
Randomization adds an outside factor. It is God playing dice with the universe.

"God does not play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein

Not everyone is looking to be "liberated" from their preferences, particularly when they've lived long enough to figure out what their preferences are by doing enough of everything to figure out what you do and don't like.

Because I've tried all the RNG I've cared to over four decades and found little to no enjoyment in any variety. I've looked at what you consider enjoyable and would honestly prefer sitting alone at home watching reruns to your "liberation."

My experience tells me RNGs don't encourage creative anything... players just pick whichever class best fits the results and if they really can't stand the PC they suicide them at the earliest opportunity for another spin on the RNG lotto machine... which just wastes everyone's precious time when you've only got a few hours a week to actually run or play something because of everyone's real lives.

There's nothing creative in "my Intelligence is my highest score, I guess I have to play a wizard again." Having a PC you don't have any investment in because you had no real decisions to make in creating them isn't going magically make people invest themselves further into a game.

It works for you, and I'm happy it works for you, but its not for me. Not everyone likes the same things. There is no one size fits all method of gaming that will appeal to everyone.

I've got four decades of gaming under my belt so don't bother with any sort of appeal to my inexperience... "real socialismRNG character generation hasn't been tried yet." Uh huh, sure.

The OSR playstyle is not for me. It wasn't 35 years ago and it certainly isn't now. There's only one edition of D&D that ever truly spoke to me (martial heroes in light armor with codified mechanics for doing more than "I hit it with my sword"? Spellcasters whose magic works like it does in most fantasy stories? Yes please) and its the one I know you most hate.

That alone should be proof enough that people are so different that your claim to having so

Yeah, that's proof enough that you don't understand D&D, and therefore RPGs. "Lived long enough to know the preference of what you like and don't" just means that you haven't learned much about life, and have no idea what your own limitations are. Instead, you've glorified them.

Quote from: jhkim on June 12, 2023, 02:29:59 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 12, 2023, 11:33:08 AM

Quote from: Omega on June 12, 2023, 10:04:38 AM
I have tried alot of methods and I still like O and BX's system of shuffling points around after rolling.

Of the existing D&D editions, that's my favorite method.  The only thing I didn't completely like about it was that isn't something that necessarily translates well to another edition, with the assumptions it makes about the scale of the attributes. 

When I did my own game, I used something similar for awhile.  Then I discovered I could get 90% of what I really liked about it by allowing the player to swap any two scores after rolling.  It's not perfect, and it leaves some nuance out--but it is so easy to explain to new players, I'm wiling to make that trade.

In the larger subject about choices, this is another thing that matters to me.  I like simple choices with big implications.  It's a lot of control over the kind of character you are going to play while still getting most of the benefits of randomized character ability scores.

What do you see as the benefits of randomization?

I personally prefer randomization when I don't want to have a lot of control over my character. When I want a lot of control over my character, then I'll use non-random methods.

Not that I agree with him - but that's also Pundit's point in the video of the OP. He suggests that not having control over the character is vital to immersion. I just see random-roll as a flavor I sometimes prefer. I'm curious about Pundit's own Lords of Olympus, which is diceless not only for character creation but also for play.

Lords of Olympus was inspired by Amber diceless, and in both those games character creation is one that randomizes character creation, only in a different way. You have to bet against the other players for the rankings of the attributes; this means that you can have a plan of what type of character you want to have, but that plan will never go exactly as you desired (with one exception: you could just refuse to bid and then buy-up, but that GUARANTEES that your character will not be the best at absolutely anything, which specifically thwarts the type of CharOp Powergaming bullshit that most people who hate randomization are actually obsessed with). In point-buy games or certain shit editions of D&D, the charop guy will always be able to make the best character (and in essence force everyone else to either make the best character or put up with the other guy breaking the immersion for the meta purpose of 'being the best'), but in LoO trying to control against random elements means that if you take this path and there are 5 players you're likely to end up having 4 other players who can kick your ass at something.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 12, 2023, 03:09:44 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:22:26 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 12, 2023, 10:57:01 AM
Not everyone who is a fan of older systems likes them because they refuse to try anything new.

I've never claimed otherwise.

I have however had people try to explain how I just haven't tried 'proper' OSR play as if I'd never tried Basic or AD&D before.

Every single time without fail any topic involving criticism of old D&D (or praise of it that gets criticized by one of the four, maybe five people tops in these boards who're ever critical of it) at the bare minimum Steven Mitchell has to bring up Chesterton's Fence, like almost every single regular or semi-regular poster in this forum hasn't played older editions of D&D, if not B/X outright (the edition I was introduced into the hobby with), and is proposing changing things without knowing why they're there. Hell, I can't even think of anyone who's posted here recently who hasn't tried older editions of D&D, other than maybe Fheredin and (I think) weirdguy.

It can't possibly be that we tried old ed D&D and it just didn't do what we wanted from it. Or that we want things from RPGs that are antithetical to what old ed D&D have to offer. We must be ignorant fuck wits who haven't drowned enough in lack of options and historically revisionist OSR notions of old ed D&D, like pure forcible randomness that never truly existed.

OK, I'll bite. Explain the argument for why D&D is doing what it's doing and why it's so good at what it does. Otherwise, you're actually just the guy who hates the fence, and wants to tear it down because you think it's only there to oppress you. You're exactly the reason why Chesterton's Fence was thought up.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:19:57 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 12, 2023, 04:05:45 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 12, 2023, 03:09:44 PM
It can't possibly be that we tried old ed D&D and it just didn't do what we wanted from it. Or that we want things from RPGs that are antithetical to what old ed D&D have to offer. We must be ignorant fuck wits who haven't drowned enough in lack of options and historically revisionist OSR notions of old ed D&D, like pure forcible randomness that never truly existed.

No, you just have shit taste.  Which is fine.  Lot's of people like Outback Steakhouse, and I'm happy for them, and I hope they enjoy every steak.  But if I want a good steak, I'm not going to them for advice on how to cook one.  Just like I'm not going to any fan of D&D 4e for advice on how to write an immersive TTRPG (how to write a tactical skirmish game might get them a little more of a hearing on my part, but I don't need one of those right now).

I'm just as entitled to my opinion that your taste in games is garbage as you are entitled your opinion that OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory.  Of course, we're both discussing this on an OSR-themed message board...

The difference being, I'm saying that the OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory FOR ME. I am not calling your opinions objectively wrong for disagreeing with me. You are, and that's some weak sauce SJW reasoning there; "Eating bugs is objectively the best. If you don't like eating bugs you have shit taste and your opinions about food are invalid."

If your opinion was anything more than personal preference you wouldn't need to resort to name-calling and trying to declare opposing opinions illegitimate; you'd be arguing the merits of your position.

Except his opinion on the value of real D&D vs 4e is objectively proven by the relative catastrophic failure that 4e was compared to LITERALLY EVERY OTHER EDITION OF D&D. You clearly like the shit game that everyone else thought was garbage, because you are in some way defective as a human being. Given what I know about most other people who loved that edition, and how much that correlated with their hatred of D&D specifically but also the hobby in general, I can guess at  the rest. People who like 4e and hate the OSR are objectively bad humans.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 13, 2023, 12:27:09 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:19:57 PM
The difference being, I'm saying that the OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory FOR ME. I am not calling your opinions objectively wrong for disagreeing with me. You are, and that's some weak sauce SJW reasoning there; "Eating bugs is objectively the best. If you don't like eating bugs you have shit taste and your opinions about food are invalid."

Obviously, your shit taste is only your second biggest issue, since your reading comprehension is definitely your biggest.  I said nothing like what you are arguing against.  I never used the word "objectively" once....

(https://i.pinimg.com/474x/32/42/26/324226f77641890ce645602007647505--tombstone-movie-quotes-tombstone-.jpg)

[/quote]
Except his opinion on the value of real D&D vs 4e is objectively proven by the relative catastrophic failure that 4e was compared to LITERALLY EVERY OTHER EDITION OF D&D. You clearly like the shit game that everyone else thought was garbage, because you are in some way defective as a human being. Given what I know about most other people who loved that edition, and how much that correlated with their hatred of D&D specifically but also the hobby in general, I can guess at  the rest. People who like 4e and hate the OSR are objectively bad humans.
[/quote]

While I wouldn't go that far, I do think that 4E does much better at being a tactical small scale wargame than being D&D. In fact any edition which doesn't feature treasure as the main objective has gotten away from the intent of the original game. It doesn't mean that these games are not fun for those that enjoy them, it simply means that these systems somewhat resemble D&D as opposed to being the genuine game.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 13, 2023, 06:58:51 AM

While I wouldn't go that far, I do think that 4E does much better at being a tactical small scale wargame than being D&D. In fact any edition which doesn't feature treasure as the main objective has gotten away from the intent of the original game. It doesn't mean that these games are not fun for those that enjoy them, it simply means that these systems somewhat resemble D&D as opposed to being the genuine game.

4E has some good design elements and some good developed parts--marred by the schizophrenic design direction, some development fails, and bad advice.  In short, it doesn't know what it wants to be, and that gets in the way of what it does well, and could have done better under more lucid direction.  Of course, I could say that generically to some extent about 3E, 3.5, and 5E too--if not in the same parts.  It's just not quite so stark.  No doubt the leaders of 6E will manage to make some of the same mistakes in their own ways.

The one thing that really stands out about the process of 4E being made was that the vision had some courage--and then when it came time to follow through, their nerve failed them.  Thus the page after page of the same powers developed on a narrow slice of approved symmetry and the bravado of the marketing plan.  They knew they'd jumped off the high dive and chickened out halfway down.  I'll still give them credit for actually jumping.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 13, 2023, 06:58:51 AM
While I wouldn't go that far, I do think that 4E does much better at being a tactical small scale wargame than being D&D. In fact any edition which doesn't feature treasure as the main objective has gotten away from the intent of the original game. It doesn't mean that these games are not fun for those that enjoy them, it simply means that these systems somewhat resemble D&D as opposed to being the genuine game.

  I think even those who appreciate 4E will admit that it's not very good at 'being D&D' in the OSR sense, although I would make the counterargument that it's closer in some ways to the way the game was marketed from 1983 to 1996. But as an "objectively bad human," what is my input worth?  ;)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 13, 2023, 08:07:36 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 13, 2023, 06:58:51 AM
While I wouldn't go that far, I do think that 4E does much better at being a tactical small scale wargame than being D&D. In fact any edition which doesn't feature treasure as the main objective has gotten away from the intent of the original game. It doesn't mean that these games are not fun for those that enjoy them, it simply means that these systems somewhat resemble D&D as opposed to being the genuine game.

  I think even those who appreciate 4E will admit that it's not very good at 'being D&D' in the OSR sense, although I would make the counterargument that it's closer in some ways to the way the game was marketed from 1983 to 1996. But as an "objectively bad human," what is my input worth?  ;)

4E is at once an example of less choices make an RPG play better and also an example of less choices make people not want to play it.  Very focused design can really work well. It won't appeal to people outside the focus.   It's arguable that 4E with even less choices would have been a better game.  I'd certainly say it would have been a better base on which to expand with some different choices.

I've been beating this drum for years. The more choices player's get, the worse the characters come out and the harder it is for the GM to make a decent game that's fun for everyone.

There are always exceptions, sure there is the rare individual who is really good at making compelling characters, but most of the time systems like GURPS or Hero result in awful characters.

Fully fleshed out characters are best built from the adventures and experiences of the campaign.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 13, 2023, 04:15:52 AM
Yeah, that's proof enough that you don't understand D&D, and therefore RPGs. "Lived long enough to know the preference of what you like and don't" just means that you haven't learned much about life, and have no idea what your own limitations are. Instead, you've glorified them.

And your "OneTrueWay-ism" makes you your own worst enemy in your war with the Woke, because you insist on driving away potential allies who agree with you on 90% of things by denigrating those who deviate in the slightest from your "received wisdom."

It's not that people can have different preferences. No, they must have not learned enough about life (though I highly doubt you've lived more than I have) if they don't agree that your ideas are the best things since sliced bread.

How many different systems have you even actually tried? I don't mean read and scoffed at and cast aside... I mean actually sat down and tried for multiple sessions to actually learn whether they were right for you? BECMI, AD&D 1-2e, Palladium, WEG Star Wars, Mekton, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, all the Battletech RPGs, oWoD, nWoD, HERO, GURPS, Amber, Silouette, LUGTrek, 3e, 4E, 5e, M&M2e and 3e... one offs like DreamPark (R. Talsorian), Arcanis or Witchhunter?

What sort of broader life experience do you have that's provided this insight? How many places have you been? How many mountains have you climbed? How many oceans have you splashed in? How many planes have you flown? How many boats have you sailed? How many horses have you ridden? How many different types of animals have you raised? How many things have you built with your own two hands? How many children/godchildren do you have? How many family members have you buried? How many protests or parades have you marched in? Have you ever been in a real fight? Have you ever run headlong into danger without thinking because you saw a stranger's life threatened?

How much life have you actually lived to have this "wisdom" of what is best for one and all in the RPG sphere to say with such pride and arrogance that you know better than everyone who's ever lived that your theories of RPG play are superior to everyone elses?

Your prideful persona, real or invented, is driving away people who'd otherwise be backing you in the pushback against the Woke, but instead want nothing to do with you because you push them away for something as trivial as liking different sorts of games than you do.

This tirade of yours... needing multiple posts just to insult me for liking things you don't... is pathetic. It's not enough to just disagree, you seek to tear down the person presenting a different opinion. That speaks more to the weakness of your position; that all you have are insults in reply, than it does of my "limitations."

I'm going to say some prayers for you. You clearly need them.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on June 13, 2023, 08:47:57 AM
Fully fleshed out characters are best built from the adventures and experiences of the campaign.

I have found this to be true. Front loaded choices result in pre-made builds which are often planned out for many levels. These choices are are made in a black box that has nothing to do with what is happening in the campaign. They also result in hyper specialization to the point of players being frustrated whenever they are unable to engage in that focus for the vast majority of game time. This leads to expectations that the campaign will cater to their builds, and if it doesn't they have difficulty engaging or having fun. When the entire focus of the players is directed towards the mechanical abilities of their characters then everything becomes all about what their characters CAN do, instead of paying attention to what they ARE actually doing in the campaign. The players become so obsessed over what's going on on the character sheet that campaign events become little more than background filler.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 13, 2023, 10:08:17 AM

Quote from: Thor's Nads on June 13, 2023, 08:47:57 AM
Fully fleshed out characters are best built from the adventures and experiences of the campaign.

I have found this to be true. Front loaded choices result in pre-made builds which are often planned out for many levels. These choices are are made in a black box that has nothing to do with what is happening in the campaign. They also result in hyper specialization to the point of players being frustrated whenever they are unable to engage in that focus for the vast majority of game time. This leads to expectations that the campaign will cater to their builds, and if it doesn't they have difficulty engaging or having fun. When the entire focus of the players is directed towards the mechanical abilities of their characters then everything becomes all about what their characters CAN do, instead of paying attention to what they ARE actually doing in the campaign. The players become so obsessed over what's going on on the character sheet that campaign events become little more than background filler.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

See, I think this is directly on point.  There's a fine line between creating character options and limiting character actions.  It's why I've always thought mechanics like "fears" were counterproductive.  Once you create a gate behind which you lock the ability to do something well, you tend to discourage players from attempting to do it at all (unless "built" for it).  And I'd agree wholeheartedly that characters should be defined by play, not built...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 12, 2023, 04:05:45 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 12, 2023, 03:09:44 PM
It can't possibly be that we tried old ed D&D and it just didn't do what we wanted from it. Or that we want things from RPGs that are antithetical to what old ed D&D have to offer. We must be ignorant fuck wits who haven't drowned enough in lack of options and historically revisionist OSR notions of old ed D&D, like pure forcible randomness that never truly existed.

No, you just have shit taste.  Which is fine.  Lot's of people like Outback Steakhouse, and I'm happy for them, and I hope they enjoy every steak.  But if I want a good steak, I'm not going to them for advice on how to cook one.  Just like I'm not going to any fan of D&D 4e for advice on how to write an immersive TTRPG (how to write a tactical skirmish game might get them a little more of a hearing on my part, but I don't need one of those right now).

I'm just as entitled to my opinion that your taste in games is garbage as you are entitled your opinion that OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory.  Of course, we're both discussing this on an OSR-themed message board...

No, it means that I recognize that different aims or needs call for different tools and approaches. Rather than adhering to the prescriptive methods declared by someone in the internet as inherently superior as the One-True-Way of handling things.

Or pretending that playing a paladin cuz you want to play a paladin, instead of relying entirely on randomly qualifying for one is somehow analogous to children having dessert before they eat their vegetables, or whatever, as Brad implied at one point earlier in this thread. Because gwad forbit someone at a different game table halfway around the world uses the limited amount of play time that they have on this Earth to play the character that they actually want to play, as opposed to the one the dice dictated for them. As prescribed as morally superior, as well as the superior design choice, by someone on the internet.

And no one's denying your right to your opinion. But when you insist on stating your opinion as superior to someone else's, those objecting to those opinions aren't the ones who have a problem with other people having opinions. They're just responding to the tone that YOU set up for the conversation. And even if you personally didn't set that tone initially (as I know you didn't), if you jump in to defend those that did, or to crap on those responding back, you're just contributing to it.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 13, 2023, 04:28:54 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 12, 2023, 03:09:44 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:22:26 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 12, 2023, 10:57:01 AM
Not everyone who is a fan of older systems likes them because they refuse to try anything new.

I've never claimed otherwise.

I have however had people try to explain how I just haven't tried 'proper' OSR play as if I'd never tried Basic or AD&D before.

Every single time without fail any topic involving criticism of old D&D (or praise of it that gets criticized by one of the four, maybe five people tops in these boards who're ever critical of it) at the bare minimum Steven Mitchell has to bring up Chesterton's Fence, like almost every single regular or semi-regular poster in this forum hasn't played older editions of D&D, if not B/X outright (the edition I was introduced into the hobby with), and is proposing changing things without knowing why they're there. Hell, I can't even think of anyone who's posted here recently who hasn't tried older editions of D&D, other than maybe Fheredin and (I think) weirdguy.

It can't possibly be that we tried old ed D&D and it just didn't do what we wanted from it. Or that we want things from RPGs that are antithetical to what old ed D&D have to offer. We must be ignorant fuck wits who haven't drowned enough in lack of options and historically revisionist OSR notions of old ed D&D, like pure forcible randomness that never truly existed.

OK, I'll bite. Explain the argument for why D&D is doing what it's doing and why it's so good at what it does. Otherwise, you're actually just the guy who hates the fence, and wants to tear it down because you think it's only there to oppress you. You're exactly the reason why Chesterton's Fence was thought up.

The first part of this question depends on the edition and the specific component (class selection, ability score generation, ability score values, weapon damage, etc.), which I'm not going to get into in-depth, cuz it would require me to reread every edition and break the entire system down, detail by detail just to "win" an argument on the internet. And I have better things to do, or not do (even playing video games or watching random crap on YT would be more productive).

And the second part of the question presupposes that whatever component is being discussed is already "so good" at whatever it does, which in turn would imply that the fence is necessary, so we shouldn't make any changes to it, making this entire discussion pointless.

Plus the purpose of the "fence" can vary by game regardless, or based on whatever it is that you're trying to get out of it or accomplish. So why the "fence" exists in D&D is largely irrelevant, with few exceptions (depending on how similar its function or purpose is to your own game). Since the purpose the "fence" may have in my own game might be very different, or seek to accomplish different things than what X or Y edition of D&D was trying to accomplish with a similar fence.

Bah! Forgot to add this earlier...

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 13, 2023, 04:32:03 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:19:57 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 12, 2023, 04:05:45 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 12, 2023, 03:09:44 PM
It can't possibly be that we tried old ed D&D and it just didn't do what we wanted from it. Or that we want things from RPGs that are antithetical to what old ed D&D have to offer. We must be ignorant fuck wits who haven't drowned enough in lack of options and historically revisionist OSR notions of old ed D&D, like pure forcible randomness that never truly existed.

No, you just have shit taste.  Which is fine.  Lot's of people like Outback Steakhouse, and I'm happy for them, and I hope they enjoy every steak.  But if I want a good steak, I'm not going to them for advice on how to cook one.  Just like I'm not going to any fan of D&D 4e for advice on how to write an immersive TTRPG (how to write a tactical skirmish game might get them a little more of a hearing on my part, but I don't need one of those right now).

I'm just as entitled to my opinion that your taste in games is garbage as you are entitled your opinion that OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory.  Of course, we're both discussing this on an OSR-themed message board...

The difference being, I'm saying that the OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory FOR ME. I am not calling your opinions objectively wrong for disagreeing with me. You are, and that's some weak sauce SJW reasoning there; "Eating bugs is objectively the best. If you don't like eating bugs you have shit taste and your opinions about food are invalid."

If your opinion was anything more than personal preference you wouldn't need to resort to name-calling and trying to declare opposing opinions illegitimate; you'd be arguing the merits of your position.

Except his opinion on the value of real D&D vs 4e is objectively proven by the relative catastrophic failure that 4e was compared to LITERALLY EVERY OTHER EDITION OF D&D. You clearly like the shit game that everyone else thought was garbage, because you are in some way defective as a human being. Given what I know about most other people who loved that edition, and how much that correlated with their hatred of D&D specifically but also the hobby in general, I can guess at  the rest. People who like 4e and hate the OSR are objectively bad humans.

Except that 4e didn't entirely fail on its own merits, but rather on the basis that it failed to meet the expectations of its target audience. Since it diverged too much from other editions of D&D and what most of the player base wanted from the game. A product can be good or have fine qualities, but still fail due to mismanagement, bad marketing strategies or failing to attract the right audience through neglect or pure happenstance.

You also fail to understand the difference between popular opinion, personal experiences and objective reality. The weight of the Bandwagon (fallacy) and your own biased takes on other people do not equate to objective fact, or something that could be extrapolated to people in general.

Stars Without Number (and its ilk) is a massive success, possibly the LARGEST OSR success, and it is heavily innovative and borrows many elements from 4e.
It has randomization as an option, and tries to encourage it through carrot and not stick.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 13, 2023, 12:49:11 PM
Stars Without Number (and its ilk) is a massive success, possibly the LARGEST OSR success, and it is heavily innovative and borrows many elements from 4e.
It has randomization as an option, and tries to encourage it through carrot and not stick.

That's because Kevin Crawford is an objectively bad and defective human being.  ;)

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 13, 2023, 01:08:09 PMThat's because Kevin Crawford is an objectively bad and defective human being.  ;)

If we wanna yell sales numbers, everything is a distant #3 behind D&D 5e. Which has options up the ass and boatloads of woke. And increasing its options and woke didn't cause sales numbers to go down. #2 is Pathfinder with its options overloads. Everything else is peanuts in comparison.
Sales matter and are an example of philosophical dominance and superiority, until they are not.
Hell D&D 5e, even right out of the gate with its Players Handbook, had more in common with 3e (and even elements of 4e) than it ever did with OSR content. But because it walked the walk, it was a "Win".

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 13, 2023, 01:19:56 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 13, 2023, 01:08:09 PMThat's because Kevin Crawford is an objectively bad and defective human being.  ;)

If we wanna yell sales numbers, everything is a distant #3 behind D&D 5e. Which has options up the ass and boatloads of woke. And increasing its options and woke didn't cause sales numbers to go down. #2 is Pathfinder with its options overloads. Everything else is peanuts in comparison.
Sales matter and are an example of philosophical dominance and superiority, until they are not.
Hell D&D 5e, even right out of the gate with its Players Handbook, had more in common with 3e (and even elements of 4e) than it ever did with OSR content. But because it walked the walk, it was a "Win".

Damn. This means that by Pundit's own logic having more choices is objectively superior, cuz the market is currently dominated by games that emphasize choices. So the Bandwagon has spoken. And it only took us 8 pages of yelling to discover the truth staring us right in the face all along.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 13, 2023, 01:28:01 PMDamn. This means that by Pundit's own logic having more choices is objectively superior, cuz the market is currently dominated by games that emphasize choices. So the Bandwagon has spoken. And it only took us 8 pages of yelling to discover the truth staring us right in the face all along.

It was never about that. This was never in good faith a discussion about the benefits of play types. This was for kings of the trailer park to don their tin crowns and proclaim how smart and sexy they are for using camomile tea during tea party pretend time rather then that awful English breakfast stuff.
And how all the problems in the world can be traced to whatever they didn't like.

I can hype up my own interests. I can say people have shit taste. But even at my most arrogant I wouldn't assume that my preferences make me enlightened.

Pundits "logic" is that he is correct. If you want validation of that fact check in with pundit. Thats it. That's how deep it goes.

Lots of things that are popular are crap. Keep in mind that current D&D whatever the edition will always have the largest market share. This is due to being the most recognized brand and may or may not have anything to do with the quality of the product.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 13, 2023, 04:32:03 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:19:57 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 12, 2023, 04:05:45 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 12, 2023, 03:09:44 PM
It can't possibly be that we tried old ed D&D and it just didn't do what we wanted from it. Or that we want things from RPGs that are antithetical to what old ed D&D have to offer. We must be ignorant fuck wits who haven't drowned enough in lack of options and historically revisionist OSR notions of old ed D&D, like pure forcible randomness that never truly existed.

No, you just have shit taste.  Which is fine.  Lot's of people like Outback Steakhouse, and I'm happy for them, and I hope they enjoy every steak.  But if I want a good steak, I'm not going to them for advice on how to cook one.  Just like I'm not going to any fan of D&D 4e for advice on how to write an immersive TTRPG (how to write a tactical skirmish game might get them a little more of a hearing on my part, but I don't need one of those right now).

I'm just as entitled to my opinion that your taste in games is garbage as you are entitled your opinion that OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory.  Of course, we're both discussing this on an OSR-themed message board...

The difference being, I'm saying that the OSR and OD&D is unsatisfactory FOR ME. I am not calling your opinions objectively wrong for disagreeing with me. You are, and that's some weak sauce SJW reasoning there; "Eating bugs is objectively the best. If you don't like eating bugs you have shit taste and your opinions about food are invalid."

If your opinion was anything more than personal preference you wouldn't need to resort to name-calling and trying to declare opposing opinions illegitimate; you'd be arguing the merits of your position.

Except his opinion on the value of real D&D vs 4e is objectively proven by the relative catastrophic failure that 4e was compared to LITERALLY EVERY OTHER EDITION OF D&D. You clearly like the shit game that everyone else thought was garbage, because you are in some way defective as a human being. Given what I know about most other people who loved that edition, and how much that correlated with their hatred of D&D specifically but also the hobby in general, I can guess at  the rest. People who like 4e and hate the OSR are objectively bad humans.

Your rant is entertaining but also about as wrong as it gets.  Taste in RPGs is purely subjective.  Everybody has a set of things that makes a game work for them and they're all different.  The first thing I learned as the marketing part of my education is "Not everyone shares your taste.  If you assume they do you will fail."  Lower sales is a business failure, not an indication that the product is inherently objectively terrible.  It just fits the preferences of a smaller group than the other editions did.

Personally, I strongly dislike 4E too.  Not an OSR guy either, I love 1E, but I've never tried the variants – my tastes have run in different directions.  But we get better discussions here because we have folks with a wide variety of perspectives.  Personally attacking people for politely expressing opinions that are different than your is not the way to build a good online community.  As the site owner I would think that would be important to you.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 13, 2023, 02:01:49 PM
Lots of things that are popular are crap. Keep in mind that current D&D whatever the edition will always have the largest market share. This is due to being the most recognized brand and may or may not have anything to do with the quality of the product.

Absolutely agreed. If anything Id argue it's mostly the INVERSE. Rarely does mass appeal come with depth.

But I won't (selectively and in a two faced manner) argue that because something I like is more popular, it's better.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 13, 2023, 12:27:37 PM
Except that 4e didn't entirely fail on its own merits, but rather on the basis that it failed to meet the expectations of its target audience. Since it diverged too much from other editions of D&D and what most of the player base wanted from the game. A product can be good or have fine qualities, but still fail due to mismanagement, bad marketing strategies or failing to attract the right audience through neglect or pure happenstance.

You also fail to understand the difference between popular opinion, personal experiences and objective reality. The weight of the Bandwagon (fallacy) and your own biased takes on other people do not equate to objective fact, or something that could be extrapolated to people in general.

Let's not forget the whole economic collapse at the tail end of 2007 from which the United States didn't fully recover from until 4E was already in the ground.

It also had awful marketing (such as mocking and throwing prior editions under the bus, just like 5e did to 4E... same tactic, just a less popular target), generated unnecessary bad blood (if not for dropping the OGL and pulling back Dragon and Dungeon, Pathfinder was set to Paizo's 4E campaign world for their Dragon and Dungeon magazines... no 3e alternative to capture audiences) and had most of its original creative team canned in the annual Hasbro layoffs (which is how Mearls, who never really grokked or liked 4E ended up in charge of 4E shortly after launch).

It was, frankly, a perfect storm of factors that had nothing to do with the quality of the material in the books... and yet still 4E outsold everything until it stopped having new releases (the last new 4E product was early 2012; Pathfinder only beat it during its active life cycle in spring of 2011... notably coinciding with the gap between the release of Essentials in late 2010 and the first post-essentials product released in April of 2011 between which there were no new 4E products to buy).

In addressing 4E's failure its important to note that, if D&D were owned by any RPG company other than Hasbro, it would have been a monster success... its biggest Achilles Heel was that if failed to make the money the developers promised it would back when they did the edition switch (complete with a planned digital tabletop... seems familiar doesn't it). D&D only survived by cutting the design staff to the marrow, outsourcing/licensing pretty much all the non-core material (the hardback adventure modules), and it really wasn't until the explosive popularity of Stranger Things and Critical Role and a booming economy (basically another perfect storm, but in a good way) that D&D actually turned into Hasbro's golden child.

The idea that 4E was hated and unloved by a majority during its lifetime is just a myth the OSR likes to tell itself to pretend what it likes is actually popular in gaming circles (most who played 4E didn't hate it when they stopped playing, they just moved onto the latest currently supported thing, which has enough 4E in it that only 4E diehards wouldn't want to move on).

In video game terms, roguelikes depend on random character generation while crpgs depend on crafting a character one wants to interact with the game world through. Throwing adventurers against the world benefits from random characters while campaign built around a premise with a story arc calls for characters who are crafted to be capable and interested in perusing and completing the overall objectives.

On the proliferation of options in general, there are human factors involved in how many options one can meaningfully choose between at one time and the satisfaction with a given choice as a function of its immutability.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
Let's not forget the whole economic collapse at the tail end of 2007 from which the United States didn't fully recover from until 4E was already in the ground.

Pathfinder was operating in the same economic environment and yet it was outperforming D&D and growing. If it was just a bad economic outlook, you wouldn't have seen the essentials line, you'd have seen a more conservative strategy. The way the book schedule thinned out towards the end of 4e's lifetime was not the cause of its death, but a symptom of its demise.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
It also had awful marketing (such as mocking and throwing prior editions under the bus, just like 5e did to 4E... same tactic, just a less popular target), generated unnecessary bad blood...

Marketing was certainly a weak point for 4e, designed for people who were terminally online before such a term existed. I'm unaware of 5e openly mocking D&D fans though the way 4e did - I admit I wasn't paying much attention to D&D at that point though.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
It was, frankly, a perfect storm of factors that had nothing to do with the quality of the material in the books...

The launch-contemporary 4e starter adventure "Keep on the Shadowfell" is considered by many to be quite poor quality. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1582/roleplaying-games/keep-on-the-shadowfell-first-impressions.

4e wasn't the kind of game you could easily convert older content to it or just whip something up from scratch with no prep. Call it what you want, but that's a product issue. If your point is that the 4e core game is actually great, then that's up to preference. A design that fails to meet its objectives is a bad design and I'd argue 4e failed to meet most of its objectives. I will note that in terms of production value, Paizo was already outclassing 4e in art and content both in terms of quality and volume. Layout in 4e had improved over the weird aesthetic of 3.5 but Paizo also had excellent and arguably better layout/design.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
In addressing 4E's failure its important to note that, if D&D were owned by any RPG company other than Hasbro, it would have been a monster success... its biggest Achilles Heel was that if failed to make the money the developers promised it would back when they did the edition switch

This isn't saying much. If you're the British empire and you barely squeaked out a victory against a far inferior force, that's not a win. That's a defeat. Because you're the British empire - it's not supposed to be a close fight. D&D is the equivalent of the British empire - anything less than absolute dominance is a very bad sign. That Pathfinder managed to bootstrap a business and then outperform D&D within the span of a few short years was an absolute failure for WotC. See the trendline here: https://www.awesomedice.com/blogs/news/google-statistics-on-the-edition-wars-d-d-pathfinder

Those trends more or less mirrored what I personally witnessed, especially the spike in interest in 2008 that was short-lived - 4e just had no staying power. People moved back to 3.5 until Pathfinder came around and then gradually adopted that as the standard until 5e came out. If 4e was a standalone tactical miniatures/battle game without the D&D baggage, it wouldn't have stuck around either. Because none of the games in that genre tend to stick around in general. It's a niche genre at best and driven by things like collectible miniatures and pickup board game sessions (not consistent campaign play). See Kingdom Death or even an RPG like ICON and you'll see these tactical game are just a totally different beast.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
The idea that 4E was hated and unloved by a majority during its lifetime is just a myth the OSR likes to tell itself to pretend what it likes is actually popular in gaming circles (most who played 4E didn't hate it when they stopped playing, they just moved onto the latest currently supported thing, which has enough 4E in it that only 4E diehards wouldn't want to move on).

4e certainly has its fans, but 4e was indeed hated or unloved by a huge swathe of the market. If 4e were secretly popular, none of the following would have happened:

• Essentials line launching within the first ~2 years of initial launch, with a focus on drawing in new players and trying to "soften" the opinionated 4e design.
• The entire line being effectively abandoned within ~4-5 years of launch with a focus on the new edition, making it the shortest-lived mainstream full edition of the game in history both in terms of practical support and official support.
• Pathfinder beating 4e in sales for 4 consecutive years (approx. 2011-2014).
• Third party publishers abandoning 4e to instead support Pathfinder (If the sales and revenue were there, people would still make and sell products with the GSL even if it wasn't perfect).
• The subsequent edition essentially abandoning everything about the 4e design that couldn't be ripped out, re-contextualized, and disguised as something else. 5e resembles 3.5 far more than 4e in just about every respect.

In my opinion, the narrative that 4e was a misunderstood-but-genius design is growing because of nostalgia, not because 4e was actually genius. It had many bad decisions which contributed to its demise, including business blunders, but the game itself is also culpable.

The legacy of 4e is that it was a game designed from the ground up to solve illusory "problems" surfaced by the nascent online discourse which emerged around the 3.5 scene. Online communities of people who spent more time chatting, theory-crafting, and character-building started driving the narrative around what was "wrong" with 3.5 rather than the people who were actually playing and enjoying the game (and buying products). You see it in the design of 4e: the obsession with symmetry for fear of imbalance creating bland and boring classes. Strict definitions and limited effects and interactions between powers/spells to avoid imbalance. Limits to critical hits to maintain strictly balanced math. Strict guidelines for how the GM is supposed to run the game to avoid the dickhead-DM problem. Use-it-or-lose-it AP and at-will/encounter powers to fight the 5-minute adventuring day. Baking magic item progression into the game to deal with the "christmas tree" phenomenon. Every major decision in 4e could be directly associated with a corresponding narrative that was prevalent on the forums at the time.

In actuality of course, nobody was playing pun-pun, or trying to pass of the peasant railgun as viable to their table's GM. Nobody was centering their campaigns on intra-party PvP where balance issues would be a net-negative rather than a net-positive for a cooperative party. Most players were not character optimizers who could build totally broken characters, and the people who brought a game-destroying build from online were simply told that it wasn't allowed and the world kept turning. People who were actually playing 3.5 campaigns wanted more quality content, more settings, more adventures, and a little cleanup around the edges. Pathfinder gave them that, so it succeeded. 5e also essentially gave them that, so it also succeeded and won back many PF players. 3.5 players were actually upset by the relatively low quality of official content splats and how long combat was lasting (a problem 4e made worse with tactical grid emphasis and bloated HP pools). In most cases, 4e was steering in exactly the wrong direction. Ironically, I think Paizo fell for the same trap WotC ran into and started listening to their forums too much. This resulted in PF 2e, a game that resembles 4e so much because it's trying to solve the same non-issues that are generated in theory but don't really matter at most tables.

The same basic issues in 3.5 exist in 5e and it has been doing just fine. The OSR is also doing just fine despite people insisting that the flaws that 4e needed to fix were intrinsic to the original design. What we actually saw with the resurgence of the OSR was that much of the game worked perfectly well if you retained the elements that made it work (like dungeon exploration turn, random encounters, etc). We saw the effects of Chesterton's Fence with 3.5 and onward, where many systems which were retained in the first place were totally vestigial.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 14, 2023, 03:57:32 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
Let's not forget the whole economic collapse at the tail end of 2007 from which the United States didn't fully recover from until 4E was already in the ground.

Pathfinder was operating in the same economic environment and yet it was outperforming D&D and growing. If it was just a bad economic outlook, you wouldn't have seen the essentials line, you'd have seen a more conservative strategy. The way the book schedule thinned out towards the end of 4e's lifetime was not the cause of its death, but a symptom of its demise.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
It also had awful marketing (such as mocking and throwing prior editions under the bus, just like 5e did to 4E... same tactic, just a less popular target), generated unnecessary bad blood...

Marketing was certainly a weak point for 4e, designed for people who were terminally online before such a term existed. I'm unaware of 5e openly mocking D&D fans though the way 4e did - I admit I wasn't paying much attention to D&D at that point though.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
It was, frankly, a perfect storm of factors that had nothing to do with the quality of the material in the books...

The launch-contemporary 4e starter adventure "Keep on the Shadowfell" is considered by many to be quite poor quality. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1582/roleplaying-games/keep-on-the-shadowfell-first-impressions.

4e wasn't the kind of game you could easily convert older content to it or just whip something up from scratch with no prep. Call it what you want, but that's a product issue. If your point is that the 4e core game is actually great, then that's up to preference. A design that fails to meet its objectives is a bad design and I'd argue 4e failed to meet most of its objectives. I will note that in terms of production value, Paizo was already outclassing 4e in art and content both in terms of quality and volume. Layout in 4e had improved over the weird aesthetic of 3.5 but Paizo also had excellent and arguably better layout/design.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
In addressing 4E's failure its important to note that, if D&D were owned by any RPG company other than Hasbro, it would have been a monster success... its biggest Achilles Heel was that if failed to make the money the developers promised it would back when they did the edition switch

This isn't saying much. If you're the British empire and you barely squeaked out a victory against a far inferior force, that's not a win. That's a defeat. Because you're the British empire - it's not supposed to be a close fight. D&D is the equivalent of the British empire - anything less than absolute dominance is a very bad sign. That Pathfinder managed to bootstrap a business and then outperform D&D within the span of a few short years was an absolute failure for WotC. See the trendline here: https://www.awesomedice.com/blogs/news/google-statistics-on-the-edition-wars-d-d-pathfinder

Those trends more or less mirrored what I personally witnessed, especially the spike in interest in 2008 that was short-lived - 4e just had no staying power. People moved back to 3.5 until Pathfinder came around and then gradually adopted that as the standard until 5e came out. If 4e was a standalone tactical miniatures/battle game without the D&D baggage, it wouldn't have stuck around either. Because none of the games in that genre tend to stick around in general. It's a niche genre at best and driven by things like collectible miniatures and pickup board game sessions (not consistent campaign play). See Kingdom Death or even an RPG like ICON and you'll see these tactical game are just a totally different beast.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
The idea that 4E was hated and unloved by a majority during its lifetime is just a myth the OSR likes to tell itself to pretend what it likes is actually popular in gaming circles (most who played 4E didn't hate it when they stopped playing, they just moved onto the latest currently supported thing, which has enough 4E in it that only 4E diehards wouldn't want to move on).

4e certainly has its fans, but 4e was indeed hated or unloved by a huge swathe of the market. If 4e were secretly popular, none of the following would have happened:

• Essentials line launching within the first ~2 years of initial launch, with a focus on drawing in new players and trying to "soften" the opinionated 4e design.
• The entire line being effectively abandoned within ~4-5 years of launch with a focus on the new edition, making it the shortest-lived mainstream full edition of the game in history both in terms of practical support and official support.
• Pathfinder beating 4e in sales for 4 consecutive years (approx. 2011-2014).
• Third party publishers abandoning 4e to instead support Pathfinder (If the sales and revenue were there, people would still make and sell products with the GSL even if it wasn't perfect).
• The subsequent edition essentially abandoning everything about the 4e design that couldn't be ripped out, re-contextualized, and disguised as something else. 5e resembles 3.5 far more than 4e in just about every respect.

In my opinion, the narrative that 4e was a misunderstood-but-genius design is growing because of nostalgia, not because 4e was actually genius. It had many bad decisions which contributed to its demise, including business blunders, but the game itself is also culpable.

The legacy of 4e is that it was a game designed from the ground up to solve illusory "problems" surfaced by the nascent online discourse which emerged around the 3.5 scene. Online communities of people who spent more time chatting, theory-crafting, and character-building started driving the narrative around what was "wrong" with 3.5 rather than the people who were actually playing and enjoying the game (and buying products). You see it in the design of 4e: the obsession with symmetry for fear of imbalance creating bland and boring classes. Strict definitions and limited effects and interactions between powers/spells to avoid imbalance. Limits to critical hits to maintain strictly balanced math. Strict guidelines for how the GM is supposed to run the game to avoid the dickhead-DM problem. Use-it-or-lose-it AP and at-will/encounter powers to fight the 5-minute adventuring day. Baking magic item progression into the game to deal with the "christmas tree" phenomenon. Every major decision in 4e could be directly associated with a corresponding narrative that was prevalent on the forums at the time.

In actuality of course, nobody was playing pun-pun, or trying to pass of the peasant railgun as viable to their table's GM. Nobody was centering their campaigns on intra-party PvP where balance issues would be a net-negative rather than a net-positive for a cooperative party. Most players were not character optimizers who could build totally broken characters, and the people who brought a game-destroying build from online were simply told that it wasn't allowed and the world kept turning. People who were actually playing 3.5 campaigns wanted more quality content, more settings, more adventures, and a little cleanup around the edges. Pathfinder gave them that, so it succeeded. 5e also essentially gave them that, so it also succeeded and won back many PF players. 3.5 players were actually upset by the relatively low quality of official content splats and how long combat was lasting (a problem 4e made worse with tactical grid emphasis and bloated HP pools). In most cases, 4e was steering in exactly the wrong direction. Ironically, I think Paizo fell for the same trap WotC ran into and started listening to their forums too much. This resulted in PF 2e, a game that resembles 4e so much because it's trying to solve the same non-issues that are generated in theory but don't really matter at most tables.

The same basic issues in 3.5 exist in 5e and it has been doing just fine. The OSR is also doing just fine despite people insisting that the flaws that 4e needed to fix were intrinsic to the original design. What we actually saw with the resurgence of the OSR was that much of the game worked perfectly well if you retained the elements that made it work (like dungeon exploration turn, random encounters, etc). We saw the effects of Chesterton's Fence with 3.5 and onward, where many systems which were retained in the first place were totally vestigial.

Greetings!

Excellent analysis! I was going to put forth essentially the same analysis, though you wrote it so eloquently! ;D

I remember 4E. I HATED 4E, for everything you mentioned. 4E was NOT D&D. As some kind of weird, fucked up tactical wannabe board game, it may have had its merits. As a RPG keeping faithful to D&D, it was an utter failure, and total garbage. That's just dealing with the mechanical aspects nd game-pay systems. The focus on grids and miniatures was a huge failure to "Read the Room" and understand the D&D core audience. Marketing wise, that is an entirely separate an distinct issue--and an aspect that WOTC failed miserably. The designers mocking an belittling older, traditional fan and gamers of D&D was absolutely horrendous. It doesn't take a genius to understand why 4E was a terrible game, and why it failed spectacularly.

I refused to buy so much as one 4E book, and refused to play that broken, stupid game edition entirely. 4E can be burned in the fires, and I am glad that it choked and died on the ash-heap of gaming history. The game designers and writers of 4E were all failed morons, or had abandoned their previous wisdom and embraced the "New Idea" like sheep running off the fucking cliff.

That is what I analyzed from initial materials and books that I looked at from the very few friends that were foolish enough to buy the trash books. There is a reason that most of my friends, by a huge majority, also refused to embrace 4E. Like 90% or more. They all went to Pathfinder, or stayed with 3E like I did.

Oh, and in addition to the very structured, tactical miniatures game-play feel, 4E also had so many terrible inspirations from WoW. So many people said it was like bringing class "Balance" and mechanical systems from the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Having myself played WoW for many years, I also instantly recognized the WoW video game inspirations and elements throughout 4E's entire class design and game play. All of the 4E fanbois used to loudly protest and argue against this--but they were wrong. If anyone denies the huge fact that 4E was heavily influence in many ways by the video game WoW, they are either blind or in absolute denial. 4E tried to incorporate video game elements, systems, and mechanics into D&D, and it was painfully obvious. Some ore nd thematic inspirations from video games of course can be fine--but 4E's embrace of such larger video game systems like found in WoW was obvious, and terrible. It tried to bring the mechanical systems of WoW into D&D--two entirely different mediums, and the broken game play of 4E was an easy thing to foresee. There were these HUGE systemic aspects that made 4E  terrible game. The fact that the game designers  thought that this was a good way to go shows how much they are morons, and how terrible 4E was as a system.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

At the time of 4E release I was part of a gaming club with 50+ members; one of the club's traditions was the "testing run", where for about one month after the release of an interesting game every group switched to it and ran as many games as possible to "battle test" it and later share their opinions.
We had ten groups playing about 2 or 3 games a week each for nearly 5 weeks......and at the end of the run the general consensus was pretty much "What the fuck is this shit ?".
It was one of the few times that the recap talk at the end of the testing run ended quickly and without too much squabbling: every single group reported that 4E felt more like World of Warcraft than an actual RPG. The only people that liked it were the (thankfully few) hardcore forgies that saw it as an example of "well done" simulationist design.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 14, 2023, 03:57:32 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
Let's not forget the whole economic collapse at the tail end of 2007 from which the United States didn't fully recover from until 4E was already in the ground.

Pathfinder was operating in the same economic environment and yet it was outperforming D&D and growing. If it was just a bad economic outlook, you wouldn't have seen the essentials line, you'd have seen a more conservative strategy. The way the book schedule thinned out towards the end of 4e's lifetime was not the cause of its death, but a symptom of its demise.

  Not quite. I think launch environment makes a difference--slightly after 4E's launch in 2008, we hit absolute panic in the US, with bank closures, bailouts, etc. Pathfinder launched in 2009, when things had calmed down a bit. Also, you had a 3-book and pricey supplements vs. 1-book launch, completely new vs. backwards compatible, etc.

Quote
Marketing was certainly a weak point for 4e, designed for people who were terminally online before such a term existed. I'm unaware of 5e openly mocking D&D fans though the way 4e did - I admit I wasn't paying much attention to D&D at that point though.

  They kept the mocking a bit toned down in favor of the 'we messed up; how can we do it right this time?', although you got things like 'warlords shouting hands back on' in some more unguarded moments. But WotC's marketing has consistently stuck with the two motifs of "the most recent edition was deeply flawed" and "1st Edition AD&D is the peak to which we all aspire," although they seem to have finally abandoned that for AshD&D. (As in "Ash nazg durbataluk ... " ;) )

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The launch-contemporary 4e starter adventure "Keep on the Shadowfell" is considered by many to be quite poor quality. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1582/roleplaying-games/keep-on-the-shadowfell-first-impressions.

   I never owned it, but that is the general consensus, and often used to argue that Mearls didn't quite 'get' 4E.

Quote
4e wasn't the kind of game you could easily convert older content to it or just whip something up from scratch with no prep. Call it what you want, but that's a product issue. If your point is that the 4e core game is actually great, then that's up to preference. A design that fails to meet its objectives is a bad design and I'd argue 4e failed to meet most of its objectives.

   IMO, 4E is a pretty good (if somewhat underbaked) game if taken on its own terms, but marketed to the wrong audience, ill-suited to fitting into the D&D tradition, and had the additional problem of being launched not only a year or two early but just as the audience was returning to that tradition, with the rising OSR movement.

Quote

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
The idea that 4E was hated and unloved by a majority during its lifetime is just a myth the OSR likes to tell itself to pretend what it likes is actually popular in gaming circles (most who played 4E didn't hate it when they stopped playing, they just moved onto the latest currently supported thing, which has enough 4E in it that only 4E diehards wouldn't want to move on).

4e certainly has its fans, but 4e was indeed hated or unloved by a huge swathe of the market. If 4e were secretly popular, none of the following would have happened:

• Essentials line launching within the first ~2 years of initial launch, with a focus on drawing in new players and trying to "soften" the opinionated 4e design.
• The entire line being effectively abandoned within ~4-5 years of launch with a focus on the new edition, making it the shortest-lived mainstream full edition of the game in history both in terms of practical support and official support.
• Pathfinder beating 4e in sales for 4 consecutive years (approx. 2011-2014).

   I have to agree with many of your points, but I'm calling shenanigans on this one--you don't get to count years when no 4E product is being produced for the 'outselling' narrative. :)

Quote
In my opinion, the narrative that 4e was a misunderstood-but-genius design is growing because of nostalgia, not because 4e was actually genius. It had many bad decisions which contributed to its demise, including business blunders, but the game itself is also culpable.

   I tend to take a more middle of the road position, myself. 4E is a solid design with some truly inspired moments when you take it on its own merits, but it's a decidedly odd duck when considered in the 'D&D' tradition overall--you can definitely see the elements of earlier games, but they're more dramatically remixed and reimagined than a typical comic book reboot or Hollywood adaptation. IMO, you'll typically find appreciation for it among those who were disillusioned with 3.X or 'traditional D&D', or those who stuck with it long enough to understand its own strengths and weaknesses. It is not very good at fitting into many of the traditional D&D-as-played narratives, although it arguably fits D&D-as-marketed from 1983 to 1996 better than most of the other versions. :) It's also not well set up for casual investment or play, which further hurts it in comparison to 5E.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 14, 2023, 06:49:56 AM
At the time of 4E release I was part of a gaming club with 50+ members; one of the club's traditions was the "testing run", where for about one month after the release of an interesting game every group switched to it and ran as many games as possible to "battle test" it and later share their opinions.
We had ten groups playing about 2 or 3 games a week each for nearly 5 weeks......and at the end of the run the general consensus was pretty much "What the fuck is this shit ?".
It was one of the few times that the recap talk at the end of the testing run ended quickly and without too much squabbling: every single group reported that 4E felt more like World of Warcraft than an actual RPG. The only people that liked it were the (thankfully few) hardcore forgies that saw it as an example of "well done" simulationist design.

   I'll accept most of your narrative, but I don't believe that anyone ever praised 4E as 'simulationist', let alone Forgies who generally don't even believe in simulationism. :)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 14, 2023, 08:30:20 AM

Quote from: Vestragor on June 14, 2023, 06:49:56 AM
At the time of 4E release I was part of a gaming club with 50+ members; one of the club's traditions was the "testing run", where for about one month after the release of an interesting game every group switched to it and ran as many games as possible to "battle test" it and later share their opinions.
We had ten groups playing about 2 or 3 games a week each for nearly 5 weeks......and at the end of the run the general consensus was pretty much "What the fuck is this shit ?".
It was one of the few times that the recap talk at the end of the testing run ended quickly and without too much squabbling: every single group reported that 4E felt more like World of Warcraft than an actual RPG. The only people that liked it were the (thankfully few) hardcore forgies that saw it as an example of "well done" simulationist design.

I'll accept most of your narrative, but I don't believe that anyone ever praised 4E as 'simulationist', let alone Forgies who generally don't even believe in simulationism. :)

Agreed.

Similationist designs don't have durations like "until the end of the encounter", abilities usable "once per encounter" and "epic destinies" discussing the way your PC will achieve either figurative or literal immortality upon completing your adventures. It also wouldn't have meta-currencies like Action Points earned for overcoming encounters. Nor would the DMG devote so much effort to coming up with "campaign themes" and other elements that put the campaign into a narrative framework.

It's structure is much closer to World of Darkness' scene-based durations than anything simulating the real world.

I mean, I guess you could say it was simulating a narrative... but that's really pushing the definitions for an agenda.

Either that or the Princess Bride quote about words not meaning what you think they mean is on the table.

Sidebar: also worth remembering... back around 2000, Third Edition was commonly accused of being "Diablo the RPG" so I guess comparisons between the current edition of D&D and the current hot fantasy title was just a thing until 5e became recursively self-referential and now they're just trying to make D&D a video game with the upcoming edition.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 14, 2023, 08:30:20 AM
   I'll accept most of your narrative...

Oh thank you good sir, tonight I'll sleep well knowing that "my narrative" pleases you.



I don't give a fuck if you believe it or not, this is what happened.

Quote from: Vestragor on June 14, 2023, 09:57:32 AM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 14, 2023, 08:30:20 AM
   I'll accept most of your narrative...

Oh thank you good sir, tonight I'll sleep well knowing that "my narrative" pleases you.



I don't give a fuck if you believe it or not, this is what happened.

Um, he agreed with you on all points except the premise of 4E being simulationist. If you believe that it is, what makes you believe that? I am curious about why someone would have that perspective.

Quote from: Old Aegidius on June 14, 2023, 03:57:32 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
Let's not forget the whole economic collapse at the tail end of 2007 from which the United States didn't fully recover from until 4E was already in the ground.

Pathfinder was operating in the same economic environment and yet it was outperforming D&D and growing. If it was just a bad economic outlook, you wouldn't have seen the essentials line, you'd have seen a more conservative strategy. The way the book schedule thinned out towards the end of 4e's lifetime was not the cause of its death, but a symptom of its demise.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
It also had awful marketing (such as mocking and throwing prior editions under the bus, just like 5e did to 4E... same tactic, just a less popular target), generated unnecessary bad blood...

Marketing was certainly a weak point for 4e, designed for people who were terminally online before such a term existed. I'm unaware of 5e openly mocking D&D fans though the way 4e did - I admit I wasn't paying much attention to D&D at that point though.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
It was, frankly, a perfect storm of factors that had nothing to do with the quality of the material in the books...

The launch-contemporary 4e starter adventure "Keep on the Shadowfell" is considered by many to be quite poor quality. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1582/roleplaying-games/keep-on-the-shadowfell-first-impressions.

4e wasn't the kind of game you could easily convert older content to it or just whip something up from scratch with no prep. Call it what you want, but that's a product issue. If your point is that the 4e core game is actually great, then that's up to preference. A design that fails to meet its objectives is a bad design and I'd argue 4e failed to meet most of its objectives. I will note that in terms of production value, Paizo was already outclassing 4e in art and content both in terms of quality and volume. Layout in 4e had improved over the weird aesthetic of 3.5 but Paizo also had excellent and arguably better layout/design.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
In addressing 4E's failure its important to note that, if D&D were owned by any RPG company other than Hasbro, it would have been a monster success... its biggest Achilles Heel was that if failed to make the money the developers promised it would back when they did the edition switch

This isn't saying much. If you're the British empire and you barely squeaked out a victory against a far inferior force, that's not a win. That's a defeat. Because you're the British empire - it's not supposed to be a close fight. D&D is the equivalent of the British empire - anything less than absolute dominance is a very bad sign. That Pathfinder managed to bootstrap a business and then outperform D&D within the span of a few short years was an absolute failure for WotC. See the trendline here: https://www.awesomedice.com/blogs/news/google-statistics-on-the-edition-wars-d-d-pathfinder

Those trends more or less mirrored what I personally witnessed, especially the spike in interest in 2008 that was short-lived - 4e just had no staying power. People moved back to 3.5 until Pathfinder came around and then gradually adopted that as the standard until 5e came out. If 4e was a standalone tactical miniatures/battle game without the D&D baggage, it wouldn't have stuck around either. Because none of the games in that genre tend to stick around in general. It's a niche genre at best and driven by things like collectible miniatures and pickup board game sessions (not consistent campaign play). See Kingdom Death or even an RPG like ICON and you'll see these tactical game are just a totally different beast.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 03:47:52 PM
The idea that 4E was hated and unloved by a majority during its lifetime is just a myth the OSR likes to tell itself to pretend what it likes is actually popular in gaming circles (most who played 4E didn't hate it when they stopped playing, they just moved onto the latest currently supported thing, which has enough 4E in it that only 4E diehards wouldn't want to move on).

4e certainly has its fans, but 4e was indeed hated or unloved by a huge swathe of the market. If 4e were secretly popular, none of the following would have happened:

• Essentials line launching within the first ~2 years of initial launch, with a focus on drawing in new players and trying to "soften" the opinionated 4e design.
• The entire line being effectively abandoned within ~4-5 years of launch with a focus on the new edition, making it the shortest-lived mainstream full edition of the game in history both in terms of practical support and official support.
• Pathfinder beating 4e in sales for 4 consecutive years (approx. 2011-2014).
• Third party publishers abandoning 4e to instead support Pathfinder (If the sales and revenue were there, people would still make and sell products with the GSL even if it wasn't perfect).
• The subsequent edition essentially abandoning everything about the 4e design that couldn't be ripped out, re-contextualized, and disguised as something else. 5e resembles 3.5 far more than 4e in just about every respect.

In my opinion, the narrative that 4e was a misunderstood-but-genius design is growing because of nostalgia, not because 4e was actually genius. It had many bad decisions which contributed to its demise, including business blunders, but the game itself is also culpable.

The legacy of 4e is that it was a game designed from the ground up to solve illusory "problems" surfaced by the nascent online discourse which emerged around the 3.5 scene. Online communities of people who spent more time chatting, theory-crafting, and character-building started driving the narrative around what was "wrong" with 3.5 rather than the people who were actually playing and enjoying the game (and buying products). You see it in the design of 4e: the obsession with symmetry for fear of imbalance creating bland and boring classes. Strict definitions and limited effects and interactions between powers/spells to avoid imbalance. Limits to critical hits to maintain strictly balanced math. Strict guidelines for how the GM is supposed to run the game to avoid the dickhead-DM problem. Use-it-or-lose-it AP and at-will/encounter powers to fight the 5-minute adventuring day. Baking magic item progression into the game to deal with the "christmas tree" phenomenon. Every major decision in 4e could be directly associated with a corresponding narrative that was prevalent on the forums at the time.

In actuality of course, nobody was playing pun-pun, or trying to pass of the peasant railgun as viable to their table's GM. Nobody was centering their campaigns on intra-party PvP where balance issues would be a net-negative rather than a net-positive for a cooperative party. Most players were not character optimizers who could build totally broken characters, and the people who brought a game-destroying build from online were simply told that it wasn't allowed and the world kept turning. People who were actually playing 3.5 campaigns wanted more quality content, more settings, more adventures, and a little cleanup around the edges. Pathfinder gave them that, so it succeeded. 5e also essentially gave them that, so it also succeeded and won back many PF players. 3.5 players were actually upset by the relatively low quality of official content splats and how long combat was lasting (a problem 4e made worse with tactical grid emphasis and bloated HP pools). In most cases, 4e was steering in exactly the wrong direction. Ironically, I think Paizo fell for the same trap WotC ran into and started listening to their forums too much. This resulted in PF 2e, a game that resembles 4e so much because it's trying to solve the same non-issues that are generated in theory but don't really matter at most tables.

The same basic issues in 3.5 exist in 5e and it has been doing just fine. The OSR is also doing just fine despite people insisting that the flaws that 4e needed to fix were intrinsic to the original design. What we actually saw with the resurgence of the OSR was that much of the game worked perfectly well if you retained the elements that made it work (like dungeon exploration turn, random encounters, etc). We saw the effects of Chesterton's Fence with 3.5 and onward, where many systems which were retained in the first place were totally vestigial.

Spot on.  Thus endeth the argument.

Those awful forgies puffing themselves for game design and claiming other people were suffering from brain damage (defective if you will) if they didn't fall into their paradigm.
The Old Schoolers have more class and dignity than that.

Quote from: SHARK on June 14, 2023, 04:54:22 AM
Oh, and in addition to the very structured, tactical miniatures game-play feel, 4E also had so many terrible inspirations from WoW. So many people said it was like bringing class "Balance" and mechanical systems from the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Having myself played WoW for many years, I also instantly recognized the WoW video game inspirations and elements throughout 4E's entire class design and game play. All of the 4E fanbois used to loudly protest and argue against this--but they were wrong. If anyone denies the huge fact that 4E was heavily influence in many ways by the video game WoW, they are either blind or in absolute denial. 4E tried to incorporate video game elements, systems, and mechanics into D&D, and it was painfully obvious.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I played WoW for a few years too and I'm boggled anytime someone claims there's no connection between 4E and WoW.  For anyone who's actually played the game for a few hundred hours it's extremely obvious.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 14, 2023, 08:30:20 AM
   I'll accept most of your narrative, but I don't believe that anyone ever praised 4E as 'simulationist', let alone Forgies who generally don't even believe in simulationism. :)

Spot on.  It's very gamist.  I struggled for a long time figuring out what exactly about 4E bothered me, then I' read The Alexandrian's essay on disassociated mechanics and it all clicked into focus.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 14, 2023, 12:44:37 PM
Those awful forgies puffing themselves for game design and claiming other people were suffering from brain damage (defective if you will) if they didn't fall into their paradigm.
The Old Schoolers have more class and dignity than that.

LOL and Amen.  I know some 4E fans who are far from dumb and have a lot of useful things to say about RPGs.  I just have to take their preferences and assumptions into account when considering their ideas.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 14, 2023, 12:44:37 PM
Those awful forgies puffing themselves for game design and claiming other people were suffering from brain damage (defective if you will) if they didn't fall into their paradigm.
The Old Schoolers have more class and dignity than that.

To take a page out of Pundit's book and cast generalized aspersions against an entire group of people based on my own negative experiences with a limited sample of them: People who're in love with OD&D have always been like that since before the OSR became the OSR. Back in the day in my old gaming circles it was always the people who couldn't let go of Basic who behaved like that. They just couldn't fathom the idea that anyone could like any other system or want things that Basic D&D couldn't provide. And they always had disparaging remarks about other systems (including AD&D) and people who liked them that basically amounted to "They're not like Basic D&D, therefore they're wrong".

With few rare exceptions (like maybe people like Estar and some at another forum) my interactions with the OSR has done nothing but reaffirm my views of people obsessed with Old/Basic D&D. They just can't think outside of the old D&D paradigm and automatically assume that anything and anyone outside of it must simply be "wrong", at a fundamentally subhuman level and worthy of disparagement. And can never argue points or with the aim achieving understanding. But with the purpose of attacking and getting into "arguments" in the sense of having a verbal(or written) "fight" and "winning" it.

Quote from: Mishihari on June 14, 2023, 01:03:33 PMLOL and Amen.  I know some 4E fans who are far from dumb and have a lot of useful things to say about RPGs.  I just have to take their preferences and assumptions into account when considering their ideas.

And if you said that playing 4e for you was like getting cancer and being decked in the face for 8 hours, I'd still be fine with that because you're presenting a preference and elaborating on it.
You don't believe that your form of play pretend makes you a genius and somebody else a failed person if they dislike it.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 14, 2023, 01:51:33 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 14, 2023, 12:44:37 PM
Those awful forgies puffing themselves for game design and claiming other people were suffering from brain damage (defective if you will) if they didn't fall into their paradigm.
The Old Schoolers have more class and dignity than that.

To take a page out of Pundit's book and cast generalized aspersions against an entire group of people based on my own negative experiences with a limited sample of them: People who're in love with OD&D have always been like that since before the OSR became the OSR. Back in the day in my old gaming circles it was always the people who couldn't let go of Basic who behaved like that. They just couldn't fathom the idea that anyone could like any other system or want things that Basic D&D couldn't provide. And they always had disparaging remarks about other systems (including AD&D) and people who liked them that basically amounted to "They're not like Basic D&D, therefore they're wrong".

With few rare exceptions (like maybe people like Estar and some at another forum) my interactions with the OSR has done nothing but reaffirm my views of people obsessed with Old/Basic D&D. They just can't think outside of the old D&D paradigm and automatically assume that anything and anyone outside of it must simply be "wrong", at a fundamentally subhuman level and worthy of disparagement. And can never argue points or with the aim achieving understanding. But with the purpose of attacking and getting into "arguments" in the sense of having a verbal(or written) "fight" and "winning" it.

For the record, as an OD&D fan, I do not believe that those who prefer other games or styles of play to be subhuman or guilty of wrongthink. Many of these games, however, are not representative of D&D in scope or objectives of play.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 14, 2023, 02:16:03 PMFor the record, as an OD&D fan, I do not believe that those who prefer other games or styles of play to be subhuman or guilty of wrongthink. Many of these games, however, are not representative of D&D in scope or objectives of play.

And I think that's very fair and can feel absolutely sucky if this core D&D experience is now stripped from what you consider core to the D&D aspect. I think Star Trek has been stripped from Star Trek (fuck off season 3 Picarders).

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 14, 2023, 02:18:13 PM
I think Star Trek has been stripped from Star Trek (fuck off season 3 Picarders).

It's something where parodies of Star Trek are more Star Trek than Star Trek, which isn't even remotely Star Trek at all anymore. I'm speaking, of course, of The Orville and Galaxy Quest.

In the same way 4th edition, and it is looking like 6th edition aren't even D&D at all.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 13, 2023, 09:58:16 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 13, 2023, 04:15:52 AM
Yeah, that's proof enough that you don't understand D&D, and therefore RPGs. "Lived long enough to know the preference of what you like and don't" just means that you haven't learned much about life, and have no idea what your own limitations are. Instead, you've glorified them.

And your "OneTrueWay-ism" makes you your own worst enemy in your war with the Woke, because you insist on driving away potential allies who agree with you on 90% of things by denigrating those who deviate in the slightest from your "received wisdom."

It's not that people can have different preferences. No, they must have not learned enough about life (though I highly doubt you've lived more than I have) if they don't agree that your ideas are the best things since sliced bread.

How many different systems have you even actually tried? I don't mean read and scoffed at and cast aside... I mean actually sat down and tried for multiple sessions to actually learn whether they were right for you? BECMI, AD&D 1-2e, Palladium, WEG Star Wars, Mekton, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, all the Battletech RPGs, oWoD, nWoD, HERO, GURPS, Amber, Silouette, LUGTrek, 3e, 4E, 5e, M&M2e and 3e... one offs like DreamPark (R. Talsorian), Arcanis or Witchhunter?

Holy shit a ridiculous amount. I couldn't possibly list them all. Every edition of D&D except 0D&D, pretty much every Palladium product before 2000, every Chaosium product, every Dr. Who game ever, Prime Directive, Champions/Hero, GURPS (in multiple campaigns and different power levels), Mekton and Cyberpunk, TORG and Shatterzone, Dungeoneer, Villains & Vigilantes, various different editions of Traveller, Heavy Gear, Deadlands, Shadowrun, Amber (obviously), Nephilim, Maelstrom, dozens of small press games almost no one has ever heard of, Dangerous Journeys, Tunnels & Trolls, WFRP, MERP, Everway, Feng Shui, Gamma World, Paranoia, Over the Edge, and probably quite a few more I can't recall just now, and all that is before the year 2000.
Since then I've run CoC, Traveller, ICONS, Qin, Aces & Eights, SW D20 (revised), True20, 3e D&D, a ton of D20 era games, Lamentations, Aquelarre, Capitan Alatriste, Midnight, Paranoia XP, The Fantasy Trip, DCC, probably a half dozen others I can't recall offhand, and of course all the games I've written myself.

QuoteWhat sort of broader life experience do you have that's provided this insight? How many places have you been? How many mountains have you climbed? How many oceans have you splashed in? How many planes have you flown? How many boats have you sailed? How many horses have you ridden? How many different types of animals have you raised? How many things have you built with your own two hands? How many children/godchildren do you have? How many family members have you buried? How many protests or parades have you marched in? Have you ever been in a real fight? Have you ever run headlong into danger without thinking because you saw a stranger's life threatened?

You really don't want to be asking that. I've lived more than most people would in six lifetimes, dude. I've lived like a literal aristocrat and like a pauper (and now, I guess, a member of the bohemian middle-class). Explored ancient secrets, and became a recognized master in several of them.  Been in the middle of protests and riots. Lived in a half-dozen countries on three continents, visited dozens more; swam and/or sailed in both of the big ones and several seas. Thought I was going to die a dozen times. Did more drugs and had more sex than a lot of rock stars. I've written about 120 books. Reinvented myself multiple times. I've seen things and accomplished things even I would never have believed.  And that's only the stuff I'm allowed to tell you.

So yeah, if I'm arrogant it's because of lengthy experience.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 13, 2023, 01:19:56 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 13, 2023, 01:08:09 PMThat's because Kevin Crawford is an objectively bad and defective human being.  ;)

If we wanna yell sales numbers, everything is a distant #3 behind D&D 5e. Which has options up the ass and boatloads of woke. And increasing its options and woke didn't cause sales numbers to go down. #2 is Pathfinder with its options overloads. Everything else is peanuts in comparison.
Sales matter and are an example of philosophical dominance and superiority, until they are not.
Hell D&D 5e, even right out of the gate with its Players Handbook, had more in common with 3e (and even elements of 4e) than it ever did with OSR content. But because it walked the walk, it was a "Win".

But the main thing D&D5e kicked the crap out of was the sale figures of the former big guns: 3.5 and pathfinder, which had way more options than 5e in terms of mechanical construction and character creation. 5e's motto was "dare to simplify", literally; there was a big banner with that in the D&D HQ to remind the typing stooges that the point was for 5e to be much easier to run and play as a "casual" gamer than ever.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 14, 2023, 10:21:40 AM


Spot on.  Thus endeth the argument.

They hired me to help make 5e because everything I said about why and how 4e would fail turned out to be true.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 15, 2023, 11:15:45 PMBut the main thing D&D5e kicked the crap out of was the sale figures of the former big guns: 3.5 and pathfinder, which had way more options than 5e in terms of mechanical construction and character creation. 5e's motto was "dare to simplify", literally; there was a big banner with that in the D&D HQ to remind the typing stooges that the point was for 5e to be much easier to run and play as a "casual" gamer than ever.

And years later with loads of new content and options, its sales have been impacted by exactly 0% (up until the reveal of 6e which always impacts the sales of an older edition).

It making more money now, with its side-content of course means nothing. Just pick and choose whatever statistics support your divine claim.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 15, 2023, 11:13:01 PMSo yeah, if I'm arrogant it's because of lengthy experience.

Kevin has attracted magnitudes more people to OSR principles through humbleness than you have through braggadocio.

I had to watch this video a couple of times and only really understand where you were going with it until you reexplained it on Diversity and Dragons.  I think maybe my misinterpretation of what you meant by the title fogged my ability to get it as i watched the video.

I agree that rolling up a character needs some items that are beyond the reach of players to decide.  I like the idea of character creation becoming a dance between the desires of the player and the randomness given by the dice coming together to make something more beautiful than just min-maxing with a spreadsheet.

My favorite PC generation method ever is from Traveller.  I couldn't really articulate it before but I love the whole thing of getting some random info, deciding what to do with it, and rolling to see where the decision takes you.  Through the repetition of it, you really start to get a real character to form.  Taking it one step further, if you're doing it right (imo), you're doing it at the table with the other players.  This means that you can stitch together common events and form bonds as the PCs are taking shape.  In a way this is doing with team building as a group what you are doing as an individual with the PC.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 15, 2023, 11:15:45 PM

But the main thing D&D5e kicked the crap out of was the sale figures of the former big guns: 3.5 and pathfinder, which had way more options than 5e in terms of mechanical construction and character creation. 5e's motto was "dare to simplify", literally; there was a big banner with that in the D&D HQ to remind the typing stooges that the point was for 5e to be much easier to run and play as a "casual" gamer than ever.

This was the main factor that influenced my decision to try 5E. It has become my favorite WOTC edition. Thank you for your contributions.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 15, 2023, 11:15:45 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 13, 2023, 01:19:56 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 13, 2023, 01:08:09 PMThat's because Kevin Crawford is an objectively bad and defective human being.  ;)

If we wanna yell sales numbers, everything is a distant #3 behind D&D 5e. Which has options up the ass and boatloads of woke. And increasing its options and woke didn't cause sales numbers to go down. #2 is Pathfinder with its options overloads. Everything else is peanuts in comparison.
Sales matter and are an example of philosophical dominance and superiority, until they are not.
Hell D&D 5e, even right out of the gate with its Players Handbook, had more in common with 3e (and even elements of 4e) than it ever did with OSR content. But because it walked the walk, it was a "Win".

But the main thing D&D5e kicked the crap out of was the sale figures of the former big guns: 3.5 and pathfinder, which had way more options than 5e in terms of mechanical construction and character creation. 5e's motto was "dare to simplify", literally; there was a big banner with that in the D&D HQ to remind the typing stooges that the point was for 5e to be much easier to run and play as a "casual" gamer than ever.

Simplicity doesn't necessarily entail less choices. Savage Worlds, for example, is simple AF, yet highly customizable. I was able to create my first character in 10 minutes tops without even knowing all rules or being familiar with the system. Yet all of that simplicity didn't necessitate throwing out the options/choices and customizability baby out with the bath water.

If anything, I would argue that Savage Worlds is vastly more simple, yet also has vastly more options than any edition of D&D. It's almost like options/choices isn't the spice of bad, but rather needless complexity.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 15, 2023, 11:39:48 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 15, 2023, 11:13:01 PMSo yeah, if I'm arrogant it's because of lengthy experience.

Kevin has attracted magnitudes more people to OSR principles through humbleness than you have through braggadocio.

Do you mean Kevin Crawford? He's great. But he's free to do the things he does because people like me are here fighting for him.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 16, 2023, 08:52:15 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 15, 2023, 11:15:45 PM

But the main thing D&D5e kicked the crap out of was the sale figures of the former big guns: 3.5 and pathfinder, which had way more options than 5e in terms of mechanical construction and character creation. 5e's motto was "dare to simplify", literally; there was a big banner with that in the D&D HQ to remind the typing stooges that the point was for 5e to be much easier to run and play as a "casual" gamer than ever.

This was the main factor that influenced my decision to try 5E. It has become my favorite WOTC edition. Thank you for your contributions.

Thank you!

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 16, 2023, 09:26:30 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 15, 2023, 11:15:45 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 13, 2023, 01:19:56 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 13, 2023, 01:08:09 PMThat's because Kevin Crawford is an objectively bad and defective human being.  ;)

If we wanna yell sales numbers, everything is a distant #3 behind D&D 5e. Which has options up the ass and boatloads of woke. And increasing its options and woke didn't cause sales numbers to go down. #2 is Pathfinder with its options overloads. Everything else is peanuts in comparison.
Sales matter and are an example of philosophical dominance and superiority, until they are not.
Hell D&D 5e, even right out of the gate with its Players Handbook, had more in common with 3e (and even elements of 4e) than it ever did with OSR content. But because it walked the walk, it was a "Win".

But the main thing D&D5e kicked the crap out of was the sale figures of the former big guns: 3.5 and pathfinder, which had way more options than 5e in terms of mechanical construction and character creation. 5e's motto was "dare to simplify", literally; there was a big banner with that in the D&D HQ to remind the typing stooges that the point was for 5e to be much easier to run and play as a "casual" gamer than ever.

Simplicity doesn't necessarily entail less choices. Savage Worlds, for example, is simple AF, yet highly customizable. I was able to create my first character in 10 minutes tops without even knowing all rules or being familiar with the system. Yet all of that simplicity didn't necessitate throwing out the options/choices and customizability baby out with the bath water.

If anything, I would argue that Savage Worlds is vastly more simple, yet also has vastly more options than any edition of D&D. It's almost like options/choices isn't the spice of bad, but rather needless complexity.

There is absolutely no human way a newbie player gets to create a SW (or any open point buy system) in 10 minutes, unless he's being massively pulled by the nose by the GM, who enforces very limited options to the player.

Someone who's never read D&D can make a basic 5e character quite quickly, if you don't use feats.
For a SW character you have to first:
-learn the ability scores. You then have points you have to put, openly, into raising the ability scores
-get 15 skill points which you have to decide to spread among somewhere over 20 skills, with no limitations, where skills cost 1 point each until they cost 2 points each
-then you have to get edges and hindrances, where you again have to look at a potentially giant list of options, to try to decide either what best fits your character or, more likely, what allows you the best character-optimization. It will require careful study to decide which edge gives you the absolute best advantage while at the same time choosing a hindrance that will actually be as little hindering as possible, hopefully not at all.
-then it throws you $500 and go shopping, again with no guidance at all about starting equipment. Just look at every single piece of kit and try to figure out what you might need and make a $500 expense account of it.

Unless a player is being helped, or having his options limited, there's no way that takes under an hour for someone who has never played SW or read the book before.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 16, 2023, 02:44:45 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 16, 2023, 09:26:30 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 15, 2023, 11:15:45 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 13, 2023, 01:19:56 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 13, 2023, 01:08:09 PMThat's because Kevin Crawford is an objectively bad and defective human being.  ;)

If we wanna yell sales numbers, everything is a distant #3 behind D&D 5e. Which has options up the ass and boatloads of woke. And increasing its options and woke didn't cause sales numbers to go down. #2 is Pathfinder with its options overloads. Everything else is peanuts in comparison.
Sales matter and are an example of philosophical dominance and superiority, until they are not.
Hell D&D 5e, even right out of the gate with its Players Handbook, had more in common with 3e (and even elements of 4e) than it ever did with OSR content. But because it walked the walk, it was a "Win".

But the main thing D&D5e kicked the crap out of was the sale figures of the former big guns: 3.5 and pathfinder, which had way more options than 5e in terms of mechanical construction and character creation. 5e's motto was "dare to simplify", literally; there was a big banner with that in the D&D HQ to remind the typing stooges that the point was for 5e to be much easier to run and play as a "casual" gamer than ever.

Simplicity doesn't necessarily entail less choices. Savage Worlds, for example, is simple AF, yet highly customizable. I was able to create my first character in 10 minutes tops without even knowing all rules or being familiar with the system. Yet all of that simplicity didn't necessitate throwing out the options/choices and customizability baby out with the bath water.

If anything, I would argue that Savage Worlds is vastly more simple, yet also has vastly more options than any edition of D&D. It's almost like options/choices isn't the spice of bad, but rather needless complexity.

There is absolutely no human way a newbie player gets to create a SW (or any open point buy system) in 10 minutes, unless he's being massively pulled by the nose by the GM, who enforces very limited options to the player.

Someone who's never read D&D can make a basic 5e character quite quickly, if you don't use feats.
For a SW character you have to first:
-learn the ability scores. You then have points you have to put, openly, into raising the ability scores
-get 15 skill points which you have to decide to spread among somewhere over 20 skills, with no limitations, where skills cost 1 point each until they cost 2 points each
-then you have to get edges and hindrances, where you again have to look at a potentially giant list of options, to try to decide either what best fits your character or, more likely, what allows you the best character-optimization. It will require careful study to decide which edge gives you the absolute best advantage while at the same time choosing a hindrance that will actually be as little hindering as possible, hopefully not at all.
-then it throws you $500 and go shopping, again with no guidance at all about starting equipment. Just look at every single piece of kit and try to figure out what you might need and make a $500 expense account of it.

Unless a player is being helped, or having his options limited, there's no way that takes under an hour for someone who has never played SW or read the book before.

In D&D you also have to learn the ability scores. SWADE (the SW edition I tried) has this Character Creation Summary that's really easy to follow, including summaries for all Skills, Edges and Hindrances, so you don't even have to go in-depth into the manual to find all this stuff. The game only gives you 5 points for attributes during creation, which are very quick to assign. You can just assign one point per attribute (there are 5 in SWADE) as a starting point, then maybe drop one from one or two attributes and assign them to another one, and you're set.

Then you have 1d4 in Athletics, Common Knowledge, Notice, Persuasion, and Stealth for free. Plus 12 points for any skill. Starting Edges and Hindrances beyond anything that your Race gives you are optional. And you don't have to through all the analysis you mentioned unless you're min/maxing, which I thought was terribad. But even then I was able to do it pretty quick by falling back on the summaries as a guide.

D&D also gives you a bunch of money for starting gear with zero guidance, at least in the exalted older editions. So not sure how SW is different in that regard to almost any other TTRPG. And handwaving that as a GM is extremely easy.

I made a bunch of characters a few months ago during the One Character a Day Challenge elsewhere and the thing that usually took me most time was finding a good pic to post with my character. And maybe if I got too picky with which Hindrances I would take. Starting with extra "advances" (levels) also to longer to pick up new Edges, but normally you only have to deal with one advance/new Edge at a time. I just wanted to see what starting out with a character with more edges was like.

My first character was a newbie version of my main D&D dark elf sorceress. And it just took me like 10 minutes to make her. I was like "Holy crap! Where was SW my whole life?!?"

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 16, 2023, 02:44:45 PM
Unless a player is being helped, or having his options limited, there's no way that takes under an hour for someone who has never played SW or read the book before.

Is there any value to a brand new player building a character instead of starting with a pregen? I can appreciate that a surplus of options slows down gameplay, but I am not seeing how roll 6 stats in order is much faster than rate 6 stat best to worst with a static array.

Quote from: Wisithir on June 16, 2023, 08:29:57 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 16, 2023, 02:44:45 PM
Unless a player is being helped, or having his options limited, there's no way that takes under an hour for someone who has never played SW or read the book before.

Is there any value to a brand new player building a character instead of starting with a pregen? I can appreciate that a surplus of options slows down gameplay, but I am not seeing how roll 6 stats in order is much faster than rate 6 stat best to worst with a static array.

I have found that the best thing to do with a new player is to sit with him and roll up a PC together while doing session zero.  (Don't do a standard array or point buy unless your system is locked into that.)  This gives the player a bit of understanding of the game right out of the gate and it actually makes the player feel more included.  My session zero is always rolling up the PCs and working out how the PCs know each other.  It's amazing how much it brings the table together and really welcomes the new guy.

Quote from: BadApple on June 16, 2023, 08:47:24 PM
I have found that the best thing to do with a new player is to sit with him and roll up a PC together while doing session zero.  (Don't do a standard array or point buy unless your system is locked into that.)  This gives the player a bit of understanding of the game right out of the gate and it actually makes the player feel more included.  My session zero is always rolling up the PCs and working out how the PCs know each other.  It's amazing how much it brings the table together and really welcomes the new guy.

yes. Hanging out together and creating characters as a group works much better than each player sitting alone like a mad scientist building a creation in isolation. It is a more social process and helps the player be more familiar with the characters that others are playing which is a plus for group dynamics.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:22:26 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 12, 2023, 10:57:01 AM
Not everyone who is a fan of older systems likes them because they refuse to try anything new.

I've never claimed otherwise.

I have however had people try to explain how I just haven't tried 'proper' OSR play as if I'd never tried Basic or AD&D before.

I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

Quote from: Omega on June 19, 2023, 11:46:58 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 12, 2023, 11:22:26 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 12, 2023, 10:57:01 AM
Not everyone who is a fan of older systems likes them because they refuse to try anything new.

I've never claimed otherwise.

I have however had people try to explain how I just haven't tried 'proper' OSR play as if I'd never tried Basic or AD&D before.

I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

...what?

I liked 4e as a fantasy superheroes game with a focus on 'cinematic' (but very slow) fight scenes. It definitely feels designed to evoke the trope of the superhero team working together to achieve victory - I guess that's much more a Marvel trope than DC.

But 4e is absolutely terrible as a 'D&D' game, and cannot do exploration at all, never mind sandbox play. The GM needs to be more a film director than objective/neutral referee.

Quote from: Omega on June 19, 2023, 11:46:58 PM


I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

The OSR games that are emulations of older original TSR games only exist because the current owners of the IP for those systems refuse to support or even allow others to create material for them directly. The systems were cloned just so that people could publish support material for the systems that they still enjoy playing, which have been abandoned. Growing from that core have been all kinds of new games.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 08:47:13 AM

Quote from: Omega on June 19, 2023, 11:46:58 PM


I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

The OSR games that are emulations of older original TSR games only exist because the current owners of the IP for those systems refuse to support or even allow others to create material for them directly. The systems were cloned just so that people could publish support material for the systems that they still enjoy playing, which have been abandoned.

Ahem...

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/110274/d-d-basic-set-rulebook-b-x-ed-basic

WotC's got all the older editions and supplements up for sale.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 21, 2023, 08:55:28 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 08:47:13 AM

Quote from: Omega on June 19, 2023, 11:46:58 PM


I can count on one finger the OSR games that were more than just game theft under the guise of "la resistance!"

The OSR games that are emulations of older original TSR games only exist because the current owners of the IP for those systems refuse to support or even allow others to create material for them directly. The systems were cloned just so that people could publish support material for the systems that they still enjoy playing, which have been abandoned.

Ahem...

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/110274/d-d-basic-set-rulebook-b-x-ed-basic

WotC's got all the older editions and supplements up for sale.

They do now, once they saw there was money to be made on the old product thanks to the OSR companies showing them that the market was there. Were these old products for sale in 2008 when people wanted them?

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 09:12:56 AM
They do now, once they saw there was money to be made on the old product thanks to the OSR companies showing them that the market was there. Were these old products for sale in 2008 when people wanted them?

  2008? Yes, although not everything was available. It was the spring of 2009 when WotC shut down their PDF program. :)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 21, 2023, 10:01:53 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 09:12:56 AM
They do now, once they saw there was money to be made on the old product thanks to the OSR companies showing them that the market was there. Were these old products for sale in 2008 when people wanted them?

  2008? Yes, although not everything was available. It was the spring of 2009 when WotC shut down their PDF program. :)

Yes by that time WOTC went full bore trying to shove New Coke down the gaming community's throat. Only when they realized that 4E was kind of a dud and started planning 5E and realized that they had driven away a large market segment did they start selling pdfs again. Once they published 4E Essentials version and advertised it as the 'evergreen" edition, everyone knew that 4E was over.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 21, 2023, 10:01:53 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 21, 2023, 09:12:56 AM
They do now, once they saw there was money to be made on the old product thanks to the OSR companies showing them that the market was there. Were these old products for sale in 2008 when people wanted them?

  2008? Yes, although not everything was available. It was the spring of 2009 when WotC shut down their PDF program. :)

Yeah. Older edition PDFs started going on sale in the mid-2000s, simultaneous with the early OSR.

They were pulled in 2009, then they were put back on sale in 2013.

I think it's probably fair to say that the OSR proved the market during the 2009 to 2013 period, but WotC had previously released a lot of material online and had invented the OGL.

There's an old video game blog that discussed what "Depth" means and boiled it down to All Options minus Nonviable Options so if you have 200 options of which 190 are viable you'd have less depth that something with 20 options of which only 5 are nonviable.
So if the goal here is a character meant to do the usual DnD adventurer things, a crunchy system where you're encouraged to look up builds just so you don't have to read through hundreds of crappy feats to find the few most haves would be less deep compared to something much lighter, especially if the former system restricts the character to only doing the one thing they specialized in by penalizing everything they didn't invest in.
I don't agree with the superiority of old school random generation, as you're going to be limited to however many classes fit the stat array you end up with; there's nothing particularly interesting about being one stat point away from qualifying for a superior class (like dwarf vs fighter in b/x) and the random background just serves as a roleplay prompt you may or may not click with.
I do think RandomGen is better if it's a high lethality system where being able to quickly create characters that aren't identical to the last one, though I'd prefer something where you have more control over what type of character you'll end up with.