Just a little notice, guys; apparently the article quoted in the OP is intellectual property of ENworld, in the form of a paid-for column, and I got a request from morrus that these not be posted in their entirety.

That sounds like a reasonable request to me, so I'm asking that in future these sort of articles be posted only with a link and a snippet of a couple of paragraphs. Obviously you can and are encouraged to also write your own summary of the article and the gist of what you think is important about it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;384863Just a little notice, guys; apparently the article quoted in the OP is intellectual property of ENworld, in the form of a paid-for column, and I got a request from morrus that these not be posted in their entirety.

That sounds like a reasonable request to me, so I'm asking that in future these sort of articles be posted only with a link and a snippet of a couple of paragraphs. Obviously you can and are encouraged to also write your own summary of the article and the gist of what you think is important about it.

RPGPundit

That's reasonable. Also, the article is pretty TL;DR. So condensing it is probably good for everyone. Here are the parts I think are important and telling:

Quote from: Ari MarmellI don't really houserule anymore.
...
There was a time, a while back—a long while back—when I houseruled my games so far up the wazoo that it was practically a delve in and of itself.
...
I houserule almost nothing these days, and if I do, it's usually as small as a nerf to a particular power I find overpowered, a "reskin," or something else so minor it barely qualifies.
...
So what changed?
...
I've been focusing more on fiction and less on game design for the past year or so, and while my urge to DM has indeed been rising, it has done so at a faster rate than my urge to start fiddling with the system.
...
So if that's not it, or at least not all of it, what else?
...
Sometimes, a really cool idea just can't be mechanically balanced—either because it's overpowered (or under) by its very nature, or because it's too open-ended to be numerically quantified.
...
This has, much as I hate to admit it, been an issue for me—thankfully, only on rare occasions—in my professional endeavors as well. While I'm happy with the majority of my mechanical work on both 3E and 4E, I'd be lying if I said there weren't times where I failed to get a concept across—or, on occasion, even abandoned a concept entirely—because I couldn't find a way to make it work in any mechanically balanced sense. I'm working on learning to move past that, to take more mechanical chances, but it's not easy.

That is the heart of the article for me. There's some self congratulation, some discussion about how he used to write for White Wolf, a bit on how he mostly writes fiction rather than mechanics, and a whole lot of meandering. But the core is that ever since he decided to stop putting unbalanced stuff into the game he has been virtually unable to fiddle with his own games.

Which means to me that he is admitting that he can't write balanced material even for a game that he helped write.

-Frank

OK Pundit thanks.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384857I don't think that makes balance meaningless in the slightest. For a game to be possible to be balanced in such a way it is required that different characters have profoundly different abilities available to them. There is no way to balance different characters in old Tunnels and Trolls where they have the depth of a Stratego piece. A 5 and a 3 are simply different numbers, and one will always be better than the other.

But for a game to be practical to be balanced in such a manner, it requires that the different abilities be worth something in regards to challenges that are easy for the GM to identify and work into the assumed story of the game.

Fair enough.

Interestingly enough, regarding T&T - I played a one-off game as a teenager, where I rolled up a new 1st level dwarf rogue and he used his 11th level Warrior-Wizard that he'd run through a number of solo adventures (Strength of 200+, four of five pages of magic items....you get the idea). The GM did manage to give my PC 'screen time' a couple of times by just splitting the party and throwing appropriate-level challenges my way... but overall this particular episode is permanently seared into my memory as an eternal reminder of Why Game Balance Is Good.

QuoteI think you mean "an awesome one."
-Frank

Didn't know you were a fan! I do have a copy of Synnibarr (and the Ultimate Adventurer's Guide, which sadly erratas the Strength modifier for Priests of Berava) but I don't think I'm ever going to be able to convince anyone to play it.
I managed to shock another design-oriented friend by showing them the table Raven used to generate # mutations -instead of, you know, saying 'roll a d3' - which alone was worth getting it shipped from the US ( I think he was still numb when I tried to explain 10ths, though). But yes its nothing if not awesome.

I don't really have an opinion on Marmell or the blog post, but he's not doing himself any favours by getting teh butthurt about this thread.

He's right to point out that a preference for 4E doesn't mean he hates 3E and its players, but surely he can't be unaware that his employer marketed the current game by trashing prior editions and endorsing the retarded notion that games develop like technology - each generation objectively better than the last - which has become the most cliched and boorish bit of fanboy dogma ever to grace the hobby.

I'm a cynic, of course, but I can't help but notice that everyone who has a financial stake in Hasbro experiences the revelation that whatever the current edition is is the best edition ever.  If 5E is just Furry Monopoly with the D&D logo on the box, the same people will be blogging that, y'know, tactical combats and heroic adventures were never much fun, and what they really wanted from D&D all along was the chance to travel around a board buying up utilities and train stations with a bipedal fox in a samurai outfit.

Quote from: Hairfoot;384867...and what they really wanted from D&D all along was the chance to travel around a board buying up utilities and train stations with a bipedal fox in a samurai outfit.

But that is how everyone is playing it now, right?  So 5e will just be a codification of the houserules that are currently in use by the vast majority of players.  

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384865Which means to me that he is admitting that he can't write balanced material even for a game that he helped write.

If WotC had never mentioned anything official about "balanced mechanics" when it came to any and all 4E propaganda (since Gencon 2007) and never had mechanical "balance" as a design goal to being with, wonder if the nerdrage over balance would be as great as it is today.

If this scenario had happened, I suspect the nerdrage would be more along lines of how Palladium Rifts was criticized over the last 20 years.

5E D&D propaganda ordered by WotC upper management:

-> never mention the word "balance".  :rant:

A quote from Ari's followup blog post:

http://mouseferatu.livejournal.com/681802.html

Quote from: Ari's blogI also have to admit, I'm particularly amused at the guy claiming that I "betrayed" the fanbase over 4E. (I literally laughed out loud.)"

Ari is probably referring to Frank's post,

http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=384587&postcount=34


He's been laughing at you Frank, all along.  :banghead:

This is an obvious sign that WotC D&D's designers/writers think we're all stupid schmucks and are snickering and laughing in our faces about it.  It's also a sign that criticisms about D&D are not taken seriously at all, and will never be taken into any consideration.

So.  The jig is up.  We now have evidence that WotC officially does not give a shit about what any of us say.


Their motto has all along been:

"The customer can fuck off, because they can't do anything about it.  Ha ha ha!"

:banghead: :rant:

Quote from: ggroy;384890This is an obvious sign that WotC D&D's designers/writers think we're all stupid schmucks and are snickering and laughing in our faces about it.  It's also a sign that criticisms about D&D are not taken seriously at all, and will never be taken into any consideration.

It's not just the designers. I mean, I also think that. You're all stupid schmucks.

Quote from: ggroy;384890"The customer can fuck off, because they can't do anything about it. Ha ha ha!"

Haters aren't customers. They're just haters.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384857No. The closest he comes is to say that his reaction to not putting materials that aren't balanced into his games is to not write any fucking material for his games. If he demanded that house ruled material would be balanced, and he was capable of writing balanced material, then he'd be adding material. However, he is saying that he doesn't add material, which means that the material he writes isn't balanced.

Are you saying that anyone who can perform action X must perform action X? Because that would be a logical fallacy.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;384896Haters aren't customers. They're just haters.

Do you have your standard mined quote to go with that, or are you yet again approaching a gaming debate as a strange popularity contest for Hasbro's attention?

When did your relationship with WotC change from "discerning customer & astute publisher" to "teenage girl & Edward Cullen"?

Quote from: Thanlis;384903Are you saying that anyone who can perform action X must perform action X? Because that would be a logical fallacy.

He said that wanted to perform Action X. He also said that there was a thing preventing him from doing so: his distaste for producing unbalanced material.

But regardless, that's not a fallacy. A fallacy is an argument form that does follow logically. "Person A must perform Action X" is a directive, and is logically acceptable all kinds of places.

"Anyone who can pay their taxes must pay their taxes."

is fine.

"Anyone who can eat babies must eat babies."

is not.


But there's no logical fallacy in either statement. This is a personal peeve of mine, but for fucking goodness sakes don't say that something is a "fallacy" when you mean it is wrong. Lots of things are wrong that aren't fallacies. For that matter, there are lots of fallacies that are totally reasonable arguments. Something being "logically valid" isn't the same thing as true, it isn't the same thing as "likely."

Inductive Empiricism. Fuck your black swans.

-Frank

Quote from: Benoist;384454(NOTE: The rest of this article has been snipped at the request of the IP holder)

Check out the OP. Apparently quoting the entire blog post didn't please whoever complained that much.

It was edited by a mod. Not by me.

Dick move.

Quote from: ggroy;384890It's also a sign that criticisms about D&D are not taken seriously at all, and will never be taken into any consideration.

Do you honestly think the criticisms here, from this bunch, are worth listening to?

If you were a business owner, who would you listen to: the person who doesn't buy your products but froths at the mouth and makes wild personal attacks every time he opens his mouth or the person who buys from you regularly, is interested in your product, and can complain in a calm, rational manner?

Moreover, what does WotC get from listening to the frothing at the mouth non-customer? They're not going to become customers. Or, supposing they might be, is it worth the time, energy, and money to convert them? Won't they pretty much always be nit-picking, dissatisfied loudmouths because that's their personality?

Finally, don't confuse criticisms being heard and criticisms being followed. Simply because they're not following your or someone else's criticism doesn't mean it wasn't heard and considered.

Seanchai