Quote from: Doom;438791Touche, and apologies.

So, let me try to move things back to the 4e postmortem.

How do others feel about all the errata? Having posted that a few hours ago, I'm still conflicted about it. Yes, it's good to try to fix things that clearly needed fixing...but I hate that my books went obsolete so quickly.

My old DMG may be a poorly written mess with many barely useable rules, mind you, but somehow I'm more comfortable that the rules were never errata'd...a different world, of course, and I concede the cognitive dysfunction of thinking my old book, that can't work without considerable houseruling, is somehow better than the new book, that can't be used without writing in a bunch of errata.

Another thing that's interesting about the errata was when I played 4e, my players and I honestly felt FAR less inclined to houserule, even when the rules were obviously borked all to heck (a certain paladin paragon path comes to mind, and ridiculously overbloated healing was problematic as well).

Were I not committed to giving 4e a fair shake, I might have held off for a few months instead of getting it when it first came out. And if I'd seen the steady stream of errata, that might well have turned me off.

Anyone on the fence about 4e, but ultimately decided not to bother buying the books because of the steady errata?

I have mixed feelings about errata, as sometimes it's necessary, but if it's overdone, then it represents sloppiness on the author's part. I've never run the errata'd version of the game, only the original, using Keep On The Shadowfell....so my exposure to 4e is limited. I usually ignore errata anyway...

Quote from: Doom;438678I'm sorry to hear your son couldn't wade through the Essentials rules. I personally think Essentials didn't catch on because of the 'new edition' issue, as opposed to still being too hard for a new player to pick up.

A bit of context on this.  He can make a Castles and Crusades character no problem, he can make a HERO 6 character with some guidance on stuff the game used to do automatically like buying enough Stun and PD, and he can make a Warhammer Army list.  (bloody hell people, he is my son after all, what kind of parent do you think I am?)

So he's not a brand new gamer and expectations and stuff he's used to looking for might be part of the problem.  At any rate he's been unwilling to touch Essentials since.

Quote from: Benoist;438796I don't give a shit about errata. If you can't manage to get your game right that you have to write page after page of errata for it, then something's wrong with the way you write for the game in the first place, or the game itself, for that matter.

What I do is read the game and play it. If I see some issue, or know about it before hand, I'll just fix it when necessary and keep on gaming. The whole idea that official errata are more important than what's going on at the actual game table is a load of insane bullshit, in my opinion. So that whole part of the WotC hobby? Fuck it. Set it on fire. Let it burn to the ground.

The thing of it is, that 4E never really NEEDED errata in the first place. The game has it's share of blemishes, sure...but it's nothing that groups wouldn't be possible of patching themselves if they gave it a little thought. We didn't need errata back in the day, because we were used to circumventing bad rules ourselves. I remember when every 1st edition game was house-ruled almost beyond recognition. The reason that 4E has so much errata attached to it, is that the player base demanded errata.

This goes into the whole "Cult of RAW" that someone was blogging about somewhere or another. Many players, for some reason that I can't begin to fathom, seem to think of game designers as infallible artisans working within a perfect science. They would rather rely on the official solution rather than come up with their own, and therefore clamor for official solutions to problems which they themselves could have fixed.

Maybe people believe that the rules can somehow make a game asshole proof. This, of course, has never been the case.

Quote from: Shazbot79;438910The thing of it is, that 4E never really NEEDED errata in the first place.

That's what I don't understand about the whole "skill challenges are broken!" argument. When I had a problem with skill challenges, it was about the way I was seeing them being used in the game, the way they would shape the actual game play. The whole argument that's repeated ad nauseam that DCs for Skill Challenges are "broken," that WotC revised them ten times and didn't get them right once, is a weird concept to me. It's a fucking list of DC guidelines. Can't you actually run the game like a competent DM and come up with DCs relevant to your game yourselves as you play it?

I don't get that whole thing.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;438783And for the record, Doom....I don't think you're an idiot at all, and believe that you raise some valid points.

+1. I mean, just look at this trainwreck of a 'response':

Quote from: Justin Alexander;438752I think at this point everybody recognizes that Doom is an idiot

I take offense to people who fling around insults at no provocation, and keep flinging them around even when the insulted party does not reciprocate. Also, points off for speaking on "everyone's" behalf. That's primary school behaviour, and it insults my intelligence when other people make up their mind on my behalf. Stop fucking doing it. Because yes, this is a recurrent meme in your posting here.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;438752, but I just can't help myself from commenting on the more outrageous absurdities he spouts. For example:

[First:] The most obvious thing, of course, is the odd-ball assumption that you HAVE to put the stats for a henchman or hireling on the PC's character sheet in order for the henchman or hireling to exist in the game.


Third, he's claiming that the only way something could possibly exist in my game is if it appears on a PC's character sheet.  ...

Fourth, deciding to hold up a character sheet as an acceptable standard of evidence for "what happens at a gaming table"

You know, that's a valid point. You could have condensed it into two lines.

Note I also said: a valid point. Not three. You keep dressing up your posts as if you had several (counter)arguments when you have only one. It's annoying and insults my intelligence. If you keep trolling at this rate, I'll put you on Ignore.

Quote from: Benoist;438916That's what I don't understand about the whole "skill challenges are broken!" argument. When I had a problem with skill challenges, it was about the way I was seeing them being used in the game, the way they would shape the actual game play. The whole argument that's repeated ad nauseam that DCs for Skill Challenges are "broken," that WotC revised them ten times and didn't get them right once, is a weird concept to me. It's a fucking list of DC guidelines. Can't you actually run the game like a competent DM and come up with DCs relevant to your game yourselves as you play it?

I don't get that whole thing.

People COULD do that. They just don't want to for some reason...they seem to think that whatever professional designers come up with must be better than whatever they can do. I mean, they're the professionals right? Right? :rolleyes:

Anyway, I think that you're right. It is a weird concept that people can't just lift the bits they like, and rework those that they don't, as if the RAW is some sort of immutable, infallible holy scripture. I tend to run my games with a fair measure of common sense, so I'm not going to allow something I deem to be patently absurd just because the rules say that I should.

Then again, I'm of the school of thought that says rules are supposed to be guidelines and not law. I don't want the game to automate everything for me, I simply want it to give me an idea of how to adjudicate things if and when they pop up.

Quote from: Windjammer;438925I take offense to people who fling around insults at no provocation, and keep flinging them around even when the insulted party does not reciprocate.

Quotes from Doom:

"And a number of people have pointed out you're a liar..."
"Such poor reading comprehension you seem to have of late..."
"Because I know asking you to read is pointless..."
"You've been shown wrong, and a liar, and intellectually dishonest."
"But since you lack reading comprehension skills..."
"What a maroon."
"It's sad to see someone who used to be able to be coherent behave like this."
"Have you changed medications recently?"

Those are all from one post. Your claim that Doom hasn't reciprocated is... amusing.

Let's also consider where the first insults were flung in the exchange between Doom and myself. That would be this post... which was written by Doom. Prior to this, the only thing I'd criticized was the the content of his arguments. He's the one who decided to run the gambit of attacking my mental capacities (and only succeeded in resoundly embarrassing himself). Which means that your claim that there was no provocation is... also amusing.

Now, given that your post led off with such a ridiculous disconnect from reality... why should I take anything else you have to say about this thread seriously?

QuoteIf you keep trolling at this rate, I'll put you on Ignore.

Could you give me some reason why I should care?

Based on the critical and self-evident failure to read for comprehension you've demonstrated in this reply, do I have any sort of guarantee that your future replies to my posts would be any more factual, useful, or insightful?

Quote from: Shazbot79;438910This goes into the whole "Cult of RAW" that someone was blogging about somewhere or another.

It's not just the Cult of RAW, it's also what comes from embracing MMOG design philosophy.  You look on the boards of any MMOG and you'll see the same stuff going on at WotC forums, talking about patches, nerfs, certain builds being imba, the whole deal.  It's all a part of MMOG culture, which WotC intentionally designed 4e for.  You don't get to change the rules in a MMOG, you just get to bitch about the ones you don't like, and unfortunately a lot of 4e players don't realize they can and more importantly should change rules to fit their players and campaign.

If you 1st or 2nd level characters run into 3 Ogres in OD&D, I don't care about your henchmen.  The correct answer is parley or run.    The outcome of that battle is going to be Ogres get first kill, Henchmen blow Morale and followed by the running and the screaming.

Quote from: CRKrueger;438941unfortunately a lot of 4e players don't realize they can and more importantly should change rules to fit their players and campaign.

RAW worship is common among gamers...and has been for decades.

Back in the day, there were PLENTY of 1e whiners and twice as many rules lawyers who were sure that changing anything was verboten.  Unfortunately, some of Gygax's lectures in the DMG and Dragon articles like Sage Advice supported the idea that gamers must look to the rules for answers.

The OSR mantra that everyone was a DIY guru in the 80s is bullshit.   Sure, it was a more prevalent attitude than in the 00s, but it was not the nostalgia utopia.

Quote from: Spinachcat;438943Back in the day, there were PLENTY of 1e whiners and twice as many rules lawyers who were sure that changing anything was verboten.  

That wasn't my experience.  Most groups I played AD&D with had their own set of houserules.  Some even put together a binder of houserules complete with photocopies of the Dragon Magazine rules they were using.  Yeah, people may have argued the interpretation of the rule, but no one I ever played with argued that the DM didn't have the right or ability to come up with his own rules, it was just expected.

Quote from: Spinachcat;438943RAW worship is common among gamers...and has been for decades.

While this is true, there has been a pretty much indisputable trend line towards greater "RAW worship" from 1974 to today.

But, honestly, this is only because the rules have achieved a level of consistency which allows for that to happen.

Going back to the earliest days, for example, it's actually impossible to run a game "according to RAW" with the LBBs. The rules are contradictory, incomplete, and vague. And there are several occasions when they say to the DM, "Here are a couple of options. Pick one." There's not a unified game to be found in there.

AD&D1 is not that dissimilar, although "incomplete" is replaced by "sub-systems so convoluted and arcane that, as far as anyone has ever been able to tell, nobody has ever run a campaign using them (and that includes Gygax)". (The "nobody" is probably a hyperbole, but not by much.)

Quote from: Benoist;438689Thanks mate, by the way. I really don't mean to say that people can't enjoy the game the way they want, the way they did, or do now. That's totally cool. I just find it such a source of renewed fun to play this game now that I feel I can actually understand it, as opposed to twenty years ago where we just did it kind of cherry picking through stuff without knowing what we were doing. I love this game. I just enjoy reading through the books now. It's so awesome.

I totally get that feeling, and that is something I want to see discussed, not mindless flamewars.

Quote from: Benoist;438701I agree with all this, Ramon, by the way. I'm looking at RuneQuest 3 the same way I've been looking at AD&D lately, and it's creating a whole new round of awesome in the same exact way. Some details I had not noticed before make sense to me now, other parts I obsessed over seem completely secondary, and I get a sense of enjoying the game anew with completely different eyes.

Oh, absolutely. It was already my favourite game, but now I love it even more. There are many things I am now more ready to appreciate, specially now that I don't fudge dice and let the dice roll where they may.

QuoteOD&D is a different animal entirely, because I didn't play it back in the day. But man, I love OD&D. It fires up my imagination in ways Swords & Wizardry doesn't. An example. There's a section in the Underworld and Wilderness Adventures (Book 3 of the LBBs) where you basically can explore the Wilderness as represented by the board of Outdoor Survival. There, some of the icons represent keeps. When the PCs walk within X miles or hexes of the keep, they basically trigger a duel with the Knight (or Cleric or Wizard) in that keep who will joust the fighting man in the group. Now that's the sort of thing that makes me see a setting, see? That inspires me to no end.

And this is awesome. Because I didn't get to read it because I couldn't stand the horrible writing, and now I see that I'm missing that. Care to elaborate more of it, maybe in another thread?

Quote from: jibbajibba;438714He wants to play the way the rules are actually written and he thinks that hirelings are an essential part of the core rules.
Effectively if you want to play REAL AD&D you need to use hirelings is where he is headed. Obviously you can play any sort of D&D you like but REAL AD&D uses hirelings.

Is that fair Ben?

That is what I get and I think is totally OK.

Quote from: Benoist;438723You can't do that if you don't try to understand the game as written in the first place. Once you do, you can run the game and make it work for you and your game table, whichever that is. It's a journey, it's not easy, but I love it.

I agree.

Quote from: Doom;438720Indeed, I've only said as much in nearly every post.

My sincere apologies, Ben. I thought you were posting those rules as indication of something other than just evidence that they exist, and should not have responded beyond simple appreciation of your effort.

Hats off to you, sir.

Quote from: Benoist;438785Yeah, because the OP is so fucking fascinating in the first place, right? :rolleyes:

That is one of my main worries.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;438804If anything the thread was rerrailed into talking about gaming rather than some pussy-resentment about a game he doesn't play.

At the end, that is what's happened. But I vastly prefer when you stick to your experiences and telling us about your games than engaging in stupid fights.

Quote from: CRKrueger;438945Yeah, people may have argued the interpretation of the rule, but no one I ever played with argued that the DM didn't have the right or ability to come up with his own rules, it was just expected.

Sadly, by the early 80s I was encountering players who thought the RAW trumped the DM. As I recall, every one of them was a one-sided rules lawyers who only brought up "but the rule book says X" when it would benefit their characters, never when it would harm them. I found these people so annoying that I told such people in my various "campaign flyers" that what the DM said always trumped the rule books in my campaigns and if they thought otherwise not to bother playing in my campaign. So while it was not nearly as bad as it's become in the last 10 years or so, these folks did exist and were campaign fun killers if allowed to get away with it.

Quote from: Windjammer;438925You know, that's a valid point. You could have condensed it into two lines.

Allow me one counter-argument, then, and I will offer no recriminations if you choose not to address it:
While not being recorded on the character sheet is not an absolute barrier to existing, most groups did have a pretty solid understanding this was the minimum requirement; ie, it has to be written down somewhere.

Quote from: WindjammerI take offense to people who fling around insults at no provocation, and keep flinging them around even when the insulted party does not reciprocate.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;438939Quotes from Doom:

"And a number of people have pointed out you're a liar..."
"Such poor reading comprehension you seem to have of late..."
"Because I know asking you to read is pointless..."
"You've been shown wrong, and a liar, and intellectually dishonest."
"But since you lack reading comprehension skills..."
"What a maroon."
"It's sad to see someone who used to be able to be coherent behave like this."
"Have you changed medications recently?"

Those are all from one post. Your claim that Doom hasn't reciprocated is... amusing.

Let's also consider where the first insults were flung in the exchange between Doom and myself. That would be this post... which was written by Doom. Prior to this, the only thing I'd criticized was the the content of his arguments. He's the one who decided to run the gambit of attacking my mental capacities (and only succeeded in resoundly embarrassing himself). Which means that your claim that there was no provocation is... also amusing.

Now, given that your post led off with such a ridiculous disconnect from reality... why should I take anything else you have to say about this thread seriously?

Initially, Abby started snapping at Doom, after both Doom and David Johansen mentioned some negative aspects of 4e combat. After that, you decided to jump in with your little song and dance, and soon proceeded to jump down Doom's throat. You started it, dude....and overall, Doom managed to be pretty restrained there for a while. You're aggressive, and you can't be completely blind to it. Just try to calm down a little. It's one thing to be cranky, but it's another thing to go apeshit. Please don't go apeshit.