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Jackard posted:Hmm, clearly the 'best' version of Forgotten Realms would resurrect a god of murder Ahh, but it is actually quite brilliant. Cyric assumed the murder portfolio after Bhaal's death, so by bringing Bhaal back, he limits Cyric's power, empowers a rival, and most importantly, removes Cyric's divine sanction to try and murder other gods, namely that goddess of magic who is likely coming back.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:20
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TKIY posted:Rolling stats is often a rite of passage into a new campaign for us. Laughing at the one guy who managed to roll a couple of sixes on 4d6 is just good fun, but we use that aforementioned 4d6 toss out the lowest, arrange to taste method. Nothing about that sounds fun to me! I don't want to roll to see what I have available to make my character! I want to build to a concept and then play that! There's a difference between applying rules in creative scenarios and having to adjust to cover standard stuff. Note all the "well, it's written x but I'd play it as y" question responses from the loving head designer. Those are not a sign of a well-made game.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:21
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Esser-Z posted:Fighter doesn't actually get mechanics that allow him to protect the wizard in 5e--monsters can ignore him. Monsters can ignore the fighter sure, but then you are assuming all monsters are intelligent enough to walk past the big metal guy with the two handed sword to go eat the squishy thing standing in the corner. Does your DM play super intelligent zombies? I also never said that the Fighter only ever plays bodyguard. Sometimes he does, but in a fight against a large solo monster that's not going to happen, etc. I'm saying in a fight where you know the wizard is going to need to pop a few big spells to whittle down a horde of monstrous gubbins, you play to that and make sure he stays in the fight. For the last point, if the Wizard is walking around with a small cadre of elite bone dudes, fine. If he's playing the game specifically in a manner that makes it boring for everyone else, we tell him/her to change it up because it's boring. Again our goal is to enjoy the game. I think the bone solo wizard is missing the point of an RPG.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:24
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TKIY posted:1. Why flip out about balance in a co-operative game? With my group, if the Wizard manages to save the day with a well timed spell, everyone is happy, even the Fighter. Are your groups that adversarial that DPS actually matters to anyone? Everybody should get to feel useful, and specifically, feel useful in a way that's consistent with what they want their character to be about. More to the point, that usefulness should come from the rules of the game, not from the game master deciding to play a certain way; because that way it feels like part of the character, not a contrivance of the story.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:24
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People talk about the Interesting Roleplaying Challenges two sixes bring, but when it comes down to it they're just gonna put the high rolls in their important stats and the low ones in their less important stats. So it's like, ha ha guys, I'm going to fail all my charisma and intelligence rolls, isn't that wacky and fun? I may also broadly play my guy as ugly and stupid, oh man this is a riot.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:24
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Jimbozig posted:What can the fighter do to protect the Wizard that a Cleric couldn't do as well or better? Mechanically? At the lower levels they are more survivable unless the Cleric is blowing heals on himself. At higher levels from what I see they are certainly a bigger threat in melee as far as damage potential from weaponry. Part of it, again, is how the monsters are played.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:26
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TKIY posted:Mechanically? At the lower levels they are more survivable unless the Cleric is blowing heals on himself. The Fighter has no heals at all, so the party doesn't lose anything if the Fighter is replaced with a Cleric who only heals himself.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:28
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TKIY posted:Monsters can ignore the fighter sure, but then you are assuming all monsters are intelligent enough to walk past the big metal guy with the two handed sword to go eat the squishy thing standing in the corner. Does your DM play super intelligent zombies? Nobody is saying that you can't enjoy or have fun with this game. You can easily have fun with sub-par RPGs, hell my group would probably have fun playing FATAL but that doesn't mean that the system is good. Most of the people probably played 3.5 for a lengthy period of time and had fun, but I'm guessing most of them aren't gonna say that it was a good and balanced system. Do you seriously not see that the wizard being more effective in combat, having more utility and narrative control than a fighter is a big problem in a party-based game? Even in your example the fighter needed the enemy to be stupid for the fighter to even approach the wizard.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:29
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TKIY posted:So I've been playing since the red box, and so far my group is rather enjoying 5th, even though we are only playing the starter box at the moment. 1: Because when the wizard can solve everything, no-one else is really playing. 2: The problem isn't 'let the DM decide' so much as it's 'one clas is 'let the DM decide its effectiveness' whilst the other is 'hardcoded effectiveness'. 3: Fun is a bad measurement because ANY system can be fun with the right group. Hell, NO system can be a fun way to run an RPG with the right group. A good system is (likely to be) fun regardless of the group. (I find it hard to resist answering lists of questions for some reason)
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Sep 1, 2014 19:29
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When I see a fight with a bunch of enemmies, I don't want my warrior holding them off so the Wizard can blast them. I want my warrior in the fray of battle, cutting down foe after foe. Perhaps with some kind of multi-target attacks. I don't feel like the martial Next classes get to ever take the spotlight the way the spellcasters can. You talk about guarding the wizard so they can solve a problem... But that itself IS the problem--the fact that wizards can solve a multitude of problems that others can't--or have to specialize for. Basically, the player of the wizard gets far more ways to influence the game and the narrative than the player of the fighter. That is not a good thing! Why should one person get more fun than another? And before you say anything, I say this: there is no legitimate reason for a magic-using class to get that greater influence. "Beginniner" and "advanced" player classes are bullshit--I've been playing rpgs for a decade, and I often want to play a fighting man, not a caster! Should I have to deal with a lack of options and influence--and straight up power, both in and out of combat--in order to play the kind of character I prefer? Why should wizard players--not wizards, wizard PLAYERS, because it's not just about the in-game world--get more control of the game than people who want to play a warrior? If the setting demands magic be godly powerful, it is the setting that must be changed. Esser-Z fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 19:29
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Bongo Bill posted:Everybody should get to feel useful, and specifically, feel useful in a way that's consistent with what they want their character to be about. More to the point, that usefulness should come from the rules of the game, not from the game master deciding to play a certain way; because that way it feels like part of the character, not a contrivance of the story. I disagree on your second point. The GMs job is to make sure that everyone is enjoying themselves. If the wizard is rolling through everything solo, and the fighter player is bored to tears, the GM needs to correct that. Solid Jake posted:People talk about the Interesting Roleplaying Challenges two sixes bring, but when it comes down to it they're just gonna put the high rolls in their important stats and the low ones in their less important stats. Again, that player would generally re-roll if they had a pair of sixes, unless they opted not to. If your group doesn't find a clueless, classless character to be fun to play once in a while I don't know what to tell you. The game is what you make it.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:31
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People are still harping on about rolling stats? Its just an option, I find it fun so I do it, you don't find it fun? That's alright since it's just an option and you can use the array or whatever. Do whatever you have the most fun with. We have yet to play our game but its coming up sometime this week and I see a lot of talk about Mage Supremecy. Talked it over with the DM and he's thinking of giving our martial characters Just a warrior atm that feat that gives maneuvers so he can do something other then run up and attack. Any other ideas or should that help out enough?
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Sep 1, 2014 19:31
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TKIY posted:Monsters can ignore the fighter sure, but then you are assuming all monsters are intelligent enough to walk past the big metal guy with the two handed sword to go eat the squishy thing standing in the corner. Does your DM play super intelligent zombies? Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 19:32
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TKIY posted:I disagree on your second point. The GMs job is to make sure that everyone is enjoying themselves. If the wizard is rolling through everything solo, and the fighter player is bored to tears, the GM needs to correct that. If the fighter and the wizard were well designed classes this kind of GM intervention wouldn't be needed (at least not very often). Andrast fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 19:34
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Nihilarian posted:You shouldn't have to tell the wizard to change his character. He should be able to make his character without worrying about overshadowing the idiots who picked a nonmagic class. You are literally dragging him down. He might loving love necromancers and be giddy as hell to play one, and suddenly he has to remake his character because the fighter is feeling useless. This is bad. The "hit things with a sword" concept should be playable in the same group as the skeleton master concept, and if it isn't then that means there's a problem. This. A thousand times this.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:35
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Andrast posted:Do you seriously not see that the wizard being more effective in combat, having more utility and narrative control than a fighter is a big problem in a party-based game? Even in your example the fighter needed the enemy to be stupid for the fighter to even approach the wizard. Stupid enemies are pretty common. Animals, beasts, undead, many humanoids are all stupid and generally hit the thing closest to them. I expect intelligent enemies to be harder to fight, and they will hunt down the Wizard when they can sure. Also your imagined Wizard is pretty amazing prescient to have all the useful spells exactly when they need them. If we have a Rogue handy, our Wizard won't prepare Knock, since another character has that utility covered. thespaceinvader posted:1: Because when the wizard can solve everything, no-one else is really playing. 1: The Wizard solving everything is red herring. They are capable of doing many things, but they generally don't have enough spells to do everything all day every day. How many Knocks does your Wizard cast in a day? 3? Better hope there aren't four locks in that manor house. 2: Kind of the same answer as #1. GMs have to adapt and adjust on the fly, this system is basically saying you need to do this up front. 3: So what does determine a good system? Math? Bongo Bill posted:The Fighter has no heals at all, so the party doesn't lose anything if the Fighter is replaced with a Cleric who only heals himself. Except melee damage output and resiliency between heals? A cleric healing himself isn't hurting anything else.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:40
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Mendrian posted:Next is full of obnoxious holes that even prior (non-4e!) editions have managed to solve So this is a sentiment I've seen that I legitimately take umbrage with. Aside from things like typos, confusing spell descriptions, and other poo poo that can/will receive errata (because this stuff is in the first print run of every RPG's core book), what things do people believe 5E does worse mechanically than OD&D, AD&D, or 3E's core rules? So far the conclusion I've personally drawn about 5E is that while it does represent a step backward from what 4E was trying to do in many ways, and it certainly lacks any kind of innovation (which probably isn't what most people want from D&D anyway), taken on its merits it's really no worse than any prior edition of the game and has positive qualities some of them lack, like ability scores more sanely bounded and the background system which makes a character's non-combat features and functions distinct from their class - i.e. you can take the Criminal background and be a lockpick and a sneak even if you're a Paladin. I'm genuinely curious about the ways those of you who think it unfavorably compares to older editions think it does so by the book. (and I'm saying without DM fiat, so no "well 3E actually works really well if you ban non-casters and 9th level casters and use this one late-phase 3.5 splatbook and" which is the same poo poo people get torn apart for doing with 5E itt)
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Sep 1, 2014 19:41
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TKIY posted:1. Why flip out about balance in a co-operative game? With my group, if the Wizard manages to save the day with a well timed spell, everyone is happy, even the Fighter. Are your groups that adversarial that DPS actually matters to anyone? Mentioning DPS shows that you don't understand the problem. It's not about damage and it never has been. It's not even about combat performance in general. It's about the fact that as the party levels up the Wizard gets a spell for every occasion and the Fighter gets... more attacks. This starts right out of the gate. "Awesome, I leveled up! Now, as well as charming people, disguising myself, summoning a celestial owl to scout for the party with whom I can communicate telepathically, leaping further than the world's strongest and most Remarkable Athlete, crafting illusions that monsters have an extremely poor chance to recognise as illusions, falling safely from any height, understanding any language including the most cryptic ciphers created by the most talented thief/rogue/spy masterminds in the world and creating magical forcefields to deflect attacks, I can read people's minds and turn invisible! What did you get, Fighter?" "Um..." TKIY posted:2. How is DM fiat any different in 5e than in any other TTRPG ever? Narrative sections, roleplay interactions, world building and the like all happen with at least some DM fiat. A designer saying 'let the DM decide' is really not an issue that I can see since it actually takes away some of the rulebook lawyering that can make a game run slowly and turns the system into player versus GM. Nothing stops the DM from saying "no, that's dumb, here's how (e.g.) Stealth works at my table" in previous editions of D&D, or indeed in any other game. The difference is that 5e has decided to turn unclear or entirely absent rules into a selling point. Look at the guy I responded to a few pages back. He's a first time DM and had a player with a neat idea to lassoo a goblin. He did his best and came up with what he thought was a fair ruling for it, but it worked out to an 11% chance of success for the player (and an 89% chance of wasting his action). This is why rules exist. This is why rules are important. This is why it's dumb, bad game design to say 'it's up to the DM' for everything.. Expecting every DM, everywhere, in every game, to be able to come up with fair and balanced rulings for anything, on the fly and round by round is completely unrealistic. Also, I'm not sure how much DMing experience you have, but being able to point to a rulebook and say "sorry dude, those are the rules!" is much less likely to cause arguments than having to go "no, that's the way it is because I say so". TKIY posted:3. Why is 'fun' useless as a measurement of a system? I thought that was the point? If a system isn't perfect but it's fun to play how bad can it be. Pretty bad! Specifically, far worse than other games of the same kind at delivering the desired experience. When I moved house, a couple of buddies came over and helped me paint rooms and unpack boxes. We had fun cause we were hanging out shooting the poo poo. Does this mean that game night would be just as fun if I made them come over and do my chores for me instead of gaming? TKIY posted:It's like several posters here are adamant that their numerical results prove that he is HAVING FUN WRONG. If you have fun with 5e, that's great. What people object to (and what you've just posted) is "well I had fun so it must be pretty good". That's simply not true. There are a whole bunch of things about 5e that are objectively bad, and the fact that they didn't prevent you and/or your group from having fun doesn't change that. TKIY posted:Perhaps it has a lot to do with the group. We roll stats with caveats for truly lovely rolls, we roll hit points but reroll anything less than half of maximum, and we accept that sometimes a little railroading means the story opens up an exciting plot development or great set piece. These games, to us, are collaborative storytelling but we *like* the comfortable confines of a system and world that are familiar and immediately accessible to us. That's why my current group went AD&D2e -> 3.0 -> 3.5 -> Pathfinder and bailed on 4th. TKIY posted:4th was just so foreign it didn't feel like D&D and 5e does. You're checking off grog bingo boxes at this point. Feel and familiarity are more important to you than good quality game design, and that's fine. As I've said, though, it doesn't mean you can dismiss all criticism of 5e. Here's something that may surprise you: I've had fun with 5e too. But 99% of it came from hanging out with my friends and roleplaying rather than from the rules (which were actually super boring, especially in combat). I've also done a lot of numbercrunching and detailed analysis of the rules, and they're bad. There are grains and glimmers of good stuff in 5e, but that almost makes me more frustrated; they're buried deep. TKIY posted:[That stat rolling method is] Exactly what my group does. I posted that as a joke, because the results are always better than the array.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:42
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TKIY posted:Stuff And the group would be better off with an extra wizard and and an extra cleric rather than a fighter and a rogue.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:43
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Nihilarian posted:You shouldn't have to tell the wizard to change his character. He should be able to make his character without worrying about overshadowing the idiots who picked a nonmagic class. You are literally dragging him down. He might loving love necromancers and be giddy as hell to play one, and suddenly he has to remake his character because the fighter is feeling useless. This is bad. The "hit things with a sword" concept should be playable in the same group as the "skeleton master" concept, and if it isn't then that means there's a problem. If one guy sitting at the table is constantly taking twenty five minutes to play one combat round because he's rolling attacks and planning moves for thirty skeletons and then tracking hits against, etc, the fighter isn't bored because his character is useless, he's bored because it takes a half an hour for his round to come around every time. Players can and will break any system they play. Look at any tabletop wargame, RPG, whatever, there is broken poo poo in there. Telling a player to scale it back a bit isn't a system problem, it's a player problem.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:45
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TKIY posted:Also your imagined Wizard is pretty amazing prescient to have all the useful spells exactly when they need them. If we have a Rogue handy, our Wizard won't prepare Knock, since another character has that utility covered. Having to prepare every individual spell was deemed unfair to Wizards. They can use any slot on any spell they've prepared now. quote:Except melee damage output and resiliency between heals? A cleric healing himself isn't hurting anything else. A Valor Bard, on the other hand, can fight and heal just fine.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:48
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TKIY posted:If one guy sitting at the table is constantly taking twenty five minutes to play one combat round because he's rolling attacks and planning moves for thirty skeletons and then tracking hits against, etc, the fighter isn't bored because his character is useless, he's bored because it takes a half an hour for his round to come around every time. How much weaker the fighter would need to be than the wizard in D&D before you would consider it a problem?
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Sep 1, 2014 19:48
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I find "I declare my attack, roll, done." boring no matter what. I loved D&D 4e becuase it gave all characters options on their turns, and gave them the tools needed to actually do different jobs. I like a rules system that actually makes combat work the way it "should", in that the mechanics reinforce the idea of a bold knight holding waves of enemies at bay while the rogue assassinates and the wizard manipulates his foes. Next does not do this. It is possible to make a summoning necromancer that is effective but does not massively slow down the game. It is possible to make a fighter who can function as a defensive bulwark and/or a slayer of foes. Next does not do this. The game mechanics do not support the desired roleplaying experience in many ways, and what they do support tends to specifically fall into the hands of spellcasters. Furthermore, many of the rules require the GM to play the job of on-the-spot game designer even in fairly common types of scenario. She should not be expected to be a game designer! There are ACTUAL designers for that! It is one thing to apply the rules to a new sitatuon; it is something entirely different to have to think up entire new rules to arbitrate an action. Thus, I consider Next a bad game. Can you have fun with it? Sure. But that applies to any game, given the right group.
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Sep 1, 2014 19:51
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TKIY posted:Also your imagined Wizard is pretty amazing prescient to have all the useful spells exactly when they need them. If we have a Rogue handy, our Wizard won't prepare Knock, since another character has that utility covered. Right. Instead, he prepares Invisibility/Hold Person/Rope Trick/Suggestion/Misty Step/Mirror Image/Detect Thoughts/Crown of Madness. The Rogue has freed up a spell slot. Good job, Rogue! Meanwhile, if the party doesn't have a Rogue, oh look - Knock to the rescue. TKIY posted:1: The Wizard solving everything is red herring. They are capable of doing many things, but they generally don't have enough spells to do everything all day every day. How many Knocks does your Wizard cast in a day? 3? Better hope there aren't four locks in that manor house. If there are four locks, I shrug and use Arcane Recovery to regain a Knock or three. How often do you encounter four locks in a row in your games, though? I'm curious. TKIY posted:2: Kind of the same answer as #1. GMs have to adapt and adjust on the fly, this system is basically saying you need to do this up front. GMs do not have to adapt and adjust on the fly nearly as much in a system with clearer and more comprehensive rules. TKIY posted:3: So what does determine a good system? Math? Partly, yeah. Also, everyone at the table being able to contribute roughly equally throughout the session and adventure, having multiple meaningful options in terms of what to do when presented with a situation etc etc. TKIY posted:Except melee damage output and resiliency between heals? A cleric healing himself isn't hurting anything else. How about a Moon Druid? Right from level 2, you can shift into a Brown Bear twice per short rest. You gain 34 HP on top of your 17 in human form (the Fighter has 20) and can attack twice at +5 for 1d8+4 and 2d6+4 (the Fighter can attack once at +5 for 2d6+3). You also have spells. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 19:52
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Clerics can totally heal themselves and hurt enemies. Look at the Healing Word spell.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:00
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Andrast posted:And the group would be better off with an extra wizard and and an extra cleric rather than a fighter and a rogue. Unless you had players that wanted to play a Fighter and Rogue. I design my games around the players and their characters so that everyone has moments in the sun. Really Pants posted:Having to prepare every individual spell was deemed unfair to Wizards. They can use any slot on any spell they've prepared now. Right but they still have limited slots and have a limited number of spells prepared to use in those slots. They are swiss army knives *if* they have 24 hours notice and know what to expect. Andrast posted:How much weaker the fighter would need to be than the wizard in D&D before you would consider it a problem? How do you quantify 'weaker'? I don't want to avoid the question but I think that each has their own strengths. A fighter without his equipment is far more dangerous than a wizard without his spellbook. Anyhow it sounds like I'm getting the same answers MonsterEnvy is. I'll agree that the rules in some places are a bit off, but I think that your approach to the game dramatically alters how big a deal that is. Maybe I am 2e/3e grog as all hell, but there is some serious 4e grog coming back the other way you must admit. Jack the Lad posted:If you have fun with 5e, that's great. What people object to (and what you've just posted) is "well I had fun so it must be pretty good". That's simply not true. There are a whole bunch of things about 5e that are objectively bad, and the fact that they didn't prevent you and/or your group from having fun doesn't change that. This post is pretty massive so I apologize if I don't speak to each point individually but I get your points, I really do. I just don't think that they drat the entire game. I don't think you can do a numerical comparison of the various formula, in isolation and without context, and use that to determine that a game is bad. Your hypothetical wizard who has any one of a number of spells available at any time doesn't exist at my table. The guy who monopolizes the table time each combat round scales it back so everyone feels involved. My point is that this can happen in any RPG, tabletop game or other system that has the variety of scenarios that D&D does. Something that is distilled down to a series of numerically equal and limited actions doesn't really feel like an RPG to us. That was the big flaw in 4e from our perspective: It was bland and boring. Finally I just want to say that I am not saying your perspective is invalid, I'm saying that there is a valid alternate perspective that says that the game feels right to an alternate group of gamers and that the pile on is a bit over the top. Anyone in here that comes in and posts about a positive experience is pretty much guaranteed to get the 'broken Wizard treatment' in short order.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:01
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This is some Caster Supremacy 101 poo poo.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:03
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Well. Wizard is broken and warrior classes lack tools to influence the narrative--or even combat beyond direct damage! That severely limits the fun potential for some of us!
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Sep 1, 2014 20:04
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Bongo Bill posted:This is some Caster Supremacy 101 poo poo. I should probably just go and copy+paste some 3.5 criticisms at this point.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:04
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Why should the wizard player HAVE to scale back? Why should he not get to use all of his mechanics? That's bad design, right there!
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Sep 1, 2014 20:05
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A good system does not have to be fought against. It does not require the GM to decide which monsters are stupid enough to believe the Fighter is a credible threat, or figure out how every encounter can have enough improvised weapons for the Fighter to get any sort of interest out of "I attack" ad infinitum.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:06
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Gort posted:Clerics can totally heal themselves and hurt enemies. Look at the Healing Word spell. Handy at up to 2nd level I guess. 1d4+WIS is really not going to do much when it's a Troll rending your cleric apart. That Moon Druid sounds pretty sweet though.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:06
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TKIY posted:Handy at up to 2nd level I guess. 1d4+WIS is really not going to do much when it's a Troll rending your cleric apart.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:07
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TKIY posted:Handy at up to 2nd level I guess. 1d4+WIS is really not going to do much when it's a Troll rending your cleric apart. This brings me to the other criticism of the Cleric, which is that it gets nothing to do but heal as the party level increases.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:08
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TKIY posted:Unless you had players that wanted to play a Fighter and Rogue. I design my games around the players and their characters so that everyone has moments in the sun. Also, isn't Knock a ritual?
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Sep 1, 2014 20:10
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If I was GMing this I would probably just give the players full health after every combat. Nothing more boring than healbotting.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:10
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TKIY posted:3. Why is 'fun' useless as a measurement of a system? I thought that was the point? If a system isn't perfect but it's fun to play how bad can it be. I do think that non-quantitative design choices are a little undervalued in this thread, but it is a solid point that a lot of the 'fun' that you feel from a game is coming from your friends/etc and that you'll be able to have fun even when the game's rules are actively working against you. A lot of the time even the things that seem most fun short-term end up sapping way more fun away long-term. Like, take stats rolling. I love slightly randomized character generation, and in a lot of ways random stat rolling is great at that--a set of randomly rolled stats suggests a type of character that you probably wouldn't have made otherwise, but also lets you interpret it however you want. I really like having some element in character creation that knocks me out of my rut when building a personality/backstory/whatever, and even just a little thing like stats actually does a pretty good job of that. I can't give a qualitative explanation for how rolling for stats makes the game more fun for me, but it's absolutely something that does add fun for me compared to stat-buy (as a note, I come from a stat-buy background and always looked down on random rolling, and was only converted recently). However, I'd never run a 3e+ D&D game with randomly rolled stats. All the problems people are giving here are too real. I firmly believe that rolling for stats adds fun, but massive long-term gaps in effectiveness between characters destroys more fun than random rolling could ever add. What I want is a system where you have this back and forth between the game system giving you facts about your character and you interpreting them where the random elements don't sometimes just randomly gently caress you over. I think people are a bit too dismissive of the ups-sides of randomness, but they're absolutely right with all the down-sides.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:11
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TKIY posted:This post is pretty massive so I apologize if I don't speak to each point individually but I get your points, I really do. I just don't think that they drat the entire game. I don't think you can do a numerical comparison of the various formula, in isolation and without context, and use that to determine that a game is bad. If you can point to what I've discussed in isolation and without context, I'd be grateful. I've looked at everything I've looked at in game terms and by comparison to other (supposedly) equivalent options. TKIY posted:Your hypothetical wizard who has any one of a number of spells available at any time doesn't exist at my table.The guy who monopolizes the table time each combat round scales it back so everyone feels involved. My point is that this can happen in any RPG, tabletop game or other system that has the variety of scenarios that D&D does. If your Wizard abides by a gentleman's agreement not to overshadow everyone else, that's great. But I'm sure he'd have more fun if he didn't have to worry about it. If you think the caster problem in 5e exists in every RPG, I don't know what to say. You claim to have played 4e. Did you find it an issue there? TKIY posted:Something that is distilled down to a series of numerically equal and limited actions doesn't really feel like an RPG to us. That was the big flaw in 4e from our perspective: It was bland and boring. If you think 4e is simply 'a series of numerically equal and limited actions' then I'm afraid I really doubt that you've played it. That's a common grog criticism, generally leveled at 4e because the powers are in colour-coded statblocks that look the same if you don't actually read any of the text on them. In what ways is the Fighter - or indeed anyone - less limited in 5e than in 4e? TKIY posted:Finally I just want to say that I am not saying your perspective is invalid, I'm saying that there is a valid alternate perspective that says that the game feels right to an alternate group of gamers and that the pile on is a bit over the top. Anyone in here that comes in and posts about a positive experience is pretty much guaranteed to get the 'broken Wizard treatment' in short order. I agree that there is a bit of a pile-on tendency. But nobody is denying anybody's experiences or calling them badwrongfun. What gets people riled up is "well I didn't have a problem so there isn't one". If you want to engage, that's fine, but all you've really said so far is that it feels right'. Important question: what does feel like an RPG to you?
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Sep 1, 2014 20:13
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Just wanna point out that Reign has totally random chargen that manages to be completely balanced and intermixable with point-buy chargen. It's not impossible to make random character generation that isn't also random capability distribution. You could easily have, say, a six stat array that ensures everybody gets a 16 in something and an 8 something else and an assortment of values in between and then simply randomly determine the order in which those stats are applied. Or you could do what the 4E-based Gamma World did which had all sorts of random character generation but was nonetheless designed to ensure that you had solid ability scores where it mattered most for the character you'd rolled up. What I'm saying is that "random character generation" doesn't have to go hand in hand with "haha sometimes you roll a poo poo character oh well, that's life!"
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Sep 1, 2014 20:26
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Jack the Lad posted:If you can point to what I've discussed in isolation and without context, I'd be grateful. I've looked at everything I've looked at in game terms and by comparison to other (supposedly) equivalent options. Sorting out maximum damage for n Skeletons versus a fighter swining a +n sword is great unless the critter has DR, is standing in a flame pit, is immune to normal weapons, etc. My point isn't that your numbers are flawed, it's that those perfect scenarios don't always occur in a game. Jack the Lad posted:If your Wizard abides by a gentleman's agreement not to overshadow everyone else, that's great. But I'm sure he'd have more fun if he didn't have to worry about it. My group soured on 4e really, really fast. We, admittedly, didn't give it another chance either. Everything about it felt off. Feel is a massive part of the game and no one was going to play something we didn't enjoy. As for a gentleman's agreement, it's not even anything that specific. We always end a session with a discussion of who had fun, what they didn't like and adjust on the fly. Our goal is to game not to win. Hard to put it any more precisely than that. Jack the Lad posted:If you think 4e is simply 'a series of numerically equal and limited actions' then I'm afraid I really doubt that you've played it. That's a common grog criticism, generally leveled at 4e because the powers are in colour-coded statblocks that look the same if you don't actually read any of the text on them. As above I totally admit an extremely limited 4e experience. I'm not really trying to make this an 'edition wars' post though, I'm trying to talk about 5e as it's own entity but it's obviously hard not to make comparisons. What feels like an RPG? Tough question. For us, it's sitting around, unwinding and pretending to be someone else for a while. Rules are good, but they are guidelines to point in some sort of direction and provide a setting for a fun time.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:31
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