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AlphaDog posted:"I made a statement that I can't or won't back up in any way. Therefore, it's just a matter of opinion. I'm just going to drop it". Dude you're arguing with a brick wall made of stupid. You might want to just let him continue being wrong and not feed him attention.
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Sep 5, 2014 03:18
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I'm still relatively new to this thread, why is it always so hostile? I'd make a D&D, debate and discussion joke but I can't think of any that isn't super corny.
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Sep 5, 2014 03:21
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This game isn't even out yet, and already people will lie and weasel to defend their precious tummy feels.
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Sep 5, 2014 03:29
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You don't need to take insults to a game personally. I played the Munchkin card game and had lots of fun. The cards had cute art and I liked the theme and the backstabbing and banter it could create. I thought it was neat and considered buying it years later when I saw it on a shelf. Later I came across people calling it a poo poo game and at first I was defensive, because I enjoyed it. Were they calling my experience poo poo? No, not really. After reading further, I found that the criticisms leveled against the game were pretty legitimate and I was lucky to play with a good group who all got decent draws and didn't decide to drag the whole thing out until it lost its charm. I think some of us are being unfair to D&D, myself included, but being the FLAGSHIP OF TABLETOP RPGS means you'll draw a lot of attention, good and bad. Would those of you defending it really be so interested in doing so if it was just some OSR heartbreaker? I know I wouldn't be as critical of it if it were.
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Sep 5, 2014 03:40
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jigokuman posted:Would those of you defending it really be so interested in doing so if it was just some OSR heartbreaker? I know I wouldn't be as critical of it if it were. I think this is kind of a feedback loop of suck. If it were Caverns and Catoblepases* instead, nobody would care very much about flaws in the system. Likewise, nobody would be heavily emotionally invested in the feeling of playing Caverns and Catoblepases. I mean, people on both sides would exist, they just wouldn't care enough to make dumbshit arguments or start outright lying, or to get super pissed off if one or two idiots wanted to do those things. The thing is, people were paid a loving wage to make D&D. They got to work on it as a job. Players aren't exactly being nitpicky when they want it to be better at doing whatever it was they previously liked about the game regardless of whether that's something very specific like "the math lines up in these ways" or super vague like "it is a fun game to play with my friends". I can't think of any scenario other than D&D (or maybe Warhammer) where people who want to say "flaws don't matter, I had fun", also need people who don't like flaws to agree that the flaws they're upset about don't exist. *A fictional game designed by one fictional designer in their spare time. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 03:54
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jigokuman posted:You don't need to take insults to a game personally. Oh I'm not talking about the hostility toward the game, love or hate whatever you want, its a game and every game has flaws and the thread has shown me 5e has quite a few. I'm talking about the outright hostility between posters. Edit: vvvv Ah, I see. Cainer fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 03:58
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Cainer posted:Oh I'm not talking about the hostility toward the game, love or hate whatever you want, its a game and every game has flaws and the thread has shown me 5e has quite a few. I'm talking about the outright hostility between posters. He means that some people take insults to the game as insults to themselves.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:18
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AlphaDog posted:I don't need the book to run the adventure? You need the book to run the Adventure but the Statblocks can be used independently of it. Here is my issue with you. I answered the question and already gave my reasoning twice already. But you keep going how and why when I already said How and Why. I have backed up it several times, it is a matter of opinion and I am tried of going back and forth with you which is why I want to drop it. Slimnoid posted:Dude you're arguing with a brick wall made of stupid. You might want to just let him continue being wrong and not feed him attention. You are worse then he is, just coming out of nowhere to insult me. I am not stupid for sating my opinion about how a PDF 30 page free pdf that anyone can use, is better then taking 30 pages out of a 92 page adventure to give you the stats that only the book owners, or people that buy the monster Manuel can use. Cainer posted:Oh I'm not talking about the hostility toward the game, love or hate whatever you want, its a game and every game has flaws and the thread has shown me 5e has quite a few. I'm talking about the outright hostility between posters. They hate me because I made some mistakes about rules in the game and like it. I don't even want fights or anything, but half of the posters feel the need to undermine me or insult me for my opinions. I Remember earlier in the thread we learned that several of the people that were positive about this game refuse to go on this thread do to how hostile and toxic it is. I hate this thread it was originally created to be the more positive thread about this game. Yet this is just as bad as the Imp Zone thread. And despite many posters agreeing that it's a better game then 3.5 and pathfinder those threads are not nearly as bad as this one.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:21
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My problem with the game is that I didn't want a game that's better then 3.5 or Pathfinder since I already have that(several even), instead I wanted a game that's better then 4th Edition.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:28
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Cainer posted:Oh I'm not talking about the hostility toward the game, love or hate whatever you want, its a game and every game has flaws and the thread has shown me 5e has quite a few. I'm talking about the outright hostility between posters. Its mostly a result of people starting with a reasonable discussion and then coming to conclusions. Then someone coming in completely sideways into the thread ignoring discussion by saying 'this doesn't apply because my group had fun'. Then people getting angry because they already went through this entire song and dance about why that doesn't actually mean anything. Then when they person leaves or understands what the discussion they skipped was about. Someone else does it and it starts all over again.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:32
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MonsterEnvy posted:You need the book to run the Adventure but the Statblocks can be used independently of it. Here is my issue with you. You are consistently wrong about game rules, and instead of admitting it you say that that's how you're going to run it anyway, or that it clearly should be what you're saying instead, or anything else you can think of that's not "I got that wrong, sorry". You lie about what you've previously posted. Just last page, you said you did not comment on the extra pages in the monster manual, but you did. We are not "going back and forth". You told us that the PDF is "more convenient". You haven't explained how. When I asked you how having to download a PDF is more convenient than having the stats in the adventure book, you told me... MonsterEnvy posted:Yes, You don't even need the book, you can just grab the PDF. And it's better when actually playing the game. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 04:33
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MonsterEnvy posted:They hate me because I made some mistakes about rules in the game and like it. I don't even want fights or anything, but half of the posters feel the need to undermine me or insult me for my opinions. No they don't dude. They get mad at you because you hand wave away issues people have with the game as not problems. The pf thread is a lot better than this because the people that enjoy the game (like myself) acknowledge that there a giant loving problems with the game. Everytime someone comes in doing the stuff you tend to do in this thread, the thread dogpiles on them for making statements about the game they very clear have not done the research to support. I'm having some fun with 5e. I probably think its also a much easier game to play and run than pf but I would be the first to say there are loving huge problems with it.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:47
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MonsterEnvy posted:You are worse then he is, just coming out of nowhere to insult me. I am not stupid for sating my opinion about how a PDF 30 page free pdf that anyone can use, is better then taking 30 pages out of a 92 page adventure to give you the stats that only the book owners, or people that buy the monster Manuel can use. Oh my god you used a comma!  quote:I hate this thread Then stop posting in it.
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Sep 5, 2014 05:00
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kingcom posted:The pf thread is a lot better than this because the people that enjoy the game (like myself) acknowledge that there a giant loving problems with the game.
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Sep 5, 2014 05:19
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AlphaDog posted:Here is my issue with you. I am not consistently wrong. I make mistakes and I admit to them when I do. I did not lie, I honestly forgot. I said my opinions on it on the post before that the reason why it is better in actual play I mentioned as well. You keep asking why I find the PDF I said why. You don't have to flip through the book in the middle of play to go find the stats. Slimnoid posted:Oh my god you used a comma! You are just an rear end in a top hat. kingcom posted:No they don't dude. They get mad at you because you hand wave away issues people have with the game as not problems. The pf thread is a lot better than this because the people that enjoy the game (like myself) acknowledge that there a giant loving problems with the game. Everytime someone comes in doing the stuff you tend to do in this thread, the thread dogpiles on them for making statements about the game they very clear have not done the research to support. I'm having some fun with 5e. I probably think its also a much easier game to play and run than pf but I would be the first to say there are loving huge problems with it. I know I was over blowing it there. I know there are problems, but a lot of the stuff brought up in the thread are not problems for me or I don't see as problems, but that is a difference of opinion. Honestly I just want this thread to stop being so bad.
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Sep 5, 2014 05:31
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MonsterEnvy posted:I am not consistently wrong. I make mistakes and I admit to them when I do. You are consistently wrong about rules. Here are two recent ones. You've admitted to being wrong about the second one, but you completely ignored multiple people asking you what the hell you meant by the first one. MonsterEnvy posted:Invisibility in this game does not actually make you any harder to detect. MonsterEnvy posted:A natural 20 is always a pass no matter what. The thing is, neither of these are that bad taken on their own, but you've "made mistakes" which just so happen to support your argument again. MonsterEnvy posted:I did not lie, I honestly forgot. This, as well as the previous thing, could be solved by you looking at either a rulebook or your own post history before you make absolute statements about what was or was not written somewhere. MonsterEnvy posted:Honestly I just want this thread to stop being so bad. See, here's the part where if I was the unreasonable cockhead you seem think everyone is, I would say "so stop posting in it". It's just a perfect opportunity. Instead, I'm going to say again that if people would support their arguments instead of making unsupported (or demonstrably wrong) statements and then defending them because they feel right, we could discuss this game instead of arguing about it. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 05:50
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AlphaDog posted:we could discuss this game instead of arguing about it. I agree. On the Invisibility thing I thought there was no point in post about it. Given that other people already explained how it worked. It does not make you harder to detect, if you are sneaking and invisible or if you are sneaking and not invisible the perception check to notice you is the same. It has a ton of other benefits that other people mentioned like being able to hide anywhere, but actually detecting a person is not made harder by it. Anyway this does not matter other people already pointed the other stuff about it out. Also nether of those mistakes supported my argument. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 06:01
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MonsterEnvy posted:I agree. Please please quote the rules text, with page references, that supports the statement "Invisibility does not make the invisible creature harder to detect".
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Sep 5, 2014 06:07
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quote:Instead, I'm going to say again that if people would support their arguments instead of making unsupported (or demonstrably wrong) statements and then defending them because they feel right, we could discuss this game instead of arguing about it. You are presenting yourself as a rationalist who is trying to stem the tide of all these ignorant posters ('people') who are making unfounded suppositions about 5e ('game is enjoyable, I dunno I just had fun') and if people are not doing their best to persuade you that the game is good in a formal capacity, they aren't participating in the thread 'properly.' And I mean like, Alpha, you're easily one of the nicest posters in this thread. We also have poo poo like, "Lol 5e fans are grogs trying to defend their lovely game with tummyfeels, lol, where's the logic?' and that's not really going to engender a fantastic discussion either. There's a lot of projection going on here - I'm not just talking about onto MonsterEnvy either. If somebody says, "hey, this bit was fun', there's a backlash against it that includes all sorts of dredged up Edition Warrior rhetoric that nobody loving wanted to talk about in the first place. For example. I loved 4e. I think 4e is a better designed game than 5e. I think that that 4e is definitely Dungeons and Dragons, and I think that people who argue otherwise are pretty dumb. I also acknowledge there is a massive problem with the Fighter, that Wizard-Edition is back in full force, and that there clearly wasn't very close attention paid to the numbers. Ergo, I will never persuade you that these things are other than they are because I do not believe that anyway - I can't persuade you with supported arguments because I don't really stand behind the arguments in the first place. I can still want to play the game, and therefore this thread could be a useful place for that kind of discussion - and indeed, we see bit of it, houserules and optimization guidelines, and poo poo like that. Basically I don't take umbrage with the criticism because I think the critics are right. I take umbrage with the fact that people who come here looking to just talk about the game are asked to defend why they want to talk about it in anything other than a critical capacity. Also MonsterEnvy is doing a very poor job of defending his position. EDIT: I apologize if, in the quote I made of you, you ware talking specifically of MonsterEnvy because he is clearly unable to support his rules assumptions with text. I thought 'people' was code for 'people who are for some reason supporting 5e'.
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Sep 5, 2014 06:17
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As far as the whole PDF thing goes, my ideal situation would have been to include a separate book called "Encounters in Hoard of the Dragon Queen" that's a small softcover 30 page book of what the PDF is. It could have just been bundled with every single copy and the pair wrapped in plastic. If that boosted the price $5, who would really care? And then also release the PDF online.
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Sep 5, 2014 06:32
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Mendrian posted:EDIT: I apologize if, in the quote I made of you, you ware talking specifically of MonsterEnvy because he is clearly unable to support his rules assumptions with text. I thought 'people' was code for 'people who are for some reason supporting 5e'. I meant specifically him, but you do touch on something important that I can't ever seem to phrase properly. Let me try now. The "I had fun" side of things is valid - I've tried to say that before, as well as explicitly stating that I guarantee I could play this game as-is with my regular group and have fun. I like to hear about how people had fun playing a game, because it will almost always help me have fun with the game, as long as people are happy to talk about why they had fun. I mean, I love the hell out of Dungeon World, but I didn't really get it until I read some play logs and stuff. I want to hear about how people had fun, not just that they did (or that they did for reasons they don't want to examine or discuss), because "I just had fun, don't know why" contributes just as little to the thread as "lol I hate this stupid game". I also like Jack The Lad's awesome mathposts. I also like the discussions about how broken rule X implies Y about the world. I also like the ways that people try to fix the broken parts and talk about why those parts might be broken based on various different things. I'm not trying to set myself up as Mr. Reasonable, I just like the kind of weird tangential discussions these things cause. Like the Greek myth tangent recently where I learned a new slant on something. None of this is helped by anything like "I had fun", "I had no fun", "This game is bad", "this game is good", or other similar stuff. edit: I guess I'm more interested in discussing the rules than discussing the experience, but I'm up for the latter as well, given something to discuss. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 06:34
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Gonna post out of context here, just a warning for everyone who was really loving the current discussion. From what I've read, any time someone goes "Ok how would you make the game better? Let's stay positive guys." There are maybe a dozen posts that go over ways to expand upon martial powers (great) or restrict casters (not a solution). The sentiment that if it weren't D&D, this wouldn't matter as much is also true and doubly so for me since I have some d&d diehards in my group and can't play what I want (Burning Wheel or 13th Age). So I'd like to see how far we can get with the question, "How is D&D (old and new) best played?" I'm kind of new to the hobby. Ran a homebrew 4e game with too many players that was as fun as could be with too many players. Later ran the Kingmaker adventure path in PF to appease the outspoken grognard of the group. I tweaked it as I could, and it was fun in its own way cause we as players are pretty big fans of hexes and the Civilization games. I know almost nothing about the culture and play styles of 3e and before, so given that D&D is really just a fantasy combat simulator, what's the best play style to use its strengths? Straight dungeon crawls? What more can we fit in? City investigation? Political intrigue? Wilderness exploration? For example a player of mine in 5E wants to create an equestrian themed acrobatics troupe called "Cirque du Soneigh," and I want to turn that into a story worthy of the Cat Piss thread, but I am kind of at a loss how to turn that into something with which the D&D rules will help. For something non-combat related, I posted before about the Beginner Box including amazingly designed pregenned personality traits, and I still think they are probably the best new thing in the game, but the ones that are offered with the backgrounds in the phb are sometimes mediocre to kind of bad. Then I turn around and Hoard of the Dragon Queen Apendix A has two alternate background features and ten suggested bonds that give players direct ties and motivations for the plot, and I get impressed again. I guess that's one lesson. Try to get the personality traits campaign specific. Edit: For clarity, my group is playing D&D 5e. I am the DM and can arbitrate plenty, but if its in the book it won't be changed due to the group's preferences for effective rules lawyering. So I'm asking for input regarding making the rules as written as enjoyable as they can be given their flaws are there to stay. SmellOfPetroleum fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 06:41
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SmellOfPetroleum posted:I know almost nothing about the culture and play styles of 3e and before, so given that D&D is really just a fantasy combat simulator, what's the best play style to use its strengths? Straight dungeon crawls? What more can we fit in? City investigation? Political intrigue? Wilderness exploration? For example a player of mine in 5E wants to create an equestrian themed acrobatics troupe called "Cirque du Soneigh," and I want to turn that into a story worthy of the Cat Piss thread, but I am kind of at a loss how to turn that into something with which the D&D rules will help. D&D has always been better at dungeons crawls (or any other skirmish-sized-combat-heavy scenario) than it has at anything else. Without having seen what's in the 5e DMG, it's hard to say what kind of other things might be well supported (that is to say, well supported for D&D, which will always mean less supported than skirmish combat). Wilderness exploration will almost certainly get some rules. Investigations and intrigue are "supported" by the existing skill and magic system, but I would say that they are supported poorly by the binary pass/fail thing. If you want an equestrian themed acrobatic circus of adventurers and the rules to support this you're probably better off playing a different game. On the other hand, if you just want to theme your dungeon crawling* as being done by those guys, nothing in D&D will stop you. *city skirmishing, wizard-tower invading, ship boarding, whatever else fits in to "skirmish sized combat". Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 07:03
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ATP_Power posted:I might be joining a 5e campaign and I'v been told to bring a martial character (party is currently a wizard, a priest, a druid and a monk.) The group is pretty new to the system and (for some of them, RPGs in general) so I'm not too worried about being a spectator to a bunch of casters taking care of everything. This got missed in all the previous noise. I would reccomend reading back through the thread, as a majority of the discussion is about how martial classes get the shaft over casters. It's pretty lovely that your group is mandating a martial class when everyone else got to choose freely.
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Sep 5, 2014 07:09
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Mr Beens posted:This got missed in all the previous noise. Easy solution; he plays a Valor Bard. 
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Sep 5, 2014 07:16
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MonsterEnvy posted:monster Manuel it's me i'm monster Manuel
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Sep 5, 2014 07:20
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AlphaDog posted:If you want an equestrian themed acrobatic circus of adventurers and the rules to support this you're probably better off playing a different game. On the other hand, if you just want to theme your dungeon crawling* as being done by those guys, nothing in D&D will stop you. Playing another game isn't an option, which in some ways is good because it lets me try to keep the focus of this discussion on 5e rules and how to play with them in a fun way. What I'm gathering is that the DnD world needs to be overly hostile. Either through the players' initiative or out of their necessity, they need to have reason to smash face often and have that activity be fun without getting old. I like the idea of the dungeon crawling* themes having to do with who is doing it. It's not just anyone crawling around. It's these people. And that matters because of reasons. Looked over mounted combat, which will probably be relevant to my campaign. Seems like it's another case of "up to the dm" for the most part besides the concept of different kinds of horse behaviors and the presence or absence of proficiency with mounts.
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Sep 5, 2014 07:41
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So, speaking of statblocks and online supplements... Here's a different way of doing the "online supplement" thing that I can't believe they didn't actually do. Someone mentioned the old B series modules before. This is from Hackmaster 4th Edition's Little Keep On The Borderlands, which some of you will know as a parody of those. There are 144 pages in the book, plus hex maps inside the front and back covers. A lot of this book is room descriptions of the insanely detailed Each room has a letter/number code so it's easy to do the next part: flip back in the book to the corresponding battle sheet, you get this:  There's 23 pages of these battle sheets for the mines of chaos section, and god loving drat did they make everything easier to run what with all the stats right there and hit point boxes to tick off and so on. Now, 23 pages seems like a whole lot, right? Well, here's the thing. Hackmaster is parody D&D where no idea is too good to be run into the ground, so when the room description lists 57 barely0combatant young goblins, this happens:  Now, if you weren't being silly like Kenzer clearly were there, imagine how nice you could make this as a printable online supplement to write all over as you play. Remember that you don't need anything other than the combat stats in these sheets, because how the monsters act is detailed in the adventure itself (and amazingly, not all the orcs are always-evil always-killing always-baddies). e: I'm seriously seriously not holding Hackmaster up as a paragon of design, but something like these battle sheets would make awesome printable supplements. e2: In case anyone misinterprets this, those aren't the only monster entries in the Hackmaster game. There's a monster manual too (or rather, a multivolume Hacklopedia of Beasts), but you don't need that to play the adventure because everything's in the adventure book. But if you do have it, each mini-stablock tells you the volume and page number to find the creature on. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 07:42
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Double post butSmellOfPetroleum posted:What I'm gathering is that the DnD world needs to be overly hostile. Either through the players' initiative or out of their necessity, they need to have reason to smash face often and have that activity be fun without getting old. I like the idea of the dungeon crawling* themes having to do with who is doing it. It's not just anyone crawling around. It's these people. And that matters because of reasons. What I was getting at there is that if your players want to be a travelling acrobatic troupe who solve mysteries, that's cool (like, not sarcastic, that's a loving cool idea). It's just that since you're using D&D, solve mysteries is probably going to equate to a lot of the time to fight bad guys until mysteries get resolved. I mean, it doesn't have to, you can use D&D for whatever you want, but I personally don't think it's a great idea, given that the D&D mechanics don't give much support to non-combat investigation scenarios and there are games out there that focus heavily on exactly that.
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Sep 5, 2014 07:56
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That's hilarious. In B-2, the caves of chaos were almost an afterthought, and the lesson seems to be "wander off and do whatever." Even when D&D is amicable to looking for clues and whatnot, the exciting part is the chance of getting caught and fighting it out. So yea, I like either fighting, or being under threat of fights. A dungeon can be lots of things, a castle, a city, whatever form a string of obstacles in a larger contiguous area takes. Castle Ravenloft was a good example of what you can do with the dungeon idea. They called it a "house dungeon" because it was one of the first times someone set a dungeon craw indoors, but it also had Straud doing his thing. It can be cool as hell to be "playing" the antagonist and luring and stalking the PCs. You don't even need to be playing it turn by turn, just more like when they go in this room, he slams the door and bars them in or something, just don't be an impossible prick. With perfect knowledge you can make this unsolvable. I pulled out some amazingly dirty tricks without cheating in an ice dungeon, and when they caught the necromancer, they beat his head into pulp with a hammer. That's a good way to set up an adventure to me. Build up the antagonism, let them plan a way to take him down, then the catharsis of smashing the bastard. I don't know, I like more horror dungeon Vietnam where it seems utterly impossible and people are covering themselves in mud to avoid heatvision and poo poo like that, but generally I make it seem much more dangerous than it really is to make my players feel like complete bad asses. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 08:15
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Even when D&D is amicable to looking for clues and whatnot, the exciting part is the chance of getting caught and fighting it out. So yea, I like either fighting, or being under threat of fights. My main point about this is that while it's possible to look for clues in D&D (and probable that you'll end up doing it at some point), there's zero rules or guidance about what a clue might be, how to place it, how many you should need to "win", what to do if players get stuck, etc. There's nothing stopping you from doing it, but there's nothing there to help you either. Babylon Astronaut posted:With perfect knowledge you can make this unsolvable. I pulled out some amazingly dirty tricks without cheating in an ice dungeon, and when they caught the necromancer, they beat his head into pulp with a hammer. That's a good way to set up an adventure to me. Build up the antagonism, let them plan a way to take him down, then the catharsis of smashing the bastard. I played in a game where (completely unsupported in any way by rules) the antagonist, a dragon (as played by the DM) talked the fighter into taking his armour off because he said he'd happily trade it for the sword of solving the plot. Dragon attacked and was eventually driven away, fighter got saved (it's really cool saving the guy who's always rushing over to save you) and later on when we caught up with it we gave it such a satisfying kicking. Antagonists that get away are irritating and it's great when you finally catch up with them*. ...and that's a scenario which happened completely independent of any rules. The player didn't fail their save against dragon charm or anything, they were just that gullible, or else they figured out what was coming and thought it would be fun. I could have said "a 4e game" or "a BECMI game" or "A 5e game" or "A dungeon world game" or "a FATE core game" and it wouldn't matter and it doesn't have any bearing on the quality of the system. *There's no rules about that, either! It was 4e, if you need to know for some reason. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 08:28
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AlphaDog posted:Double post but Yeah. Someone asked me the other day if I'd ever run a D&D session without combat in it, and I just thought, "What's the point? The system barely supports anything else." If I wanted combat-less sessions, I wouldn't run them in D&D.
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Sep 5, 2014 08:30
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AlphaDog posted:My main point about this is that while it's possible to look for clues in D&D (and probably that you'll end up doing it at some point), there's zero rules or guidance about what a clue might be, how to place it, how many you should need to "win", what to do if players get stuck, etc. There's nothing stopping you from doing it, but there's nothing there to help you either.
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Sep 5, 2014 08:36
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Random Encounters (which will now be forever in my mind as "hurry up or the monsters will get you") were actually a pretty good and elegant feature of Dungeons and Dragons. I mean when it was only really about going into dungeons and searching for dragons (because they have the most loot). The whole "You are in a dungeon. Monsters are everywhere and time is important" thing was once of the giant limitations on spellcasters back in those days, and is a wonderful example of something that gradually (over years and years) got toned down, kind of ignored, then mostly removed without the consequences being considered. Hell man, it took ten minutes to check a 10x10 section of wall for traps and secret doors. Ten minutes! Our torches are burning down, the Light spell is running out, the cleric's out of spells and we need to get out of the dungeon and besides we're only 5 minutes away from probably monsters jumpin out at us again! gently caress checking for tra... E: I lost my thread there... the point was that the first time I heard of the "5 minute workday" I was genuinely mystified. Then I checked the current ruleset, and... yeah. Yeah, you could do it like that. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 08:44
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MonsterEnvy posted:Honestly I just want this thread to stop being so bad. Then go away. The impression you are giving is that 5e is so bad that the only way it can be defended is by utterly mangling and misrepresenting the rules and pretending that quite blatant problems don't exist. Your defence of 5e is so bad that it's doing more harm to the reputation of 5e round these parts than even finding yet another way it's broken. If you weren't posting so much then there wouldn't be such a pervasive impression from this thread that the only way to like 5e is to be utterly, ridiculously wrong on just about everything including the rules of 5e and any form of game design theory. Or even presentation. Each time you post something that's either factually wrong or ridiculous you're going to get five goons jumping in to correct you - and that drags the thread down further. If you weren't in the thread there'd be a much better chance of a useful thread as people wouldn't be trying to clean up your misinformation. And your misinformation wouldn't be making the entire pro-5e side look ridiculous. Seebs might be getting a better reception (it still wouldn't be a good one - but he deserves better than he's been getting) if you weren't helping this thread move to better territory with all the efficiency at propelling this thread forward of an anchor. For example I'd like to mention that the level 1 play experience is possibly the smoothest D&D has ever had - when it's not being pretty lethal. They got level 1 right. But the fighters aren't even linear - they are logarithmic. 3.5 was commonly considered to have E6 as the highest playable level without absurd imbalance and gamecracking spells. What would the 5e equivalent be? (At a guess I'm going to say E6 as well - the Martials were given a huge boost at level 5 with the second attack for exactly the same reason the AD&D fighter got an extra attack as the wizard was pulling away). And the wizards don't get an extra level of spells until level 7 - which is the start of a fighter deadzone. A couple of Skeleton retainers are possible but not a horde. Or have I missed something? Druid of the Moon Wildshape is "only" about as powerful in combat as Barbarian Rage. And for another interesting post. SmellOfPetroleum posted:Gonna post out of context here, just a warning for everyone who was really loving the current discussion. Cirque du Soneigh if you're running I'd simply use "If you're going to do it, do it." Most of the Cirque happens without dice (which is not ideal) or using perform and handle animal checks. The rules won't help you much - but they won't cripple youeither Personality traits should indeed be campaign specific  As for what Next is best at? That's just the problem. It's trying to be cleaned up 2e. And 2e wasn't sure what it was - it was trying to be an adventure path game I think. Plot set by the DM, with the players responding, and the plot tweaked based on the abilities of the PCs. High action and don't sweat the small stuff. (Horde of the Dragon Queen doesn't succeed - attrition is nasty stuff.)
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Sep 5, 2014 08:47
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My group has had some contention about how investigation should be used anyway. Some want it to work just like perception for all mechanical purposes, except instead of "you notice the thing" its "you notice a clue that reveals the thing. And some want investigation to in general take longer and not be an always on thing like perception. Then there's that feat that gives bonus to passive investigation. What even is that? Regarding combat, have people had a lot of success with auxiliary objectives besides beat the enemy? Like having to drive something or interact with an object? I haven't played with the concept too much. It usually feels like one player gets a wasted turn. Edit. Attrition in HotDQ (Hoard of the Dairy Queen)? Does it just present the adventure as an arms race between player and bbeg? Double edit. Tablet keyboard is weird. SmellOfPetroleum fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 08:48
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SmellOfPetroleum posted:Regarding combat, have people had a lot of success with auxiliary objectives besides beat the enemy? Like having to drive something or interact with an object? I haven't played with the concept too much. It usually feels like one player gets a wasted turn. I don't remember which one, but one of the early, early 5e playtest modules had a bottleneck where you couldn't start the adventure until someone succeeded at a DC15 int check. That could have actually been something, but there is no consequence for failure that isn't DM fiat which sucks, because someone gets singled out for dire consequences, usually the dude rolling to perform a physical task, and dude rolling to read ancient runes can do so at their leisure. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 08:54
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SmellOfPetroleum posted:Regarding combat, have people had a lot of success with auxiliary objectives besides beat the enemy? Like having to drive something or interact with an object? I haven't played with the concept too much. It usually feels like one player gets a wasted turn. Not specifically for this game, but for D&D in general, I've done plenty of this. The rules (again) won't be much help. Here's an example of manipulating something. Take a puzzle of some sort (like one of the ones out of Mansions of Madness or similar). That's the thing that needs to be manipulated, like the magic runestone or whatever. If a PC is adjacent to the magic runestone, then they can move the puzzle pieces once for free, or three times by giving up an action (or whatever, you'd have to play with 5e's action economy to figure out how best to do it, but "once for free" is important to avoid anyone feeling like they've wasted their turns. In 4e you could do "once as a minor action"). Obviously, monsters attack before you even get to he magic runestone. So you have to get to the stone, and have players stay adjacent to it and manipulate it. Maybe the room's also filling with water. Maybe every time the initiative order resets and the puzzle's not solved, it pulses out damage on the PCs (or heals on the monsters). Maybe every time they make a move that doesn't move the puzzle closer to completion, they take damage. If the players don't want to actually manipulate a puzzle, you can use "make a skill check" instead (once for free, once again as an action maybe?) Make sure you have multiple skills to use so nobody is left out, and so if the one guy with Arcana or whatever dies they're not all hosed. Failed skill check = take damage, heal monsters, room fills up a bit more, whatever. You need X successes to complete it. This is kind of similar to 4e's skill challenges, but not the same. Hopefully the 5e DMG has some stuff in it about how to do this right, but I wouldn't count on their math working out. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 09:02
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Yea, homeboy who based his fantasy homebrew system on the "there's always a way" rule from basic really helped with letting everyone be useful. At the worst, a character with balanced stats has a 55% percent shot at doing anything because you just under or equal your stat. So ideally, you'd have the high dex do the fine motor skills challenge, but no one was up poo poo creek unless they were specifically gimped. You could go full DM mask, and make them solve a rubix cube or a tavern puzzle for like 30 seconds at a time. That could either be fun or terrible, I have no idea, just spitballing. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 09:06
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neonchameleon posted:Seebs might be getting a better reception (it still wouldn't be a good one - but he deserves better than he's been getting) Not with the company they keep and defend, no they absolutely do not deserve better.
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Sep 5, 2014 09:13
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