Monte Cook IS working on 5th edition...

[hogarth]

If you don't know what that example was supposed to prove, I'm sure I don't either!

Look, you're the one who had that weird multiplayer example and tried to make some tenuous connection via 'word of mouth'. What the hell does that even mean?

Where did I say anything about 'word of mouth'? Could you quote what the hell you're talking about?

[Username17]

Where did I say anything about 'word of mouth'? Could you quote what the hell you're talking about?

Oh for fuck's sake. You were just talking about "networking" and now you're claiming that you can't figure out when you were talking about "word of mouth"? Just shut the fuck up. It was bad enough when you claimed there was a citation needed that there were people who existed who would play a simple game that would not play a more complicated version of the same game, but this is going too fucking far.

Make a thesis statement and stop making shitty arguments of incredulity and incredible moving goalposts. Seriously: you are getting really fucking tiresome.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Where did I say anything about 'word of mouth'? Could you quote what the hell you're talking about?

Oh for fuck's sake. You were just talking about "networking" and now you're claiming that you can't figure out when you were talking about "word of mouth"?

So rather than admitting that you didn't read the linked article on "network effects", you just guessed at what it meant and that makes you confused and frustrated? Oy.

'Word of mouth' is when something is popular because consumers like it.

'Network effect' is when something is popular because other people use it, regardless of preferences.

For instance, I may think that CB radios are awesome and cell phones suck. But if everyone I know is using a cell phone, a CB radio is still useless.

Similarly, (almost?) no one buys a computer with Windows because Windows is the most awesome operating system. Windows is a popular operating system because there's a lot of software written for Windows, and there's a lot of software written for Windows because it's a popular operating system.

It has nothing to do with Tetris vs. Bejeweled. I don't give a shit if my friends are playing Tetris; it's a single player game, so there's no network effect there. I only care if it's a good game or not (presumably that's where word of mouth comes in).

[ModelCitizen]

Do you think 4e's Essentials/PHB classes are a good example of 'class as choosing your level of complexity'?

Essentials isn't really an attempt at differentiating complexity. It's more along the lines of putting different mechanics on abilities derived from different sources. That's facing up to the complaint that 4e Fighters and Wizards feel the same to play, despite having different tasks in battle.

It may have failed, but it was most definitely an attempt at differentiating complexity. OgreBattle's line about "choosing your level of complexity" is almost a direct quote from Mike Mearls.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... p/20100709

Tied to this was a secondary goal: Find ways to give the classes different levels of complexity. One of the genius strokes of the original Dungeons & Dragons game design was that it allowed players to find their own level of mastery. Playing a wizard presented different challenges and required more rules mastery than playing a fighter. We wanted to preserve and return to that aspect of the Dungeons & Dragons game in the Essentials products.

[ModelCitizen]

Oh and new article: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20111115

Summary: Fireballing fire elementals is retarded. Also, fuck skill challenges.

[virgil]

Reminds me of this thread. Down to the poll.

[Previn]

Oh and new article: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20111115

Summary: Fireballing fire elementals is retarded. Also, fuck skill challenges.

This seems very much like an advice column for new DMs....

[Kaelik]

So rather than admitting that you didn't read the linked article on "network effects", you just guessed at what it meant and that makes you confused and frustrated?

You should read the names next to each post. It turns out, not all people who disagree with you are actually the same person.

[hogarth]

Oh and new article: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20111115

Summary: Fireballing fire elementals is retarded. Also, fuck skill challenges.

The idea that GMs should be placing treasure inside random force fields with no known way of getting it out is incredibly dumb.

[Gx1080]

There's an important point in there, that the main difference between TTRPGs and MMOs is the "roleplaying skill" used to get stuff.

It's probably just DM fiat, but without it, there's no reason at all to play the former over the latter. See: 4e.

[ModelCitizen]

The idea that GMs should be placing treasure inside random force fields with no known way of getting it out is incredibly dumb.

It's stupid, but I think it's just a simple example constructed to illustrate the point.

You could devise an encounter where something the PCs want is stuck behind a forcefield and not have that be terrible. The party has to stop a lich by smashing its phylactery, but the phylactery is in a force bubble and every round the lich gets one step closer to completing some ritual, I don't know. But why the forcefield exists is outside of the scope of the article.

[hogarth]

The idea that GMs should be placing treasure inside random force fields with no known way of getting it out is incredibly dumb.

It's stupid, but I think it's just a simple example constructed to illustrate the point.

You could devise an encounter where something the PCs want is stuck behind a forcefield and not have that be terrible. The party has to stop a lich by smashing its phylactery, but the phylactery is in a force bubble and every round the lich gets one step closer to completing some ritual, I don't know. But why the forcefield exists is outside of the scope of the article.

My two cents: I like creative solutions as much as the next guy. But if you put a puzzle into a D&D module, there should be at least one intended solution; otherwise, you're dipping into pure "Mother May I" territory. "Mother May I" should be your backup option, not your primary game mechanic.

[tussock]

Oh and new article: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20111115

Summary: Fireballing fire elementals is retarded. Also, fuck skill challenges.

The idea that GMs should be placing treasure inside random force fields with no known way of getting it out is incredibly dumb.

What? There's so many ways past force fields in D&D it's impossible for a DM to outline them all up front.

Disintegrate, dispel, move through the floor (or through the roof, walls, around the back corridor and passwall), ask God for the password, find a local and ask them for the password, all kinds of astral, etherial, or shadow-walking tricks, dig and move earth and shape stone, using elementals or other strange summoned beasts to do most of the previous. If none of that works, call me, because it just got interesting.

[tussock]

Essentials isn't really an attempt at differentiating complexity. It's more along the lines of putting different mechanics on abilities derived from different sources. That's facing up to the complaint that 4e Fighters and Wizards feel the same to play, despite having different tasks in battle.

It may have failed, but it was most definitely an attempt at differentiating complexity. OgreBattle's line about "choosing your level of complexity" is almost a direct quote from Mike Mearls.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... p/20100709

Thanks for that, hadn't seen it. Your quote's Bill Slavicsek though, eh.

The overriding goal for the Essentials character designs was simple: Create character classes with easy-to-understand decision points. ...

Tied to this was a secondary goal: Find ways to give the classes different levels of complexity. ...

The WotC guys didn't bother with that secondary goal, eh. It's clearly an afterthought in the end result.

To keep a design on track, I create a list of the project’s important features and goals. ... 1 Compatibility ... 2 Player Choice ... 3 World Flavour ...

There being no #4. Well, from #2 choosing Fighter has to feel "vivid and meaningful" compared to choosing Wizard, which they sort of are in essentials because of #3, but they're both of extremely similar complexity both in how you create one and how you play it.

They hide the Fighter's complexity in free and minor actions and stances, but it stacks in all the usual 4e ways with everyone else's bonus stacks and action modifiers and shift tricks and interrupts that make it so much hard work to just knock a few Ogres on the head and steal their Elven pies. Like: they simplified the application of Marking to an Aura, which is good, but it's still a penalty to track and generates extra arbitrary out of turn interrupts.

[OgreBattle]

You raise a good point, functionally you still have your complexities, it's the difference in presentation.

4e's biggest weakness is how it presented itself. Stating roles, having a shared structure of level advancement, 'too video gamey (despite Every Other Edition having like a dozen videogames and 4e having zero...) it upset people because of how it was presented. Essentials, for the Martial classes, hides a lot of that. "Look! You can play a Fighter who only Hits Stuff! and Hits Stuff Harder! Just like the old days!"

The presentation changes, you can pick a Slayer and think "hmmm, much simpler to get into!" The fact that it's called a 'stance' and not 'martial attack power' is enough to feel completely different for some people.

You could say 'Essentials was made for people who were really angry Fighters didn't just Hit Stuff (WHY ARENT I USING MY MELEE BASIC ATTCKS IM NOT AN ANIME CHARACTER!! and so on), and are OK with taking a minor action stance to do the equivalent thing PHB Fighters did with martial powers to begin with'
bonus: for charOppers it became an opportunity to abuse Leader classes that grant attacks.

In the end I believe how you present something is the most important. We don't measure 'simple' and 'complex' by a formal breakdown of all elements, we largely form those opinions based on how we're introduced to something.
Think of it like a kid struggling with a subject in school. Algebra is too complex. But here comes the miracle tutor who works with him, the kid goes "wow, now I get it!" The tutor didn't morph algebra into something else, he presented it in a manner that was easier to digest, more suitable to the student. Algebra remains algebra, but the student's perception was changed.

[hogarth]

The idea that GMs should be placing treasure inside random force fields with no known way of getting it out is incredibly dumb.

What? There's so many ways past force fields in D&D it's impossible for a DM to outline them all up front.

Disintegrate, dispel, move through the floor (or through the roof, walls, around the back corridor and passwall), ask God for the password, find a local and ask them for the password, all kinds of astral, etherial, or shadow-walking tricks, dig and move earth and shape stone, using elementals or other strange summoned beasts to do most of the previous. If none of that works, call me, because it just got interesting.

If there's a password, then that falls under Monte's description of "As the game developed over the years, solutions were inserted into that encounter’s design." Which is bad. Or something.

[ModelCitizen]

Thanks for that, hadn't seen it. Your quote's Bill Slavicsek though, eh.

Oh hey, you're right. I thought I read something a year ago where Mike Mearls talked about "choosing your level of mastery" and just linked the first thing off Google that looked like it. Either I misread a year ago or I linked the wrong thing. Doesn't really matter which Essentials dev said it though.

[K]

I find the article kind of dumb.

It seems to be saying "we want people to have sliders on the amount of Magic Tea Party and Mother May I in their games" instead of realizing that good clean rulesets eliminate both without sacrificing the flexibility of both.

I mean, I do realize that doing something like creating a good and fun and simple system is hard and at some point you end up with too much complexity and some DM adjudication is needed, but I really don't like this whole idea that somehow MTP and MMI is somehow an ideal state that we should be want in RPGs that already suffer heavily because of it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

4e's biggest weakness is how it presented itself. Stating roles, having a shared structure of level advancement, 'too video gamey (despite Every Other Edition having like a dozen videogames and 4e having zero...) it upset people because of how it was presented.

There's definitely something to this argument. I mean, don't get me wrong, 4th Edition is a pile of shit, but notice that the arguments on these boards as to why it is shit are not the same arguments that circulate throughout the TTRPG hoi polloi? I mean, you'll get a 'me too!' if you bring up the fact that the treasure acquisition system is a creamy stew of alligator anuses and used condoms but if you stay outside the sidelines you'll never see this brought up.

This makes me believe that 4th Edition's problem to catch fire wasn't such much mechanics as marketing. Which is really sad, but what are you going to do?

[ModelCitizen]

Eh, in that case it's because 4e treasure is shitty in a lot of the same ways that 3e treasure is shitty. The most visible problem is the same: treating magic items like a menu of build options but still making you go through the song and dance with the DM to get the "right" ones. (I'm not trying to dredge up another argument about which end of that spectrum would be better, but the middle is the worst of both worlds.)

It's a lot easier to talk about problems when there's another game right at hand for comparison. It's easy to talk about class homogenization because look, here's some 3e classes and they play very differently. With treasure there's no clear difference from 3e until you look at the underlying math.

And 3e would have lots of the same treasure math problems as 4e if not for WBL compensation, but if you ever try to bring WBL compensation up in an argument someone will throw a fucking fit about how that can't really be what the rules say.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The thing about 4E D&D's system is that, at this point in the game, it has every problem that 3E D&D's base system has (except for non-artifact intelligent magical items, but they weren't in 3.0E so I'm ignoring it) and added a ton of new ones on top of it.

Koumei had a quote in her signature awhile back about my opinion of the 3E/4E WBL comparison. And before you ask: yes 4E's treasure system is seriously that motherfucking awful. In fact...

[CapnTthePirateG]

The thing about 4E D&D's system is that, at this point in the game, it has every problem that 3E D&D's base system has (except for non-artifact intelligent magical items, but they weren't in 3.0E so I'm ignoring it) and added a ton of new ones on top of it.

Koumei had a quote in her signature awhile back about my opinion of the 3E/4E WBL comparison. And before you ask: yes 4E's treasure system is seriously that motherfucking awful. In fact...

So what classes are "wizard" and who's the "fighter?" I ask because I've stopped following 4e because it sucks.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Do you mean wizard/fighter as in 'who gets to affect the plot on an awesome scale and who gets ferried around' or 'worst class / best class within the confines of the combat engine'?

By the first meaning, 'no one' and 'almost everyone' are the answers to that question.

Second one is a bit more complicated.

Top Tier: Fighter, Ranger, Wizard, Tactical/Resourceful/Bravura Warlord
Really good with some work and prime tactics: Druid, Cleric/Oghma Warpriest, Rogue, Warden, Battlemind, Psion, Ardent, Warlock, every other Warlord esp. Ranged and Lazylord.
Middle Tier: Everyone not included in the above or below lists.
Bottom Tier: Pre-Essentials Assassin, Shaman, Binder, Bladesinger, Post-Heroic Tier Sorcerer, and Monk. Some things never change.

These rankings aren't completely inflexible of course. Warlock and Paladin used to rank near the bottom but certain changes have pushed them up. Of course 4th Edition D&D is so lopsided in material that a good book or a well-placed errata can completely overturn the power rankings. Pacifist Clerics used to be as good as Battle Captains, but now they're just 'merely' good. Warlocks used to totally and irrevocably suck but they have enough crazy crap for them now that Warlocks can make Rangers start to sweat in the MVP party.

Hybrid classes... ehn. Except for some weird edge cases, mostly involving the abuse of two combined class features or getting into a PP or shoring up a weak aspect of the class you generally end up weaker than being a full class. Powerful hybrid classes generally result from combining two 'lower tier' classes as opposed to two 'higher tier' classes. Both Warlord and Ranger are stronger than a Ranger/Warlord for example, but an Avenger / Druid is stronger than a straight-up Avenger.

You'll hear some crowing about how 4.5E classes are stronger than their 4.0E counterparts, but that's mostly because the CharOP boards wank to At-Will DPR. Because it's easier to calculate and account for. The problem is that Essential Classes by and large have shit for their encounter and daily powers. The Scout can in many matchups outdamage the Ranger in At-Will DPR but then the Ranger just busts out one of their four off-action encounter attack powers and the Scout bursts into tears. And then makes them kill themselves when they go 'oh, Attacks on the Run? Cruel Cage of Steel? Blade Cascade? I GOT that shit'. If the Ranger isn't whipping their ass off in At-Will DPR with the Prime Shot line of feats in the first place, but, that's another story.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Are the crap tier classes able to fight level appropriate monsters but it takes forever, or do they just fail and die?

Also, sometime this week (I'm finally on break from school) I am going to post my angry, very late review of Heroes of Shadow, which I bought solely so if I had to play 4e, I could play a necromancer. I was ..disappointed to say the least.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Are the crap tier classes able to fight level appropriate monsters but it takes forever, or do they just fail and die?

Eh, depends on too many things to be sure. I mean a party with 2 bards, 2 shamans, and 1 monk in it take forever to kill anything but on a one-encounter workday performs better than five 'average' tier classes built the way the game tells you to build parties. Like, say, a runepriest, a cavalier, a swordmage, a whirling slayer barbarian, and an executioner.

The first thing to keep in mind that the roles aren't balanced within themselves. For example, a generic leader is better with one exception than any of the other roles of equal or even greater tier (if there was no other healer in the party I'd rather play an artificer than a fighter for example), a controller is weaksauce in heroic tier but equal and even slightly better than a leader in epic tier.

The second thing to keep in mind is that monsters have only gotten slightly more powerful while magical items and assorted character cruft like backgrounds, themes, and feats have gotten a lot more powerful. A monk with access to all of the goodies currently in the edition will outperform a core-only, unerrata'd ranger even in epic tier.

Finally, crap tier classes don't perform that much worse than Top tier classes in heroic tier (where 80% of 4E games start and end), especially if the rest of the party has their back like someone else is playing a warlord and a cleric. Where the suckiness bulge really starts to sink in is around level 12 or so.

Most of this stuff is only of sperglords like me. Most people won't even notice the class imbalance because 4th Edition D&D is actually pretty easy if you know what you're doing. The only possible source of challenge is at levels 1-5 if you don't have more than one healer class per five party members and you're on an extended workday.