Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both, Continued

[Captain_Bleach]

Just look at Elfwood artist Fredrik K.T. Andersson. He makes dwarf women that are hot!

[Fwib]

Not even considering the troll women. (admittedly his trolls are not like D&D trolls)

[Captain_Bleach]

Not at all like D&D, the trolls are pretty.
NSFW Link is here.

[Maxus]

they are trying to make dwarf women sexier

The mind boggles.

Basically, you're looking at about 4 feet tall and only slightly less solid than the men.

Has anyone ever *looked* at the random height/weight charts? Dwarves are about a foot shorter than humans, but are ten pounds heavier.

THAT is solid.

I remember speculating with someone about the offspring of humans and dwarves, and we came to the conclusion that if half-dwarves were nearly as tall as humans and had something of a dwarflike build, they'd have a strength bonus, because a dwarf is a good chunk shorter than an elf or a human, but is as strong as any other medium-sized creature. Keep that dense build and give it the extra leverage of a longer legs...And, bam, that's a pretty strong creature right there.

[Captain_Bleach]

A lot of us find strong woman sexy.
Nuthin' better than a lass that can fend for herself in the thick of a brawl!

[Voss]

Ah. The dwarf women. They put the blurb from the R&C book up on the website.

...particularly in reference to GREYHAWK, sparked fanbase suspicions concerning the apparent absence of female dwarves in Tolkien, despite the fact that they were said to be on the scene. Did female dwarves grow beards and move unremarked among dwarf males? Did female dwarves have to shave? Et Tedious Cetera.

So thank Moradin we’re eight years into the Zeds and Bill O’Connor has gifted us with a magnificent new look for dwarf women. Strong, sensual, earthy and feminine, with an exotic beauty that no one would think to splash a beard on. Questions of dwarven female beauty have been buried once for and all.

Theres also a pic lurking about.

Of course, there also going to be surface dwellers (more like Feist's Midkemia dwarves) and losing darkvision. (which I'm not unhappy about, really. Got tired of the 'you shouldn't use torches because then my darkvision is useless' arguments a long time ago.)

Oh, and the artist's comments

The female dwarves were a much greater challenge. The design team felt that they had been ignored in earlier versions because they are always depicted as so unattractive and masculine. I was directed to make them beautiful, even sexy. Short, stocky and large nosed is not exactly a schema for the classic female beauty. I had no inclination to depict them with beards or soft cherubic faces. Broadening the face and balancing the design with piles of hair and slightly bigger eyes was my solution.

And, of course, the fluff assumption thats going to be built into the dwarven race (for no apparent reason): they were the slaves of giants, that eventually revolted and gained true freedom and shit.

[Voss]

On a non sex note. Laugh and cry at WotC folks on playtesting. (and ENworld mods that overreact).
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t ... apparently, serious concern about playtesting 4e is a 'malfunctioning sense of humor'

[Captain_Bleach]

On the board, Voss brought up to Rouse thorough playtesting to avoid the CoDzilla, Planar Binding Efreet, Balor Mining, and other such atrocities that would arise. Here is the answer that he got:

It's covered, we hired these guys to run our playtest.

and this guy to run D&D Insider

Why is Scott Rouse such a fool? It's like he doesn't even take the conversation seriously. Oh wait, I just answered my own question.

[Voss]

That didn't actually bother me much. The fact that he never addressed the point raised by the original guy's blog (stress testing as a rare and unusual thing) did. Or you know, high level testing.

Most of the crap they talk about is just playing through a normal campaign, and I really wanted to know if they did real playtesting. Verdict: unclear.

And oh, yeah. This gem-

Originally Posted by Scott_Rouse
This has been play tested in parts for years (Bo9S, SWSE, DMG II, etc) and in whole since early 2007 so I am sure your statement is inaccurate. I played my first 4e game in May 2007 but saw an early build in February 2006.

It worked in those books, so obviously its going to function just fine when blended with completely different stuff! And with different wording, restrictions, context, monsters, classes, and uh... everything.

On a positive note, he did finally make a somewhat meaningful reply.

He is not the only one testing PC vs NPC combat as I eluded to in my post. I spoke with Dave Noonan, who is coordinating all the internal and external playtests, to get a little more granular detail. Many (but not all) of the internal playtests are focusing on combat encounters. The first round of external playtests included a "prison break" scenario where we asked testers to play this over and over and record results each turn (that stops being fun pretty fast). Personally weeks of my early playtests with Chris Thommason were encounter only (this is were Coup de Grace got a tweek). Combat is getting plenty of attention and scrutiny.

Now as people have also pointed out combat does not make D&D and with that in mind other types of tests are happening. Chris Perkins has kicked off one of his legendary campaigns as part of his test and I am playing through H1.

Vague reassurance, finally. I keep rereading it for the subtext, however.

[Captain_Bleach]

At times, it feels that it is not a stereotype that WotC is vague and uncaring as to what the fans want, but a truth.
And just because two products are "balanced" does not mean that combining them together would make it "balanced." I wish that the developers understood that.

[cthulhu]

Whats retarded is that he asked 'are you employing game breakers to test for game breaking edge cases' which is a specific function that needs specific people.

And the WOTC guy made a joke about it and everyone else 'what? stfu n00b'

But the same company makes a big song and dance about hiring game breaking tournment players and deck builders for M:TG to conduct exactly that sort of testing. It's a reasonable question, and should expect a reasonable answer - especially when the same company pimps its capability in that area in a different division.

[Maxus]

Running the same scenario over and over sounds like it's not that great... Can't they hire someone to crank out a dungeon generator so they can use each dungeon a few times, switch to another on the same theme for the next set, and get an overall average image of how a certain character/built will perform?


The person who mentioned a simulator had a point how it could be done. Final Fantasy XII had that 'gambit' system so your battles would, theoretically, run on their own. Select character stats, abilities, favored strategies and priorities, and then turn them loose, and use an MVP feature to keep track of who's consistently out/underperforming in comparison to the rest of the party.


Oh, here...

http://direpress.bin.sh/tools/dungeon.cgi

[Username17]

Basic combat tests are easy. Just assume that everyone without a condition can just attack any opponent they want and area attacks hit two enemies unless there are 5 or more opponents in which case they hit 3. Then run the fucking numbers. A d20 only has 20 states and all percentages come in discreet 5% intervals, it's not that hard. And if that's too difficult for you, just roll all the dice through a combat 20 times in a row.

I sincerely don't understand why they take an hour to destructively test a combat. That's just stupid. You should be able to get 10 different one-on-one battles done at 20 distinct levels for a character class in an hour. As an individual. With parties of characters and monsters both you should be able to do three different set pieces at 10 distinct levels by yourself. In an hour.

-Username17

[Jacob_Orlove]

Did anyone else find:

as I eluded to in my post.

Unbelievably hilarious? Best typo in a while.

[Captain_Bleach]

1198110203[/unixtime]]
I sincerely don't understand why they take an hour to destructively test a combat. That's just stupid.
-Username17

Face it, Frank; you're a prodigy in RPG design, while the current game developers are not. When you come to terms with that, if you haven't, then you will truly understand why WotC cranks out so many "blah" splatbooks.

[Voss]

1198110425[/unixtime]]Did anyone else find:

as I eluded to in my post.

Unbelievably hilarious? Best typo in a while.

Yes. I was very tempted to call that one out as a nice Freudian slip, but the mods over there tend to over-react with the hammer.

[Crissa]

Its basic math. They could hire any math major in the country for a basic stipend and get the same answer.

But yes, this definitely rocked. My question, though, is why all the kids are about the same age...

-Crissa

[MrWaeseL]

My question is what kind of demented person draws that kind of shit.

"UUUUNNGH a scorpion girl with boobs! That's so hot!"

[Voss]

It appears the furor over playtesting has dug Noonan out of his hole. He blogged.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t ... [br][br]He bitches for a while then gets to the point

Playtesting: Scott called me about this thread on ENWorld. Interesting stuff throughout. I can shed at least a little light on what’s going on with playtesting right now.


We’ve playtested a lot of different ways. When I plan a playtest wave, I think of it in terms of altitude—how far up the observer is when looking down at the game. High-altitude playtesting is an ongoing campaign, where you’ll see characters (and players, for that matter) evolve over time. You have mid-altitude playtesting, which might be a single adventure or an attenuated campaign. And you have low-altitude playtesting, which is a single encounter repeated ad nauseum, or a sequence of escalating/deescala ting variations (“let’s try it at 3rd level…now 4th…now 5th…”).


So altitude is one axis. You also have different things you’re looking for within that altitude band. You might want to see mechanical interactions—how the numbers are matching up (specifically or generally). You might care about speed of play—both in “game world time” and “real world time.” You might be seeing which adjudication of a situation works best at the table.


And you also test the away-from-table stuff such as character generation, encounter/adventure /campaign design, and the learning process (how long before someone groks opportunity attacks, for example).


No playtest technique can capture all of that. If you had to pick a single technique, you’d probably go with ongoing campaigns for playtesting purpose, because they have the salient advantage of most closely mimicking actual play. (In particular, one of the things that drives me crazy is that most people play more aggressively with pregenerated characters than with “their” characters. It’s totally understandable, but you sometimes get weird results that way.) But ongoing campaigns a) take a long time; and b) do a poor job of actually capturing small data points, because everyone’s focused on the overall game.


Scott mentioned the “Prison Break” playtests we did a wave or two ago. This was a simple 10-room dungeon with four versions: 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th level. You start at the back end of the dungeon and your goal is to see daylight again, basically. We provided the characters, and we provided the specific encounters. So we got to see exactly how dozens of tables would react to more-or-less the same circumstances. This turned out to be a pretty good low- to mid-altitude playtest.
Here’s what the player questionnaires looked like (the DMs got a different questionnaire). I’m going to [Blank out!] some stuff because it refers to specific mechanical elements that haven’t been revealed yet—and in one case, we’ve had a significant change in terminology:

=====
1) What's your character class and level?

2) How many XP did you earn in this session?

3, repeated) Repeat for each encounter: You’re going to give us a numeric summary of your “output.” Note what your damage output was per round. Just write down the number.
• If you missed, put down a "0."
• If you didn't attack, put down an "X."
• If you attack when it's not your turn (like an oppo attack), put the damage in parentheses, and put a zero in parentheses if you miss during an oppo or something like that.
• If you got KOed or killed, put down a "—."
• And if you attack multiple targets in the same round (with an area attack or by [Go Bears!], for example), use slashes to separate the output.
• If you used any [Van Halen Rules!] or [Hi Mom!], write that the end of the string.
Ask your DM for the room number. Use commas to separate the rounds. At the end of the session, a 2nd-level wizard might have a string for each encounter that looks something like:

Wizard 2 vs. Room 1: 14/7, 8, 0, 10, X, 6, 0. Used 1 [Hi Mom!].
Wizard 2 vs. Room 2: 9, 15, 11 (0), 0, 21. Used 2 [Hi Mom!]s and [Van Halen Rules!].

4) Did you notice any rules problems or unclear stuff while playing? What was it, and how did you resolve it at the table?

5) Did you discuss quitting for the day and resting? If so, how many at the table wanted to quit and how many wanted to continue? What did the group ultimately decide? (Repeat if the discussion happened more than once.)

6) Put yourself in the 3e mindset for a second. Did your experience feel like the D&D you're used to? Why or why not?

7) What other character at the table impressed you the most (race and class)? What did they do that was so cool?

8) Was there a PC that didn't seem to be pulling his/her weight? Keep in mind that this isn't a reflection on the player--just the character (race and class is sufficient). And what was the trouble?

9) What was the coolest monster you faced, and why? Oh, and the one you liked the least, whether for balance/flavor/tabl e play reasons--tell us about that one too.

10) Anything else the designers/developer s should know about?

======
That’s the questionnaire. I can tell you, it feels really good to paste all those output strings into a single spreadsheet, then start torturing them until the conclusions come out. One example: I’d always wondered how many rounds of in-combat downtime exist for a PC or a monster. In other words, how often does a PC simply double-move or get out a key and open a door, or something similar that’s useful but doesn’t directly, mechanically contribute to the outcome of the encounter. The “Prison Break” wave was big enough that I think we’ve got the answer—for the covered levels, at any rate.

But the qualitative stuff is just as important. The thoughtful answers we received to question #6 were particularly useful, as I recall.

Some of it sounds passable. Other bits... not so much.
'Waves' of playtesting, in particular. Hey, we tried this for a while. It worked... so, uh. we stopped.

He also seems to believe that ongoing campaigns are the best option for playtesting.
Despite the huge flaws.

And the 'prison break' thing that Scott mentioned that seemed so promising... wasn't. Low level only, and just for a single playtesting wave.

[JonSetanta]

1198110203[/unixtime]]Basic combat tests are easy. Just assume that everyone without a condition can just attack any opponent they want and area attacks hit two enemies unless there are 5 or more opponents in which case they hit 3. Then run the fucking numbers. A d20 only has 20 states and all percentages come in discreet 5% intervals, it's not that hard. And if that's too difficult for you, just roll all the dice through a combat 20 times in a row.

I sincerely don't understand why they take an hour to destructively test a combat. That's just stupid. You should be able to get 10 different one-on-one battles done at 20 distinct levels for a character class in an hour. As an individual. With parties of characters and monsters both you should be able to do three different set pieces at 10 distinct levels by yourself. In an hour.

-Username17

Most important part. Designers, noob or pro, seem to miss this, or blatantly disregard the appeal and need for 1v1 balanced encounters.
No, they expect every party to have a Wizard, Cleric, Rogue, and Fighter.


Also, I will reiterate: recipe for better dwarf chicks?
Big boobs. Junk in the trunk. Props to O'Connor.. I'm digging up his art right now as I write this.
Better defined feminine personalities, methods, habits, culture, and desires are needed in the PHB... unless there's some other reason why most female gamers prefer elves if not for their racially-feminine appeal (yes, guy elves too. seriously)
AND NO BEARDS, YOU FUCKING GREYHAWK FANATICS!!

[Captain_Bleach]

1198114972[/unixtime]]Its basic math. They could hire any math major in the country for a basic stipend and get the same answer.

But yes, this definitely rocked. My question, though, is why all the kids are about the same age...

-Crissa

One word; orgy.

My question is what kind of demented person draws that kind of shit.

"UUUUNNGH a scorpion girl with boobs! That's so hot!"

It's the Internet. Would do you expect?

[the_taken]

1198119970[/unixtime]]

My question is what kind of demented person draws that kind of shit.

"UUUUNNGH a scorpion girl with boobs! That's so hot!"

It's the Internet. Would do you expect?

It's been around longer than that. Mermaids is a (what?) 10 millennium old meme?

[Captain_Bleach]

1198119299[/unixtime]]

Also, I will reiterate: recipe for better dwarf chicks?
Big boobs. Junk in the trunk. Props to O'Connor.. I'm digging up his art right now as I write this.

Do you mean Flannery or Sarah O'Connor, or someone else?

[JonSetanta]

1198121083[/unixtime]]

1198119299[/unixtime]]

Also, I will reiterate: recipe for better dwarf chicks?
Big boobs. Junk in the trunk. Props to O'Connor.. I'm digging up his art right now as I write this.

Do you mean Flannery or Sarah O'Connor, or someone else?

William. Bill. You know........ D&D artist.
Shut up and swab the poop deck.

And yes, that does rock, Crissa. First made me LOL and then I wondered about that too.
Possible reason: has adventuring career began X number of years ago.
X is equal to the age of the oldest kid there.

Scorpion kid's fucked up, though.... he got the backwash of the genepool.
That sucks... claw hands....

Title for that pic could be "Practical Applications of Polymorph"

[Voss]

Or things you never wanted to know: How to fuck a scorpion.