5e D&D is Vaporware

[Leress]

How many computer programming or design classes did Steve Jobs take?

He took a calligraphy class were he pretty much got his inspirations about design.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_ptbiPoXM

[shadzar]

but the premise Ice9 (i think) made was one based on having to be taught to be good or better at something than another. this is a fallacious idea because who taught anyone anything then when it had not been created yet.

Windows Key stolen form Apple Key, and calligraphy didnt teach him to create a special-function key for commands.

the one with the natural talent is easily capable of doing something. looking purely at the fact that a lucky die roll for Bob with 18 DEX, doesnt always mean the choices of the ninja "master" with all the chosen abilities is negated.

maybe this ninja has a 13 DEX, so not having natural talent means he will reach a plateau wherein his body cannot surpass no matter how much more he learns, and then Bob can easily surpass him with just minor or no training since he has more ability than ALL the training in the world would provide.

the thing is Bob, doesnt know as well WHEN to use such ability as the trained ninja master, or he is one of the few acrobatic savants.

now i need to backtrack and read to see if this ninja master was given anymore information like its own DEX score, or just basing it blindly and in a vacuum assuming that all these choices are negated by someone else having a DEX score, with no relation to the ninja master's DEX or even taking it into consideration.


EDIT:

Remind me who asked for a system where the veteran master of the acrobatic ninja guild is worse at acrobatics than "Bob, the random peasant who rolled an 18 Dex"?

ok yeah, the whole argument is pointless and some knee-jerk reaction with NO information, just summing up an idea that picking some skills the skills chosen are of lesser value because someone does better than has a 18 DEX, thus the ninja master is implied to have LESS that 18 DEX.

But A is wrong because of Left!

nonsensical argument to begin with. not even a full idea or reasoning why Bob is doing better, other than a possible lucky die roll.

not enough information.

[Username17]

So anyway, finally slogged all the way through the Something Awful rant about the supposed leak. Those clowns have the worst analysis of anything I have ever seen. It's full of complaints about how something or other never works because it has a -5 penalty or some shit but they admit that they haven't done the math! What the fuck? A -5 penalty apparently "feels" like it's too big. I have no idea whether it is actually too big or not, but I know damn well that I don't give a rat's ass how some stupid 4rry feels about prime numbers.

Interestingly there remains one simple unforgivable thing in all the 5e writeups. The basic stat to skill to saving throw system with the auto-magical successes and crap. That is unworkable. The Something Awful clowns think this is "clever" and complain about the lack of healing surges and how numbers and ability don't feel right to them because they are more similar to more popular editions than their favorite one.

Something Awful shitheads are worth less than nothing as far as analysis goes. Things they think are cool are bad by objective standards. Things they think are bad are usually completely subjective (but highly popular). Things that you could pass judgement on for good or ill on mathematical grounds they can't be fucked to even attempt - because despite their mocking assurance that they could work out probabilities, they never actually do.

-Username17

[Koumei]

So M&M, SKR, Crack-smoking Collins, Skip... is there actually anyone in the D&D field who we do have any respect for here? I forget.

Also...

So anyway, finally slogged all the way through the Something Awful rant about the supposed leak. Those clowns have the worst analysis of anything I have ever seen.

Please tell me it did not take you this long to realise they are this useless and stupid.

[Username17]

So anyway, finally slogged all the way through the Something Awful rant about the supposed leak. Those clowns have the worst analysis of anything I have ever seen.

Please tell me it did not take you this long to realise they are this useless and stupid.

I don't haunt their forums at all. They sent a couple of troll invasions here, which were universally retarded, but that doesn't say that much, because they are troll invasions and that's what you expect. What little contact I have with them on their own turf is mostly that every so often someone rick rolls me into looking at a section of them ranting about me in particular. And while that's stupid and infuriating, it's not much to go on.

I mean yes, the specific things they insult me about don't make any sense. But then, since they are specifically insulting me, I wouldn't really expect them to. If they were offering super insightful critique of my methodology, I would expect it to make no sense to me anyway. Now as it happens, even on second or third look it really does seem like they are making fun of me for saying that calculating the probabilities of ORE is too difficult after I showed how it was done and they universally failed to demonstrate even the slightest ability to do it at all. So I'm pretty sure that their attacks on me personally are completely stupid ("Hurr hurr! He said that some math he can do and we can't is harder than other math he can do and we can't! That means he's stupid!"). But again, I don't like to jump to the idea that someone is a paste eater because they hate me.

But looking at them condemning the work of other people, it's really fucking clear: these guys have no fucking idea what they are talking about. It's a bunch of 4rries whining that the people writing the next edition are using terminology from earlier and more popular editions of the game in an attempt to bring back the majority of the players who thought the edition these guys like sucks ass. They praise and condemn shit for no earthly reason at all save that it seems more or less like a 4e idea.

But really the most delicious part about all of this is that by their own definitions, they are now the people they hate! Their whole ethos is built around how 4e (and to a lesser extent shitty story games) are the future and everyone who fails to get onboard the new games is a grognard to be made fun of. But now the "newest" edition is also one they can't stomach, making them the grognards. The taste of 4rry tears is incredibly delicious.

I just wish that 5e was built on a mechanically sound foundation instead of allowing Mike Mearls to write it.

-Username17

[Koumei]

I just meant that SA posters in general are known for being almost as smart as 4chan posters. Yeah, consider that a moment. Someone will no doubt quote this over there and go "lol she butthurt", but SA generally is considered to be a cesspool of stupid (and troll invasions with the usual circlejerking that goes with them).

(and to a lesser extent shitty story games)

Can you elaborate? Do you mean the Quest threads, or is there another awful game system they love? Or just "the shitty type of non-interactive story that games like 4e happen to make possible"?

[Lago PARANOIA]

So M&M, SKR, Crack-smoking Collins, Skip... is there actually anyone in the D&D field who we do have any respect for here? I forget.

I like Johnathan Tweet. Penny Williams is from what I can see one of their better editors; when she doesn't have a writing credit for a 3.0E splatbook, the writing quality tanks. See: Defenders of the Faith. Robert J. Schwalb I'm still on the fence for since he hasn't had enough of an output to judge him on, but I'm willing to give him respect for pretty much single-handedly keeping Dragon and Dungeon afloat after it became clear that Mearls and Slavicsek did not give a shit about it. And also using the opportunity listening to 4E fans who had for years been clamoring about boosting underpowered classes. Dragon and Dungeon under his watch embarked on ambitious projects such as 'hey, let's make the STR/WIS cleric suck less' or 'let's make themes something that people would actually want to use'. A huge improvement over the wizard/fighter autofellation crap that had been going on before.

[DSMatticus]

@Frank, grognards.txt hates you, and they are determined to hate you as hard as they can. Mostly, grognards.txt is a really insular community; by 4rries for 4rries on Something Awful which charges for forum registrations. Who's going to spend their 10 dollars disagreeing with a mob? And as a result of this incredible insularity, it produces a whole lot in the way of "me-too-isms." One of their me-too-isms is that Frank Trollman sucks, Frank Trollman sucks, fuck you Frank Trollman, Frank Trollman sucks.

And that means that whenever Frank Trollman comes up, they become a hopeless and idiotic blob of groupthink. Some idiot will derail the conversation with a criticism that is inept and retarded at its core, but on its face it is dismissive and insulting, so everyone is obligated to nod their head in agreement or at least keep quiet despite how obviously retarded that criticism is. And that is why half of their latest criticisms really do boil down to "Haha, math! What an idiot!" and nobody is calling out those posters for being the giant retards that they are.

Seriously. They have pressured themself into listening to the shittiest voices of their community because they tangentially agree with them on certain topics, like "Frank Trollman sucks." And as a result, they can't actually articulate why you might suck for the life of them, because the conversation ends at "hurr durr Trollman = retarded" followed by a chorus of agreement.

[Username17]

(and to a lesser extent shitty story games)

Can you elaborate? Do you mean the Quest threads, or is there another awful game system they love? Or just "the shitty type of non-interactive story that games like 4e happen to make possible"?

Among the things they hate me for (doing math, making pronouncements about how likely events are, wanting players to be able to know what the rules do), one of the stranger things they keep bringing up is fist shaking about how I say shitty things about Forge games.

The Forgites call their stuff "Story Games" (interestingly, the RPGSite calls the people who make and play such games "Swine"). So crap like Dogs in the Vinyard is a "story game" and the grognards.txt buffons have weird out of context quotes which they bring up to show that I don't like the stuff so that they can autofellate each other over how wrong this is.

It's very mysterious, since despite the fact that Mike Mearls is clearly a 3-fold-model dumbass, 4e is still very much not a Story Game. And so watching 4rries take time out of their lives to defend Godlike is odd.

-Username17

[Koumei]

I'm willing to earn their ire on this one: Godlike fucking sucks as a game. I don't even say this out of anything relating to the dice-matching thing, because the one campaign of it I played, that didn't seem to go any slower than things normally went for games (possibly because everyone declared and rolled basically at the same time as opposed to turn-by-turn for most other games, or declare then reverse resolve and roll and Fuuuuuck it lasts forever of oWoD). The rest of it is shitty as well. And it's not even a particularly interesting idea. If hating Godlike is heresy to them, then wow, are there ever problems.

One of their me-too-isms is that Frank Trollman sucks, Frank Trollman sucks, fuck you Frank Trollman, Frank Trollman sucks.

You know where else people are able to post that Frank sucks, and disagree with him on any points? Here. Seriously, you can just do that on the Den (most of us have at some point) - you can argue with anyone. I'd say they're welcome to come here and do that, but they do their stupid trolling invasions instead of joining, throwing some insults but basically engaging in halfway interesting or useful debate. We might have a certain amount of elitism and "Us vs Them" (a certain large amount), but we're totally okay with slagging each other off, disagreeing with each other and having discussions/debates/arguments that actually have a point to them.

[Krusk]

[quote="Previn]Ok, tell you what, why don't we just put up a warning that anyone who reads your posts will actually become dumber for doing so?[/quote]
Thats why most people have him hidden. Effectively the same thing.

The SA paywall, is it something you can avoid to read only, or do you have to pay for that too? I'd be interested to see some of their arguments/thoughts. Not to troll, just for context. Not enough to pay though.

edited because words are hard ***

[Username17]

The SA paywall, is it something you can avoid to read only, or do you have to pay for that too? I'd be interested to see some of their arguments/thoughts. Not to troll, just for context. Not enough to pay though.

You can indeed read their garbage without paying money. Speech is not free, listening is free.

The really relevant piece is their tirade about a supposed leak of some early drafts of 5e playtest material Here. Actually linking to other forums for the purposes of making fun of stupid people is against the rules of this forum (because some people here used to do the same kind of forum invasion that we look down on Something Awful for participating in). But you could always just google it.

-Username17

[Mask_De_H]

As someone behind the paywall at SA, the TradGoons in the D&D and grognards.txt threads are pretty much the worst to try and talk to. They have this smugness about not understanding how mechanics work and love to call other people grogs when they have been 4e/half-baked Forge game grogs for years.

SA has a lot of boards with reasonable people discussing things in insightful ways. Traditional Games is one of them...as long as D&D isn't involved.

[shadzar]

So M&M, SKR, Crack-smoking Collins, Skip... is there actually anyone in the D&D field who we do have any respect for here? I forget.

monte and mearls, SKR i know, but the others?

Andy Collins?
Skip Williams?

I for one have NO respect for ANYONE at WotC. havent since Weatherlight came out for MtG, and those were only a few decent artists, and they will probably never work on D&D.

does your "D&D field" include Pathfinder people? Erik Mona at least is honest and can hold his own in a forum fight if he wanted to. he admits when he screws up and takes the blame for it.

[Kaelik]

Some idiot will derail the conversation with a criticism that is inept and retarded at its core, but on its face it is dismissive and insulting, so everyone is obligated to nod their head in agreement or at least keep quiet despite how obviously retarded that criticism is. And that is why half of their latest criticisms really do boil down to "Haha, math! What an idiot!" and nobody is calling out those posters for being the giant retards that they are.

You read it here first. I'm saving us from being Something Awful one pointless fight with someone I mostly agree with at a time. Please direct all your hatred to me, and all your thanks to fbmf.



But yes, as for SA, the funniest thing that I remember reading is that they all seem to genuinely believe that this is Frank's forum, and that Frank bans people who disagree with him.

That was fucking hilarious. Because I remember when I was banned for arguing about diplomacy/WoF/everything else.

[Krusk]

Reading that leak it seems ... boring. Like I have been assuming most of what was said for a while now. "mostly 3.5, essentials hybrid." I seriously think I could have come up with everything "leaked".

Con HP at first level, 3e multiclassing, same stats as always. I don't know that I buy it, as legit. A bunch of safe bets and some numbers that can be "changed during later releases"?

Feel like a legit leak would include stuff like "this is how they do skill challenges now" or other actual mechanical concepts. The closest it comes is the class rarity system and then just banking on everyone running it like 3rd.

That honestly reads more like someone was explaining their house rules for 3rd edition and someone misheard it as "I have playtest docs for 5e".

[Koumei]

That was fucking hilarious. Because I remember when I was banned for arguing about diplomacy/WoF/everything else.

Yeah, remember how almost every single person on the Den was banned as a result of one of the WoF threads? Good times.

[ishy]

I don't think they are that stupid at SA forum actually, I think they are just pretending and just trying to massively troll each other. I mean if I read text like this :

So, here's my question. Is there room in your D&D for Beowulf, Orlando, Cu Chulainn, Ilya Muromets, Gwalchmai/Gawain (and the Arthurian heroes in general), Achilles, Heracles, and so forth? Or even going into Tolkien, Glorfindel and the like? If so, where do they fit, and can I play one?

Sure, you can play one in my Epic games. That's were demi-gods belong.

1-20? Not so much, sorry.

I can't think anything but that they are trolling, that fighters should be epic level to become like any of them while wizards can do whatever.

[Mask_De_H]

There's a point where being ironically dumb and being actually dumb stop being distinct things, ishy.

[shadzar]

D&D The One-Hour Game
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20120319

Replaying the 1981 Basic Set recently has been eye opening. Even including the rules I've added to the game, character creation took somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. In about 45 minutes of play, we created an entire party of adventurers (dwarf fighter, human magic-user, halfling thief), kicked off an adventure with the characters just outside of a ruined keep, and explored six different rooms in a small dungeon. That exploration included two battles with goblins and hobgoblins. We played at a fairly relaxed pace. There was plenty of roleplaying between the characters and frequent questions on the rules as the players navigated both basic D&D and my house rules.

In my mind, D&D must absolutely support this type of play. By no means should it be the only way to play D&D, but it must be an enjoyable way to play the game that doesn't come across as a crippled or incomplete experience.You should be able to play a complete adventure in an hour.

if you threw out your additions, you might have even got MORE done with Basic.

why does this sound like the heralding of tournament play? 60 minute rounds are there for MtG and their ilk...condensing the game down to play in an hour isnt a bad thing, and basic should run quickly... but with WotC...i smell store focus here not game focus. something isnt just sitting right somehow with what this might mean, and i really feel it will be to get people into a store, try some D&D, and back out and another group without having to take up ALL the store space like past Game Days could do. Maybe even a hour type of thing. sure good to get people into it, but recapturing those lost this wont work for, only try to get new people in which is what the returning or continuing players are best served for else the 3.x crap begins again where novices have no idea what they are doing and spread that incorrect ideal of playing even further to once again create a new 4th edition.

also with todays tech it doesnt even really make sense to play for JUST an hour outside of a store or library or something. you have to drive 30~45 minutes both ways for a game, and travel time is more than play time? stay home put in LotR and just get your fantasy fix that way since the cost of gas will outweigh any benefit form playing for an hour only.

The DM needs rules that can allow for adventures with as many fights as needed, from a single big brawl to a number of shorter fights. I'd like to see an adventure design system that gives me a suggested total XP value for monsters and traps to use so that I can push the characters to the limit of their abilities. I can then spend that XP for one battle, lots of little battles, or just sprinkle monsters in an environment as I choose.

4th edition encounter budget crap? kiss my ass. published adventures are pretty much going to such for 5th. i might be able to stomach XP per module or something where it is gained at the end of a published adventure, but that ENCOUNTER BUDGET crap is just crap. illogical groups of monsters that appear again with minions to pad seats in the monster party makeup....

By focusing on an adventure—or a play session, depending on how you approach things—we can build a system that is more flexible and better matches the different styles that DMs bring to the table.

ever heard of overarching story lines Mike?

Basic built the game in those various editions (which version is Mike using again?) from a ramshackle miniature wargame. it was fast to play because it didnt include much...depending on which version of "basic" you played.

the modules were ALL meant to be one-shots that COULD tie together later, but still people would make their own longer adventures.

also you have the problem of people running one-shots and burning through every class/race/whatever combo with hour-long games/sessions/adventures and run out of thing to play that interest them as oft gamers are to do by getting bored with the same thing.

NEVER set a time-limit to something like an adventure because you will ALWAYS fail, as plenty of people will destroy that time-limit either going over or under by large margins.

It's much easier to create a game that supports a one-hour session, and then use that to build out to two-hour, four-hour, or day-long gaming.

sure if you can finish a game of Cataan in an hour and want to play again, this works, but D&D isnt a fucking board game that people want to have another round of. people will not want to sit down for 1-hour blocks for all day gaming, they want something continuous.

you are WAY oversimplifying the concept of just making the core simple enough to allow groups to do things within THEIR time frames.

so if ALL of this of for the "core" with a few additional house rules, that will become "core" when released...what happens as more Rules Modules are added to your hour long sessions?

do your characters still take only 5~10 minutes to create a party?

I am paved with your good intentions Mike Mearls.

the article REALLY said nothing. they played an hour worth of TSR Basic D&D w/ Mearls houserules, and got some gaming in in that hour. all-in all just stating again a goal was for quicker play with less hassle while trying to play. 3.x Troll Grappling anyone?

So Mike is saying the work Monte did on 3rd was a failure because it was all too sluggish and the whole game suffered from rules bloat? People have been telling WotC that for nearly 12 years Mike!

[Stormgale]

but they admit that they haven't done the math!
-Username17

Counterpoint: Did you do the math on the bane guard?

[Lago PARANOIA]

The Bane Guard is supposed to be pretty scathing satire on the 4E D&D class design process. That is, the vast majority of a class is underpowered filler with a meager selection of functional or even overpowered abilities that people try to cobble together into something usable. Is it supposed to be functional? I dunno, man, I'd be pretty disappointed if it was; those levels which have a daily power of some large weapon dice multiplier damage and nothing else running against freakishly more abusive powers is pure, distilled Poe's Law.

[Stormgale]

Aye but scathing satire falls flat when you simply ignore the system you are attempting to satirize or critique.

[Username17]

I genuinely don't understand why the Something Awful dumbasses care so much about the Bane Guard. I'm sure it's not compatible with 4th edition these days, because nothing in the original 4e books it was a parody of is still compatible with 4th edition. I mean, we're talking about a game where they've errataed essentially all the stuff on the character sheet and literally all the monsters you're up against. The 4e PHB is less than useless now, reading it will only confuse you.

And yet, the SA goons freak out about the Baneguard - a joke I wrote over the course of a day and half a couple years ago - to this day. It's not just that they've spent more time thinking about the Baneguard than I did, it's that they spend more time thinking about the Baneguard every month than I have in my entire life. Which means that the Baneguard was a bigger success than I could have possibly predicted.

My original thought was that I could just write up a 4e class in between one class and another in order to make fun of 4rries and the 4e design team. The idea that I would somehow hit a nerve so hard that 4rries would continue getting trolled by it for literally years of real time is more than I could have hoped for.

-Username17

[Stormgale]

How are the current 4e classes useless, I mean sure power have changed but that happens in every edition (Ray of Enfeeblement getting changed to a Penalty is an example I used to forget).

The bane guard is a sticking point because it appareed to be you critiquing the 4e system of design whilst wholy misrepresenting or misunderstanding it as far as I understand