The Gaming Den

I know that I've signed up for this; the very least that I can do is try to get my inputs, of course, having people from here doing the same would probably, although very pessimistically/realistically little-to-no, have some small effect; but I highly doubt it.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... l/20120109

Who knows, maybe with some responses, 5e won't be .... terribad?

Dude, I'm willing to do WotC's work for damned cheap, but they are big and successful enough that I won't do it for free. Unless there are at least half-way credible promises of promo copies for playtesting, I'm sitting it out.

By way of contrast, I'm willing to work for free here. This nicely demonstrates the principle of "you get what you pay for"

I've signed up, but to preview the material rather than actually provide feedback.

Given their track record on listening to feedback I'm not sure the difference matters anyways.

mearls wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:As to Mearls' specific complaint that it is somehow unfair to take him to task for having presented multiple systems for skill challenges that are untested and nonfunctional... No. It's not unfair at all.

It's pretty easy to argue with someone when you make up their statements for them.

In that vein, as to Frank Trollman's specific observation that skill challenges are the Ghandi of game mechanics, I can only agree.

There, we agree now! Case closed, comrade.

I simply cannot take Mike Mearls seriously when he says that he is going to be open to negative feedback or constructive criticism.

He really is a sticking point. Once a man has done something like that, I simply will not do free work for them until they fucking apologize. While Mearls has sort of kindof eaten some crowish food out of the side of his mouth in the runup to the 5e playtest announcement, it's going to take some genuine accountability before I take them seriously. If Mike Mearls isn't publicly and officially apologizing, and he still has a fucking job, I am not interested.

-Username17

Certain groups are thinking of just submitting "Read FATAL and use that for ideas. D&D needs an Anal Circumference stat". So, the equivalent of drawing a penis on your ballot paper on election day.

Actually, more like voting Kalle Anka (Donald Duck) in the Swedish elections, where it's not even fucking mandatory so they elect to spend time out of their day submitting a joke answer.

Yes, I imagine there will be zero point to this, and the best that will happen is they get trolled with "Needs more WoW influence. Give the rules out for free, but make people pay you a monthly fee to play" and "Anal Circumference" and "Women should have -4 Strength". Maybe some recommendations of "Needs playable ponies".

I'm not going to playtest their product either unless I see some definite proof that WotC is actually willing to use and implement their playtest data. Judging from the 4E D&D Barbarian fiasco, I'm going to go ahead and say that they're not.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I'm not going to playtest their product either unless I see some definite proof that WotC is actually willing to use and implement their playtest data. Judging from the 4E D&D Barbarian fiasco, I'm going to go ahead and say that they're not.

Details on mentioned fiasco? I must not have been paying attention to this.

Previn wrote:I've signed up, but to preview the material rather than actually provide feedback.

Given their track record on listening to feedback I'm not sure the difference matters anyways.

Same here. I want to see what direction they're taking D&D and see if it's in a direction that I remotely even care about.

Seerow wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I'm not going to playtest their product either unless I see some definite proof that WotC is actually willing to use and implement their playtest data. Judging from the 4E D&D Barbarian fiasco, I'm going to go ahead and say that they're not.

Details on mentioned fiasco? I must not have been paying attention to this.

They released a playtest Barbarian. It had some attacks available where you attacked a fuck tonne of times. This being 4e, that involved you doing about twice as much damage as any other attack in the game. This being 4e, this was considered horrendously broken. People involved in the playtest wrote extensively on how that was way out of line with any other attack. And the final print version was... exactly the same. Well, not quite, the wording had been altered slightly just to rub in the fact that the editors had touched it since the playtest printing, it was just still horrendously out of line with the way 4e powers were supposed to work.

This caused Titanium Dragon (of "sounds more than millions" fame) to get angry at WotC and decry that the playtest had been a sham.

-Username17

On the D&D forums before the 4E PHBII was released Mearls (Heinsoo's name was on the document, too, but he was already on the way out at this point) released a Barbarian playtest document as a preview of what the Barbarian was going to bed. They then proceeded to blatantly ignore some of the problems of the test like the whole STR/CON barbarian issue for a class that doesn't get heavy armor, Hurricane of Blades and Storm of Blades and the pile of ass that was the Frenzied Berserker. What made it extra galling was that the Hurricane of Blades power was actually changed in the final product but was still preserved to give you six attacks.

In the end, certain things got errata'd, but the damage was already done. WotC blatantly ignored the feedback from the playtest even though at the time it was the hottest buzz on the 4E CharOP forums.

I don't think I'll get involved. The whole situation with 4E has made me pretty apathetic about D&D in general. I'll check it out when they release some substantial previews, but I'm not planning to keep up with the news about it until then.

The "modularity" thing actually sounds great - I've thought about making an RPG like that, but wondered if it was actually practical. However, my confidence that WotC can pull it off is near 0%.

I professionally:
1) am a sucker for punishment,
2) am an asshole,
3) convince people that:
3a) their product is unacceptable,
3b) they should fix it,
and 3c) this was all their idea.

I manage that okay, and that's in an area that can have fairly unpalatable impacts. Worst case here, I say "fuck it" and leave.

mearls wrote:In that vein, as to Frank Trollman's specific observation that skill challenges are the Ghandi of game mechanics, I can only agree.

I vaguely remember seeing this conversation quoted before, but I don't know if I ever figured out whether the phrase "Gandhi of game mechanics" actually means anything or if he was just being silly/facetious.

Well, that's Mearls for ya. Just throws words on paper and hopes they make sense.

Indeed. Given his recent similes:

Mearls wrote:D&D is like playing the guitar, and it's like we said the only way to play is Thrash Metal - but there are other ways of playing the guitar!

You know, if someone told me to list a hundred things D&D is like, not one of them would be "a guitar". Sure, I get what he's saying there, but still.

Mearls wrote:D&D is like the wardrobe into Narnia... if you step through and there's a McDonalds there, you're going to say "This isn't Narnia".

I can only assume by this he's referring to the complaints people have had that 4E doesn't "feel" like D&D. I like how he's pretending he had this sudden mystic insight where he realised their attitude with 4E was wrong all along.

But at least the random words make some kind of sense, even if they're largely meaningless and not indicative of any actual improvements in the game. Let's face it, we could have ended up with:

"D&D is like playing the guitar in Narnia, but in McDonalds they only play Thrash Metal."

Koumei wrote:D&D is like playing the guitar in Narnia

That would be a good marketing slogan.

So Mike Mearls is the Tom Friedman of D&D writers, is what you are saying?

(I heard the somewhat-obsessive-but-not-terrible "5-man 4e party = basketball team" analogy on the podcast, but didn't know/realize he ever veered into uber-steroid-flattener-cake territory.)

3E and 4E D&D made a major mistake by inflating the assumed size of an adventuring party.

When I read the 2E D&D, I was actually rather surprised that the game thought that parties with just two or three people in it were fine. Now while I think a game of 3E or 4E D&D's magnitude can support an average playgroup size of four PCs, five is too damn many.

5E D&D should be able to be played with a minimum of three PCs and should comfortably scale upwards to about six or seven. Anything fewer than three aborts too many games before they start and no game with any depth to it is playable with eight people in it. Shit, you can't even play Monotpoly with seven players, why should D&D scale that high upwards?

It's been established that Mearls is great at being the D&D sales guy. If only they kept him there. I've already been fooled by him with Iron Heroes until I noticed my houserules were starting to look like the Tomes.

I signed up. I doubt I'll make a meaningful contribution, or that my contribution will somehow stand out from the noise, but I am curious. Whether I provide any feedback depends entirely on what I get asked to look at, and the format of those responses.

If it a self-validating questionnaire similar to the garbage at the end of the Legends and Lore editorials, I won't bother.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;

I plan to not be involved at all.

After extensively reading and subsequently dismissing 4e, my curiosity overpowered my suspicions of marketing and signed me up to participate in their open playtest marketing hype.

Until I hear more about it, I'm not going to do anything. For instance -- will it be more 4E-like or less 4E-like?