Quote from: Lord Mistborn;588667The people at Pazio do not understand 3.5 at all and could not design their way out of a paper bag.

In Pathfinder non-casters are nerfed and the casters are riding the same awesome train.

Basically everything that makes Pathfinder  well... Pathfinder and not just reheated 3.5 is unambiguously terrible.

It's still better than 4e though.

I am no pathfinder fan but part of design is understanding your customers. It seems to me they designed a game that appeals to their customer base pretty well (last event we held all we saw was people playing pathfinder).

Quote from: Benoist;588670So wait. Paizo dethroned WotC, is currently, arguably, the game company that is at the top of the food chain now, in terms of actual units sold and revenue, and you mean to tell me that these guys don't understand what they are doing?

What are your design credits, exactly? Time to put up or shut up. I'm all ears.

Pazio does shit like print feats that literally do nothing. There is no defense for them.

Quote from: Lord Mistborn;588674Pazio does shit like print feats that literally do nothing. There is no defense for them.

What are your design credits?

Also, it's spelled P-A-I-Z-O. Not "Pazio".

Quote from: Benoist;588640I could, if what you described was actually what was going on at these tables, but it simply isn't, or in any case, it is not even remotely as common as you think it is.

I play my characters, role play them. I get attached to them. It actually doesn't take that long to happen (I'd say for me, on average one or two sessions max, if the character works for me, which is the vast majority of cases really - I can count the number of characters that just didn't work role play wise for me, that I created and then played and thought "hm that isn't working, I can't play this guy" on the fingers of one hand, probably, and I've created hundreds of PCs, if not thousands, not to mention NPCs for my games).

And that's only possible if they don't die more often than Kenny. Or are you denying this?

QuoteThat's just not the case. Take it from actual experience: when I started playing AD&D first ed when I was a kid, I went through more than six characters until one of them made it to level 2. I was 11 years old, and I wasn't especially bright when it came to playing the game. Yet I loved it. And when I had that character reach 2nd level then, it actually meant something. Of course, said character died as well, at level 3 if I'm remembering correctly. But then I played a Thief that made it actually pretty far (around level 5) before we had to call the game. These were my first games playing solo and trust me, my DM wasn't fudging to keep me alive. That was tough. And also very rewarding.

At least you are admitting that constant random death is a thing. Progress!

QuoteNow, I think that's a pretty fair assessment of what the game plays like when you're inexperienced, discover it for the first time and play your first games with a DM who's not out to keep your character alive. The level 1 characters that never made it to level 2 were played I would say... around two sessions of about two, three hours each (we were playing every evening). That's not the 'less than 10 minutes' you describe. And in about two sessions, you get attached to your character. At least I do.

If it took that long then you were likely going slow.

Someone in another thread used the whole dungeon with the spider and the limestone skeleton thing as an example of actual play in older editions. Ignoring that that story is in every edition except possibly 4th, in the first real fight one of the PCs is instantly killed by a single Ghoul... and there are 4 of them. Yet, they still held this up as an example of actual play... even though it completely burns up any notion that older editions weren't about a revolving door of death.

QuoteNow give me a fair, complete answer: which exact editions have you played? How old were you, and how many games have you played? How about DMed?

1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, PF (big mistake), 4th (even bigger mistake).

10ish, somewhere in the teens, 18, don't remember, whenever it first came out, whenever it first came out.

I didn't start DMing until 3rd, and I lost count of the games I was involved in after 30.

QuoteLastly, how many other role playing games have you played and/or ran? Which ones?

I want to understand where you are coming from on this.

What I'd like for you, and the other people that keep bringing this up to understand is this:

Tabletop games require a DM and 4-6 players all playing the same game in the same place at the same time. We'll call it an even half dozen people total. Now even before considering other factors, such as "most players are bad players" we can clearly see that any game that isn't popular just isn't going to have the population base to find people willing to play it with you. Which ultimately means there's absolutely no reason to waste time and resources learning the rules of a game you can't play.

Further, if you are a writer of game rulebooks, and your son is 16 and just got hired at McDonalds a week ago he probably gets paid more and more consistently than you do.

Needless to say, tabletop game design does not attract a lot of talent, and as a result most games are utterly worthless. Even 3.5, which is comparatively less flawed still has a ton of critical problems... such that it isn't the difference between good and bad games so much as it is hard to salvage and impossible to salvage games. This also reflects in popularity... people don't play bad games, which due to the critical mass factor causes less to play them and so forth...

All of which means that at best, those other games can show you how not to design a game... but you can learn that more efficiently in other ways so there is just no reason to bother with them at all.

So why ask about some other games that we're not talking about, and that are not relevant? Trying for the dismissive "you don't play all these other shitty irrelevant games, so we can ignore you" fails a simple logic check.

QuoteI wouldn't call White Plume Mountain a "paragon of gaming skill".

I've seen your thread about the module on TGD.

How many times have you played, or ran, the module?

I wouldn't but some here have and did. So I looked at it, figuring there was a 95% chance they were wrong but just in case they got a natural 20 I wanted to see what they were on about. And I seen this. Over and over again. In hindsight I should not be surprised, as "being wrong" and "getting things backwards" is just something I've come to expect to see around these parts. Regardless, I was able to put the lie to their words in far less time than it took me to write all that despite never having seen that module before.

Which just makes me very glad that was my first exposure, because if I actually had to play this I'd have likely been far more opposed to D&D in general.

QuoteNot really. They don't encourage you to be dicks to your friends. If some DM somewhere was a dick to you when you played some D&D game, 2nd edition and otherwise, I would understand where you are coming from, though. Is that the case?

Have you read the rulebooks? Seriously, just read over them once. Any rulebook that dedicates around 2-3 pages specifically to discussing ways the DM can and should screw the party out of good horses is clearly not interested in you staying friends with your friends. And that's ignoring all the various trap related remarks that suggest the DM should take pleasure in their parties' hapless suffering.

QuoteSounds to me like you are building a variant of the Stormwind Fallacy. If it is true that there is no direct opposition between "role playing" and "optimizing a character", there also isn't an opposition between "playing an old edition of the game" and "role playing your character". I hope my own examples were demonstrative, in that regard.

No, I'm not. See, in order to roleplay your character you have to live, because you cannot roleplay if you are dead, and likewise if you're constantly dying you're not going to remain attached to your character and therefore will not roleplay. So optimization is required for roleplay, both so that you can continue playing, and portraying your character and because D&D is a game about killing things and taking their stuff, so if your character isn't capable of successfully doing this they should roleplay retiring for their own safety and that of others.

When you play an old edition of the game you're stuck in die constantly mode no matter what.

Quote from: mcbobbo;588664I'm rather glad to see this thread has taken such an interesting turn. It's good to see people giving GC and LM the opportunity to behave like members of a community. It would be even better to see them participate.

E makes some great points, particularly that optimization simply cannot save you. That's really solid. Kudos.

I predict that goalposts will soon be moved. Let's see.

I'm also hoping the realization that 3e is old starts setting in, because I see a false dichotomy being formed between 'old' and 'new'. 3rd edition is 'old' now, too, and simply cannot have been 'perfect' or there would be no market for new games.

Aside from Paizo, is d20 doing well? I didn't think it was.

Speaking of Paizo, what's the 'powergamer' take on their approach? I have yet to see anyone advocate it here. Perhaps because they deliberately modified part of the 'mastery' equation.

You don't see anyone advocating it because it's terrible.

See, when you have a game where casters = win, non casters = lose, you ideally fix this by making non casters better (since most enemies are either casters or non casters that are just better than you, so nerf casters means no one can deal with the enemies).

Paizo's take is to make casters = more win and non casters = more lose. And while it's true that if you want power, or options, or progress, or anything out of the game really other than "I attack. Again." you should be a caster because that's the only way to do it that doesn't mean it should be that way, that things working in that way is desirable, or that making the problem worse is a good thing.

So while 3.5 casters, despite their power can actually be threatened by things, in PF it's just win init, caster vs caster, whoever moves first wins. And every fight is like that (fights lacking a caster are an automatic loss for the deficient side, if both sides lack the monsters win by default).

You see, optimizers look for depth within a game. Games that lack depth are worthless. In PF you do the equivalent of spam X to victory. There's just no point in it.

Quote from: Benoist;588670So wait. Paizo dethroned WotC, is currently, arguably, the game company that is at the top of the food chain now, in terms of actual units sold and revenue, and you mean to tell me that these guys don't understand what they are doing?

What are your design credits, exactly? Time to put up or shut up. I'm all ears.

Only because 4th fucked up worse.

These clowns nerfed Monks. If you still think they have any clue, you're more hopeless than the Mearls supporters.

Quote from: Mr. GC;5886794th (even bigger mistake)

That must have been pretty short if you think 1st level enemies have 23ish AC.

Quote from: vytzka;588683That must have been pretty short if you think 1st level enemies have 23ish AC.

You still fail at reading comprehension I see. Because I'm feeling nice, I'll spell this one out to you for free. I said "as you level, you get less effective and less accurate". Now, why would you assume I was talking about level 1? You know, unless you are a dishonest fuck?

And because this is actually on topic here, at least somewhat productive, and the other thread was locked...

Quote from: RPGPundit;588658So, something that's never existed anywhere?  I guess maybe it might exist in 4e or the most retarded styles of 3e play. But seriously, in old-school D&D whether you're an "effective character" has fuck all to do with what happens at character creation.

RPGPundit

If we're talking about older editions... you mean to tell me whether you get an "18/00" or a "5" has fuck all to do with character creation? Even though stats not only determine classes but how well those classes function? And that's just the easiest example.

Quote from: RPGPundit;588660Really? Given that this is the third largest general RPG forum around, I find that pretty hard to believe.  Do you have links to occasions (ideally from "years ago" as you claim and not last week when the den started using it) where it was used in threads on ENworld or RPG.net?
Preferrably used by people who don't also have gamingden accounts.

RPGPundit

I don't know if ENWorld or RPG.net has used it. I don't follow either of those boards, given that they're backasswards. They probably know of it, but I know it's been used outside of the Den years ago. It's also been used by the Den years ago.

Google is mostly failing me but I still see it used in context on July 6 2011 on a board that is barely even related to D&D and I know it's been around at least a year or two longer than that. It doesn't help that Google's search algorithms are prioritizing discussions of literal basket weaving higher, though if you define it as "a useless thing" there's references from 2004 describing useless classes as part of a degree.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588687You still fail at reading comprehension I see. Because I'm feeling nice, I'll spell this one out to you for free. I said "as you level, you get less effective and less accurate". Now, why would you assume I was talking about level 1? You know, unless you are a dishonest fuck?

You don't really have a lot of cred, you could just admit you fucked up with the "need a 20 to hit" stuff. As you level, you get less accurate, that is true, because there's a bug in the maths. I don't remember and I'm too lazy to check if it's 2 or 3 points per the entirety of 30 levels. So to end up at 20+ at level 30 you need to start at 17+ at level 1.

Which is no, still fucking stupid.

If you have actual examples (unlike the 20+ stupidity) you could share them instead of having me guess what you have in mind. AC 23 was reasonable conclusion from your stupid maths. Now I'm getting AC 20 at level 1 which is still way dumb. If you don't like it, say what you mean exactly.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588679And that's only possible if they don't die more often than Kenny. Or are you denying this?

At this point I am pretty sure none of your cohort will ever understand this, but one more time:  It's not his responsibility to deny the statement, it's your responsibility to support it.  If you are unable to do so, it would be advisable to re-visit your conclusion an re-asses both the conclusion and the premises.

If you are unwilling to do so, it shows your argumentation skill fails as hard as you do at RPGs, and you are aware of it but press on anyway.  For example, several of us have patiently tried to explain basic math and averages on this thread, but you double down on your wildly incorrect ideas.  You are unable to support your contention, so you should re-evaluate your conclusion and probably premises.  This has been pointed out to you numerous times, but you are unwilling to provide further or different evidence, so your ability to argue the point is a complete failure.

Claims require evidence.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  And your claim is that 1st level AD&D characters die with a high frequency.  Now prove it.

Also, pointing out Traveller has the chance to lose a character during generation neither proves it is 'trying to', nor that AD&D also has a chance of losing a character in generation.  The first requires a good deal more evidence before even considering it seriously, the second is just blatantly false.

clue

Quote from: Mr. GC;588687Google is mostly failing me...

Quote from: StormBringer;588692clue

clue

Better ease up Stormy.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=588681&postcount=376


I think it's time to end this conversation, based on the above link.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;588694Better ease up Stormy.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=588681&postcount=376


I think it's time to end this conversation, based on the above link.

Most likely.  I am just hoping it sinks in for them this time around.  I'm out.

Quote from: vytzka;588689You don't really have a lot of cred, you could just admit you fucked up with the "need a 20 to hit" stuff. As you level, you get less accurate, that is true, because there's a bug in the maths. I don't remember and I'm too lazy to check if it's 2 or 3 points per the entirety of 30 levels. So to end up at 20+ at level 30 you need to start at 17+ at level 1.

Which is no, still fucking stupid.

If you have actual examples (unlike the 20+ stupidity) you could share them instead of having me guess what you have in mind. AC 23 was reasonable conclusion from your stupid maths. Now I'm getting AC 20 at level 1 which is still way dumb. If you don't like it, say what you mean exactly.

What I actually said was that as you level up, you become less accurate. You came in with some moronic bullshit about "before you level up, you can't hit anything" which is not what I said at all. And this is exactly what I said the last time so why do you keep bringing this up?

By the way: It's around 9 points at 30, just by the default scaling. So if you start with a stat less than 20, aren't using +3 accurate weapons, don't have a magic item exactly up to date etc only hitting on a 20 is not only possible, it is very likely especially given your base accuracy is not especially high. And that's provided you're fighting things at your level and not things higher than your level.

Also, given that even if you do everything right and do manage to hit your attacks aren't going to dent anything if you seriously fuck up your build you seriously get the situation where you have a 5% chance to take off 1% and otherwise you waste your entire turn.

All of which means that in 4th edition optimization manages to be required, ineffective, and boring all at the same time. At least in 3.5 optimized characters kill things quickly and do not die quickly, and the game breaking stuff is interesting, and not just infinite damage or something boring. It should still be banned of course - no one is seriously advocating Pun-Pun, but when it isn't even fun to break something into many pieces it's a good sign everyone involved has failed.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588679And that's only possible if they don't die more often than Kenny. Or are you denying this?

I'm not denying that if your characters were to die "more often than Kenny", which I'd take to mean, in the context of an RPG, dying every single session once, this might represent some barrier for some players to get invested in their characters.

I am however denying from experience, playing the game with a DM who was not fudging and not keeping the training wheels on, that character death would occur every single session, or that the game is unplayable, or any variation thereof.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588679At least you are admitting that constant random death is a thing. Progress!

You are putting words in my mouth. Note that I didn't say that any instance of these 1st level character deaths were "random". Most of them actually had to do with me making some pretty blatant tactical and/or strategic mistakes.

Moreover, I wouldn't conflate the 'funnel' of 1st level characters having a hard time surviving until some of them make it to higher levels with the entirety of the campaign. Besides, a "campaign" here doesn't mean what you think it means. It's not "a story arc" or whatever. A campaign in this case means an ongoing game set in a particular setting, with players often having multiple characters of different levels, adventuring with varying groups, characters being killed off and created, and so on. It's not the same paradigm, in other words.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588679If it took that long then you were likely going slow.

Not particularly, no. Not any slower than most games I've seen ever since, in any case.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588679Someone in another thread used the whole dungeon with the spider and the limestone skeleton thing as an example of actual play in older editions. Ignoring that that story is in every edition except possibly 4th, in the first real fight one of the PCs is instantly killed by a single Ghoul... and there are 4 of them. Yet, they still held this up as an example of actual play... even though it completely burns up any notion that older editions weren't about a revolving door of death.

I don't know what example you are talking about. I probably missed it or don't remember it right off the bat so I can't comment on that.

Quote from: Mr. GC;5886791st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, PF (big mistake), 4th (even bigger mistake).

10ish, somewhere in the teens, 18, don't remember, whenever it first came out, whenever it first came out.

I didn't start DMing until 3rd, and I lost count of the games I was involved in after 30.

Okay. So you are telling me you have played First Edition until around 10ish level, but haven't DMed it.

New questions:

(1) How old were you?
(2) How many DMs have you played AD&D 1e with?
(3) How many characters did it take you to get one at 10ish level?
(4) Were you, or any other players, playing different characters at once? Were they the same level, all of them?
(5) How long, in real time, and at which frequency of play, did it take you to reach level 10ish?

This will help me understand better.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588679What I'd like for you, and the other people that keep bringing this up to understand is this:

Tabletop games require a DM and 4-6 players all playing the same game in the same place at the same time. We'll call it an even half dozen people total. Now even before considering other factors, such as "most players are bad players" we can clearly see that any game that isn't popular just isn't going to have the population base to find people willing to play it with you. Which ultimately means there's absolutely no reason to waste time and resources learning the rules of a game you can't play.

Further, if you are a writer of game rulebooks, and your son is 16 and just got hired at McDonalds a week ago he probably gets paid more and more consistently than you do.

Needless to say, tabletop game design does not attract a lot of talent, and as a result most games are utterly worthless. Even 3.5, which is comparatively less flawed still has a ton of critical problems... such that it isn't the difference between good and bad games so much as it is hard to salvage and impossible to salvage games. This also reflects in popularity... people don't play bad games, which due to the critical mass factor causes less to play them and so forth...

All of which means that at best, those other games can show you how not to design a game... but you can learn that more efficiently in other ways so there is just no reason to bother with them at all.

So why ask about some other games that we're not talking about, and that are not relevant? Trying for the dismissive "you don't play all these other shitty irrelevant games, so we can ignore you" fails a simple logic check.

OK. That's all fine and good, but you haven't answered my question.

Which other role playing games, other than D&D, have you played? Which have you GM'd?

Quote from: Mr. GC;588679I wouldn't but some here have and did. So I looked at it, figuring there was a 95% chance they were wrong but just in case they got a natural 20 I wanted to see what they were on about. And I seen this. Over and over again. In hindsight I should not be surprised, as "being wrong" and "getting things backwards" is just something I've come to expect to see around these parts. Regardless, I was able to put the lie to their words in far less time than it took me to write all that despite never having seen that module before.

Which just makes me very glad that was my first exposure, because if I actually had to play this I'd have likely been far more opposed to D&D in general.

So you are telling me you haven't run White Plume Mountain, or played it, correct?

Correlary question: do you think rules should be playtested?

Quote from: Mr. GC;588679Have you read the rulebooks?

Have you?

Have you actually read the First Edition PH or DMG? ALL you've said about First Edition, from the ability score generation that was wrong, to the rules about being below zero hit points that was wrong (you don't die at 0 HP, you're unconscious), to well... honestly now. EVERYTHING you've said so far about First Edition has been utterly, totally, completely wrong.

So I am asking you honestly: have you ever read the First Edition PH, or DMG, and if so, how long ago was it, and how old were you at the time?

Quote from: Mr. GC;588679No, I'm not. See, in order to roleplay your character you have to live, because you cannot roleplay if you are dead, and likewise if you're constantly dying you're not going to remain attached to your character and therefore will not roleplay. So optimization is required for roleplay, both so that you can continue playing, and portraying your character and because D&D is a game about killing things and taking their stuff, so if your character isn't capable of successfully doing this they should roleplay retiring for their own safety and that of others.

When you play an old edition of the game you're stuck in die constantly mode no matter what.

That experience doesn't pan out with mine at all: you are not "dying all the time" playing AD&D 1e, and I certainly can get in the skin of a character and get attached to them in no time.

The notion that optimization is required for role play is nonsensical to me. Purely, and simply. Role playing doesn't depend on success. It just occurs. You are either role playing your character, or you are not. Given that I don't have problems role playing my characters in AD&D First Ed, I have a hard time understanding where you are coming from on this.

I'm curious now to have answers to my questions above, because maybe they'll help me understand where these strongly held convictions of yours come from.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588663Except for the part where you're not hit for one, you're hit for three, or five, or ten.

There actually are.

It's not hard to follow. If you think it is, you are beyond help and so I'm moving past it because I'm not going to get a lifelong blind man to understand the concept of color.

It's easy to not die to the brutal rules when you ignore them. Again, if you can't grasp basic concepts just stay out of this.

Hi Welcome

Just because you're a basket weaver doesn't mean we all are.

Just because your DM is a basket weaver doesn't mean mine is.

I don't think you could. I do think it's possible, but it'd require the DM to do something like a level + 8 encounter, and then I, and my party would have to somehow fuck up seriously.

Except for the part where the rules say encounters almost never go that high, and if they do it's due to more fucking up (such as not killing enemies fast enough, so that they pile up and form an overwhelming fight instead of being a long chain of easier fights).

Now, what the fuck is your point? That I can't play perfectly? Never claimed I could. That my character is not invincible? Again, I deliberately used language like almost never die to suggest they were durable but not invulnerable.

If it's to claim that I can still die anyways, therefore I must be basket weaving even though I'm dying literally hundreds of times less than the basket weavers well here is my reaction:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Intellectual Dishonesty about using averages
Are you saying that I shouldn't expect an explanation of your calling people intellectually dishonest for calculating the average of die rolls?

That's a pity -- you were so certain above, and now you've backed up to just saying someone somewhere said first level characters weren't fragile.

I'm going to keep urging you to stand by your original statements or admit you were wrong and apologize - it's the manly thing to do. And saying that I'm not getting it after we've gone step by step together, and I can point to the post where you tried to change your claim, isn't convincing.

We're all Basket Weavers Down Here, Mate
My point isn't anything about "playing perfectly" whatever that means -- it's about you thinking your success has anything to do with how well you know the rules and how optimized your characters are.

I mean you admitted that the DM could trivially kill even the most optimized character, right?

If that's true, then isn't it true that if you're succeeding in the game (what you call 'winning') is because the GM has simply decided not to kill you?

In the example up above, where a party goes after a bunch of magic bad guys -- it's not like those bad guys really exist, right? It's not like the PC's are outsmarting them with their 3l33t tactics and so-on, right? Their capabilities, their reactions, their knowledge and intelligence, are all decided on by the DM -- and he knows everything you're doing.

Your bad-ass-seal-team-six-success? It's an illusion he creates for you.

The illusion of being a tactical bad-ass is created because the DM decides to throw a challenge you can beat in the game, and then decide to let your tactics work -- and he does it in a way that lets you believe you're brilliant! Clearly you've got a pretty skilled DM, but don't mistake that for your own skill.

My guess is that your DM is aware of how little you like character death and how if he killed your character you wouldn't have fun -- so he throws these limited challenges at you, and you get this thrill of having overcome them.

Which is cool: fun gaming, right? But it's not because you're weaving the basket he's set up for you.

Cheers,
-E.