The really disappointing thing is that many of these people haven't even  played it for any significant amount of time.  They simply pull up the rules and immediately start spreadsheet comparing DPS.

That's fine for a computer game, but is fundamentally flawed when judging the merits of a tabletop RPG.  The only way to get a true measurement of the rules for a TTRPG is to play it with a group and see how it actually plays out, rather than how you assumed.

A classic example of this is the whole "a fighter will always use deep wound over defense because killing a monster faster is always better" argument that I keep going back to.  That assumption looks good on paper, but ignores actual play and several key factors of actual play, such as:


*battles aren't done in a vacuum, and thus you don't get back all resources after each one (hp, etc).
*you can stategize depending on scenario that makes one or the other better for that specific scenario.  For example, using "sieze the advantage", which gives you advantage on your next attack against an opponent that missed you works great when you use your expertise dice to increase your AC rather than damage, causing the opponent to miss you, which in turn allows you to use "sieze the advantage".

Quote from: Haffrung;666054The elephant in the room that nobody mentions on RPGnet (probably for fear of banning) is that for tabletop RPGs there's no correlation between mathematical system balance and sales. The best designed games, according to the theory-wanks on RPG and other design-focused sites, sell in the hundreds. I mean, does anyone actually play Burning Wheel? While games that are 'broken' or 'cater to nostalgia' sell in the tens and hundreds of thousands. It's too perilous to their sense of self-worth to acknowledge that all the stuff they fret about endlessly matters very, very little out in the marketplace and at the table.

While I try not to engage in edition wars I have once or twice said at RPGnet that the design "elegance" or "coherence" or whatever of an rpg is, IME, orthogonal to the amount of fun I have with it at the table.

The general response was as if I'd said "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." My position literally made no sense to many of the posters there.

Quote from: Dimitrios;666069While I try not to engage in edition wars I have once or twice said at RPGnet that the design "elegance" or "coherence" or whatever of an rpg is, IME, orthogonal to the amount of fun I have with it at the table.

The general response was as if I'd said "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." My position literally made no sense to many of the posters there.

Try next time to rephrase orthogonal, but be careful.  If they actually understood your argument, they might have banned you.

Quote from: Dimitrios;666069While I try not to engage in edition wars I have once or twice said at RPGnet that the design "elegance" or "coherence" or whatever of an rpg is, IME, orthogonal to the amount of fun I have with it at the table.

The general response was as if I'd said "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." My position literally made no sense to many of the posters there.

This is really bizarre.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;666045What I mean by that is that an MMO by it's very nature is just a grind fest of ever increasing DPS percentage bonuses.  In that kind of play, you have to have very tight level scaling so that each level and every class improves by the same amount.  A tabletop RPG is nothing of the sort.  You have one key advantage with a TTRPG: your imagination.  You don't have to have exact level scaling with it.  And the game should NOT be designed solely around level scaling numbers.  It SHOULD be designed to enhance the face to face interaction between players.

Why this keeps getting lost on this crowd is beyond me.

I think it's simply that a lot of them are coming out of MMOs, or for the older ones, a long period of playing MMOs.

Also, a lot of them may be compsci types, which is where the whole design elegance thing is coming from. But that doesn't even really have a lot to do with how fun a computer game is, let alone a tabletop game.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;666067The really disappointing thing is that many of these people haven't even  played it for any significant amount of time.  They simply pull up the rules and immediately start spreadsheet comparing DPS.

That's fine for a computer game, but is fundamentally flawed when judging the merits of a tabletop RPG.  The only way to get a true measurement of the rules for a TTRPG is to play it with a group and see how it actually plays out, rather than how you assumed.

A classic example of this is the whole "a fighter will always use deep wound over defense because killing a monster faster is always better" argument that I keep going back to.  That assumption looks good on paper, but ignores actual play and several key factors of actual play, such as:


*battles aren't done in a vacuum, and thus you don't get back all resources after each one (hp, etc).
*you can stategize depending on scenario that makes one or the other better for that specific scenario.  For example, using "sieze the advantage", which gives you advantage on your next attack against an opponent that missed you works great when you use your expertise dice to increase your AC rather than damage, causing the opponent to miss you, which in turn allows you to use "sieze the advantage".

It's a given that a lot of folks have the knives out over Next. WotC has rejected a certain playstyle and design model, and those rejected already hate something they haven't even played yet. It's only a happy coincidence that the rejected 4E community share common cause with the system matters crowd at RPGNet. Happy for the system wanks because their ranks have been swelled by some actual gamers for once.

Still, for someone who hopes Next succeeds it's nothing to get too wound up about. WotC already knows they'll lose a chunk of 4E players, and system-wanks have never mattered anyway. I mean, some of those people on RPGNet proclaim that there's no justification for WotC to publish a game like Next because Dungeon World already fills that niche of light-medium fantasy D&D-type game. As if WotC could give a shit about Dungeon World. I doubt 10 per cent of the target market for D&D Next even knows Dungeon World exists, let alone will ever play it.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;666045Yeah, that seems to be a point a lot of folks keep missing, no matter how many times you point it out to them.  Heck, just yesterday there was a person comparing D&D Next with an MMO he beta tested, implying that WoTC should be using the same design approach of MMOs.

These people just can't grasp the concept that tabletop RPGs aren't MMOs, and aren't constrained by which button combination maximizes DPS, and that level scaling doesn't, and shouldn't, mirror that of an MMO.

What I mean by that is that an MMO by it's very nature is just a grind fest of ever increasing DPS percentage bonuses.  In that kind of play, you have to have very tight level scaling so that each level and every class improves by the same amount.  A tabletop RPG is nothing of the sort.  You have one key advantage with a TTRPG: your imagination.  You don't have to have exact level scaling with it.  And the game should NOT be designed solely around level scaling numbers.  It SHOULD be designed to enhance the face to face interaction between players.

Why this keeps getting lost on this crowd is beyond me.

Thats just strange. In my opinion, mmorpgs/mmo's/whatever have Jack all to do with pen and paper rpgs.

Well, I suppose WOW's mainstream appeal does have a positive effect on non gamers perception of gamers.

Quote from: LordVreeg;666043People play for different reasons.
I do find it funny that my players with the best stats seem to have a lower survival rates.  Almost as if they depend on them more?

That's my experience as well. The "most powerful" characters tend to die the quickest from being over utilized.

Quote from: Piestrio;666109That's my experience as well. The "most powerful" characters tend to die the quickest from being over utilized.

That, or an inflated sense of invulernability.  Rather than take the extra time to plan ahead because you know your character probably couldn't hang one-on-one against a bugbear, you get mentalities like, "I've got more hp and more bonus to damage than it, so I'll win; bring it on!" only to find out that you rolled like crap the bugbear crit'd you and now you're dead.

There's a sense of irony in having a player bragging about having the "best character" at the game table, trying to grab the limelight over and over to "be the hero", only to get killed because he was being a twit with no brains.

I guess these guys like to complain about the rust monster being unfair, and level drain being broken, now. Same guys counting the "DPS" like it's something critical to their self-esteem too, probably.

Quote from: Piestrio;666109That's my experience as well. The "most powerful" characters tend to die the quickest from being over utilized.

Ok, so it is not just me.  Interesting.  I mean, sometimes it is the way the foes will respond.  They go after the toughest threats from the PC side first.  But sometimes they run the ragged edge and are over utilized.,

Quote from: Bill;666108Thats just strange. In my opinion, mmorpgs/mmo's/whatever have Jack all to do with pen and paper rpgs.

Gamer 1: "Hey guys, now that we capped, should we try playing D&D, like I was talking about last week?"

Gamer 2: "You mean IRL?"

Gamer 1: "Yeah. We can play at my place. I have the books and everything. It's just like WoW. It has some really cool classes and mobs."

Gamer 3: "And you play it at a table with minis, right?"

Gamer 1: "Yeah, you have controllers, and tanks, and you take down BBGs. Just like WoW."

Gamer 3: "Except you do everything yourself. Move your guys. Do the math. Roll the dice. Write everything down on paper and shit. Track conditions. Track health."

Gamer 1: "Yeah. But it's not too bad - you can do an encounter in about 90 minutes. Usually two or three encounters a session."

Gamer 2 looks at Gamer 3: "Let's just do that raid on Mount Azzkrak again."


At least WotC learned what a fail going after the MMO crowd was.

Quote from: Benoist;666112There's a sense of irony in having a player bragging about having the "best character" at the game table, trying to grab the limelight over and over to "be the hero", only to get killed because he was being a twit with no brains.

I guess these guys like to complain about the rust monster being unfair, and level drain being broken, now. Same guys counting the "DPS" like it's something critical to their self-esteem too, probably.

One of the very few players I ever considered booting was a 'DPS Look at Me! I am the Bestest!' type.

This was my first 4E gm campaign, I had 8 players, and 4 of them were people I did not know very well.

So, this guy shows up with an Eladrin Swordmage, and at first seemed like a roleplayer. But it became obvious after a few sessions that he was a powergamer in disguise. 4E is somewhat balanced, but he managed to find overpowered broken crap regardless.

He essentially overshadowed the other characters at every opportunity.

He was also the doofus that thought his character could bully his way into a KING'S bedchamber to get an audience. duh.

I asked him three times to "make a few changes to your character and 'deoptimize' him. Take something more fun but less effective."
Each time he came back with a different optimized build.

So right as I was considering booting him, a player happened to solve the problem for me.

The other player said to him during the game "You know, you are a powergaming douchbag"

He never returned.

Another difference between the MMO generation is that they think if they kill enough creatures, they'll get phat loot.  "Dropping the legendary" so to speak.  The problem is, in most TTRPGs, "legendary loot" is often a quest item unto itself, or strategically placed in the adventure.  It's not a random drop.  TTRPGs are not a grindfest in a boring world where mobs regen after an amount of time.  TTRPG worlds are a living, evolving landscape.  It's a concept some folks have a hard time grasping.

I blame Diablo for starting this trend

Quote from: Haffrung;666120Gamer 1: "Hey guys, now that we capped, should we try playing D&D, like I was talking about last week?"

Gamer 2: "You mean IRL?"

Gamer 1: "Yeah. We can play at my place. I have the books and everything. It's just like WoW. It has some really cool classes and mobs."

Gamer 3: "And you play it at a table with minis, right?"

Gamer 1: "Yeah, you have controllers, and tanks, and you take down BBGs. Just like WoW."

Gamer 3: "Except you do everything yourself. Move your guys. Do the math. Roll the dice. Write everything down on paper and shit. Track conditions. Track health."

Gamer 1: "Yeah. But it's not too bad - you can do an encounter in about 90 minutes. Usually two or three encounters a session."

Gamer 2 looks at Gamer 3: "Let's just do that raid on Mount Azzkrak again."


At least WotC learned what a fail going after the MMO crowd was.

Pen and paper rpgs may not be for everyone, but I am pretty sure a lot of the WOW only crowd would love them if properly introduced to a good pen and paper game.

But the idea of playing dnd like it was WOW makes me cringe.



Lord of The Rings Online: "Fellowship forming to farm Balrogs in Moria for item drops!!! need Tank, DPS, Minstrel for healing"

(I did play a little bit of Lord of the Rings online, and its a great mmorpg. But its not a pen and paper game. At all.)