Quote from: Sommerjon;666205Except the MMO crowd is where the kids are nowadays.  

No they're not.  5 years ago WoW had 12 million subscribers.  They are down to 8 million now and steadily falling.  A lot are going back to RPGs, just using G+ hangouts to do so.  Of my group of 7 regular G+ players, half played MMOs but don't anymore because we do G+ instead.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;666197I honestly don't get this disdain for good game design.

I don't have a disdain for good game design.  4e is a very well designed game for what it is.  The problem is, it's a game that doesn't appeal to me.  Good or bad technical design doesn't matter so much if the experience at the game table isn't what appeals to me.  And often that experience is dependant on things like who I'm with and what kind of game it is, not if everything is perfectly balanced.

Quote from: Dimitrios;666211The thing is people have different definitions of "good" and "bad".

When people sit down to design an RPG, if a major goal is "We must make something that people who spend hours on CharOp boards won't be able to break", that's going to result in game that plays a certain way, and some other aspects of play will likely be sacrificed to achieve that goal.

That's what the 'airtight design is a good thing even for people who play a loose game' crowd don't understand. Games designed from airtight mechanics out will have a certain shape and feel that may be incompatible with other design goals. I've played hundreds of boardgames in the last 15 years, and while many of my favourites are eurogames, I can always tell a game that was designed from the mechanics out, rather than from the theme in. They're analytically robust, but tend towards the abstract and generic.

Quote from: Dimitrios;666211My definition of "good math" is "math that doesn't yield wonky results in 95% of the situations that come up when my group plays", not "math that cannot possibly be made to yield wonky results no matter how hard someone tries".
That's because my group doesn't include people whose "fun" comes from finding clever ways to break the game.

This. So much this. Every hour the Next design team spends buttressing the math against anticipated assaults from char op douchebags is an hour they don't spend working on fun stuff that matters to my group.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;666201He should be even more ashamed that what I gave was just one example, whereas the argument posited that I was disagreeing with was an all or nothing position.  I would say I'm surprised that he missed that very significant difference, but I'm not.

Deep Wounds isn't worth nearly as much as Slam is.  Extra AC, extra damage, and have the opponent @disadvantage?  Yes please.

See this is where pulling out that spreadsheet and looking only at DPS works.  It doesn't take much to realize when an expertise benefit is superior to another.
Slam only work if you wield a shield and shields give more AC in D&D
Slam only works if you hit the opponent(just like Deep Wounds) allowing an expertise die of bonus damage.
Slam hits, the opponent is at disadvantage until the start of your next turn.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;666213No they're not.  5 years ago WoW had 12 million subscribers.  They are down to 8 million now and steadily falling.  A lot are going back to RPGs, just using G+ hangouts to do so.  Of my group of 7 regular G+ players, half played MMOs but don't anymore because we do G+ instead.

More and more people are going back to smoking as well.  Over half of my Saturday gaming group smokes.   :rolleyes:

Quote from: Piestrio;666199Did you just use "supposes" as a noun?

You should probably be ashamed of yourself.

It's supposes when cherry picking is done to "prove" points.

Quote from: Sommerjon;666236It's supposes when cherry picking is done to "prove" points.

I can't even begin to parse that sentence.

I mean seriously, what the hell does "it is supposes" mean? What is a "supposes"?

I have no clue what you are trying to say.

You could mean "it's a supposition" but that doesn't make sense in the context of your sentence. A supposition isn't "cherry picking to prove a point".

Quote from: Sommerjon;666231Deep Wounds isn't worth nearly as much as Slam is.  Extra AC, extra damage, and have the opponent @disadvantage?  Yes please.

See this is where pulling out that spreadsheet and looking only at DPS works.  It doesn't take much to realize when an expertise benefit is superior to another.
Slam only work if you wield a shield and shields give more AC in D&D
Slam only works if you hit the opponent(just like Deep Wounds) allowing an expertise die of bonus damage.
Slam hits, the opponent is at disadvantage until the start of your next turn.

Slam only works for melee attacks.  Deep wound works for all attacks.

But of course you ignored that.  The only advantage slam has over deep wounds is giving the target disadvantage.  However, being able to use deep wound for both melee and ranged attacks could offset that.

I think I finally figured out why so many people hate Next over at TBP.  It's because they haven't bothered to actually read the rules or ability descriptions.  I'm constantly seeing complaints (looking at you mediv and SuperG):

* rogues are useless because they can't ever sneak attack unless they have advantage and there is no way to ever get advantage

That's wrong on a few points.  For one, rogues can sneak attack whenever they feel like it by just giving themselves disadvantage.  Secondly, when reading the advantage overview, it implies that you could grant advantage or disadvantage for several things.  Just because flanking isn't expressly listed, doesn't mean you couldn't grant it if that's what you felt was fair.

* the fighter had no way of protecting the rogue.
If that's the case, that's on you for how you chose to build your fighter.  If you built your fighter as a slayer, than no, I wouldn't expect him to be able to protect others.  However, there are many abilities that do protect others.  The fighter's built in expertise dice mechanic has a way for you to raise the AC of your ally.  The interposing shield allows you to give targets attacking the rogue disadvantage.  Etc.

* The goblins felt like orcs who felt like ogres, etc.  Sooooo boring.
If your monsters are the same, every battle, then you're a piss poor DM.  An even poorer DM since Next gives you tools to make each of them unique.  For example: Goblins have the stealth, sneaky (can attempt to hide without using an action) and bushwacker traits (during the first round of combat, has advantage against any opponent with a lower initiative).  Orcs are relentless (after going to 0 hp, they stay up until the end of their next turn).  The list goes on.

So I'm thouroughly convinced at this point that the Usual Suspects haven't actually bothered to read the game they are saying they are playing.  I am dubious if they even played it, and are just postering as a reason to bitch and moan.  Most of their complaints are quickly dismissed by a quick scan through the playtest docs.

I mean, it's one thing if you played it and don't like it, but when you have to resort to making things up, then I can't take you seriously.  I sincerely hope the Next team just throws their survey's out, because clearly they aren't providing feedback on what was provided.

Quote from: Piestrio;666238I can't even begin to parse that sentence.

I mean seriously, what the hell does "it is supposes" mean? What is a "supposes"?

I have no clue what you are trying to say.

You could mean "it's a supposition" but that doesn't make sense in the context of your sentence. A supposition isn't "cherry picking to prove a point".

Moses supposes his toeses are roses.
Moses supposes erroneously.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;666255I think I finally figured out why so many people hate Next over at TBP.  It's because they haven't bothered to actually read the rules or ability descriptions.  

Nah. It's because when the 300 pound gorilla of RPGs finally adopted the system-first design approach and made a purely gamist and mathematically balanced game in 4E, the system-wank crowd thought they had finally won. Then WotC announced Next, and their triumph was cast into the dust. And when Mearls said Next is about capturing the core feel of D&D, so mechanics will take a back seat to generating stories and feeling - that was WotC adding insult to injury.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;666191

QuoteThey shouldn't be working on boss monsters until they make the regular monsters way, way more interesting to fight.

That problem?  That's a you problem, not a Next problem. . . . If you can't find these creatures interesting, then I really do feel sorry for you.  The game should not be designed to cater to the lowest common denominator of people who have zero imagination.  Sorry, that's the way it is.

Ladybird' nailed this awhile back.

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Quote from: Haffrung;666269Nah. It's because when the 300 pound gorilla of RPGs finally adopted the system-first design approach and made a purely gamist and mathematically balanced game in 4E, the system-wank crowd thought they had finally won. Then WotC announced Next, and their triumph was cast into the dust. And when Mearls said Next is about capturing the core feel of D&D, so mechanics will take a back seat to generating stories and feeling - that was WotC adding insult to injury.

If that crowd hates Next because of all those reasons, more power to them.  We all have different tastes.  But the blatant fabrication of how the game plays just to make sure everyone knows you hate it tells me more about the person complaining than any legitimate reason.  I really hope WotC is smart enough to see which of the feedbacks to listen to, and which ones not to.  I.e., if I'm complaining about how the mechanics actually work (say I think cleric spells shouldn't have to be memorized first), that's a legitimate complaint.  But if I'm complaining about how the rogue is worthless because he can never get advantage to do a sneak attack, I'd hope WotC would look at that feedback and say, "Well, this guy never actually read the rules, into the trash you go."

Quote from: Sacrosanct;666246Slam only works for melee attacks.  Deep wound works for all attacks.

But of course you ignored that.  The only advantage slam has over deep wounds is giving the target disadvantage.  However, being able to use deep wound for both melee and ranged attacks could offset that.

Well duh, of course I ignored that.   The amount of ranged opportunities is too situational to waste an expertise on the chances that it comes up as often as melee.
Slam has multiple effects with it.

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.

again, this is because the point of 'edition wars' has nothing to do with finding and sharing fun -- war is the point.

4e and MMORPGs represent a New World for kids who grew up on b/x. of course they're hard to fathom; of course there's a language barrier. they're their own thing. a teenager today is likely to have internalized the norms of video gaming, and has no problem understanding the fun of 4e/WoW stuff that many OSR guys find tiresome.

and vice versa.

arguments about edition differences on rpg.net are compelling precisely because they don't require talking about experience, only 'ideas.'

when someone wades into a 4e/OSR flamewar and is like 'i played every d&d system for two years apiece and loved them all for themselves and tribalism isn't worth it, and here is how i felt about it all,' she usually cools off the discussion a little, makes it hard to argue grand points. so a couple pages pass and another skirmish starts around a different, seemingly trivial piece of bullshit -- spellcasting rangers, or Gygax's shitty prose, or whether dragonborn are 'iconic' -- and the argument simply relocates to that stupid topic.

if 'edition wars' were about 'what is the most fun' then you could just start each one with 'everyone has different fun' and they'd never happen, but because they're appealing in themselves, they always find a way.

'edition warriors' aren't patriots for their ideologies, they're defense contractors. if there's nothing to fight about, they don't profit.