Quote from: -E.;588585Intellectual Dishonesty around Averages
I'm still not seeing anything dishonest. I've read your explanation of averages, and it looks to me like you're -- very forcefully, and over and over again -- making the point that individual rolls won't necessarily be the "average."

I'm not sure why you keep pointing out the obvious: unless I'm missing something, isn't the idea that any individual roll won't necessarily be "the average" pretty much the definition of "average?"

They still don't get it.

QuoteLet me ask you, if I say that the "average" of a 1d6 is "3.5" would you call me intellectually dishonest because you can't actually roll a 3.5 on a d6?

I would if you said you are hit for 1d6 damage and you and your 5 HP means you always survive.

QuoteI'd ask you to try to explain what you actually feel is dishonest -- you don't need to re-iterate what an average is or that specific rolls won't necessarily be "average" -- I get that.

You'll just ignore it again, so why bother?

QuoteLow Level D&D is unplayable
This is a pretty bold assertion -- are you saying that no one's ever played D&D because it's too deadly?

I'm saying people either:

1: Skipped low levels.
2: Outright cheated to remove the constant death from the game.
3: Made a bunch of houserules so 1st level characters have around 60 HP or something stupid.

QuoteI get that you don't like it -- that's fine. There's a lot of games I don't like -- but to say it's too deadly is factually wrong.

Oh? So all those things that kill everyone of all classes in 1-2 hits... they don't actually exist?

Because if you're saying "the rules of the game we are currently playing do not actually exist within that game" then yeah, I suppose you can not die all the time. But if you are playing D&D, and not pretend, you will have a nice death.

QuoteI can fly and instantly win?
How does your first level D&D character have a fly spell? Also, aren't we in a room? If the ceiling's low then how does flying help you win?

Why would a first level character be fighting even one Tarrasque? Why would anyone care about first level, given the whole random death thing?

The point of course is when you say OMG high level encounter, and it turns out it actually isn't like that at all it just makes you seem foolish.

Quote from: vytzka;588586What the fuck is concern trolling supposed to mean in this context. This parroting random words instead of actual arguments thing is getting even more tedious than before.

Google mother fucker, can you has it?

Quote from: vytzka;588586What the fuck is concern trolling supposed to mean in this context. This parroting random words instead of actual arguments thing is getting even more tedious than before.

I'm not sure. It looks to me like these guys are either not playing traditional game (which is odd since they're talking like they play D&D) or their DM has convinced them that they're winning because their characters are somehow "optimized" (rather than that they're winning because the DM chooses not to use his authority to beat them).

I'm wondering if it's possible that they're very disturbed by the idea that their in-game success is the result of DM kindness (rather than skill at building characters or something), and that's resulting in the weird math stuff and the ad hominem remarks.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588588They still don't get it.



I would if you said you are hit for 1d6 damage and you and your 5 HP means you always survive.



You'll just ignore it again, so why bother?



I'm saying people either:

1: Skipped low levels.
2: Outright cheated to remove the constant death from the game.
3: Made a bunch of houserules so 1st level characters have around 60 HP or something stupid.



Oh? So all those things that kill everyone of all classes in 1-2 hits... they don't actually exist?

Because if you're saying "the rules of the game we are currently playing do not actually exist within that game" then yeah, I suppose you can not die all the time. But if you are playing D&D, and not pretend, you will have a nice death.



Why would a first level character be fighting even one Tarrasque? Why would anyone care about first level, given the whole random death thing?

The point of course is when you say OMG high level encounter, and it turns out it actually isn't like that at all it just makes you seem foolish.

Intellectual dishonesty would be if someone with 5 HP would always survive 1d6 damage
That would be wrong, but I don't see anyone saying that. Can you articulate the intellectual dishonesty you're talking about?

People either skipped lower levels or had house rules to make the game more survivable
What if they didn't? What if they just played so first level characters died a lot (and the player would bring in another one)?

I get that's not your preference, but are you saying that it's impossible? That it never happened?

OMG High Level Encounter?
I think you missed my point -- I didn't say "OMG High Level Encounter" -- I said that a traditional DM can put in anything he wants so it doesn't matter how optimized your character is.

I mean, come-on -- your solution to being in a room with 100 giant French monsters was to *fly,* right? The ceiling would stop that, and you'd die.

Or maybe these are flying giant monsters. The point is, with a traditional DM it doesn't matter how optimized you are: the DM can put in anything he wants.

Right?

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588552So when someone with a 100% chance to hit, 10 damage per hit and 20 HP fights someone with a 50% chance to hit, 20 damage per hit and 10 HP and B goes first, A always wins?
.

Sigh.....


Ok, let's just put aside for the moment that you're describing a scenario that just doesn't happen, so making up imaginary scenarios to try to disprove the value of weighted averages is...well...just stupid.

I know this isn't a shocker to anyone, but what you're doing is trying to disprove the worth of weighted averages by introducing a scenario that has other, outside values.  

Lemme try to explain

A = attacker A's hit
adamage = attacker A's damage
ahitpoints = attacker A's hitpoints
B = attacker B's hit
and so on

In your scenario, this is how it would have to be written out using maths (A has 10 hp, 50% to hit, always goes first, and does 20 points.  B has 20 hp, 100% to hit, and does 10hp)

Ahitpoints = 10
Bhitpoints = 20

1: (A=random integer 1:100)
If A > 50, then adamage=20
Bhitpoints = bhitpoints - adamage

if Bhitpoints <= 0, goto (end of combat)
    else
(B=random integer 1:100)
If B <= 100, then bdamage=10
Ahitpoints=Ahitpoints-bdamage

If Ahitpoints<= 0 then goto (end combat)
   else
goto 1


As any fool can plainly see, it's not a formula where you're just figuring averages because you're throwing in an outside variable that A always goes first.  You're blinding ignoring order of operations.

So can you please stop with this horrible example?

Quote from: Mr. GC;588577Old editions deliberately had rules of "you fail" for detecting traps so that people would be forced to pole dance to deal with them. It's very believable.

Which rules? In which game? In which book?

QuoteThe kind that pretend a Tarrasque is an actual threat, when it has no ranged attacks, no flight, nothing that would let it kill any party over about level 6... 10 at the absolute most.

First, that is only true assuming a featureless arena where you can fly indefinitely. In that case, the Tarrasque only has to (a) wait for the spell to wear off and kill you or (b) ignore you and kill everything else. Second, if you are not fighting in a featureless arena like, say, a dungeon, your aerial movement may be restricted like in a fucking cave. That is the reason why your analysis are as worthless as your math skills, kiddo.

Quote from: Lord Mistborn;588584Ok then

Imperator should consider going back on his meds, seriously

See, I am a trained clinical psychologist and the only retards I see here are both of you, and the only people with trouble recognizing reality are you both, again. So try and get a reality check before making any other statement that shows how fucking stupid you are.
 

QuoteSo yeah White Wolf games have terrible mechanics and "actual play" in those games is 90% MTP. I find it hard to believe people don't know this already.

What is your experience with those games? Are you making shit up like the idiot GC made about Predator's Taint? Have you played these games with real, non disfunctional people?

Quote from: -E.;588591I'm not sure. It looks to me like these guys are either not playing traditional game (which is odd since they're talking like they play D&D) or their DM has convinced them that they're winning because their characters are somehow "optimized" (rather than that they're winning because the DM chooses not to use his authority to beat them).

I'm wondering if it's possible that they're very disturbed by the idea that their in-game success is the result of DM kindness (rather than skill at building characters or something), and that's resulting in the weird math stuff and the ad hominem remarks.

Cheers,
-E.

Could be. They also don't seem to be able to understand the concept of different difficulty levels for games. It reminds me of those young computer games players that don't know how much fun it is to play games that only have a 'hard' setting and don't have lots of save points. They'll grow out of it, if they've got any of the right stuff in them.

Quote from: Mr. GC;588588I'm saying people either:

1: Skipped low levels.
2: Outright cheated to remove the constant death from the game.
3: Made a bunch of houserules so 1st level characters have around 60 HP or something stupid.

That's funny, because in the recentmost, still ongoing 1E AD&D campaign I'm playing in, I've played 4 PCs so far, all of them rolled up at 1st level, never cheating, and not using any houserules. Out of the 4, two have reached level 7-9 and are still alive.

At this point, I guess you can either:

- Accuse me of outright lying about my personal experience, in which case I'll follow up by respectfully asking you to eat shit and die in a fire,

- Try to move goalposts and claim you've really meant "the majority of players" or some other weasely bullshit, in which case please refer to previous follow-up plan,

- Conveniently pretend this post of mine has never happened, because, after all, if you don't hear the resounding rebuttal of your bullshit than the rebuttal has never happened; please refer to standard follow-up plan,

or

- Admit that you've been spouting baseless bullshit without the least shred of grounding in actual reality let alone personal experience. But really, who am I fooling, that's not going to happen.

Quote from: Premier;588600That's funny, because in the recentmost, still ongoing 1E AD&D campaign I'm playing in, I've played 4 PCs so far, all of them rolled up at 1st level, never cheating, and not using any houserules. Out of the 4, two have reached level 7-9 and are still alive.

What I'm about to say isn't meant to toot my own horn by any means, but is to illustrate that I've got a pretty big sample size to go off of.


I've been playing AD&D consistently for over 30 years.  6 years of that was in the military where people joined and left the gaming group often.  I would say over this time, I've probably personally gamed with over 100 people.

Houserules were used about 75% of the time.  That houserule?  Start with max hp.  Not 60 hp or whatever else bullshit.  4 hp for MUs, 6 for thieves, 8 for clerics, and 10 for fighters (plus whatever con bonus).  About 10% of the time we did start at level 2 or 3, but that was only when starting an adventure that was for level 2 or 3.

They've never played the game, I doubt they've even read the books, and are here only to troll.  It keeps them busy.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;588601They've never played the game, I doubt they've even read the books, and are here only to troll.  It keeps them busy.

Well, I guess that's something. I mean, otherwise all that troll energy would be pent-up and eventually make them write the next F.A.T.A.L. or RaHoWa.

Quote from: -E.;588591I'm not sure. It looks to me like these guys are either not playing traditional game (which is odd since they're talking like they play D&D) or their DM has convinced them that they're winning because their characters are somehow "optimized" (rather than that they're winning because the DM chooses not to use his authority to beat them).

I'm wondering if it's possible that they're very disturbed by the idea that their in-game success is the result of DM kindness (rather than skill at building characters or something), and that's resulting in the weird math stuff and the ad hominem remarks.

Cheers,
-E.

More like...

We want to succeed on our own merits. In 3.x it is possible to do so, prior to that it is not. If you can only succeed because the DM nicely allows you to succeed you fail. Conversely, if you can deal with intelligent, dangerous opponents played as such you win.

Being successful, winning at D&D if you'd prefer is a factor of building effective characters but it's also a factor of playing them well, of both getting and using resources well. So if say, I made a character and gave it to a basket weaver they'd still die horribly because they couldn't use it right, and they'd probably do something like turn a fairly standard Wizard into a Fireball spammer or something noobish like that.

Quote from: -E.;588592Intellectual dishonesty would be if someone with 5 HP would always survive 1d6 damage
That would be wrong, but I don't see anyone saying that. Can you articulate the intellectual dishonesty you're talking about?

People have actually said this, in response to "all level 1 characters die in 1-2 hits" some morons then claimed they don't, and then proved they don't know the difference between a hit and an attack, and likewise they didn't know the difference between "falls into a pit" and "might fall into a pit". Notice the difference between it being a foregone conclusion the attack connected successfully and that not being yet certain?

QuotePeople either skipped lower levels or had house rules to make the game more survivable
What if they didn't? What if they just played so first level characters died a lot (and the player would bring in another one)?

I get that's not your preference, but are you saying that it's impossible? That it never happened?

Well then what happened is they suicide shuffled their way through until the game actually began and they could actually start caring about their characters. Which is also something I said, and also something they argued with.

QuoteOMG High Level Encounter?
I think you missed my point -- I didn't say "OMG High Level Encounter" -- I said that a traditional DM can put in anything he wants so it doesn't matter how optimized your character is.

I mean, come-on -- your solution to being in a room with 100 giant French monsters was to *fly,* right? The ceiling would stop that, and you'd die.

Or maybe these are flying giant monsters. The point is, with a traditional DM it doesn't matter how optimized you are: the DM can put in anything he wants.

Well if you define traditional as fuck you, you die... Yeah, I don't think I can really argue with that. After all, traditional means like in the old days, and that's exactly how the old editions went.

And if you want to make the game an exercise in it doesn't matter what you do, fuck you you die? Well, I presume that is why you're playing the older editions.

Some of us like our choices, our decisions to actually matter and to have choices and decisions. Some of us are not basket weavers.

Quote from: Imperator;588598Which rules? In which game? In which book?

D&D pre 3rd. It's called a Find/Remove traps rating of "Too goddamn low to find and remove traps, especially since you have to both Find and Remove the traps".

So you start with like a 40% chance and have to succeed twice so that's actually 16%... meaning 84% you are hit by the trap anyways. And then you go up a few levels, and just when you might reach the point where you can do your job correctly more frequently than a weatherman all the traps that matter become magical, thereby halving your chances. And since the rating caps at 95%, this puts your maximum chance at disarming the traps that actually matter at around 20%.

So if you want to actually deal with traps successfully, you start pole dancing and you leave the worthless thief at home.

QuoteFirst, that is only true assuming a featureless arena where you can fly indefinitely. In that case, the Tarrasque only has to (a) wait for the spell to wear off and kill you or (b) ignore you and kill everything else. Second, if you are not fighting in a featureless arena like, say, a dungeon, your aerial movement may be restricted like in a fucking cave. That is the reason why your analysis are as worthless as your math skills, kiddo.

It's a stupid monster. You fly over it and move on. It's welcome to go eat the gimpy, non flight having Fighter and Rogue. See if I care.

QuoteSee, I am a trained clinical psychologist and the only retards I see here are both of you, and the only people with trouble recognizing reality are you both, again. So try and get a reality check before making any other statement that shows how fucking stupid you are.

Oh look, someone who is a mental health expert on the Internet. And yet is getting played like a lute by a bored powergamer. What's that say about you?

What is so wrong about seeing your character die, exactly, when creating a character takes at most 10 minutes to come up with, equipment included?

I will be the first to say, about the edition you specifically know fuck all about, Mr. GC, aka AD&D First Edition, that playing by-the-book, or close enough, this is actually a deadly, challenging game at low levels. Premier's example with 2 characters surviving to high level (level 7-8 is actually high level in this particular context) out of the initial 4, is representative to me of what an experienced player can achieve, which is, the game is still challenging and dangerous, but you can manage to have some characters survive to those levels.

However, it is not uncommon, particularly for inexperienced players, to see them go through a good six or seven characters before one makes it to level 3-4. And leveling up in itself takes a lot more time than it does in 3rd ed, not even counting training costs and requirements.

Some people actually like this. Actually like the fact that character survival is not a given "because plot", that you have to play the game intelligently to see your character survive. Part of the pleasure of playing role playing games to a lot of people is learning to play together, to get into the zone together, so to speak, and effectively play the same game. It's not so much about reading the DM's mind as it is about learning to play together and find that sweet spot where everyone feels there are choices and agency and surprises in the sense that the game takes a life of its own and ends up satisfying everyone involved.

I think people who feel they need to have rules to hold the DM by the balls have a problem playing with others to begin with. There's no trust involved, and from there, in my experience, the game can only go downward, not up.

Now, some gamers like to play twink builds and power game to their heart's content. That's fine by me. It's actually a valid play style, and there's nothing wrong with it per se. But if you want this to become the standard of role playing games and raise it on a pedestal as THE superior play style we must all bow down to, you are going to be sorely disappointed, because we are not going away.

Now build your twink games all you want, play the shit out your builds, but don't expect us to follow your example when we have played for decades ourselves and kind of know what's right and wrong for ourselves at a game table. So, in conclusion, you like to play builds and twinks and enjoy playing with other twelve-year-olds? Cool. You want to school us about the one true way of role playing? Kindly go fuck yourself. Thank you.

Quote from: Benoist;588612What is so wrong about seeing your character die, exactly, when creating a character takes at most 10 minutes to come up with, equipment included?

Mechanically, it may take 10 minutes to generate a character.  But for me, there's a lot more invested than just the mechanics.  I like to 'role-play', so I have to come up with a personality, motivations, history, etc, for my character.  Since I don't like to play 'Spike the Fighter #38', this takes a lot more than 10 minutes, usually.  Even if it is included in the 10 minute prep time, it involves an emotional investment.  The more frequent and arbitrary death is, the less inclined I am to make that emotional investment.

I don't mind if characters die, but if I'm playing a game that some would term a 'suicide treadmill', that's not going to work for me.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;588615Mechanically, it may take 10 minutes to generate a character.  But for me, there's a lot more invested than just the mechanics.  I like to 'role-play', so I have to come up with a personality, motivations, history, etc, for my character.

I understand your frustration.

I like to role play as well: you might have noticed from such threads as "Is horror a feminine emotion?"; I can come up with a first level character in 10 minutes, come up with a personality, motivations, elements of background and be immediately invested in my character. All I need is a few adjectives describing the character's starting demeanor, an idea of the character's motivations (bullet points, one or two sentences), and maybe a paragraph of background, if that. This is enough for me to extrapolate and actually be immersed in that character's persona immediately, like I do all the time with NPCs when I DM, all the while knowing that the actually "history" of the character is going to be what is later remembered of the actual adventure, the game play itself.

I'm also fine with the prospect of seeing the character die, because I'm not playing a "story" and my character isn't a "narrative device". I'm living in my character's skin, and if that means he dies, he dies. I create a new character, maybe use the previous one as some kind of hook to get the new one into the game, and I keep on playing with a new alter-ego. No problem on my part.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;588615Mechanically, it may take 10 minutes to generate a character.  But for me, there's a lot more invested than just the mechanics.  I like to 'role-play', so I have to come up with a personality, motivations, history, etc, for my character.  Since I don't like to play 'Spike the Fighter #38', this takes a lot more than 10 minutes, usually.  Even if it is included in the 10 minute prep time, it involves an emotional investment.  The more frequent and arbitrary death is, the less inclined I am to make that emotional investment.

I don't mind if characters die, but if I'm playing a game that some would term a 'suicide treadmill', that's not going to work for me.

Nothing wrong with that at all. The point is though, some do prefer a tougher grind at early levels. It is entirely dependant on playstyle.