>the game assumeswho wrote the game, buddy?
>>94792419don't worry, he's busy fucking up runequest now
>>94792654Runequest was written by fuckups and couldn't possibly be made worse, so that would be quite an achievement
>>94792654jesus fucking wept
>>94792419>Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Christopher Perkins, James Wyatta committee, apparently
>>94792419>a designer can't step back and subsequently realize the flaws with his design
just add more monsters lmao
>>94792419Personally I think most enemies should naturally have very low DPR, but they should have "kill moves" with predictable setups such as:>The enemy will spend a turn winding up an attack, casting a spell, or indicating an attack in some other way. The players can then assume they need to move away from it, move behind cover, or activate some defensive ability.>A flying enemy tries to grab a PC and fly them into the air before dropping them. That gives the player multiple opportunities to resist the grapple and break free before the damage builds up. (Assuming you're playing a system that isn't retarded and decreases movement speed when a character is character another character.)>Enemies push PCs into hazards which would require the PCs to either not try to avoid the hazards, or fail to resist being forcibly moved multiple times.>Enemies manually activate traps, but the activation mechanisms and hazardous zones are visible or implied to the players so they can predict when the enemies are likely to activate them.>An enemy becomes more powerful when surrounded by a substance such as water, fire, or magical clouds. The enemy then fights by spreading their substance or destroying platforms or walls to limit the player's ways to defend.Kill moves shouldn't be strong enough to actually kill a PC from full health. Ideally, you want at least one kill move to hit, but be survived at least once per battle. Players will likely be at the peak of their health at the start anyway. The first hit should serve as a teaching moment to give them a clear idea of what the enemy or enemies are capable of, and what's at stake with being hit. A great example is a visibly imposing enemy who stands in a small room in front of the window. When the first PC gets close, the enemy attempts to grapple. If he succeeds, on the next opportunity, he'll attempt to throw the PC out of the window, but the PC will land on a roof or balcony on the floor below.
>>94792419So then how'd they land on that balance in the first place? They did a lot of play testing for 5e. Did they not listen to playtester feedback or were the playtesters not representative of mainstream players? Or did the play style of mainstream groups shift at some point? The demographics of DnD players has shifted a lot since 2014.
>>94792802Modern playtests are advertisements, not actual playtests.You can't do a real playtest and react to feedback three months before putting a printed book on sale when it takes more than three months for the printing and shipping process, but WotC does it regularly.
>>94792740everything in this post sounds like it would be extremely tedious in a game longer than a few sessions, but this one in particular sticks out>they should have "kill moves" with predictable setups such as:>>The enemy will spend a turn winding up an attack, casting a spell, or indicating an attack in some other way. The players can then assume they need to move away from it, move behind cover, or activate some defensive ability.this shit just results in a dead nothing round where everyone does the predetermined "get out of the way" action except maybe the guy sitting on his phone not paying any attention
>>94792695According to Chris Perkins at PAX East in 2016, none of those men actually worked on 5E directly. They were the heads of the design team in what we'd call a producer role in other creative industries. The team itself was over 30 people credited as editors and playtesters.
>>94792836>everything in this post sounds like it would be extremely tedious in a game longer than a few sessionsMore tedious than standard attack roles every single round for every character every encounter? How is the enemy preparing its attack and the players reposition to deal with it more boring than the enemy and the PCs continue standing in place and attacking the same as usual?>this shit just results in a dead nothing round where everyone does the predetermined "get out of the way" action except maybe the guy sitting on his phone not paying any attentionYou can't even imagine having multiple enemies in a single encounter. I also should've said the enemy spends "part of its turn," rather than its whole turn. Even then, things can still happen if the only enemy doesn't do anything. Like the fight could be inside of a burning building where pieces of the ceiling keep falling down, or holes in the floor collapse. The cave floor begins to flood with water while the enemy charges what's obviously going to be an electric attack. As the enemy begins charging its spells, the entire room goes dark. Vice versa where the room that's usually dark begins to light up, and the players can now notice things about the room the PCs couldn't previously see.
>>94792419Not my problem any more.
>>94792869>do all the actual work>celeb dev steals it and you get credited as a "playtester">years later he slags off the work he stole credit for to boost his new career with a different productholy fucking kek
>>94793058Pretty sure that the tweet itself implies that the encounters should be longer and more deadly when it says "bigger"
>>94793088I've been here too long
>>94792832I'm talking about the original 5e playtesting over a decade ago. They heavily revised some classes and mechanics from the playtest versions, so clearly things were still in development.
>>94792419thanks but my players don't want to spend 5 hours fighting a group of skeletons, where the bard loses a limb and the Warlock quits because his enchanted rapier got destroyed.They want to roll dice, hit hard and get lucky for the dopamine rush, not rifle through spreadsheets and roll tables for consequences of a failed cantrip.
>>94793318Have you considered that there's a 3rd option? That being playing a system that isn't fucked-by-design and can handle longer/more dramatic fights without shitting itself to death like a poorly optimized Steam asset flip?
>>94792419That's the direct result of bounded accuracy and you padding HP out you fucking dumbass. Literally sent feedback to you during the playtest telling you this exact thing.
>>94793345Now to be fair, Mike is a retard.
>>94793101Literally every business.
>>94792419Players want to punch Mike Mearls repeatedly in the face.
>>94792419>5e designer steps back years later and realizes "holy shit, 5e is bad!"It's too late. 5e IS d&d in the cultural consciousness. It's over. We know for a fact that the 5e designers turned to OSR designers during playtesting, and that's how 2014 5e ended up being closer to 1e/2e than 3e/4e in design. They should have listened to them more. 5e kept the HP bloat of 3e and 4e. And now 5e 2024 is closer to 3e/4e than those earlier editions, but retarded Critical Role advice. Go figure.
>>947924195e is designed around whittling down adventurer's in like 10 small combats per day rather than like, 2-3 bigger, more deadly combats. Who would've thought that 10 small combats per day is usually fucking boring?
>By design, D&D assumes players will survive any encounter with only the loss of the a few hit points and spells Plus Ça Change
>>94792802>>94793285According to an interview USA Today did with the (at the time) VP of D&D, they only gave a fuck about play test responses from people who said they never played D&D before, simplifying things down or working on a more streamlined experience, because old grogs had too many expectations and were a locked in player base anyway.I would link the article but google redirects all "vice president" related searches to current US politics.>>94792869Perkins is known for lying through his teeth.
>>94792740Oh god Without really intending to my souls ttrpg project that was infected by fear and hunger is like this A lot of better enemy attacks can oneshot PC’s But it has some other quirks such as combat being deterministic with a stamina dice system for PC’s And regular enemies declaring their action first but acting after PC’s
>>94794287So back then the newbie playtesters thought more encounters per day was better? I suppose I could see how that could happen. If you have a bunch of newbies, they might initially prefer numerous quicker, easier encounters because it gives them more breathing room to learn the flow and make mistakes, experiment, and learn. And dunking on trash mobs might feet rewarding at the start. One of the most common issues I've seen is newbies getting confused and/or bored by more serious encounters. Maybe they really would be having more fun if combat was just a quick couple rounds. But eventually you start craving more substance, at which point 5e's math starts breaking.Focusing so much on newbies produced a tricycle rather than a bicycle with optional training wheels.
>>94792802>Did they not listen to playtester feedbackYeah, this one. This board was on fire with how assmad it got at the time.
>>94792836Yeah. Its vidyashit to be frank. You don't need windup. Just stop bloating character HP. A PC shouldnt have 20 hp by level 3/4 or even 5. Make players roll for everything, and gut the Con bonuses for every level. HP should taper off and better yet barely increase after something like 8 levels. HP bloat is the bane of modt systems.
>>94794287>Perkins is known for lying through his teeth.Only in so far as to be a company shill. He has never been provably wrong on anything that wasn't corporate doctrine.
>>94794287>because old grogs had too many expectations and were a locked in player base anywayWhat a dumbass opinion for that retard to have. That sort of thinking is why my play group of 10 people all moved on from D&D permanently. We haven't touched it in 10 years and have no interest in returning to it. And I know we're not unique.
>>94792802>how'd they land on that balance in the first place?4th edition combat was a time consuming grind. It was a big complaint.
>>94795860True. The problem was HP bloat though and they didn't fix that with 5e's design at all.
>>94792419This is the same faggot who insisted that the most fun thing about the game was rolling dice as often as possible, so bloating monster HP and weakening players so they can all make more attacks and all feel like they are contributing made the game more fun, according to his retarded understanding of game design.
GURPS is the answer.
>>94795911To a gay and stupid question.
>>94795911no
>>94792419>The game assumes 3 round flights, split into separate events. >split into separate events. >separate eventsOkay, guys help me out here. I'm probably as retarded as Mike Mearls looks but what did he mean by this? The "3 round fights" I get. You roll initiative, fight for three rounds, fight is over, you push into another room (or whatever) or have a short rest. But aren't all fights separate events? Is he just restating the most obvious shit like "reroll initiative when another fight starts"?Also how the fuck were fights ever three round affairs with only the core rules? Remember that feats and magic items are """optional""", too. What absolutely pants on head retardedly broken DPR builds has the community overlooked for ten years straight that would've decided any but the easiest fights in three rounds? Did they assume "all monsters flee when bloodied" but forgot to tell everyone?
>>94792419>Players want tension.Do they? Do players know what they want? More likely they want the illusion of tension than to actually lose a character every other session.
>>94796104They want to feel endangered without the consequences of the busywork when they ultimately fail. It's a completely understandable feeling. The saying "people don't know what they want" thing is not thoroughly true, they know what they want, just not in any specific way that it has to be delivered to them.
>>94792654Gotta be honest, Runequest is all mechanically fucked up. People only like it for the lore.It's hard to go wrong with cleaning when everything is covered in turd and anything is an improvement.
>>94796139People don't know what they like, but they do know what they don't like. Old marketing wisdom.People don't like feeling like nothing their character does matters. When there's no chance of losing, and when a combat encounter starts feeling like a pulling one lever over and over, and victory is already a foregone conclusion.People don't like feeling patronized, like they can't lose, and like they don't need to actually use tactics or make choices. "I roll to attack nearest enemy." is not good gameplay. The combat is just an annoying diversion from the fantasy improv that the modern 5e player is actually there for, admittedly or not.
>>94792419Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974.Every other RPG that isn't intentionally aping D&D has a combat structure which is "few, dramatic, fights" compared to D&D, because this is how almost all stories work, with the lone exception of video games. Even most D&D players now want this, but the game mechanics aren't designed for it. Vancian spellcasting works in the context of thinking about conserving resources for the next fight - it breaks down instantly the moment every fight is a serious one with plot significance, because you end up just novaing every fight.Either you redesign D&D from the ground up (and then it "won't feel like D&D," like 4e), you revert back to the OG gameplay loop where trash mobs make sense (but players don't seem particularly interested in), or you just get a game designed around trash mobs and players trying to beat the system into being literally anything else.
>>94796104>>94796139The problem lies in the fact that they never really spent a single iota of page space exploring alternate loss conditions that weren't death. You either win or you die, in nearly every situation, because every battle is a battle to the death, even though mindless inherently evil monsters don't exist anymore because that's problematic.This is on top of the fact that the twitter thread these posts from Mearls came from is about him whinging and attempting to wax intellectual about dungeon crawling and timekeeping and how his shriveled brain can't reconcile a large dungeon map with the 6 second combat rounds, because for some reason he thinks 5e is supposed to be played like a battlefield skirmish wargame. Like OP points out, though, Mearls is the one partially responsible for making 5e, and all the problems that go with it. He finally played another game (Blades in the Dark, hilariously) and the idea of not playing in the incredibly stupid ways his leadership forced upon people through 5e is somehow a giant revelation about how dungeons should be run differently.
>>94797375>Blades in the DarkI guess he followed through the age old /tg/ advice of trying to play other things than D&D.
>>94797405Shame he didn't do that over a decade ago, so the inspiration from playing other systems could have made him slightly less retarded before working on 5e
>>94792836AoE kill moves work alright, just make sure it's a "free" action for the boss monster and don't go mental with them and don't be an asshole and stop the players doing shit like pushing monsters into firepits or whatever.Yes it sometimes feels like an MMO, but used sparingly it forces the players to change up their strategy.Beats the usual system, and those that use it are kind of missing out. Our GM thought players using basic tactics to completely cripple "brute" type monsters with action economy was amazing. Some enquiries later it turned out his only other group consisted of theatre kid fucktards who couldn't build a goddammit lego set never mind a decent character.>>94792740What you are describing here is 4th ed D&D.
>>94792419>fight only lasts a few rounds because dms don't want the tedium of having to track 20 different enemies hp and players rapidly get bored of HP sponge big enemies where everyone just stands there rolling to hit until it suddenly has a heart attack>"HEY COMBAT SEEMS BORING. YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD MAKE IT BETTER? TURNING IT INTO EVEN MORE OF A CONTRIVED CAPESHIT FIGHT WHERE THE ENEMIES HAVE EVEN MORE HP AND MORE LEGENDARY RESISTANCES TO DRAG OUT THE FIGHT EVEN MORE!"I fucking hate this retard era of nerdom. You can't have big gayass Thanos fights on tabletop. Go write a novel if that's what you want. People will get bored real fast and there already is too much of a problem with players tuning out by round 3. Forcing everyone to sit there even longer is the height of dumbassery. The best way to fix D&D combat is to go back to the roots and actually make combat and its consequences scary again. Characters (and most enemies) should have at max 10-30 hp depending on class, and healing should be expensive, tedious, and limited. The very threat of combat should be tense and worrying.
>>94797375>He finally played another game (Blades in the Dark, hilariously)Fuck me, that's funny. I'm not surprised he thinks RPGs are fucked. How do you go from writing Keep on the Borderlands and the MM3 for 4th ed, to playing third rate shovelware like BitD.
>>94797442>People will get bored real fast and there already is too much of a problem with players tuning out by round 3. Forcing everyone to sit there even longer is the height of dumbasseryFor solo monsters you really have to balance them carefully. While it is video gamey something like multiple phases or differences in environment as the fight progresses help a lot.
>>94797455The problem with single entities is that even with a player group of just 3, they will be surrounded and taking 3 attacks per turn vs giving out 1, so you either have to turn every "boss" into a hydra that can attack 2+ times a turn, or give them huge damage that can potentially one shot a party member, or give them a massive health pool, all of which results in a video game boss fight which is not supposed to be the point of pen and paper.Character and enemy characters with low health but still swinging d4-d12 damage range is the best solution. The best fight in LOTR is Amon Hen when the party fights about 20 orc soldiers. It's tense, it's gritty, but it's still fantastical.Being confronted with the possibility of having to fight even a group of bandits should give the party pause to stop and think things through. If everyone fight is Gimli at Helms Deep cracking jokes and calling out how many dozens of enemies he's killed, people are just gonna stop caring about the stakes.
>>94796595>stories & plotthe crux of the issue
>>94797533>you either have to turn every "boss" into a hydra that can attack 2+ times a turn, or give them huge damage that can potentially one shot a party member, or give them a massive health pool,There's plenty of other options anon:"Cleave attacks" that hit 2-3 playersTrample attacks that move the monster and hit everything it moves overSpell AoEsMultiple activations in a turnCounterattacks Traps and minions
>>94797659It is perfectly possible to make a game which is not a railroad wherein there are few, dramatic fights. Indeed this is what almost every system that is not D&D does. Your IQ is in the double digits and you saw a word you recognized and clapped like a seal.
>>94792419You know you can identify problems in something you helped make right?
>>94797533>they will be surrounded and taking 3 attacks per turn vs giving out 1The most common ability held by nearly every monster in the monster manual is attack 2 or more times for this exact reason. They created the action economy problem and then instead of taking a step back and rework the game's core rules, they doubled down and made it so you're supposed to just fight more and more things that can turn into a dozen of attacks against single character, with to-hit bonuses that are weighted to hit more often than not against nearly all types of player character.
>>94797763Complaining about the problems with "Modern D&D" without acknowledging that he is the source of those problems and that his own ideas and work were deeply lacking is the thing being pointed out. Also his supposed solutions to "Modern D&D's dungeon problem" are fucking retarded and shows he hasn't learned or identified shit.
>>94795911
>>94796595Exactly. If there isn't a tension between time, combat encounters, and using magical "I win" buttons to solve non-combat dungeon challenges, D&D starts to fall apart. 5e Cantrips exacerbate this.
>>94797665Then you absolutely need visual aids and a ground scale, or a codified zone system. That is not viable TOTM only - which 5e was built around theoretically providing first class support for.
>>94795823>because old grogs had too many expectations and were a locked in player base anyway>What a dumbass opinion for that retard to have.Literally one of the things that kneecapped 4e and ushered in Pathfinder. Guess they didn't learn.
>>94799470It's also dumb because grogs have an intimate understanding of the system and if the system is good enough people will use it. What people mean by simplification is approachability that leads to depth and easy adoption.
>>94798191Ok, what problems does GURPS actually solve?
>>94799567GURPS is a remedy to:- static combat- hp sponges- the murder hobo reward cycle- class restricted every-man skills- lame fighters- op wizards- ill defined skill usage- warts- cancer- bad breathFor more info read "How to be a GURPS GM"
>>94799567Two books of basic rules that can do anythingBut as any GURPSfag will tell you, those rules are actually garbage but there are a million optional fixes for them in various splats.
>>94795860>>94795886Once you're used to it, and use MM3 math, it gets a lot faster - just standing there slugging it out like 3rd ed, expecting your characters stats to carry you is a big part of the problem. Everyone did it and it made the edition suck.A party that neutralises, controls and focuses down opponents can finish fights astonishingly fast but they have to know what they're doing. Engage with the system on its own terms, don't try and play it like a 3rd ed or 5th ed game.>>94798437Fuck me was that really a thing? I've played for decades and everyone used a battle mat for D&D
>Three round combatsWHERE?? Every 5e fight I have been in and every 5e fight i have seen on youtube is like 3 hours long.
>>94800124Because everyone takes a bunch of spotlight and hems and haws and narrates epicly, so it takes them 3 hours to cycle through the 15-25 individual turns, incl the DMs. It's probably actually taking them 3-4 turns.>>94799914It works quite well in AD&D where you can abstract ranks, and the combat is dry enough
>>94800140Ad&d has a lot of stuff built into the combat system that shortens battles, too. Like attacks of oppurtiny on enemies entering your threat space and such.
So essentially you want it to feel like vidya.
>>94792419The recomended number of combat encounters before the long rest (end of the day) is something like 10. Of course you are going to be relatively unscathed after an event which is supposed to happen 9 more times. I don't understand his point? It's not like he's offering a solution or discussing a flaw in the system. "Well, the system was designed this way and it's working as intended!" Okay...
>>94800179Also no individual initiative, and combat resolving at the same time.
>>94792654>he's busy fucking up runequest nowNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
>>94800285He's saying that low-stakes encounters are boring, doing it 10 times in a row doesn't make it less boring. >>94795940I think he's implying that the 3 round low-risk encounter would be more dangerous and exciting if it had the potential to run on into other encounters (such as monsters coming in response to an alarm) without giving the PCs time to rest. Basically, WoTC has thought for a long time that new players don't want real danger and don't want their characters to die, so a lot of game design revolves around solving the "problem" of character deaths and total party kills, then 5e gave us what (they thought) we wanted and in hindsight it's boring.
>>94797533Legendary actions is literally solution to this. Make big scary monster have one 'main' turn per round, and number of 'secondary' turns in-between the players.Too bad Wizards never bothered to develop it beyond the most basic barebones half-coocked form - as is typical for their monster building, encounter design, and adventure day theories.
>>94792740>when a character is character another character
>>94800478Here is a thing though - they are right, players don't want their characters to die. And not just new players - experienced ones too. Being attached to characters is the thing that keeps long campaigns going. Heck, with the exception of 'that guy's, in my experience DMs who put effort in their games find random PCs deaths annoying and disruptive too.All the above mentioned people I know, used to religiously follow injury and death rules in old systems for 'muh realism' and 'muh stakes'. But guess what - now, they are almost exclusively playing 5e. For some reason.5e 'death save' situation is a case of Wizards designing for people who don't know what the fuck they want.
>>947996243e solves all of these other than op wizards which is a table issue and not a game issueGURPS doesn't solve any because there is no standardized baseline for the game so what you're actually playing is just a homebrew system. No surprise that homebrew systems are king, but that's just another reason not to bother with GURPS.
>>94800689Lol, OP wizards is totally a game issue and 3e has most of those problems.>>94800179Ah, never played AD&D, jumped on at 2nd ed which did have initiative.
>>94792705/thread
>>948007732e and 1e have very similar initiative systems. 2e is just on a d10, not a d6 - and 1e has a lot of tiebreakers which were thrown out by many tables and not used in Basic branch of the D&D tree, resulting in the 2e system.
>>9480077390% of problems with third edition come from the 3.5 rules changes. "Improvements" my ass.
>>94800970No they don't.
>>94801441Oh, yes they did. The bulk of the changes to 3rd edition where: More fucking feats, removal of class specialization, Monster HP bloat, the addition of DR/magic to basically everything and shit goes on. The "fixes" where closing "exploits" like the bard in 3.5 no longer being allowed to perform while making attacks.
>>94801673You know DR/magic is just because things used to have DR/+1-+5, right?I know you don't know that, because it's clear you've either never read the books or are trolling, but still.
Have you tried not playing D&D? I can't honestly think of an edition of D&D that could be considered good on a technical level.WOTC are a terrible company yet somehow all of the people complaining about 5E and its Matt Mercer worshipping s o y lent drinking player base are still paypigs and never move to a better system.
>>94801708No, monsters with no DR had dr/magic added. This is part of what weakened the monk to shit.
>>94801813The people buying product and getting excited for next product are not the people on this board.
>>94798030The people designing modern d&d don't want to he designing d&d and the people playing modern d&d don't want to be playing d&d.
>>94797659>Only impact players have, is which enemy to bonk next and roll math rockPeak D&D brainrot.
>>94800689Kek. It is thanks to 3E that half of these problems are a thing in the first place.>>94799624Just like any other generic or classless system.
>>94801882Yeah but monks should be weak faggots anyway. Wtf are they even doing in Fantasy Europe?
>>94801673You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. None of those are serious problems with 3E and some of them are literally the opposite of what happened.>The "fixes" where closing "exploits" like the bard in 3.5 no longer being allowed to perform while making attacks.No, it was stopping spellcasters from having double the action economy of everyone else, stopping Druids from having animal companions with twice their HD and putting them on rails so they aren't obsoleted immediately, stopping the Ranger from being a 1 level dip, and toning down battle Clerics while giving Fighter slightly more reason to exist past level 4.
>>94795911They aren't ready, my son.
>>94799567It's granular and modular, so it can be any tone or speed or style of game you want. The issue is that most people don't want to put effort into their hobbies so that's not a selling point, it's a punishment.
>>94800689>3e solvesI am going to kill you, with knives, in an alley. Stay home because I'm on patrol.
>>94797659Gaygax really fried your brain huh
>>94792419All I know is if we're not doing vidya grid shit, and we're going to keep doing the stand around in the same spot trading blows, then it needs to change to turns actually being impactful and changing the situation, not having these dead turns of subtracting 10hp from a monster, and that's all that happens. Surely P&P should be capable of that. Turning>the swordsman deflects your blow and counters with his own slash. Roll to hit. It hits and you are wounded and off-balance, the next blow will take you down unless you can maneuver out of your current predicament. Isn't warhammer fantasy kind of like that with lo w hp and wounds and stuff? Maybe people should just play that . Blades in the dark kind of felt like that, with you moving a slider of a good position or worse position, incorporating that system with some dnd shit might work
>>94802303Most of the early D&D stuff was basically Dave Arneson or Gary Gygax's group watching a movie or something and going "I wanna be that". It's just like how a lot of monsters are taken straight from short stories like Black Destroyer or At the Mountain of Madness. Unfortunately, D&D since 2nd edition has felt like it NEEDS to have all the old extra material as core material for some reason without regard to what setting they are writing for.
>>94802404Crossclassing should've been removed in 3.5. It was never fixed and never will be. Not even pathfinder could figure it out because the implementation is wrong from the base level. Classes like the paladin and ranger were already cross-class fighters (fighter/cleric and fighter/druid), but then you allow crossclassing those classes and move the fighter/thief (assassin) to prestige classes for some reason. If they absolutely had to keep the system, then they needed a different base like the old elf class, where you switch between classes and only use one at a time or remade the prestige classes and made those the only ones you can cross class into. Closest WotC came to solving the crossclass dilema was with d20 modern, where the "real" classes were prestige classes and the base classes where generic. But this was a conceptual fix more than a mechanical fix.
>>94802404For one of the specific examples that you think they fixed: The animal companion is even stronger in 3.5. The 3.0 animal companion is a normal animal that was befriended with animal friendship spell. It's basically a normal trained animal any class can purchase, but free. The animal doesn't grow stronger as you level and it counts towards the spell's limit. The 3.5 animal companion gets bonuses out the ass.Just look at this shit:https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Druid%27s_Animal_CompanionAnd you know what? The 3.5 druid can charm animals, so they can have the old style animal companion AND the new style animal companion at the same time.
>>94795225To be fair, the playtesting forums were pretty pissed about how shit the playtest was at the time too. They literally had to shut down the forum like three times in a week once to clean up people getting pissed at the blatant poll rigging when they were holding a vote for casting systems>hold casting poll>for almost a full week vancian casting almost dead last compared to other casting systems on the poll(I think psionics and AEDU were there but I forget what else)>oops, site has a fucky wucky and loses all poll data, better start again>less votes this time because people assume they already voted, vancian still very low>about 5 minutes left in the poll>suddenly vancian casting rockets up about 50k in the span of about a minute>polls close and almost immediately there's a long self-fellating speech on the forums about how they're glad players chose vancian casting because it's their favorite too and the one they wantged to go wih all along>shockingly it turns out a bunch of nerds aren't completely stupid and get pissed>forum randomly has errors requiring it to be shut down with several people suddenly banned and all evidence of the poll fixing getting wiped each time, mysteriously
>>94792676spbp
>>94803578Charm Animal doesn't confer instantaneous tricks, isn't permanent, and won't make them fight to the death for you. Compare the level 4 animal companions to a rhinoceros or the level 7 animals to a dire bear or elephant.
>>94803520>Crossclassing should've been removed in 3.5.No
>>94793318>my players don't wantActually yes they do.>butyou think you do but you don't.
>>94797442>ou can't have big gayass Thanos fights on tabletop.Multiple different RPGs manage to have big gayass thanos fights without trouble, D&D should be able to do so too, they just gotta create some good rules for it.
>>94802911>vidya grid shit?
>>94800478>doing it 10 times in a row doesn't make it less boring.Except it actually does. That's the source of tension in almost every video game ever made: Your HP bar slowly depletes while you try to make it through the level. BUT in vidya you don't have the option to regenerate all resources on command.tl;dr the devs are humongous retards for making the "Slow Healing" rule optional>>94803799Big if true. I'd be super interested in literally any other method you can remember. For all the flag AEDU catches it's actually a robust and dare I say more fun system than vancian casting.
>>94797442>People will get bored real fast and there already is too much of a problem with players tuning out by round 3.Maybe don't play with ADHD zoomlets then?
>>94795894No offense to this guy but 5e was the first RPG I ever played and rolling to hit and rolling again for damage is indeed bad. Combats that take two hours (long enough to play an entire game of almost anything else) are also bad. Even I could identify that.
>>94797659Gary was a terrible dungeon master even during the era of D&D as a dungeon wargame, and according to all the writing he did and the fucking dragonsfoot post that quote comes from, he leaned into stories pretty heavily. By his own admission, and both Ernie and Lucas both have said his games were very reactionary. If the players wanted plot, he'd give you princesses and politics. If they wanted throwing math rocks, you'd get a meatgrinder. Posting a single fucking quote out of context isn't the gotcha you think it is, frend.
>>94803799I see JotC fixing polls about who won Ixalan's race to the Immortal Sun has a precedent.
>>94804847Would you believe that Mike Mearls was one of the lead designers on 5e with an opinion that fucking retarded?
>>94803520>Crossclassing should've been removed in 3.5lol, you retard, you would have sabotaged 3e sales and drove away half the players just to print an even-more-broken game. It is clear that you are flailing wildly with no idea what you're talking about.
>>94803840The 3.5 animal companion is controlled for free. The animal friendship animals cost actions and handle animal rolls to get them to use tricks or they will default to whatever the game master wants them to do. Additionally, you have to FIND the animals, which means the GM is the retard giving you elephants in fantasy yurop or adding rhinos to printed adventures like keep on the borderlands for some reason. Tho the last point is true on both editions.
>>94805596>>94803846>But what about sales???In all fairness, that's probably what the WotC employees thought about when keeping it. I said the implementation was better off removed, then discussed ways they could've done a better job with it. But if you wanna sell "trading card style rules" in the form of classes, then yeah, this implementation is perfect. I guess.
>>94805853What they actually should have done is made every class 5 levels with the assumption that everyone was going to multiclass. And then they'd be forced to balance every class feature under the assumption that it was going to be part of a dip. Classlock is just training wheels for novice game designers.
>>94805879Better than the shit they did, at any rate.
>>94805879Classes in general are training wheels for everyone. Players, developers, writers. Classless is far and away superior.
>>94805925>the shit they didYou mean when they got rid of multiclassing in 4e so everybody tried Pathfinder?
>>948059554e was garbage for a shitton of reasons that have nothing to do with multiclassing.
>>94805955>but what about sales again>brings up 4e for no reason, forgetting that multiclassing was completely different in AD&D as wellwhy?
>>94805940Classless works fine if it's built around chunky thematically-appropriate packages of abilities and if some packages serve as prerequisites for others (because then it's just classes by another name). If every bonus and ability is purchased ala carte then it's shit (if it has 'starting packages' or whatever, but they're built over the ala carte point-based chassis, then it's still going to be shit).Don't get me wrong, if someone offered to run GURPS for me then I'd jump on the chance, but that's because GURPS enjoyers are good boys and they put a lot of work into their games. GURPS isn't a particularly fun system and it certainly isn't balanced.
>>94805973The point is that you're an idiot and you don't know what you're talking about. >>94806023Because anon made a glib reference to 'the shit they did', but he doesn't actually know what they did, he doesn't know what they're talking about. What they actually did was reign in charbuilding freedom in order to focus on game balance, which is exactly what anon thinks they should have done, he's an idiot.
>>94806149"the shit they did" was that they created a problem by making random changes to Ad&d crossclassing/dual classing with no reasoning and left it the same. There is no changes to the multiclassing rules between 3.0 and 3.5. The main change which fucked things further was that they front loaded certain classes like the ranger and made the dipping worse. For your specific example of fighter dipping, the 3.0 and the 3.5 fighter are exactly the same.
>>94806131> they put a lot of work into their gamesThat's the core of twhe issue imo. GURPS forces you to do the work as GM and check with your players so there is either a prepared game or no game at all. DnD you can just run a module, dump some splats on it and make it a slog.
That motherfucker had 20 years to make a good D&D game and he failed spectacularly at every step of the way. He shouldn't be allowed near any creative medium at this point.
>>94806283So you're saying that they should have gone straight from AD&D into a system where every class has 5 levels with free and open multiclassing? Well yea, that would have been better, but they had know way to know what it would be better. They were trying to improve incrementally on AD&D (which was a shitshow). Before 3e came out they had no idea that prestige classes were going to be so popular. They also had no way to predict or understand how internet communities were going to receive the game or how those communities were going to shape the way that the game was played. By the time 3.5 came out, they understood that multiclassing exponentially increases replayability and that players love it, saying that 3.5 should have gotten rid of multiclassing is just stupid. It's stupid because it would have made the game less balanced, yes, but more importantly it's stupid because fun is more important than balance.
>>94805031Get off my lawn, roomie.
>>94806394Yup.
>>94806460Name one tabletop rpg game designer that has made an improved game on a subsequent run. People are too biased to properly make better games than whatever they've made previously>>94806460.
>>94806460Eh. Even if you've got some fancy title like "lead designer" there's only so much you can do in a big corporation. Projects move with glacial speed, the other people you depend on have their workflow which they won't change for (you), higher-ups are risk-averse idiot savants who know everything about marketing but nothing about games, etc.Not saying Meals isn't an idiot just that you and me working on our projects have a level of control no one at WotC (safe for the CEO) has.
I played Iron Heroes (which is blatantly unfinished and required the community/GM to finish it), I played 4e, I've played a little 5e, Mearls is a great designer and he left the game more fun than he found it. This thread reminds me how easy it is to hate somebody that you've never heard of just because they're mildly successful and 4chan told you to hate them.
>>94806549Yeah I'm sure the big wigs at WotC are the ones approving every decision D&D makes. I might give you the broad strokes like what they are and aren't allowed to do or what target demographics to aim for but the core of the systems gameplay isn't up to the suits.
>>94797426>What you are describing here is 4th ed D&D.And it was the best D&D edition to date, and one of the few games with a decent resources like the offline compendium and a great character builder.
>>94797659Storytelling isn't a game either.
>>94807038But that's exactly the thing: The suits tell you "Aim for new players" so you have to dumb it down. The suits say "Under no circumstances are you allowed to rock the boat. Don't do a 4e again." and anything that's not Vancian casting is out the window. Of course they don't make the game but their demands shape what the devs are allowed to make.
>>94806611>4chan told me to hate Mike MearlsNo, Mike Mearls' behavior told me to hate him. He completely fucked up 4E when he got full control of it and 5E is a shitpile and one of the worst games I've ever played.
>>94804978In the book Gygax wrote about roleplaying he compares it to acting and to therapy. Yet his game is held up as the antithesis to the supposedly modern scourge of acting in character despute him having written in the rulebook that I would not be interacting as Hwnk from accounting but speak as Falstaff the wizard to fellow adventurers.Point is no one cares what Gary Gygax had to say unless he happened to say a quotable snippet that happens to support their opinions. To 90% of internet discussions Gygax only exists insofar as he can be used to support an argument with the kind of deliberately out of context quoting that was supposed to be beaten out of you as an undergraduate.
>>94805682An uncontrolled dire wolf or bear is going to be better than an equal level 3.5 animal companion that isn't using abusive tricks in most situations and they're much much stronger than a level 3 or 6 martial.
>>94792740It shouldn't insta-kill them, but it should take the character out of the fight and non-subtly imply that if the whole party gets tagged it's game over. That way, it still feels like there's stakes.
>>94792419>Even 5e designer knows how shit 5e is. Top notch.
>>94807666>they're much much stronger than a level 3 or 6 martial.Literal skill issue
>>94803885He's a zoomer and doesn't remember a time when RPG combat was lining up and taking turns hitting each other.
>>94807736No, and especially not in 3.0. They hit harder, have twice the HP, have all good saves and a surplus of HD, and get free combat maneuvers.
>>94803520>only use one at a timeJust like how your brain magically locks you out of your own leanred abilities when you change professions in real life.Retard.
>>94805596You mean like 4e did?
>>94803520>Let's make the game completely retarded to appease my autismHow about we don't?
>>94792802>Did they not listen to playtester feedbackNo they rigged the polls, and kinda just did what they wanted to do anyway
>>94807644I agree with you, but you're a cunt.
>>94809548And a fine day to you, sir.
>>94807644bro, I bust a gut everytime an anon disparages "theater kid bullshit" in favor of "Good ole fashioned OSR that you play like a board game!"It shows that they never even cracked open a pre-3.0 manual in their lives and are just going off memes they heard on 4chan.Gygax literally did his DMing behind a filing cabinet so as to not break the immersion with his physical presence at the table.
>>94807682If there are any NPCs with them, have one of them get killed by it first. That way you can show how dangerous it is without forcing one of the players sit out the rest of the fight.
>>94809614>Good ole fashioned OSR that you play like a board gameI hate this misconception. The older editions are better for roleplaying because you don't have the option to steamroll every encounter through combat.
>>94809959He's just conflating shit. The post he's critiquing is about "storygaming" not against roleplaying (as in play-acting). There's no mutual exclusiveness in going thespian and playing the game, the supposed "issue" is about planning strict storylines and character arcs vs laying down scenarios and having them playing out by themselves organically.
>>94792676>>94796173There's nothing wrong with Runequest
>>94810227...that a nuke can't fix
>>94806394Just for the sake of argument i would argue that is totally possible to run low to none prep games with gurps as well, for example i could slam on the table the fantasy, banestorm and magic books on the table, open them to the templates section and have the player pick one for their character (configuring the template suboptions and writing the character sheet takes around 5-10 minutes in total) then pick a tsr d&d adventure and eyeball things on the spot (like using the equivalent monsters from the dungeon fantasy books stats, etc..), it's just that usually if one pick gurps for his game does so because wants to actually dive deep in minutiae of particulars.
>>94792802They did an interview for GDC or Gamasutra that essentially went>The most important thing play testing revealed was that our playtesters were all retarded.
>>94795062If I remember right they were applying the same>If everything is special nothing isLogic you often see applied to things like races and magic items to dangerous combats. So it makes a combat where you've actually got a 1 in 5 chance of dying seem *really special* if it's only every tenth combat that is so dangerous.
>>94795940>What absolutely pants on head retardedly broken DPR buildsActually playing characters with short rest instead of long rest recharge abilities, and "going nova" basically every fight
>>94799470That's literally the opposite of true: 4e was created because the forum ops fanboys who loved the game the most wanted something even more complex and mechanical. Grogs love playing these games like their just skirmish games.
>>94800124>>94800140It is a real genuine, maybe unsolvable problem >The average DND player somehow needs almost ten minutes to take their turn.
>>94810737Glad they listened to the players rather than triple down with 4e again
>>94810737I will never stop being mad about them canning the playtest Fighter iteration that was actually interesting and flexible.>Battlemaster Fighter was the core class, not just a subclass>you got less Expertise Dice(playtest capped at 3d10), but it refreshed at the end of the Fighter's turn instead of per day>they could be expended on manuveurs if you wanted to play a fancy tricksy Fighter, or you could have them ready to use on Opportunity Attacks for enemies if you wanted to make them think twice about trying to get away from you>or maybe you want to be more of a supportive tank and use a maneuver to roll your expertise dice and reduce damage by the result, or maybe you just want to go "fuck all that" and just put all your expertise dice to damage every turn and play WotC's patented "all full attack all the time" unga bunga Fighter>all different types of Fighter use the exact same mechanics and only vary by how creative they want to get with it and what exactly they want to do>in a shockingly rare event, basically the entire playtest board with players of various editions almost unanimously agree this Fighter is actually a really fucking solid idea>then WotC decides "nah fuck this" and dumps it to go back to starting to make what becomes 5e's current Fighter>the playtest board flips it's shit(again) because everyone liked the other Fighter, and the most WotC acknowledges it is making the Battlemaster, a half-assed reminder of what could have been
>>94804783Except it doesn't because losing a character to meaningless combat seven out of nine on the way to confront the dipshit hireling who stole my magic sword is extremely retarded.
>>94804847I have genuinely met players whose honest feedback was >I like RPGs because I like rolling dice, and the more dice we roll the more I like itMany people play RPGs because they can't get their friends to meet up every week to play Yahtzee.
>>94810038>laying down scenarios and having them playing out by themselves organically.Which is what the word story gaming means
>>94810851One bit I specifically remember talked about all the playtest feedback they got on rules that didn't exist. They politely summarized afterwards >We learned it doesn't even matter what we print in the books because you stupid fucks don't read the books.
>>94810953Yes i guess, but there's a focus on the directed narrative (for example in Primetime Adventures, a strong narrativist game, you have a spotlight meter on the character sheet that signifies how important the character is in the current scenario) rather than the emergent one (the one generated by rng and player choices through the character).
>>94792419Optimizing for a dungeon crawl is about managing resources, not tension. Tension is created through a narrative. We don't get tension from using an AoE nuke to delete an encounter so we can progress and not waste healing spells, we get tension because we need to optimize our time and resources in the dungeon because the kidnapped children will be sacrificed to an evil god if we don't get there in time because we kept taking short rests to compensate for our poor resource management.
>I like RPGs because I like rolling dice, and the more dice we roll the more I like itbased retard, we can play together
>>94810888This is really what hurts the most. They had a really solid base for 5e in general, and they just fucking tossed it away. And for what?
>>94795377It's something the FFG 40K Games, for all their faults, handled fairly well: the unaltered human maximum (meaning not a cyborg/space marine/other type of superhuman freak) HP is... 25. An average weapon does D10+3 damage, so even a very bloated character can fall to a handful of good hits. Of course, this is counteracted at higher levels with increasing damage reduction, including suits of power armor that are basically invulnerable to small arms, but that then gets balanced with various ways of getting around DR. Basically, even at high levels a serious combat feels serious, and like a few bad rolls could leave you crippled or dead.
>>94800285>The recomended number of combat encounters before the long rest (end of the day) is something like 10.This never was correct. The 2014 DMG stated 6 to 8 encounters as an observation how long PCs last without running out of steam. 2024 has bumped XP thresholds and renamed "hard encounters" to "normal", so the number is probably lower than that.
>>94811021>Yes i guess, but there's a focus on the directed narrative (for example in Primetime Adventures, a strong narrativist game, you have a spotlight meter on the character sheet that signifies how important the character is in the current scenario) rather than the emergent one (the one generated by rng and player choices through the character).Bingo. The Gygax quote would probably cause less confusion if it was "if the narrative experience is directed instead of emergent then it's not a game". This is NOT mutually exclusive with the DM making narrative decisions (as opposed to pure RNG), such as dropping plot hooks about marauding dragons to groups that have a hard-on for fighting dragons or making the freehold of a fixer-upper fortress available to players who want to become LOCAL LORDS. The group that wants to fight dragons could do any number of things ranging from going full MonHun with traps and specialized weapons and whatever to cutting deals with other dragons and recruiting small armies of specialized hirelings or just saying "fuck this" the first time half of them get toasted and likewise the fortress could either end up as a backstabby political clusterfuck a la GoT or it could be a straight-up conquest/city-builder or the players could say at any point "this is a lot of work and responsibility compared to robbing graves; we'll just shove everything valuable into a gunny sack and leave in the middle of the night". Or the players could ignore these opportunities entirely and stay on that murderhobo grind.The point is that the game won't be derailed by the group either ignoring or participating in any of these potential plots because there is nothing to derail; the DM is not creating or advancing a structured narrative, they are using their best judgement to provide different flavors of potential content for emergent storytelling that the players can choose to engage with (or ignore) and which will lead to fun and/or FUN.
>>94793345Bounded accuracy is fine. HP bloat is the issue here.
>>94810038I'm not conflating anything. preplanned character arcs and (strict) storylines is cancer but there's a particular type of no game who thinks that roleplaying games are best played like war games in which people look at you funny if you speak in character as your centurion pilot. I think someone hears the term storyshitter and, since they have trouble getting in character due to being autistic, they conflate it to mean all roleplayers and go to what they prefer instead. Tactical gamng.
>>94797442"Big gayass Thanos fights," have existed since the genre's inception, you fucking tourist. They're literally half of the entire brand name.
>>94814902HP bloat is the result of bounded accuracy.
>>94812578>Optimizing for a dungeon crawl is about managing resources, not tension. Tension is created through a narrative.strained resources leads to tension.
>>94798437These can absolutely work in TotM games, and using TotM as an excuse to limit design space is an issue for like, 5% of the gaming population.
>>948006893E is probably the most batshit busted system that's ever actually been played, and is most likely the root issue on why most of those problems exist in the first place.
>>94805879That literally exists (twice) now, and it's better than every D&D edition. In existence.
>>94814987Yes, but the issue here is it doesn't have to be, which is entirely different from the implication you're attempting to make.
>>94810769So they thought the solution was to drown players in boring, pointless bullshit?
>>94815244Man SotDL/WW looks so fucking cool.I hope to luck out one day and stumble on a local group playing it.
>>94813812>they just fucking tossed it away. And for what?A pile of money of unparalleled size?
>>94816003They would have got it anyways. 5e's success is wildly circumstantial, and not due to it's competence as a system.It just happened to be the D&D that was out when critical roll and stranger things and shit got super popular.
>>94816019True actually, I concede this point. It's very obvious from 5.5 that they changed a lot of the way they present 5E in response to the popularity of CR, not that it hadn't been obvious for ages already before that.
>>94793318>my players don't want to spend 5 hours fighting a group of skeletons, where the bard loses a limb and the Warlock quits because his enchanted rapier got destroyed.It's not the concept of harsh results that's beating you, it's the lack of follow-through and characters that have no path of advancement after failing except to be retired.
>>94814902>True Bounded Accuracy Has Never Been Tried™Let's not do this.
>>94814990You will never strain your resources if the GM isn't giving you a combination of actually challenging fights as well as a narrative constraint that forces you to not abuse resting.
>>94814880Even in PTA though, the narrative itself isn't directed, only you the player will have the most influence over this set of sessions. Spotlight in PTA was homologous to player level in that it increased your chances of success- as PTA defined success, "you get to decide what happened"
>>94815343The theory is that most players do not actually mind pointless bullshit when it comes in the form of jerking them off about how smart they are and how powerful their characters are. Bullying kobolds who are too weak to fight back is normally considered a hilarious and very cool way to spend multiple hours of session time, and critically these combats are supposed to be very short because the monsters have very little hp and normally miss.
>>94816003>monopoly money is the only thing that mattersgod you are a fucking flesh golem.
>>94810833No, you dolt. WOTC thought they had the market locked down, and that everyone would toe the line. And why would it be different, when the player base ate the 3e to 3.5 conversion without (financially significant) complaint? They bitched that they had to buy the books again, but they still bought. Why be concerned with the old guard upset at being used as unpaid playtesters, when explosive internet-fueled player population growth drowned naysayers under a flood of newcomers for whom the latest version was THE edition, not AN edition. It was a literal "if you don't like it, don't play it, but what else are you going to play?" by WOTC.And it was the same on the publisher side. The 4e OGL was much more restrictive than 3e's, because WOTC wanted more control over product quality - essnetially the Nintendo issue, where anyone could produce compatible cartridges, which made Nintendo so protective of what they make afterwards. WOTC basically wanted veto power for every D&D supplement, even after a third-party publisher had already spent $ making it. Paizo knew there was no way they could stay in business with their cash flow essentially held up for who knows how long in WOTC review/reject/redo cycle, but they too would have bent the knee because no one thought there was an alternative. Yes, 3e OGL was still out there, but prior experience with 2e showed there just wasn't a large enough market for "older" D&D supplements to keep companies afloat.The only real difference was the internet, which provided platforms to vent and organize, and in turn showed publishers that there was a potential customer base. This made creating 3e-ish content for people who wanted to keep playing 3e-ish games instead of following WOTC's whims economically feasible for Paizo (and a few others, but Paizo was the biggest beneficiary).
>>94816751>a flood of newcomers for whom the latest version was THE edition, not AN editionYes, these are the people I'm talking about flooding the wizards forums with endless debate about banning all classes except the ones in Book of Nine Swords and inventing the locate city bomb. Their specific form of spreadsheet autism convinced wizards that 4e would be the natural next step of how people were already playing the game.
>>94816832That wasn't the point. The point was that WOTC thought everyone would be on board because there was no alternative. This turned out to be false.I can see what you're saying about design being made based on what recently arrived players find attractive, but >>94794287 is about WOTC ignoring feedback from all prior players. Meaning they are/were specifically targeting OUTSIDER demographics, because in their mind everyone who already plays D&D is locked in.Now that I think about it, it smells just like Helldivers 2 on PC - in that inflating Playstation Network user numbers was more important than the game itself, and insisting on PSN accounts made the game experience worse because it drove away players. The more people start playing D&D by creating an account, the more accounts you can show, regardless of whether old accounts go idle in protest. (Subscriptions are another matter, as the protest against proposed repeal of 3e OGL showed.)
>>94807666Uncontrolled animal companions only attack animals and humanoids and will only attack if attacked. Otherwise they will run away or stay next to the druid or ranger. They will also abandon the player if forced to do dangerous things on the regular such as "fighting to the death", because they are "friends and not pets or servants". This is in the DMG. Interestingly, the animal friendship animals will also leave the druid if he doesn't spend the bulk of his time near the animal's home. They go "nah, man, that's too far away, gotta go see the wife and kids lol." and desert. That last one I didn't remember until re-reading the blurb today and is kinda funny.
>>94816876>The point was that WOTC thought everyone would be on board because there was no alternative. This turned out to be false.This was definitely a major factor in 4e's failure. A lot of the initial announcements and previews were intentionally insulting and drove people away even before any mechanics were revealed. The GSL and other things just made the initial negative reception even worse.
>>94817159>A lot of the initial announcements and previews were intentionally insultingNTA. (X) to doubt. You're lying through your teeth. You cannot prove a) insulting nature, b) intention to insult and least of all c) "a lot of" it. Cease.>inb4 You pointing to one instance of some obscure comment you'd have to be terminally online and heavily invested to even hear about where one (1) ex-employee rants about something that goes directly against company communication you'd have to be the snowflakiest snowflake to feel even remotely insulted by but you going "see totally all of 4e was ackshually deliberately insulting !!!111!!11!!!!!"
>>94810905>Someone should tell the multibillion vidya industry that they're wrong because some hick on a Mongolian cave painting forum says soOkay, buddy.>hireling who stole my magic swordMust be really tiring to build all these strawmen only to destroy them. Video games have bosses, nigger.
>>94817764He's right, they tried to sell 4e by negging on 3e. In hindsight this was a good thing because it served to warn 3e enjoyers that 4e might not be for them.
>>94817782>Table top roleplaying games with permadeath are not at all like videogames, which have character based narrative arcs that still finish even if you die a couple times, film at 11
More importantly, any encounter in a videogame can be lethal if you don't have the skills, whereas D&D doesn't even require enough skill for that to be true even if you wanted it to be true. It takes a lot of work to make a good videogame out of D&D and even then you're mostly appealing to people who already like D&D (you aren't going to win any converts from among real RPG players).
>>94804847>rolling to hit and rolling again for damage is indeed bad.Just roll both dice at once. The majority of RPG systems take longer than D&D to calculate damage because they do things like opposed rolls to dodge or reduce damage, or that involve extra calculations.
>>94797442>. You can't have big gayass Thanos fights on tabletop.Sure you can>In b/x none the lessBut you have to remember that the thanos fight was about the length of that one scene where thanos go HURM RETARD and then tony reveals that he got the gems and goes RETARD SAYS WHAT. When my players turn their carefully manged provinces of the kingdom their best friend is running to maximize their XP curves, while revealing their 'Warcrime in progress' magical spell research plus whatever they managed to pull away from their enemies dead hands to turn their fleets and armied into fear immune badasses that rival the armies of legend just so when the loner, empowered by his great cult finally managed to wish this motherfucking dragon into having stats and the war campaign starts. Its beautiful really. To see them take a story, a fairy tale if you will, and bend it over the table, and take its stuff. It's great. Wish I could play more games like it.
>>94817764I know you're too young to remember but they had a fairly well known and insulting series of commercials and interviews that document this. I seem to recall the gnome and the tiefling ones in particular? Especially the 'butthead' tieflings getting a lot of flak because it was Mary Jane Manjaws great great Manjawed Grandmother.
>>94819122>>94818513Lots of words. No substance. I accept your concession.
>>94818555>fights are too easy, no real tension, even if you have many per day>permadeath is always an optionWhich is it, nigger?
>>94815349Was good fun when I ran it for a group. Sometimes you gotta be the change.
>>94817764No? The 4e commercials were literally "All editions of d&d were bad and 4e is gonna be good because old things are bad"Here is the least assholish commercial they released.https://youtu.be/sbbqMoEwDqc
>>94816413Not only is that not what I said, but an example of a game that does bounded accuracy right was already posted ITT.
>>94819167>>94819213Well?
>>94792419The only players who wanted "tension" in a fight left for other games. The only ones left just want a power fantasy that have a breakdown if their character drops to half their hit points and only have their strategy of spamming high power spells
>>94817764>>94819167>NTA. (X) to doubt. You're lying through your teeth. You cannot prove a) insulting nature, b) intention to insult and least of all c) "a lot of" it. Cease.Watch the teaser in >>94819213. This was just the start. There was a reoccurring theme through out the advertisements and announcements that 3.X and earlier editions were old, bloated and hard to use while 4e was modern, slim and easy to use. While a lot of points were admittedly true, the focus put on older editions being inferior while 4e was newer and therefore better left a bad taste in the mouths of many existing fans. Instead of building hype for a new edition it led many long time fans to approach the preview with a terrifyingly critical eye.
>>94819213I find hilarious that all the supposed zingers to previous edition can still be applied regardless of the edition, that spot is pure corporate manure.
>>94819213>This unironically triggered r3.5tardsNothing about what is said in this commercial is wrong, and if you don't understand the crux of the message here, you're an actual idiot. The entire point they are making is that 4e is simply attempting to fix the shortcomings of previous editions (which should be the bare minimum expectation for pusbing out a new edition). That's it. If this is some sort of personal attack to you, then TTRPGs might actually not be healthy for you.With that said, 4e is meh.
>>94819343One quadrillion years later and Basic D&D is still the best and simplest version of D&D.
>>94819343The spot doesn't make any point, it just illustrate some comical aspect of the hobby (improvising props, losing time scavenging for a rule you forgot and the referee not being optimal in pacing) which will always happen, no matter what. Pinpointing these common shortcomings to specific iteration of the game is plain disingenuous.
>>94792740Combat's shouldn't be a special game state with its own separate set of rules but instead function like 4e skill challenges where everyone says what they are doing to overcome the threat and then you need X number of successes or face Y penalties.A player saying "I'll distract the orc mage by feinting" so they can roll Deception, then another saying "I'll handle the minions by killing them" so they can roll Fighting, and another rolling Constitution because they want to hold back the orc warlord.On the other side of the screen, the rules might say "orc shaman casts a spell that makes the minions do Y cumulative more damage", "the minions do X damage if not mitigated" and "the orc boss does Y damage or Z effect if not mitigated"This would make combat snappy, high tension, without having to assume every player character is an expert combatant as long as they can think of a way their preferred skill is relevant to the encounter than they can use it.
>>94819343>Nothing about what is said in this commercial is wrong, and if you don't understand the crux of the message here, you're an actual idiot.While none of the points in there are wrong, the method the points were made is what caused issue. There are multiple ways to tell someone they smell and do something about it but some are more likely to get negative reactions than positive ones. WotC brought up how the other editions smelled a chose to go with one that resulted in a mostly negative reaction.
>>94819122I actually really liked the commercials before the game came out. I still think wizards would have ultimately gotten away with it if they hadn't tried to make this thousand dollar transition during the teeth of the '08 recession.
>>94819202>BECAUSE a character only gets to die once in a tabletop game, and not hundreds of times without it affecting the plot at all like in videogames, players THEREFORE do not want to deal with dozens of potentially deadly literally random encounters with guys they do not know and have no problem with on the way to the guy they're actually trying to stab. Life is hard when you're retarded, so I guess I should take it easy on you
>>94819392That's just GURPS, and that removes the "game" if we're all just story telling and rolling dice to see if we told the story correctly. It wouldn't be high tension, because people would just weedle their best skill into every encounter, and everyone would just coast by rolling the same skill over and over. Tension has to be constructed by giving people choices and making them lose something because they chose one thing over another thing.
>>94795377Just playing E6 fixes this. HP stops at level 6 because there are no more levels to gain! Of course, you can spend your feat on toughness, but +3/+6 HP (depending on system) isn't that great of a feat pick.
>>94819261My only long 5e campaign's players enjoyed feeling tension, but they'd get a monster (of a type they'd repeatedly encountered before and could ball park the hp of) down to less than a third hp, ONE player would go down to half hp, and the entire table would go>Lock the fuck in guys or we're gonna get tpk'd.A couple TPK's did happen in the game at low levels, but the player's level of caution was basically that their characters were made of glass
>>94819428>It wouldn't be high tension, because people would just weedle their best skill into every encounter, and everyone would just coast by rolling the same skill over and over.Except this is already what happens. Bards use charisma spells and only attacks if they can add their charisma bonus to it. Warlocks only ever use Eldritch Blast because it's the only thing they can add the cha bonus, wizards always use cantrips because they can't add their int bonus to other attacks, etcThe difference would be that players have the option to interact with the fiction to do the desired effect rather than just spamming their attack button because the only thing that really matters is reducing enemy HP to 0.
>>94819428People do that NOW, they just make sure their best skill is "melee attack".
>>94819213This is the most bizarre marketing I've ever seen. Why would someone trust a company that markets by saying their previous products sucked?
>>94819300>>94819213>>94819122>>94818513>you'd have to be the snowflakiest snowflake to feel even remotely insulted by but you going "see totally all of 4e was ackshually deliberately insulting !!!111!!11!!!!!"You pseuds are predictable beyond believe. I've seen more original thought from LLM.
>>94820422>Defending things is cringe!>He says, while defending something
>>94809959Gygaxian (moment-to-moment immersion above all else), Arnessian (the world is the main character), and Blumain (dungeon and combat board game) play are all very valid playstyles. It's just the OSR crowd seems to think Brian Blume's style was Gary's and pretend like its the only one that matters.It's not a misconception, they know better, but choose to pretend otherwise.
>>94820107Because everyone knew that 3rd edition did suck and was a black hole of a product that had damaged the entire industry. If the company comes out and says they know they did an oopsey then you have credibility for when they say they addressed that.What they didn't account for is that their 3e grog playerbase was never, ever going to learn a new system (they didn't for any competing company's product after all) and were never, ever going to stop treating it as a universal game engine, and (this is the crucial bit) they had made it part of their core identity so any threat to it was a personal threat to them as people. They then proceeded to piss flames on the internet for a decade.
>>94820422I never said all of 4e was insulting just that the initial release teaser and previews were. WotC had also cancelled both Dragon and Dungeon the year before so 4e was starting with a very negative position compared to when other editions were being released. Combined with several other failures (VTT canceled by a murder suicide) and missteps (GSL being so aweful causing Paizo to create Pathfinder as a response in order to survive) and you have 4e failing less because of mechanical issues and more because of social issues.
>>94794223>5e kept the HP bloat of 3e and 4e.In 3e you could be one-shotted with a charge, x4 multiplier, or souped up spell, tho.Which can be an issue on its own, but the game can be pretty fucking lethal if you ask me.
>>94820422>You pseuds are predictable beyond believe.>>948205854e also failed mechanically over and over, and is kinda boring compared to old school or 3e/PF.Said this, I would probably play it before playing 5e.
>>94820585>4e failingBy what possible metric? It was the biggest game at the time, made profit, kept Hasbro alive, rode out a recession, and did well enough to fund the birth of the 5e cashcow. A lot of the 5e systems are just 4e systems except printed worse because wargamers shit themseslves in rage if the books had legible graphic design and transparent game systems.
>>94820590You and I did not play the same game at all. I don't think yours was by the book, either. It was called Diablo Edition for a reason, and the 1e/2e legacy players hated how much everything had become damage sponges flailing at each other.
>>94820619I played old school too. I don't think you played 3e enough.The lethality in these systems work differently.The only thing that is truly more forgiving in 3e compared to AD&D or B/X is the level drain (which is personally a good compromise between the too punishing old school and the reduced PF1e one to the non-existing of later editions).x4 and x3 weapons are core. A level 1 core orc barbarian can crit a greataxe charge and deal 55-60 dmg.Save-or-die are arguably more lethal in 3e because the way saves work mitigate them more in old school.In fact, 3e was often called rocket tag - which reminds me that the criticisms 4rries and OSRtards move are often contradictory ABOUT THE SAME THINGS, which is hilarious.>It was called Diablo Edition for a reasonIt was the itemization. Charade you are. You don't know much anon. You in fact sound more like a kid that just discovered OSR (which is cool) and repeats hearsay.
>>94820678>Save-or-die are arguably more lethal in 3e because the way saves work mitigate them more in old school.Sorry, I forgot to specify - AT HIGH LEVELS.
>>94800689I love how 3e makes OSRfags, 4rries AND GURPSfags buttmad.It's a good system by itself, but this is a nice additional little perk.
>>94820610Do you realize that 4e released in June of 2008, "replaced" by 4e Essentials in September 2010 and had its last release in May 2012? Base 4e was in effect cancelled after 2 years with Essentials being cancelled after 2 years after that with 5e releasing 2 years later. 4e only lived for 4 years total.In comparison 3e was released July 2000, replaced by 3.5 in July 2003 and had its last release in December 2007. a 7.5 year lifespan.
>>948207083e also had a lot of third party and went on for other 9(?) years with PF1e
>>94817764The preview books and the smug attitude of the design team were outright infuriating.
>>94820708So your definition of success is "lingers on life support indefinitely."
>>94820728True, and that just makes 4e's 4 year lifespan that much more noticeable.
>>94820678>You in fact sound more like a kid that just discovered OSRI've been playing TTRPG since 1996 and started D&D with 2e manuals from book resellers. You need to drop this paranoia about tourists or whatever the fuck. It's mentally disabling.
>>94820824That's insane. I guess 4e is still going since Lancer and 13th Age are still getting prints! What a hypocrite you are.
>>94820836>You need to drop this paranoiaWell, let's put in this terms anon - I gave you the benefit of the doubt.
>>94820849>since Lancer and 13th AgeNTA - not the same things. You can mix PF1 and 3.X with minimal effort and both have a monumental amount of 3PP
>>94820880Fascinating that you can type without anything above the brain stem.
>>94816623>BullyingAh okay. That's how they hooked the normies.
>>94820849I played those and 4e. I don't understand why people compare them. They play completely different. 13th age in particularly doesn't even feel like D&D on top of playing different from 4e.
>>94820884Your insults don't touch me, you have clearly no idea of how 3e works. Also see above >>94820678>which reminds me that the criticisms 4rries and OSRtards move are often contradictory ABOUT THE SAME THINGS, which is hilarious.
>>94820590And you can also turn off charges, crits, and spells with very basic options. Also doesn't change how if they're not in play you might be flailing away with 40 damage hits against monsters with 400 HP.
>>94820560Interestingly people who learned 4e as their first RPG often tried other editions of D&D and found they did not enjoy them as much as fourth.
>>94820619You're bad at 3e. You don't need much optimization to get into rocket tag.
>>94821180>you might be flailing away with 40 damage hits against monsters with 400 HP.400HP? You need Very Old dragons to get there and we are above CR21 at that point.You can turn off some, but not all at once. The game can be very lethal.
>>94820560>Because everyone knew that 3rd edition did suck and was a black holeThis is why it generated a plethora of 3P, and its sequel lasted for almost 10 years - because it was a failure!>was never, ever going to learn a new system A good system? Sure. 4e? LMAO, no.Daily reminder - 4rries are mentally ill.
>>94820422>everyone on 4chan is the same person but meActually kill yourself.
>>94803799Wow, all of those three options are terrible. I hope whatever you're forgetting was in the lead.
>>94820560I've gotten several 3.pf players to try out WHFRP, and pretty much all of them stuck around. Meanwhile, someone tried to show me 4e once and...well, I could tell why the edition after it was more like the edition before it.
>>94820819If I were selling the life support I would.
>>94820819I mean, even if you called 3e dead in 2007, it still had nearly double the lifespan of 4e soooooo...
>>94820495>if you dunk on haters you're actually loving what they hateKek. Playground logic.>>94820585I challenged your statement. You still haven't provided proof.>>94820741>snowflake gets triggeredMany such cases.>>94822098Never said that. Never said anything even remotely implying that. You're just one of them "reading at fifth grade level or worse" niggers.
>>94819213>what's THAC0?>grappling is complicated in 3rd>Oh, no. The horror. I've never been more insulted in my life. How can they have such contempt? Why would they insult me specifically?Why are you trying so hard to be a victim that you feel attacked by a commercial? You niggers are actually just like SJWs!
>>94819248Well, what? Still waiting for three of three proofs. Meanwhile you "provide evidence" that falls under the inb4. You misconstrue the ad just so you can feel triggered.
>>94819426>wall of text>still doesn't solve the apparent contradiction>calls others retarded>also...>nogaems doesn't know how easy it is to revive characters>nogaems doesn't know we call it capeshit for a reason
>>94820107In order to improve you have to admit what you put out wasn't ideal. You not knowing this makes me think you're one of those retards that falls for Apple marketing speech. "Our best iPhone yet" Every. Fucking. Year.Here in particular you could also complain about a lot of different and disparate things in every edition of every game ever made. The ad is just them saying: "We've identified X as an issue."
>>94821742This isn't 2010. You don't have to keep beating this drum, edition warrior. 3.x was deeply unpopular to everyone at the FLGS except the people who were stuck in that ecosystem. This is not news. You can still find plenty of writing about it on the internet from hobby magazines, forum posts, blog entries, the works. It is completely uncontroversial to say that it dangerously centralized the market because people were saying that even at that time - even when they were a company publishing those third-party OGL books.
>>94792705>>94800785He talks like it ain't his fault, niggas
>>94795940Fighting only 3 sickly goblins for every fight, 7 straight fights, until you fight a hobgoblin boss
>>94797533>The best fight in LOTR is Amon Hen when the party fights about 20 orc soldierThere's a lot more than 20 uruk-hai. There's close to fifty just in the opening shot and Aragorn slays 3 on contact.
>>94806611Fuck off mearls, you ruined 4e
>>94825692The reason it "dangerously centralized" the market is because a shitton of people enjoyed it, unlike the abortion of an edition that was 4e. Stay mad that your edition will forever be remembered as "the edition that was so shit people preferred Pathfinder".
>>94825595>In order to improve you have to admit what you put out wasn't ideal.Saying something sucks isn't the same as saying it's not ideal. You can merely say your new product is better. You don't have to say your previous product was bad.Also, you don't even have to argue that the two products directly compete with each other. I'm not sure you're seeing all of the different ways to frame products and their selling points.
>>94825692>3.x was deeply unpopular to everyone at the FLGS except the people who were stuck in that ecosystem.That means like two people. The raw fact is that everything got a d20 edition back then because every player wanted to play 3e and if the GM wanted to bait them into playing his special sleepytime RPG his odds went way up if it had a d20 version he could spring on them. >it dangerously centralized the marketAgain, this was a danger only to the tiny pewling minority of roleplayers who did not like D&D. Like it or not, those people have always been a tiny minority of the RPG sphere. 95%+ of all games being run were D&D long before 3e. The only real exception period was when Vampire pulled in a bunch of BPDmon girls from the goth sphere. Your idea that whining about it was uncontroversial is heavily biased by your granting the mouthpieces of that minority too much weight – like yeah, of course the non-D&D RPG creators whined about it in the magazines, blogs and forums they'd established for themselves to be their mouthpieces, that doesn't make the sentiment in any way representative of the wider RPG sphere. It represented only the concerns of that vocal minority.
>>94828462>Saying something sucks isn't the same as saying it's not idealThey put this on everything pre-5.5 now.
>>94828946>current year political correctness surely was the source of insults directed at threeaboos at the release of 4e in 2008You niggers are getting dumber by the day.
>>94829018>Reading Comprehension: 0
>>94819213The comments are an interesting time capsule. People used to be so much more nuanced, now they just constantly glawk glawk WotC in the comments of D&D shit.
>>94829192>unable to follow a thread
>>94828606No, it was a danger to D&D itself. We got 3.5 because it caused the bottom to fall out of 3.0 and 3.5 in 2 years each.
>>94829018>>94830698>Quote talk about saying your own product sucks with WotC doing it right now>Huh?? What does that have to do with 4e??Literally nothing, you mongoloid. Just noting that WotC likes doing that, even today.
>>94829602That's a standard across all the internet and ttrpgs as a hobby - as time goes on the barrier to entry is lower, and so more retards can contribute their braying to the discourse. This is in no way unique. If you really want to receive brain damage read the comments on short form content.
>>94822098there are only two posters, retard
>>94815349WW, unfortunately, looked at SotDL and decided that what's missing from there is the HP bloat.
>>94832909Do fights last twice as long or something?Because if so, damn, that sucks.
>>94830858>But it feels real to me.The world must be a scary place for someone afraid of their own shadow.
>>948276364e outsold Pathfinder every time it released a book and all the most popular and highest grossing secondary media (comics, novels, podcasts) were 4e based. You can still find groups for both PF1e and AD&D4e. You remain hopelessly deranged because of what I already talked about: you made an arbitrary game system part of your core identity and have to defend it like you defend your own life. Your mistake is thinking anyone else is like that.I played Warhammer Fantasy on Monday, AD&D 2e on Wednesday, and will be playing Paranoid XP tomorrow. What are you doing at your game tables? You have one, right?
>>94834141Based. This right here>you made an arbitrary game system part of your core identity and have to defend it like you defend your own life.single-handedly BTFOs like 80% of the board. >>94827636>"the edition that was so shit people preferred Pathfinder"Which is exactly why whenever anyone lifts something from 4e into 5e literally everyone goes "you know what? This IS better."
>>94834203>everyone secretly loves 4e except nobody really talks about playing the game anymore Just because some redditor keeps shitposting and trying to convince the community to rebuild 5e with 4e mechanics doesn’t mean it’s a good idea - just play 4e you shitter
