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"The era of the podcast confuses me... In that it is now possible for people to be upset because Wil Wheaton does not add his attack bonuses correctly."
I must admit, that would have been a hard one to see coming ten years ago.
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Ethan Skemp
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Yeah, not only that but the cleric keeps using Righteous Brand and forgetting to give anyone the bonus to hit at all. He remembered once up until last weeks. I haven't heard this weeks yet.
Between forgetting to roll twice for the Oath, forgetting the marking, the bonus for Righteous Brand, and the +4 extra to hit that Wil would have if he remembered his prof bonus and magic weapon bonus, the podcasts really begin to get very painful.
There was a round in last week's episode where an enemy was bloodied and nearly dead, had the fighter in a grab and was doing ongoing 10 while it grabbed. The cleric hit it with Righteous Brand and forgot to give the bonus to anyone. Then the Avenger missed (by 3 or 4, just enough that if he'd remembered his own bonuses OR the cleric's bonus, he'd have hit) and could have pulled the enemy 1 square in order to get the fighter out of the grab. However, he missed, so the fighter took 10 at the beginning of his turn and fell unconscious putting them into panic mode.
I was almost yelling at my computer as it played the MP3 file.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hussar
Yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this.
I don't even play 4e, but, jeez, did these guys even read the books? I mean, they've actually got the cards in front of them and they can't keep stuff straight.
The one that got me was from a couple episodes ago when the Dwarf (Binwin?) got pushed into the construct bear trap thingie. Umm, he's a dwarf. He got pushed 1. Dwarves don't have to get pushed if they don't want to. ((Dwarven step (I might have the name wrong there) lets you reduce any push by 1 square))
I'm not going to put this on the DM at all either. These guys really, really need to sit down for a few minutes and get their rules straight.
Seriously, guys? Those things that you consider so immediately obvious--well, to many folks they're not. To a lot of folks, it's minutiae. I sure can't take any of that for granted with most of my group.
Are you aware of how many folks play D&D with only the most basic comprehension of the rules? Who crack open a book only when absolutely necessary? Who don't keep track of all the bonuses that float around, or remember every little situational class feature or power effect? There's so much to stay on top of with a 4e character that it has to be prepped like a deck of magic cards. Obviously, these guys were looking for casual leanr-by-doing gameplay, not memorizing four or five different racial benefits, a similar number of feat benefits, a handful of class features, and a half-dozen powers (to say nothing of all the daily powers from magic items).
~ removed because it might be meant to be satire, but just comes across as rude - PS~
Last edited by Plane Sailing; 30th March 2009 at 01:56 AM..
"The era of the podcast confuses me... In that it is now possible for people to be upset because Wil Wheaton does not add his attack bonuses correctly."
I must admit, that would have been a hard one to see coming ten years ago.
That would indeed have been prophetic... You think someone would have stopped the whole internet thing if they had predicted this?
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Seriously, guys? Those things that you consider so immediately obvious--well, to many folks they're not. To a lot of folks, it's minutiae. I sure can't take any of that for granted with most of my group.
Of course it shouldn't necessarily have been immediately obvious to the players. But it should have been immediately obvious to Chris, the DM, and he should have sorted it out.
That's one of the jobs of the DM when he is, y'know, teaching people to play the game.
Cheers
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Of course it shouldn't necessarily have been immediately obvious to the players. But it should have been immediately obvious to Chris, the DM, and he should have sorted it out.
That's one of the jobs of the DM when he is, y'know, teaching people to play the game.
Cheers
do not blame chris...for he has been possessed by Loki...an evil trickster god...
We must find the great and powerful spell ‘protection form evil’ and cast it upon him before the next game session
You also have to realize that maybe Chris was nervous about recording the podcast. It's one thing to DM for a table of strangers, it's another to do it with a mic in front of your face, in a strange office, with people cracking jokes the entire time.
Plus, he wrote the adventure specifically for the podcast, so he was probably trying to concentrate on everything and make sure he didn't screw something up in his notes.
Also, this was all recorded in one big session. So while it's been weeks for us, it was all together for them. Wil already said that when they finished they noticed right away the mistakes. Normally, that would have happened after the first game session. Especially since Chris is probably used to playing with people who already have everything calculated out correctly.
Finally, we dont' know about anything set-up previously. They could have all agreed to not stop the game for some rules tidbit, beyond clarifing what they needed to know, to improve the listening experience. The overwhelming majority of people enjoy the podcast and don't mind that Wil keeps missing, especially since it sorta fits the story they've developed of Acquistions Inc being the lovable bumbling losers who just stumble their way through it all.
As I think back to our early 4E sessions, I know we were all making mistakes. Allowing too many immediate actions, not figuring in random bonuses, forgetting 1/2 level bonuses and so forth. In fact, once the players recently tried the character generator, I heard more "oops I've been calculating this wrong the whole time" comments from at least two players.
Mistakes happen, but my suspicion was that Chris probably didn't want to focus on too much rules minutia when they had limited time to record the podcast. He was probably keeping things simpler on purpose. Just my 2 cents.
Of course it shouldn't necessarily have been immediately obvious to the players. But it should have been immediately obvious to Chris, the DM, and he should have sorted it out.
I don't think that it would have been that obvious. There are many different powers out there and Wheaton was playing a class that was yet to see print. Perkins may not have been intimately involved with the development of this class and may not have been aware of the mechanics of each power. As a DM of 4th edition, I rely on the players to know their own powers simply because there are so many.
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As I think back to our early 4E sessions, I know we were all making mistakes. Allowing too many immediate actions, not figuring in random bonuses, forgetting 1/2 level bonuses and so forth. In fact, once the players recently tried the character generator, I heard more "oops I've been calculating this wrong the whole time" comments from at least two players.
Mistakes happen, but my suspicion was that Chris probably didn't want to focus on too much rules minutia when they had limited time to record the podcast. He was probably keeping things simpler on purpose. Just my 2 cents.
I totally knew the rules, but my first fighter still didn't have his proficiency bonus calculated in into the attack bonus. And I remember choosing a +3 proficiency bonus weapon explicitly to hit better.
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My first 4E session included several complete newbies to roleplaying. Midway through kobold hall we realized our wizard had picked up one of my d12s and was using that as a d20... whoops!
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I don't think that it would have been that obvious. There are many different powers out there and Wheaton was playing a class that was yet to see print. Perkins may not have been intimately involved with the development of this class and may not have been aware of the mechanics of each power.
I grant that this might have been true for the Oath of Enmity, but I'm surprised that he didn't spot the missing proficiency bonus on the weapon based powers, since that is pretty independent. I'd certainly have had a quick review of a PC who was coming in as an entirely new class though.
I still think it is a shame about the cleric temp hp, about Binwins marking and sundry other things.
Amongst other things, I think it demonstrates that 4e is essentially more complex at low level than previous editions of D&D, since there is an added level of complexity for every class even at low level. Plus there is a lot more for a DM to track going on.
Cheers
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
While its true they're having fun, they would have had better results if they'd remembered some of those rules.
I'm not sure that "better results" has any correlation with "fun."
It's sort of fun in the moment, at least, to steamroll things. However, "Binwin was, like, totally immune to the DM's traps" doesn't generate as good a story as "Binwin got kabob-ed by a threshing machine, lit on fire by fire-breathing statues, and eaten by an Iron maiden, all in the same adventure!"
This is especially true since the whole spirit of Ac Inc seems to be "we succeed in spite of ourselves." Oh, and don't forget "Set the Dwarf on fire."
Regarding the timing of the podcasts: my take is that the Perkins run of KOTS was one session, the Wyatt run was one session (maybe the same day as the former, dunno), and now this new set of recordings was one session (at least until the point where I stopped listening, which was #4 or 5).
Perkins forgot/chose not to mention fighter marking in the first KOTS session. Wyatt tells them about the ability in the next session, when Binwin doesn't do it in the first combat of the run. (He also tells them about charging and action points; the party response to the latter is essentially "WTF!11!?!?". There may have been more "reminders" later on, but I only checked KOTS #5.) Everyone seems to have forgotten about marking by the time the next Perkins game was recorded.
"The era of the podcast confuses me... In that it is now possible for people to be upset because Wil Wheaton does not add his attack bonuses correctly."
I must admit, that would have been a hard one to see coming ten years ago.
Number One- Please see that Mr Crusher adds his attack bonuses correctly next time...
(or was that more like 20 years ago? man I hate being over 30. )
Seriously, guys? Those things that you consider so immediately obvious--well, to many folks they're not. To a lot of folks, it's minutiae. I sure can't take any of that for granted with most of my group.
Oh, I understand that people forget these things all the time. Our group often forgets them too. That's why we have people who remind us...nearly every round.
Obviously, it doesn't matter if people forget these things. They are having a great time and that's all that matters. All I was saying when I started this side discussion was that the difference in effectiveness between a party who remembers and keeps track of all these bonuses and one that doesn't is fairly dramatic. They are up against fairly easy monsters.
I've just been reminded so many times by so many people, since I play in Living Forgotten Realms and play with different people all the time. I'm used to showing up at a table with someone I've never met before or who just made a cleric for the first time ever. Since they don't know how proficient I am in the rules, I've had to listen to the description of Righteous Brand a good 10 times. Each time read out in an excited voice like a kid in a candy store who has discovered something no one else ever has. Something like, "So I hit with Righteous Brand. And this attack give you my Strength modifier to hit on all your melee attacks for a whole round! So, every time you roll an attack roll, you should add...umm..FOUR to it. That's awesome. Hey, I just realized. If you spend an action point and attack and second time, you'd get the bonus on that as well."
An awful lot like the cleric did in this podcast. Only, he promptly forgot about it the rest of the times he used the power.
I guess I just play often enough that I wish I could remind people of rules. I know that people I've reminded about rules in real life almost always have more fun as they realize there is more to their characters than they thought.
It's a lot like watching someone play Monopoly and having them forget to pay rent over half the time when they land on other people's property. Sure, you can still have fun playing like that when nobody notices, but if you are the player who realizes that you were supposed to be payed thousands of dollars that you missed out on because someone else wasn't following the rules, it can cause hurt feelings.
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Seriously, guys? Those things that you consider so immediately obvious--well, to many folks they're not. To a lot of folks, it's minutiae. I sure can't take any of that for granted with most of my group.
/snip
Hang on. I'm not upset or anything like that. Perhaps it doesn't come over all that well, but jeez. Upset? That's way too strong.
I'm just thinking that something like, say, dwarven step is hardly minutia. It's in a great big honking box in the race description. We're not talking about something buried behind three pages of text.
Sure, fine, casual players and all that, and certainly the next time out they will probably have a better handle. But, I'd hardly call it minutia. Remembering which defense you happen to be attacking might be. But your basic racial abilities? Something you've had to have read at least once when you created the character? This is minutia?
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