Morrus
Frazzled

Morrus you are right, we do not know details about this thing, probably I'm just speculating. what I know for sure is that dnd did not have a new campaign setting in the last 15 years, that 5E Eberron has been published in beta and is disclosed for free piece-by-piece in "UA", etc. and this esport thing not wizards-driven (but announced by their CEO!) does not help the brand in that direction.

Hiya! First: Called it! ;) Second: There has always been "competitive play". Yes. One party goes through a module and gets points. Another party then does the same. Then another. And maybe a fourth. Which ever party scored the most points during the completion of the module wins. That was the "competition". I am not a aware of a single "adventure" that pitted two groups of players sitting across from one another in a Colosseum type setting where they try and kill each other. IMNSHO, trying to equate "D&D eSports Competition" and "AD&D Tournaments" from the late 70's and into the 80's is...disingenuous, to say the least. Both are COMPLETELY different methods for determining a 'winning side'. Third: [quote=Morrus] [Quote Originally Posted by DQDesign] totally agree. I'm seriously thinking about abandoning d&d for other TTRPGs. the standard ones, the ones with stories, friends and bucks far away from the table.[End DQDesign Quote] [Quote Originally Posted by Morrus] You want to abandon D&D because somebody else you've never met plays D&D differently to you?[End Morrus Quote] Morrus, I think what DQDesign was trying to intone was the overall D&D RPG Community and the potential to where D&D, as a RPG, could end up. It's not about "not playing my way". It's about bringing in a potentially overwhelming amount of people who are NOT "roleplayers" and are not actually interested in any of the "roleplaying". As this group increases, it would bring in more money and more and more voices asking for what they want. WotC is a company, owned by an evil faceless juggernaut who wants to expand and acquire more of everything (market share, money, IP's, etc). At some point, WotC would 'switch' to...

Congratulations on the amazingly fast funding of this, Morrus - that was truly impressive to behold!

... While I like 5E I (along with most of my group) are rather disappointed at the pace of rules production released in 5E. Mike Mearls mentioned that thereis a ton of new players and someone in this over twenty page thread made a statement saying that since 5E is doing so well it must mean that players in general don’t favor heavy rules customization. I take issue with that belief. I take issue with it because we really don’t fully know what Hasbro is counting as sales of D&D. Mike Mearls has said before that they don’t have to put out as many splat books because they can release games like Lords of Waterdeep, etcetera as income generators since the Hasbro merger. I am wondering if things like the numerous board games and additional niche products (Dice sets), etcetera are what is making a more significant portion D&D 5E sales now, whereas the RPG books like splat books were the main revenue generator in previous editions? I don’t know if there are any hard numbers on this (perhaps Morrus has some insight) but I would feel secure betting that besides the three core books (DMG, PHB, and MM) the biggest book sales of D&D 5E are probably the books that offer actual rules and option expansions like Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Mordenkainen’s Guide, and also the SCAG (as the first book to really offer PC expansions despite how skimpy). I do know that there are a number of third party options but many people don’t use those because they like to use official products for a variety of reasons: 1) It creates consistency from campaign to campaign and between games 2) people may feel that official splat material has been better play tested, etc. What I think is that is that Mike Mearl’s statement is coming from two places. 1) His own personal philosophy and not that of ALL the designers because I know Jeremy Crawford had written much more crunch to the game that was not included and 2) it was pragmatic political statement. What I mean in regards to the latter is ...

I think you are misinterpreting the "fired" comment. He was just saying "Anybody who thinks it's your job to maintain an aura of eliteness by keeping out the 'unworthies'...please go away." He was also observing that there was a high correlation between that crowd and people who enjoy system complexity, probably because system complexity makes a nice barrier to entry for people who want to imagine they are part of an elite crowd. Unfortunately, a lot of people are interpreting it as, "People who like system complexity, please go find another game." EDIT: Overlapped with @Morrus. I'll refrain from further commentary on that aspect.

First of all, thanks Morrus for collecting this. I generally avoid Twitter because, frankly, it's full of a$$holes. That aside: this is an interesting way of looking at it, and underscores the difference in design philosophies between the WotC team and the Paizo team. There is a lot of room for both philosophies of design, and I don't think there is any reason for fans of one to be hostile to fans of the other, but those differences do matter. There are ways in which I like the prescriptive elements of 3.x era games (I like set skill difficulty lists, for example) but I tend to run by the seat of my pants and the effects of my beer, so a fast and loose and forgiving version like 5E really enables me running a game the way I like to.

Oh crap, I didn't know about this book at all! Pre-ordered! Thanks Morrus!

Thanks Morrus and Yunru for getting the posting problem sorted out, now I can take the barbarian guide off my bookmarks.

I have a theory, but I don't like the implications if it's right. It may be that it's simply too big of a post? EDIT: Nope, works fine in a new thread. Could you please sticky the new one and unsticky this one please Morrus?

Yeah I got nothing, need to wait for Morrus I guess.

Wonder why? Cuz Morrus wants it this way and doesn't need to explain to anyone why he changes things?

Even a sucker punch has a chance to be countered by someone with quick reflexes, and an attack action in D&D does not mean you strike once and that's it, but it is a time segment of around 6 seconds, during which you do all sorts of combat stuff but get #number of attacks chances to actually hit and do damage. Therefore, at first I did like Morrus thought, but the more I think about it, the normal initiative system is more balanced and fair.

Nice article and some interesting comments as well. Morrus, I have a fantasy coin generator too. It's based on the old Dragon Magazine article Coins in a Coffer. It was fun to make! https://www.findgamers.us/coins-in-a-coffer

Thanks to Morrus and BookBarbarian for the comments. I'll have to read the AiME books, and see how I feel... see whether I think low-magic can be done in 5e at all. High magic certainly does seem baked in by default, and that may be quite difficult to overcome for people who want "D&D". If it is as much about expectations as anything else, perhaps that is manageable. Otherwise, perhaps I'll look into TOR. I've learned from experience with Cypher System that getting a group into a whole new ruleset can be a lot more work than I may want to deal with, so I'd prefer 5e AiME if possible.

I just posted an in depth blog post on this topic: http://dicehaven.com/middle-earth/things-learned/ TLDR version: I love Adventures in Middle-earth but it does require a different approach to structuring game sessions and play. Very satisfying though! Thanks for this blog post! I picked up the Adventures in Middle-Earth Player's Guide and Loremaster book this weekend at Gencon on a whim, mostly because I want a strong low-magic setting and that seems impossible using the player's handbook (without disappointing nearly every player at the table). This seems to do that well, with a number of other neat systems. My friends loved the Journey system in The One Ring. (I do think he liked some of the mechanics in TOR better, but I'm definitely set on 5e for a few reasons.) Anyway, I greatly appreciate the post you linked. Morrus, did you ever get around to trying out Adventures in Middle Earth? If so, any comments on the experience?

Morrus

Morrus

Hi. I am only familiar with D&D as far back as AD&D 1st Edition and would very much like to learn about what the game was like before that - Races, Classes, Monsters, Cosmology, etc. Is there anything like a timeline listing when things appeared in the game? I seem to recall Morrus at one time had a pretty impressive timeline chart showing what was released when through all of D&D's history up to that time, but I'm not sure where he's hidden it or even if it's still on this site.

Knightfall I don't see why not Morrus?

Hiya! First: Called it! ;) Second: There has always been "competitive play". Yes. One party goes through a module and gets points. Another party then does the same. Then another. And maybe a fourth. Which ever party scored the most points during the completion of the module wins. That was the "competition". I am not a aware of a single "adventure" that pitted two groups of players sitting across from one another in a Colosseum type setting where they try and kill each other. IMNSHO, trying to equate "D&D eSports Competition" and "AD&D Tournaments" from the late 70's and into the 80's is...disingenuous, to say the least. Both are COMPLETELY different methods for determining a 'winning side'. Third: [quote=Morrus] [Quote Originally Posted by DQDesign] totally agree. I'm seriously thinking about abandoning d&d for other TTRPGs. the standard ones, the ones with stories, friends and bucks far away from the table.[End DQDesign Quote] [Quote Originally Posted by Morrus] You want to abandon D&D because somebody else you've never met plays D&D differently to you?[End Morrus Quote] Morrus, I think what DQDesign was trying to intone was the overall D&D RPG Community and the potential to where D&D, as a RPG, could end up. It's not about "not playing my way". It's about bringing in a potentially overwhelming amount of people who are NOT "roleplayers" and are not actually interested in any of the "roleplaying". As this group increases, it would bring in more money and more and more voices asking for what they want. WotC is a company, owned by an evil faceless juggernaut who wants to expand and acquire more of everything (market share, money, IP's, etc). At some point, WotC would 'switch' t...

For those of us who don’t have a mathematical background (ie me)could you explain what that is? Its means winners really win. So, for example number 1 is twice as many as number 2 which is twice as many as number 3 and so on. What the plot shows, where 5E is actually above that orange line, is that its really really winning. Which some of us have been saying for a while. :p

The post you replied to was made in May 2018, over 8 years ago. :) I think I have just over slept and woke up in 2026 Damn Nurse Who Never should have left a woman in charge of that Tardis

It seems like the rumours of D&D as e-sports weren't so far off after all in today's bit of unexpected news, as D&D Beyond and Encounter Roleplaying have announced DnDSports. "DnDSports is the first online D&D Tournament in a cooperative Party vs Party setting from Encounter Roleplay & DnDBeyond with a grand prize of $5,000." 102397 Here's the full announcement: Imagine if two parties fighting for opposite sides found themselves in the same dungeon. It’s kill or be killed. What will they do to survive? DnDSports is the first online D&D Tournament in a cooperative Party vs Party setting from EncounterRoleplay & DnDBeyond with a grand prize of $5,000. Over the course of 4 weeks, 16 players will compete in teams of 4 in single elimination games. Each game is a best of 3 arena battle and played via Roll20. How is it Played? The full rules for DnDSports will be released shortly after our next round of Playtesting. We don’t claim to have created perfect balance, nor is that our a...

For those of us who don’t have a mathematical background (ie me)could you explain what that is? The data have counts of games running with a particular ruleset. So 5E is the most common ruleset, followed by Pathfinder, followed by Savage Worlds, etc. The kind of mechanism that generates this pattern of counts is often thought of as representing "preferential attachment," A preferential attachment process is any of a class of processes in which some quantity, typically some form of wealth or credit, is distributed among a number of individuals or objects according to how much they already have, so that those who are already wealthy receive more than those who are not. This means a more popular ruleset has a higher chance of drawing a new entrant, with the probability being related to 1/rank. The Zipf distribution, and its relatives like the Mandelbrodt and Yule-Simon, are ways of quantifying counts over the rank order. If the Zipf distribution fit the plot of log(Count) on log(Rank) would ...

I've no idea if this is licensed in any way (there's no D&D logo or anything). However, the point of granting a license to somebody is to make money, not lose money. sure, I'm just saying that, luckily, no money can be made without any company effort. And I would like to see that effort invested in something more akin to good d&d books, not this sort of thousands-dollars-prize "TV" show. just because also for hasbro company effort has a cost, and the fact that they choose to invest it in esports instead of a new dnd campaign setting book worries me a lot, because it creates suspicion in me about the fact that they consider this esports thing more profitable than dnd books (at least in perspective).

You want to abandon D&D because somebody else you've never met plays D&D differently to you? no, just because the company which is lucky enough to manage the d&d brand spends the money I gave them buying books and through dmsguild royalty share doing this 'esport silly thing' instead of producing new settings and awesome d&d stories.

You want to abandon D&D because somebody else you've never met plays D&D differently to you? Normally I would agree with this. What random person A does at their personal table has almost no bearing on the game as a whole. Celebrity Tables are a bit iffier, shows like Critical Role have thousands of eyes on them and cause ripples in the community, which in turn shapes the feedback on future developments. (They have a noticeable influence on Twitch, which owns D&D Beyond, one of the more popular online tools and sources of data-mining for D&D) However, Streamed Competitive Tables will garner feedback, it will be loud because there is money on the line, and it will become the new truth of D&D online communities. It won't negatively impact people like me (who poor over the material looking at the numbers even while they are in UA, and/or go off to make their own stuff) much, if at all. But it will have an impact on future products. And yes I am aware that tournaments have existed a...

Hiya! First: Called it! ;) Second: There has always been "competitive play". Yes. One party goes through a module and gets points. Another party then does the same. Then another. And maybe a fourth. Which ever party scored the most points during the completion of the module wins. That was the "competition". I am not a aware of a single "adventure" that pitted two groups of players sitting across from one another in a Colosseum type setting where they try and kill each other. IMNSHO, trying to equate "D&D eSports Competition" and "AD&D Tournaments" from the late 70's and into the 80's is...disingenuous, to say the least. Both are COMPLETELY different methods for determining a 'winning side'. Third: [Morrus] [Quote Originally Posted by DQDesign] totally agree. I'm seriously thinking about abandoning d&d for other TTRPGs. the standard ones, the ones with stories, friends and bucks far away from the table.[End DQDesign Quote] [Quote Originally Posted by Morrus] You want to abandon D&D because somebody else you've never met plays D&D differently to you?[End Morrus Quote] Morrus, I think what DQDesign was trying to intone was the overall D&D RPG Community and the potential to where D&D, as a RPG, could end up. It's not about "not playing my way". It's about bringing in a potentially overwhelming amount of people who are NOT "roleplayers" and are not actually interested in any of the "roleplaying". As this group increases, it would bring in more money and more and more voices asking for what they want. WotC is a company, owned by an evil faceless juggernaut who wants to expand and acquire more of everything (market share, money, IP's, etc). At some point, WotC would 'switch' t...

Hiya! First: Called it! ;) Second: There has always been "competitive play". Yes. One party goes through a module and gets points. Another party then does the same. Then another. And maybe a fourth. Which ever party scored the most points during the completion of the module wins. That was the "competition". I am not a aware of a single "adventure" that pitted two groups of players sitting across from one another in a Colosseum type setting where they try and kill each other. IMNSHO, trying to equate "D&D eSports Competition" and "AD&D Tournaments" from the late 70's and into the 80's is...disingenuous, to say the least. Both are COMPLETELY different methods for determining a 'winning side'. Third: [quote=Morrus] [Quote Originally Posted by DQDesign] totally agree. I'm seriously thinking about abandoning d&d for other TTRPGs. the standard ones, the ones with stories, friends and bucks far away from the table.[End DQDesign Quote] [Quote Originally Posted by Morrus] You want to abandon D&D because somebody else you've never met plays D&D differently to you?[End Morrus Quote] Morrus, I think what DQDesign was trying to intone was the overall D&D RPG Community and the potential to where D&D, as a RPG, could end up. It's not about "not playing my way". It's about bringing in a potentially overwhelming amount of people who are NOT "roleplayers" and are not actually interested in any of the "roleplaying". As this group increases, it would bring in more money and more and more voices asking for what they want. WotC is a company, owned by an evil faceless juggernaut who wants to expand and acquire more of everything (market share, money, IP's, etc). At some point, WotC would 'switch' to...

Those are based on *actual* tournaments that are run at conventions in real life, dating back as far as the 1970s. Competitive D&D play has always been a thing. Aaaaah. Okay.

I like the color scheme. Very pneumatic control panel. Does the symbol repeated on the walls mean something special? ..and the fact that they are only alive because of a 1 in a trillion trillion trillion trillion chance of a passing spaceship picking them up in space. That was very Hitchhiker's Guide-like (I seem to recall that happening multiple times throughout them books). Where did the spectacles come from?

There aren’t rules. The person who is hiring will look at your resume and decide if they want to interview you. If they interview you, they’ll then decide if they want to hire you. You can’t rules-lawyer it or get them to hire you on a technicality. I feel weird explaining the concept of a job application to somebody. Are you particularly young? I’m guessing you’ve not applied for a job before? Generally I’d suggest viewing the job requirements in the spirit they’re intended. No, I am not young. I just figured they would need examples of such things, but something attached to an NDA for example does not have examples. But Jester David explains it better in a below response.

Yes, but they’ll look at it. How does things you can't talk about work? Like let's say you did some work for Warner Brothers (which I didn't), but you have an NDA until the product is revealed. And in that product you have some credits. How does that work?!?

I personally prefer names like Glasstaff and The Black Spider over Sharokina and Sahastra, as there's no way on earth I'm going to remember the latter. And I don't think Glasstaff is any worse than Skywalker. Skywalker is a terrible name as well, only it is meant to be campy. The bad name is intentional with Star Wars. But try saying the name "Glasstaff" to yourself, and now say the name "Sharokina". Which of the two sounds more menacing? Opinions can of course differ on what makes a good name (and thats fine), but for me, it is definitely the latter that sounds better. Then there's a name like Aram Seen the Unseen, which I only had to mention once and my players never forgot it. It has a lyrical quality to it that just makes it work. I'm fine with Glasstaff, but Phandelver just didn't work for me or my group and I think the names were a factor. Conversely I'm loving the Gygaxian names in Village of Hommlet - Ostler Gundigroot, Furnok of Ferd, Lareth the Beautiful, Rufus & Burne. Phand...

I personally prefer names like Glasstaff and The Black Spider over Sharokina and Sahastra, as there's no way on earth I'm going to remember the latter. And I don't think Glasstaff is any worse than Skywalker. I'm fine with Glasstaff, but Phandelver just didn't work for me or my group and I think the names were a factor. Conversely I'm loving the Gygaxian names in Village of Hommlet - Ostler Gundigroot, Furnok of Ferd, Lareth the Beautiful, Rufus & Burne.

It feels like a history book. Many HS students feel your pain. :-S

Was this confirmed before? Minotaur PCs definitely in Ravnica. https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1049724912867323904 "Your wish has been fulfilled! Minotaurs appear as a playable race in "Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica." - Jeremy Crawford. Yeah, Crawford's talked on Twitch about the Minotaur/Centaur UA article from a few months back being a stealth Ravnica playtest. Dunno if he had confirmed it had made the final cut previously.

Looking forward to this! So Pegg plays the father of the character that was based on him in the comic book? Yeah. Apparently. :)

Well if he did, I’m sure I wouldn’t notice. Never heard of him. Yep. Just like I've never heard of this dude. Quiz shows don't generally span oceans. Alex Trebek is the host of "Jeopardy!" a quiz show famous on this side of the pond, so I'm thinking it is pretty analogous.