Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
A New Culture?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7190852" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>The game being unfamiliar to you was entirely the game's fault (the designers knew full well they were writing for a core fanbase who had been playing the game since the fad years of the 80s) - witness 5e succeeding brilliantly in being familiar to us long-time D&Ders. </p><p>You talking the game down in spite of knowing that the facts contradict your talking points, that's entirely your fault. </p><p></p><p> There was a backlash against 4e, but it was more - ultimately - about the feel, balance, and (lack of) familiarity with the new ed than about the playstyle it engendered, which was less RAW and player-Entitlement focused than 3e, and even a little 'troupe-style' in character (I saw Storyteller snobs who wouldn't touch D&D before take to 4e, for instance, because it didn't cramp their style).</p><p></p><p> They were a flaw in both systems, but a rampant one once 4e got rolling and the designers, for some reason, even though they were issuing errata constantly, got the idea that they should add feats to paper-over shortfalls in their designs rather just fix the designs, and leave feats free for character customization. </p><p></p><p> That was wildly over-stated. The whole 'math error' and the Expertise feat-taxes to fix it were a pretty lame reaction to a pretty lame complaint. The campaign I played in the longest (am still playing in, in fact) has gone to Epic without the DM ever approving the Expertise feats, let alone the amped-up Essentials versions. Yeah, the PCs hit some monsters on a 13, some of the time. OTOH, they crit like mad and blow dailies in ever fight. The game just played /differently/ at different Tiers. Slap in the 'fix' and the numbers stay on a more consistent treadmill, and the game can get a little too easy at Epic.</p><p></p><p>The gap between optimal & sub-optimal in 4e was narrow. Against-type characters worked easily - Half Orc wizard? there's one (Staff/Blood Mage/Eminence, for those in the 4e know) in that Epic campaign I mentioned, no Implement Expertise, no +2 racial to INT, no problem). Perk of a more-nearly balanced system. </p><p>5e isn't as neatly balanced among classes, but BA mutes the effect of a sub-optimal (numbers) build to an extent, not because you don't feel each missing +1 even more keenly with smaller numbers, but because it never crosses the line of overwhelming the d20 - the hardest-hitter in the party can still miss, you can still hit - the Expert can fail a check that you still have a shot (maybe a 1:10 shot) of making.</p><p></p><p>The lingering obsession with system mastery from 3.x/PF - the peak of the RAW-uber-alles/optimization phenomenon - meant there were plenty of folks who publically obsessed over optimization in 4e and still are in 5e, but the impact was lessened in the former because it was more robustly balanced, and in the latter because it's much less bloated. But it is a lingering obsession that's on its way out, and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future unless 5e starts releasing player-facing supplements faster than it has been.</p><p></p><p> Hmm... different interpretation than I'm used to. I recall seeing it read as, when brought to /exactly/ 0, or optionally 0 to -3, you start dying. Thus -4 was instant death. I rarely saw anyone stick to that, rather, they let you have a few rounds of 'bleeding' even if you dropped to -4 to -9 (I'd even let a player dropped to -10 have one round before dying, if I was in a good mood).</p><p></p><p>Negative con score instead of -10 wasn't an un-heard-of variant, either. But the whole damage-past-zero is 'wasted' thing? New with 4e, in a de-facto way, because of heal-from-0, AFAIK. 'Official' (you still counted negatives in 4e, they just rarely killed you and didn't matter for healing purposes) in 5e, unless you're knocked to negative your max hps in one shot, you're just at 0.</p><p></p><p></p><p> All truthy enough, though pre-internet (heck, pre-BBS), the community was a lot less monolithic, so, y'know, sounds truthy to me, given my neck of the woods. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> </p><p></p><p>Of course, it wasn't 'system mastery' back then, it was 'skilled play' or 'player skill' or whatever, and 'build' was mainly a function of spells known, or if, for some reason, you weren't playing a magic-user, magic items obtained, neither being much under your control...</p><p></p><p></p><p> It certainly seemed limiting back in the day when it was a hard-and-fast rule. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> But, a /new/ player might have that attitude because he's read some on-line optimization guide (the things have been around since the early days of 3.5, if not 3.0), or because he thinks "wizards aren't uruk-hai, wizards are maiar." In the former case, bad on the system for making orcs sub-optimal wizards, in the latter case, good on the system for the same thing... <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> </p><p></p><p> One of the open secrets of D&D is that it's an Heroic Fantasy RPG where the mechanics make 'heroic' actions, like fighting an ogre or navigating a trap-laden tomb, comparatively safe, for the PCs. Because heroes survive such things through author force, but PCs need the rules on their side.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7190852, member: 996"] The game being unfamiliar to you was entirely the game's fault (the designers knew full well they were writing for a core fanbase who had been playing the game since the fad years of the 80s) - witness 5e succeeding brilliantly in being familiar to us long-time D&Ders. You talking the game down in spite of knowing that the facts contradict your talking points, that's entirely your fault. There was a backlash against 4e, but it was more - ultimately - about the feel, balance, and (lack of) familiarity with the new ed than about the playstyle it engendered, which was less RAW and player-Entitlement focused than 3e, and even a little 'troupe-style' in character (I saw Storyteller snobs who wouldn't touch D&D before take to 4e, for instance, because it didn't cramp their style). They were a flaw in both systems, but a rampant one once 4e got rolling and the designers, for some reason, even though they were issuing errata constantly, got the idea that they should add feats to paper-over shortfalls in their designs rather just fix the designs, and leave feats free for character customization. That was wildly over-stated. The whole 'math error' and the Expertise feat-taxes to fix it were a pretty lame reaction to a pretty lame complaint. The campaign I played in the longest (am still playing in, in fact) has gone to Epic without the DM ever approving the Expertise feats, let alone the amped-up Essentials versions. Yeah, the PCs hit some monsters on a 13, some of the time. OTOH, they crit like mad and blow dailies in ever fight. The game just played /differently/ at different Tiers. Slap in the 'fix' and the numbers stay on a more consistent treadmill, and the game can get a little too easy at Epic. The gap between optimal & sub-optimal in 4e was narrow. Against-type characters worked easily - Half Orc wizard? there's one (Staff/Blood Mage/Eminence, for those in the 4e know) in that Epic campaign I mentioned, no Implement Expertise, no +2 racial to INT, no problem). Perk of a more-nearly balanced system. 5e isn't as neatly balanced among classes, but BA mutes the effect of a sub-optimal (numbers) build to an extent, not because you don't feel each missing +1 even more keenly with smaller numbers, but because it never crosses the line of overwhelming the d20 - the hardest-hitter in the party can still miss, you can still hit - the Expert can fail a check that you still have a shot (maybe a 1:10 shot) of making. The lingering obsession with system mastery from 3.x/PF - the peak of the RAW-uber-alles/optimization phenomenon - meant there were plenty of folks who publically obsessed over optimization in 4e and still are in 5e, but the impact was lessened in the former because it was more robustly balanced, and in the latter because it's much less bloated. But it is a lingering obsession that's on its way out, and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future unless 5e starts releasing player-facing supplements faster than it has been. Hmm... different interpretation than I'm used to. I recall seeing it read as, when brought to /exactly/ 0, or optionally 0 to -3, you start dying. Thus -4 was instant death. I rarely saw anyone stick to that, rather, they let you have a few rounds of 'bleeding' even if you dropped to -4 to -9 (I'd even let a player dropped to -10 have one round before dying, if I was in a good mood). Negative con score instead of -10 wasn't an un-heard-of variant, either. But the whole damage-past-zero is 'wasted' thing? New with 4e, in a de-facto way, because of heal-from-0, AFAIK. 'Official' (you still counted negatives in 4e, they just rarely killed you and didn't matter for healing purposes) in 5e, unless you're knocked to negative your max hps in one shot, you're just at 0. All truthy enough, though pre-internet (heck, pre-BBS), the community was a lot less monolithic, so, y'know, sounds truthy to me, given my neck of the woods. ;) Of course, it wasn't 'system mastery' back then, it was 'skilled play' or 'player skill' or whatever, and 'build' was mainly a function of spells known, or if, for some reason, you weren't playing a magic-user, magic items obtained, neither being much under your control... It certainly seemed limiting back in the day when it was a hard-and-fast rule. ;) But, a /new/ player might have that attitude because he's read some on-line optimization guide (the things have been around since the early days of 3.5, if not 3.0), or because he thinks "wizards aren't uruk-hai, wizards are maiar." In the former case, bad on the system for making orcs sub-optimal wizards, in the latter case, good on the system for the same thing... ;) One of the open secrets of D&D is that it's an Heroic Fantasy RPG where the mechanics make 'heroic' actions, like fighting an ogre or navigating a trap-laden tomb, comparatively safe, for the PCs. Because heroes survive such things through author force, but PCs need the rules on their side. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
A New Culture?
Top