New Penny Arcade Podcast

[Barastrondo]

As a friend and coworker of mine put it,

"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.

 

[Felon]

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.

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~

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

As a friend and coworker of mine put it,

"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?

 

[Plane Sailing]

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

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

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

 

[Plane Sailing]

We must find the great and powerful spell ‘protection form evil’ and cast it upon him before the next game session

Protection form evil?

I thought that was the ones for keeping evil bureaucracies at bay

Cheers!

 

[filthgrinder]

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.

 

[OchreJelly]

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.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

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.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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.