The EN World boards are great for discussing 5E

Satyrn · May 12, 2018

Jonathon Robinson said:
(the posts I got XP on tended to be more insightful or drawn from my own experiences, and getting XP on those posts encourages me to do more of the same).

I'm glad to hear that, as I've been working under that assumption - I'm in the top 10 for XP given, and when it comes to laughs given . . .

I'm number 1, baby! (by a wide margin)

Swarmkeeper · May 12, 2018

guachi said:
My single favorite thing (and I think I've mentioned it before) is something iserith wrote a few years ago and I found it very useful in my early days of getting a grasp on 5e rules. And that is iserith's posts on Adjudicating Actions. I went so far as to put it into Word, edit it, make a pdf of it, and give it to new players. My edited version is 14 pages long and it's basically an entire adventure done with nothing but Ability checks (or no checks at all if the DM rules auto success or failure).

The Combat portion of the game has lots of rules. But the Exploration and Social portions of the game can be quite tricky to adjudicate in a fun, exciting, and engaging way as the rules are sparse (relative to combat) and require a reasonable bit of extrapolation to get to a point the DM is comfortable with.

Jonathon Robinson said:
I am intrigued. Can you share your PDF or what iserith wrote?

Seconded! Please and thank you

Eltab · May 13, 2018

I too think the moderators and the 'ground rules'* are part of what makes me want to keep coming back to ENWorld. When I do find a thread that gets my dander up, I can "turn the page" and find threads where a bunch of friends want to play a game together and enjoy the session, and cool myself back down.

I've been modded a few times, and only once, do I think upon mature reflection, I had a good case. (And that could be fixed in the moderator's favor by using some of EnWorld's existing notification tools.)

* despite the fact that I think 'No Politics' has been partially repealed by Stealth, when social commentary threads were allowed

guachi · May 13, 2018

Here is a link to Iserith's Adjudicating Actions. Took me a few minutes to figure out how to upload files.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1478

It's obviously not mine but I think I recall Iserith saying he didn't actually have a copy in pdf or doc form as I think the original version was just a series of posts.

Tony Vargas · May 13, 2018

TheSword said:
Why do you think it works? The XP system, the moderation, or is it some factor of 5e itself?

So, if you'd been even slightly negative, I'd've had to've gone into full "kids these days" grumpy grognard mode like I did in the martials v casters thread. Not that I really have any other modes, but I can turn it down from 11 on a good day.

I'm glad you appreciate the environment you're getting here, and hope you realize how horrid it's been in the past.

Ancalagon · May 13, 2018

I think that perhaps that folks who have been around on the web for a while realize how ... rare reasonably civil discourse on the internet can be. Have you read the comment section of various news outlets? Yeee-ikes! So we all have an interest, I think, in keeping EN world running well.

There is also a healthy mixture of newcomers and people with more experience, both on forums and with gaming in general. I was here when this was a news site for the upcoming release of the 3rd edition! I look a long break but when 5e came out, I came back too

My "true" post count on EN world (many were lost due to database loss) is probably ridiculous...

edit: re reading this, my point wasn't clear. It's not because some of us have been here a long time that we are smarter or our opinions matter more. But rather the experience we have as forum users perhaps allows us to temper our words a bit more and promote better discussion? I hope so at least...

On the converse, new people are important too because they bring new ideas, energy and perspectives.

houser2112 · May 13, 2018

Mistwell said:
houser2112 said:

If ENWorld got even close to the amount of posting traffic Paizo's boards do,

Click to expand...

Uh, I think they get pretty similar numbers these days actually. Do you have some reason to believe otherwise?

I don't have hard numbers. My own experience with both boards gives me the impression that Paizo gets more overall traffic than ENWorld does, for better or worse (Not all traffic is necessarily good traffic!). Just Paizo's playtest forum alone seems to get more than EN's 5E and "Pathfinder and non-5E D&D" (the most heavily used, from what I can tell) boards get, combined.

iserith · May 13, 2018

guachi said:
My single favorite thing (and I think I've mentioned it before) is something iserith wrote a few years ago and I found it very useful in my early days of getting a grasp on 5e rules. And that is iserith's posts on Adjudicating Actions. I went so far as to put it into Word, edit it, make a pdf of it, and give it to new players. My edited version is 14 pages long and it's basically an entire adventure done with nothing but Ability checks (or no checks at all if the DM rules auto success or failure).

The Combat portion of the game has lots of rules. But the Exploration and Social portions of the game can be quite tricky to adjudicate in a fun, exciting, and engaging way as the rules are sparse (relative to combat) and require a reasonable bit of extrapolation to get to a point the DM is comfortable with.

Thanks for the kind words and I'm glad you found it of use. Skimming a bit, I can see a few things I would change because no DM should be DMing the same way three years later! In particular, I've since moved on from starting any descriptions with "You..." in an effort to check myself against describing what the characters do, think, or say. Plus I've refined my use of passive checks quite a bit. But it's still a pretty good primer on how to adjudicate actions in my opinion. I hope it's of use to others in the future.

Henry · May 13, 2018

TheSword said:
Why do you think it works? The XP system, the moderation, or is it some factor of 5e itself?

First of all, glad you’re here! belated Welcome!

Second, it works due to a heavy police presence, bribery, and lots of prescription medications.

More seriously, we usually have a pretty great community of people who even when disagreeing, try to be civil about it, and a tradition of such that extends back almost TWENTY years now. There have been times of upheaval and toxic posts in the past, and if you ever find people in other venues who have been banned from here in the past they’ll instead have stories of unfair jackbooted moderators who either “can’t handle the truth” or how ENWorld promotes criticism of their favorite edition of choice.

Depending who you ask, Morrus is secretly a fan of AD&D / 3rd edition / 4th Edition / Pathfinder / 5th edition and actually hates AD&D / 3rd edition / 4th Edition / Pathfinder / 5th edition and that’s why he banned them from ENWorld.

So, much like the analogy of the duck serenely gliding on top of the pond actually furiously kicking underneath, the forums have a lot to owe to awesome fan bases, but almost as much to owe to Morrus and the moderators and their amazing behind-the-scenes efforts.

guachi · May 14, 2018

iserith said:
Thanks for the kind words and I'm glad you found it of use. Skimming a bit, I can see a few things I would change because no DM should be DMing the same way three years later! In particular, I've since moved on from starting any descriptions with "You..." in an effort to check myself against describing what the characters do, think, or say.

I've also tried to get away from this. I'll definitely use "you" if I'm using an analogy when describing something and I'm using "you" referring to a player not the PC. It can sometimes be easier to relay information using a real world analogy that 21st century humans can understand. Then, the player can interpret the information through the lens of his character. Though I usually do that because I can sometimes have a hard time accurately describing the thing in the game.

However, I don't try to say what the PC thinks or feels. I also sometimes relay information in the form of how a typical person of the PC's culture or nation might react or see something. This provides background information for the player and also allows the PC to shape his reaction in relation to his society.