D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

[Emerikol]

Mod Note: See my post below. ~Umbran

You IIRC tried to list twenty ways that 4e was not historic D&D. And it turned out that you were plainly and simply wrong in over half of them. And 4e was closer to oD&D in intent and methodology than 3.0 was - that was your own list of ways 4e had changed things. 4e changed things away from 3e in a lot of cases - a lot of those were reversions.

You guys are like politicians on tv interviews that never answer a question, always dodge the true intent of a statement.

And I believe he would have been much, much happier playing it than he would be about 3.0 which kept the forms but missed the intent. He didn't say much about 3e but what he did was condemning it.

Not a chance. Not even a 1 in billion chance.

4e is not D&D = You should not be in this conversation.
4e is not an RPG = You are too stupid to know what an RPG is so you play 4e and call it an RPG.

So you have hang ups. When I say 4e is not D&D, I mean that it is not sufficiently related to it's predecessers to be considered a version of them. It is an entirely new game. I'm perfectly within my rights to believe that and saying "4e is not D&D" is a succint way to put it. I hope we all are intelligent enough we don't have to put "In my opinion" in front of everything.

You'll note that I single out those two mendacious attacks rather than say any criticism of 4e should be banned. Those two are both wrong, insulting, and automatically degrade conversation wherever they are used. This doesn't mean I think you should be baned from saying 4e combat takes too long, 4e PCs have too many hit points, you find powers mess up your immersion (I find a lack of options for martial characters seriously messes up mine).

4e is dead. So I don't even care to attack it as it's own game. I am merely battling to keep it's influence from being too strong in 5e. Because one of the hallmarks of 4e thinking is that "we know best and you just do as we say and stop complaining." 4e presented "one way or the highway" for playing. The tidal wave of anger and resentment and the thousands (no millions) of posts against it didn't appear for no reason.

4e bought into precisely one design principle that was new to D&D - a unified powers structure. Balance? Gygax aimed explicitely for balance and tweaked D&D and AD&D many times for it. Outcomes based? Yup. D&D is rooted in tabletop wargaming - which by necessity is outcomes based and not process sim.

Your attempts at proving 3e is the outlier is ridiculous. Your inability to understand the difference between abstraction and dissociative mechanics is ridiculous. D&D including 3e has never lacked abstraction. Until 4e it didn't have dissociative mechanics. It had things that SOME people interpreted dissociatively but it was easily avoidable by everyone else.

And if you are going to make up things about the design principles of D&D and claiming it to be a process-sim for 30 years then I'm not going to take your complaints seriously.

I already don't take you seriously.

You are one of the 2e players. For you 3.X works because you play it as if it was 2e. And if you aren't going to stress the system at all then it works. Just about.

I played all versions of D&D until 4e in the same way. 4e was the radically different one. I leave it to you to figure out why.

4e on the other hand saw this mess and went back to basics. It started out the way Gygax did, looking to surrounding hobbies for inspiration rather than simply looking back into itself and chasing its own tail. It then focussed on providing the best possible experience for one strand of the D&D hobby it possibly could (the one traceable back to Dragonlance and 2e not to Gygax's table) - that of being mighty heroes. It accepted many of the design principles Gygax had such as balance and effective power limits, while changing the forms. Which was the opposite to the 3e approach of just leaving something like the outer shell.

Your view of the world is a milliion miles beyond left field in outer space. Lets just drop it. Productive discussion with you is at an end. I'm surprised you even believe english is a language. Start doubting that next.

Mod Note: See my post below. ~Umbran

 

[Neonchameleon]

Mod Note: See my post below. ~Umbran

You guys are like politicians on tv interviews that never answer a question, always dodge the true intent of a statement.

You mean we actually examine statements and check that they are true? And don't allow you to get away with evasions? Yeah, that's really like politicians.

Not a chance. Not even a 1 in billion chance.

...says the person claiming Gygax intentionally wrote a process sim. You can't play 4e the way he wrote D&D. But that doesn't make it a bad game. 4e doesn't even make the pretense of being oD&D - it is its own entity and Gygax could have treated it on its own merits. 3.X failed at many things Gygax said were important. Balance being an obvious one.

But as normal, you present just an unsupported assertion without any actual reasoning, evidence, or logic.

Your attempts at proving 3e is the outlier is ridiculous. Your inability to understand the difference between abstraction and dissociative mechanics is ridiculous. D&D including 3e has never lacked abstraction. Until 4e it didn't have dissociative mechanics. It had things that SOME people interpreted dissociatively but it was easily avoidable by everyone else.

This is based on an inability to read the thread, and your complete failure to think the way an actual fighter in a skirmish situation thinks. That you fail to be immersed is your affair. As normal you respond just saying the same thing over and over again, failing to take the other person's perspective into account.

And hit points aren't abstraction. Wound thresholds are an abstraction. Hit points are flatly disassociated. If they were the abstraction you claim, they would slow you down.

I played all versions of D&D until 4e in the same way. 4e was the radically different one. I leave it to you to figure out why.

And you explicitely played all versions of D&D in a way that from your own statements is directly contrary to the way Gygax played. Because you have made your own chimera in your head as to what D&D is. A chimera that does not include Gygax's play. And doesn't include 4e play either.

And that you played them all in the same way should be a source of shame and a demonstration that you don't understand how games work, not a source of pride. They are all distinct games with different focusses and strengths. For instance the 1e XP for GP rule really changes the encouraged playstyles because it changes what the game rewards. 3.X magic is ludicrously overpowered and this warps the game.

If you play them all the same way then that demonstrates that you simply do not understand what the rules are there to encourage and their effect on the game. It means that at most you understand one of the versions of D&D. And warp and spindle the other versions to fit this style.

(My guess would be that it's late 2e drifting into 3.0 that you understand. Because you plainly don't get 1e - and 3.X works if you play it as if it was 2e with extra detailed process sim; it's when you start treating 3.X as an entity in its own right it fails.)

Your view of the world is a milliion miles beyond left field in outer space. Lets just drop it. Productive discussion with you is at an end. I'm surprised you even believe english is a language. Start doubting that next.

Mine is based on what people actually say and consequences of rules. I have linked primary sources. I have explained rules and philosophies. You on the other hand have kept repeating the same points over and over again as if the world was necessarily the way you thought it was. There has, as I can see, never been the slightest chance of productive discussion with you as you are unwilling to even countenance the possibility that you might be objectively wrong in lots of places (as you are).

Goodbye. I shall not be reading your posts in future.

Mod Note: See my post below. ~Umbran

 

[Manbearcat]

You guys are like politicians on tv interviews that never answer a question, always dodge the true intent of a statement.

Honestly, Emerikol. This is one of the biggest cases of projection I have ever witnessed.

Mod Note: See my post below. ~Umbran

If you want specifics to engage with (so we can actually have some discussion), you need look no further than your entrance into this thread. I have attempted to engage you multiple times in multiple ways but have yet to recieve a well-considered response of the variety that Nagol has provided...and then whoever "you guys" is get accused of dodging statements and not engaging?

Go to my last post specifically addressed to you (so you were put on notice of it by way of the website's infrastructure), Underman and Nagol. Look at Nagol's responses. Answer those in good faith, sincerity and consideration and I promise you that we can have a better understanding of each other and actually have a discussion.

People can rail against "semantics" all they want but the reality is that shared language is the means by which humans communicate. In the vaccuum of the internet (bereft of visual cues and other means of communication), language better be precise, consistent and well-understood by both parties. Perhaps people aren't engaging in "bad-faith" efforts when they attempt to make sure that shared language (especially when it is proven to be going pear-shaped on that front) is being applied precisely and consistently and is well-understood by both parties. Perhaps as shared language is our medium for engagement...and shared jargon within a hobby such as ours is mandatory...maybe, just maybe people aren't engaging in semantics. But are trying to head off misunderstanding at the pass.

 

[D'karr]

GM's abiliity to mitigate bad rules aside, is there anything that explains how PC1 can force PC2 to move against his will when he isn't in range to be grabbed or that can impose the desire to move? The power as presented is very straightforward; it doesn't offer the opportunity for movement; it imposes it without any integration with the in-game world. As written, it would be catnip for a particular style of toxic player I'm familiar with.

This is a very good point. Forced movement is considered "unwilling" and I don't recall seeing an explicit exception for PC to PC powers.

Toxic players aside, I don't play with them to begin with, how should the DM handle the situation where a Player decides to use a harmful effect, such as fireball, lighting bolt, or any other effect that can potentially affect another Player's PC?

I remember the RPGA having a "guideline" that effects used by a Player, that would affect another Player's character, should be willingly agreed to by the player of the targeted character. So if a PC is going to target another PC, the proper etiquette is to ask that Player whether the Player using the power can/should.

I understand the possible disconnect, but by using the proper etiquette between players this power doesn't pose an issue. The power is called "Come Over Here." Which brings to mind a basic tactical command. At the table I can explain it as the "user" seeing a future opening, and suggesting to the target to "Come Over Here", and exploit it. By using the table etiquette the player may decline, and all is well. At the metagame level the players are talking to each other and "agree" to use the power for tactical benefit.

I don't see a problem with it, because we handle it in the same consistent manner as all powers that might cause problems. At my table players don't use harmful powers against each other so we handle it with the same decorum and no problem arises.

-

 

[pemerton]

I know post-errata, it stops being the easy choice to kick. I think that's telling. It was a proud nail; now it's been pounded into place.

You may not be shocked that in my game we still play it pre-errata!

GM's abiliity to mitigate bad rules aside, is there anything that explains how PC1 can force PC2 to move against his will when he isn't in range to be grabbed or that can impose the desire to move? The power as presented is very straightforward; it doesn't offer the opportunity for movement; it imposes it without any integration with the in-game world. As written, it would be catnip for a particular style of toxic player I'm familiar with.

I'm guessing that the sort of player you're describing is some sort of person I can't properly describe consistently with board rules!

I'm also guessing that if the power were worded "ally may shift 2 squares as a free action, and ignore difficult terrain during that shift" you would accept that it is associated. My suggestion is that the difference between that, and what it actually says, is reflective of drafting styles, not deep underlying intentions about how the power is meant to play. That is, it's envisaged that, in the fiction, the ally moves under his/her own steam because invigorated/motivated/whatever by the PC using the power - and I think it is assumed that if the player of the second PC doesn't want his/her PC to move, that will be resolved at the social level rather than the mechanical, because the players are assumed all to be on the same team. In that way, it's diffferent, I think, from pre-errata Come and Get It.

EDIT: Ninja-ed by [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] on the "table etiquette" aspect of forced movement of allies.

I was hoping for much more balance between the pillars -- where any reward "budget" took all three in account and abilities and predilection to engage with the game world were spread across the different classes.

I've been thinking about it more in terms of action resolution mechanics rather than reward mechanics. And I'm probably more tolerant than you of a greater uniformity of predelictions among classes. But the reward budget rules show the issues as much as the action resolution rules.

For me, the worrying sign is the apparent complete lack of attention to social conflict resolution. That said, the presence of the Charmed condition gives me some hope that they are going to do something with this aspect of things. But it also seems likely that there won't be non-magical ways to inflict the Charmed condition, which may unduly limit social interaction to magic-users.

 

[pemerton]

I played all versions of D&D until 4e in the same way. 4e was the radically different one.

Well done. I played Oriental Adventures (AD&D version) and AD&D itself the same way I play 4e. It's just that 4e does a better job of it!

Now that we've all established that we have different playstyles, and different systems suit them better or worse, what follows?

 

[pemerton]

And hit points aren't abstraction. Wound thresholds are an abstraction. Hit points are flatly disassociated. If they were the abstraction you claim, they would slow you down.

I agree with this. Concussion hits and wound penalties in Rolemaster are an abstraction.

But hit points are a resource. That's not an abstraction of exhaustion and injury, in my view. That's putting a game element in its place.

My guess would be that it's late 2e drifting into 3.0 that you understand. Because you plainly don't get 1e - and 3.X works if you play it as if it was 2e with extra detailed process sim; it's when you start treating 3.X as an entity in its own right it fails.

It can sometimes be hard to tell exactly where someone else is coming from, but I think your guess here is a plausible one.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, I'm going to take a stab at the whole dissociation thing, once again, just to see if I, like Lost Soul, have made some headway into understanding the underlying issues. I'm honestly not trying to be a prat here, so, if I rub someone the wrong way, presume that I'm just a bit abrasive, rather than actively trying to be a jerk.

PC Bob has the skill of metalworking. Could be a 3e style skill, could be a NWP, whatever. Doesn't matter. (Can't really be a 4e skill because, unfortunately, 4e doesn't include these kinds of skills - a mistake that I think has been a real sticking point for the "tactical minis game" crowd.) Now, Bob goes out and kills a boat load of goblins. Lots of goblins. He gains a few levels. He gets better at metalworking, despite not actively doing any metalworking in game during that time. Not only that, but, if he didn't kill any goblins, but, rather spent ten years doing nothing but working metal, he actually wouldn't get any better at metalworking.

AFAIK, this would be dissociated by the way I understand the definition. There is no correlation between PC and Player actions. The in-game reality does not reflect the choices made out of game.

Yet, this has always been more or less acceptable. Certainly by the rules of the game, it's perfectly fine. Other games have actually made a point of not letting you do this. And, I've seen more than a few house rules that would force you to spend character resources on things you've actually done in game, in order to make the rules associated.

Am I understanding and applying the definition correctly?

 

[Nagol]

This is a very good point. Forced movement is considered "unwilling" and there is no explicit exception for PC to PC powers.

Toxic players aside, I don't play with them to begin with, how should the DM handle the situation where a Player decides to use a harmful effect, such as fireball, lighting bolt, or any other effect that can potentially affect another Player's PC?

Typically, in my campaigns (both as a DM and player), any effect in the game world has effect on all those exposed to it. So, if PC1 drops a Fireball on a melee combat containing PC2, PC2 gets hit by the spell. I think the in-game expression acts as a form of limiter on such spell use and/or leads to specific character strategies and group tactics.

I remember the RPGA having a "guideline" that effects used by a Player that would affect another Player's character should be willingly agreed to by the player of the targeted character. So if a PC is going to target another PC, the proper etiquette is to ask that Player whether the Player using the power can/should.

I understand the possible disconnect, but by using the proper etiquette between players this power doesn't pose an issue. The power is called "Come Over Here." Which is basically a tactical command. At the table I can explain it as the "user" seeing a future opening, and suggesting to the target to "Come Over Here" to exploit it. By using the table etiquette the player may decline and all is well. At the metagame level the players are talking to each other and "agree" to use the power for tactical benefit.

The disconnect occurs when player 1 thinks there is a tactical value to PC2 moving and player 2 disagrees. The power used doesn't give PC2 a choice to respond -- he is moved. Nohing in the ability suggests how PC2 was moved -- was the character dominated? Was he convinced of the value of the opening and is changing his tactical plan even if it means sacrificing a goal PC2 thinks is valuable? Was he telekinetically grabbed and shifted directly?

How PC2 should react depends on those answers. In older editions of D&D, tht question was answered because the abilities were explicitly tied to in-game effect. Player 2 may still think it's the wrong thing to do, but he knows how the character should respond.

I don't see a problem with it, because we handle it in the same consistent manner as all powers that might cause problems. At my table players don't use harmful powers against each other so we handle it with the same decorum and no problem arises.

Whereas at my table, PCs do end up in conflict, rivalies do develop, and area effect powers are tossed into combats with allies both willing and unwilling. The PCs are subject to the same in-game effects as the other inhabitants are save for explicit differences in the ruleset like those seen in Space Opera.

 

[Hussar]

I think I see what you mean Nagol. The player knows that his character has moved because that other player made him move, but, because the mechanic may not be directly associated, then the question arises of does the character know.