D&D 5E BREAKING 5th Edition!

[Riley37]

Falsehood dressed as truth, and you know why.

Au contraire. You ARE free to run such a website. Literally true statement is literally true. You can draw false inferences, if you like, and accuse the true statement of having false inferences.

Yes, I know why you won't get the RESULTS you want. You are free to run a site emulating an unmoderated newsgroup, and the rest of Internet-using humanity is free to participate or not, and most of us prefer moderated venues, so most of your participants will be spambots.

Indeed, we also have a choice about participating in threads. I'll move on sooner or later, to some topic which increases my contribution to my local gaming table.

 

[Werebat]

If your players are truly intent on breaking your game, without any consideration or appreciation for the work that you put into it, than I apologize. I did not realize how much you need this thread to combat their antics.

That last bit could come across as a little snide, but I'll assume you didn't mean it that way.

Have you tried running a brief, minimalist campaign? You could tell them you want to try for that 'old-school feel'. Say using point-buy, low magic and not using the optional feats. Maybe that would help them appreciate your past efforts more and stop them from trying to break your campaigns in the future.

I've actually been interested in running some Savage Worlds with them, but they don't seem overly interested. I've run E6 variants for my last two campaigns, but in general the result was the usual portion of the players finding ways to bend those systems over barrels in the end coupled with the players getting bored with limited access to high level spells and magic items.

At this juncture I've simply chosen to take a break from DMing for a while. One of them is trying their hands at Pathfinder. Interestingly, they have already chosen to ban magic item crafting. We'll see where that campaign goes (I'll be playing an alchemist).

I'm optimistic about 5E, and will probably use it to run my next game, but curious to see what sort of exploits they'll end up using. As I said, my opinion is that the 5E powergamer will get more out of DM wheedling than rules lawyering -- which will empower some powergamers and be a problem for others.

 

[Werebat]

I just want to point out that when I "laughed at the post" it was not in a good, nurturing way, more in a Mock the Week sort of a way. We may need a more nuanced laughter/XP system.

Typos aside, it looks like what you're saying is that you're openly mocking me. Is that true?

 

[Werebat]

It doesn't really follow to criticize someone for making the comparison when it was in response to you making the comparison.

Actually, he brought up the ranking system, I did not. His reason for doing so was clear enough:

"Here on Enworld, there's an direct metric for how many people find your posts amusing or useful. Are you getting those responses? Are other people getting those responses? What are they doing differently?"

 

[Werebat]

Au contraire. You ARE free to run such a website. Literally true statement is literally true. You can draw false inferences, if you like, and accuse the true statement of having false inferences.

Yes, I know why you won't get the RESULTS you want. You are free to run a site emulating an unmoderated newsgroup, and the rest of Internet-using humanity is free to participate or not, and most of us prefer moderated venues, so most of your participants will be spambots.

Indeed, we also have a choice about participating in threads. I'll move on sooner or later, to some topic which increases my contribution to my local gaming table.

Oh, you're playing the "literal truth" game. Yeah, that's a good one.

I'll disregard the rest of your posturing, and simply state that I learned more about world religions from reading an old (unmoderated) Usenet forum dedicated to the discussion of religion that included participants from many different religions (and a fair number of trolls) than I have ever learned from reading any similar moderated forum. It was a very important part of my personal growth, and it's sad to see nothing like it in existence today.

You're spot on about most people preferring moderation, but I'm still right that we lost more than having to deal with trolls when we shifted the bulk of our public online discussions to moderated fora. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, then that's sad too.

 

[was]

That last bit could come across as a little snide, but I'll assume you didn't mean it that way.

...I did not mean to sound snide. I was being sincere.

I'm optimistic about 5E, and will probably use it to run my next game, but curious to see what sort of exploits they'll end up using.

...If you do use 5E for the first time, try going the minimalistic route I suggested in my last post first. You could tell them that you want to get a feel for the edition before exploring all the optional material. It would be interesting to see how the powergamers adjust to a more basic rule set without all the high-powered options.

...Sometimes a low-magic, basic campaign is a good learning opportunity for players who have become over-reliant on high-powered spells and optional features. Limiting their options may force them to play a bit more creatively. Who knows, they might actually enjoy it. If they don't, you can always switch back.

 

[Morrus]

Typos aside, it looks like what you're saying is that you're openly mocking me. Is that true?

It's not a typo. He's referring to a popular topical panel show called Mock the Week.

That said...

I just want to point out that when I "laughed at the post" it was not in a good, nurturing way, more in a Mock the Week sort of a way. We may need a more nuanced laughter/XP system.

There is no situation where "I'm laughing at you, not with you" is a sentiment appropriate to express here.

 

[Riley37]

There is no situation where "I'm laughing at you, not with you" is a sentiment appropriate to express here.

correct me if I'm wrong: laugh and XP are two forms of upvote, and EnWorld doesn't provide an equivalent option to downvote.

 

[Tormyr]

correct me if I'm wrong: laugh and XP are two forms of upvote, and EnWorld doesn't provide an equivalent option to downvote.

Not for individual posts, but you can downvote the entire thread using the "Rate this thread" option near the top of the page.

 

[Kaychsea]

Not for individual posts, but you can downvote the entire thread using the "Rate this thread" option near the top of the page.

But what if you have no problem with the bulk of the opinions in a thread but do think that the attitude shown by an individual through many posts showing respect for neither posters nor their opinions?