As someone who doesn't mind save-or-die at all (despite losing many a character to it over the years), I won't entirely disagree with you here.
The very fact that the game uses dice implies - and in my view very strongly hammer-upside-the-head-style implies - that there is intended by design to be a significant element of luck and chance involved in the run of play.
Nod. SoD vs, say, the hp-attrition game, is like playing the Lotto vs running a Casino. In 5e, a PC with 80 hps, a Cleric friend with Cure..Wounds & plenty of slots, and HD left un-used, is like the bank at Monte Carlo: that goblin /might/ break the bank, but the odds are /really/ slim. The PC making a save v insta-death, OTOH, is like betting the whole bank on a coin toss - no Casino would ever do that, because the law of large numbers is no longer on their side (though in 3e, if the PC is casting an optimized-DC SoD spell, the target is the one playing the lotto with his life).
Sure, and you can also say; "I hate this, and I think having the game is better without it." without making you a terrible person
It's too trivial a topic to, by itself, make anyone a terrible person...
...but it is a tad spiteful to those who do like that thing, and have had a great time with the game while it included it.
Which is similar to many arguments made about 5e's initial release strategy and anti-bloat ideas "What does it matter if there is a wall of rules and settings books, just buy what you want."
5e does actually have a pretty large shelf presence at this point - mostly the equivalent of APs. But, it's /much/ clearer what's core you need to play the game - and it's not much: the PH.
I can think of many thematic/flavour stuff that people would argue the game is better off without
I'm sure. It wouldn't make a lotta sense to put starships and rayguns in D&D …
oh, no, wait.
You've more or less (AFAIR) argued that while 4e fans may in fact lash out at things that fans of other editions don't, it's understandable given what they have gone through and thus people shouldn't say things that might be construed by them as edition warring.
I'm not sure what you're on about there. The edition war was a pretty nasty little phenom. The game would've been a lot better off without it.
I have pointed out that a lot of the justifications for edition warring put forth over the years, apply more to fans of 4e, today, yet they're /not/ edition warring against 5e.
(Classes and races 'missing' from the 4e PH1, for instance, saw print in as little as 9 months, and it was "too little, too late! Onward Edition Sol-ol-diers, Marching off to WAR!" Classes missing from the 5e PH1? 5 years later, two are still in the dubious UA pipeline, and a third has gotten nothing more than a half-hearted hypothetical sub-class. No edition warring /against 5e/, though still revived warring against 4e if the issue is brought up, even obliquely, as it was in this thread.)
Seriously? You don't know how the same thing can be presented respectfully or disrespectfully unless lying is involved?
Not relevant to ENWorld.
There is no lying on ENWorld.
Everyone always tells the truth here.
BTW, Tony Vargas and I have both "ignored" the other at one time or another, I wasn't censoring his views (and I doubt that's what he was trying to do), I was just too annoyed (still annoyed just a wee bit less at the moment, or maybe just as annoyed but my threshold is higher, who knows
).
I was away from the hobby for about a year for health reasons, and, not sure if I'd ever be back, updated my profile & cleared my blocked list.
It's good to be back gaming - I ran two Wed in a row, and even got to play yesterday! - that's more gaming than I'd done in the preceding 13 months.
Back on ENWorld? Well, as mixed as always, I guess. But I wouldn't be wasting time here if I didn't get /something/ out of it, I suppose...
...hmmm....
