Level Up (A5E) Playtest results using pregen characters

[Rant]

If you can’t distinguish between how the community communicates with one another and your own desires to be heard, maybe you don’t have a place in said community.

That seems to be the case. I believe direct and frank discussion of where a product requires improvement can lead to improvement. That is evidently not a priority in this community.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

That seems to be the case. I believe direct and frank discussion of where a product requires improvement can lead to improvement. That is evidently not a priority in this community.

Yup, the problem is our acceptance of direct frank communication, it certainly can’t be that your definition of direct frank communication appears to differ. You got it.

 

[Composer99]

@Rant, your comments are ginning up pushback because they invariably seem to contain broad-brush statements that assert or come across as asserting that the design team and swathes of playtesters are incompetent. At best, that's verging on the sort of blanket generalisation that is explicitly against the rules of participating on this website.

It's nothing to do with pointing out flaws, real or perceived, as such. Plenty of people have done so without any difficulty, warnings from moderators, and so on. Like, say @Legendweaver, the author of the original post, discussing "Press the Attack". (Notice how they got a friendly reply from Morrus about updated rules text?)

I am sure you are capable of distinguishing between "frank and direct" and "rude". To be "frank and direct" myself, your posts are worded in a way so as to be rude, hence the pushback.

 

[Waller]

That is not what I “know” at all. I want to be as clear and transparent in this as possible: My impression is that I have been asked to not criticize the rule set and that is the sole reason for moderation.

We can all read it, and at no point were you asked not to criticize the rule set. Those words simply are not there.

Again, of course, you know that. This is disingenuous.

If the community cannot distinguish between noting flaws in a rule system and “trolling” then there is absolutely no intent to take community feedback into account to improve the game.

Yep, it’s everybody else, not you. Only possible explanation.

 

[Morrus]

OK, folks, leave the guy alone. I understand why you feel this way, but this is taking over the entire forum now. As always, if somebody is pushing your buttons, please disengage or use the privacy features rather than push back. Thanks!

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Good point, my apologies, done and done.

 

[lichmaster]

Well we do have to respect the scopes here are night and day different.

There is a big difference in "all barbarians get advantage all the time" and "any creature can get advantage whenever they want".


The trick right now seems to be that Fall Back is balanced around a 1 on 1 engagement. Enemy PTAs, defender can choose to FB to negate the bonus, leading to relative equality. This falters though when its many against one, now the aggressor can just pile on advantage to kill a single enemy quicker.

I have to admit that in my thinking about it, I would find it hard not to justify why my horde of monsters doesn't swarm, full PTA, and just overwhelm a group with offense. Or why my party would not just PTA against a single monster. That seems a much more effective strategy than just using regular attacks.

I suggested a possible fix: you can have N creature PtA 1 creature. If the defender uses FB, none of the attackers in melee gain advantage, BUT the creature is pushed back 5ft per attacker. I haven't playtested this yet and would actually be curious about how it worked in one of the standardized scenarios of the OP.
Using PtA all the time may or may not be effective depending on many other factors, including especially tactical positioning, and that's an interesting emerging gameplay aspect imo.

The same problem with multiple attackers mobbing 1 defender and attacking with advantage is also present in o5e: monsters with pact tactics are particularly dangerous because of it. Potentially, fighting a group of barbarians would have the same effect.

Also, a swarm of monsters going full PtA makes total sense, especially if you think about small creatures or creatures with little tactical intelligence: goblins, kobolds and zombies would become much more interesting and fearsome. Those creatures shouldn't use normal attacks against larger creatures, exactly because it could be less efficient. I think it's a cool idea and would have lots of interesting impacts (less static combats), it just needs the proper wording

 

[Rant]

@Rant, your comments are ginning up pushback because they invariably seem to contain broad-brush statements that assert or come across as asserting that the design team and swathes of playtesters are incompetent. At best, that's verging on the sort of blanket generalisation that is explicitly against the rules of participating on this website.

It's nothing to do with pointing out flaws, real or perceived, as such. Plenty of people have done so without any difficulty, warnings from moderators, and so on. Like, say @Legendweaver, the author of the original post, discussing "Press the Attack". (Notice how they got a friendly reply from Morrus about updated rules text?)

I am sure you are capable of distinguishing between "frank and direct" and "rude". To be "frank and direct" myself, your posts are worded in a way so as to be rude, hence the pushback.

That's a surprising takeaway. Rudeness is a concern of mine, very much so, but only rudeness towards fellow forum posters, players, etc. I've never encountered a discussion forum where "rudeness to the developers of a product" is frowned on. That's a given: criticism of rules sometimes comes across as rude when it is blunt and to the point.

Avoiding rudeness towards other posters is a "given," and if I've offended any posters then I'd like to make amends and apologize. Offending the developers of a product, well, that's part of the normal societally accepted role of a consumer when delivering criticism of a product. When you fill out a survey and rank something 1-5 and give it a 1-2 paired with comments, that's certainly interpretable as "rude" - and also necessary in some cases.

Being civil to each other makes sense. Worrying about rudeness towards the developers while delivering criticism never occurred to me, honestly. Is that the distinction? I've been confused why forum posters act like criticisms of the product are personal attacks. This has been a strange experience. Most product forums you have a mixture of consumer opinions shared, most of them leaning towards "rude" towards the product maker, and the role of moderation is to ensure they are civil towards each other.

At this point there's more discussion of my presentation than the content of what I've been trying to discuss, so it feels like an uphill battle. I've been made to feel that criticism is unwelcome and that is the role reason for any moderator action, yes. That is my perspective, and it leads me to believe that there is not an honest effort at work to improve the product.

 

[Morrus]

I've never encountered a discussion forum where "rudeness to the developers of a product" is frowned on.

Let me be very, very clear. There is nobody on this forum who you are entitled to be rude to. That includes me, moderators, designers, and other form members. If you feel you are entitled to be rude to staff (or anybody else), then I need to dissuade you of that strongly.

I've been made to feel that criticism is unwelcome and that is the role reason for any moderator action, yes. That is my perspective, and it leads me to believe that there is not an honest effort at work to improve the product.

This is categorically untrue and a gross misrepresentation of what the moderator in question said to you. In addition, you are now publicly challenging moderation again and derailing threads. I think your time here is coming to an end.

This is your last warning. Next time you won't get any red text; you'll just be disinvited. I feel I've been very patient, but I don't have time for this. And if that happens, you will cry censorship and go tell everybody you were asked to leave because you criticized a product, and I'm sure some people will believe you, but let me be absolutely clear: that will not be true.

 

[Rant]

Let me be very, very clear. There is nobody on this forum who you are entitled to be rude to. That includes me, moderators, designers, and other form members. If you feel you are entitled to be rude to staff (or anybody else), then I need to dissuade you of that strongly.

This is categorically untrue and a gross misrepresentation of what the moderator in question said to you. In addition, you are now publicly challenging moderation again and derailing threads. I think your time here is coming to an end.

This is your last warning. Next time you won't get any red text; you'll just be disinvited. I feel I've been very patient, but I don't have time for this. And if that happens, you will cry censorship and go tell everybody you were asked to leave because you criticized a product, and I'm sure some people will believe you, but let me be absolutely clear: that will not be true.

I don’t think there’s going to be a happy middle ground emerging where we can discuss flaws in game design where it won’t be perceived as rude towards the game designers. It’s probably best not to try, that being the case.

I hope the developers do review some of the player concerns, especially those noted here that have came out of playtest examples and improve the final product, but I don’t think attempting to be a part of that process is something that I can do here given the limitations on tone.