D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Remathilis]

This little sidebar about THAC0 is such a perfect encapsulation of the OP’s rant.

Argument: Ascending or descending AC isn’t better or worse, just different.

Argument for descending AC: people played with have no problem with it.

Argument for ascending AC: multiple studies showing that adding is easier for people than subtraction.

• the fact that no other rpg at the time used descending AC. Every other game designer abandoned it.
• the fact that no game published in the last twenty years uses descending AC.
• the fact that even the OSR, the stewards of old school play have universally rejected descending AC.

But yes, apply these two things are equal.

And people wonder why gaming discussions with conservative gamers is so infuriating?

The argument for descending AC has mostly been an appeal to tradition: that's the way I learned it, it doesn't confuse me, and I see no reason to change even to something that (at the very least) is equal or better. It's pretty much the same argument as to why the US is still on the Imperial system rather than metric.

 

[payn]

This little sidebar about THAC0 is such a perfect encapsulation of the OP’s rant.

Argument: Ascending or descending AC isn’t better or worse, just different.

Argument for descending AC: people played with have no problem with it.

Argument for ascending AC: multiple studies showing that adding is easier for people than subtraction.

• the fact that no other rpg at the time used descending AC. Every other game designer abandoned it.
• the fact that no game published in the last twenty years uses descending AC.
• the fact that even the OSR, the stewards of old school play have universally rejected descending AC.

But yes, apply these two things are equal.

And people wonder why gaming discussions with conservative gamers is so infuriating?

True, but you make it seem like a big thing, it really isnt. There is like 1 maybe 2 people in the entire thread that is fighting for descending AC. Everyone else says good riddance.

 

[ezo]

You suppose correctly. It’s why they did away with it in favor of something clearer.

I don't know... it was pretty clear IME.

Even if you didn't understand the reason behind the design, chain mail +1 being AC 4 instead of AC 5 was pretty well understood, regardless.

 

[Zardnaar]

So much this.

They clearly had no unified idea of what 2e was supposed to be and outsourced much of it to freelancers who were allowed to their own devices. The PHBR line (aka brown books) are a great example of how little guidance their designers/freelancers had. Specialty priests are another example.

At least people want to play divine casters. Game tonight I've got a specialty priest of Lathendar, Sharess and a Crusader.

 

[TiQuinn]

I don't know... it was pretty clear IME.

Even if you didn't understand the reason behind the design, chain mail +1 being AC 4 instead of AC 5 was pretty well understood, regardless.

Understood and understood that it could be improved upon.

 

[The Firebird]

I'm not @FrozenNorth but...

I appreciate the engagement, I really do, but the context of the discussion with Frozen North was whether or not anyone had raised additional arguments in the thread. The claim was about the existence of other arguments, not whether everyone found them convincing.

Your citations are lacking - provide sources, perhaps even links. What you mostly have provided are short, unattributed "quotes" which may or may not be just your paraphrasing but... we can't tell without some way to read the original source.

#504 and #574 - reference Tondro's quote. See #903, which provides enough context so anyone can find the original quote. That's the kind of thing that is helpful here.

I did provide the original quote in 504. At the time I didn't feel the need to provide the name because I didn't want to put this person on blast. The top search result gives the details, so anyone who was interested could find it. If that wasn't enough for anyone I'd be happy to provide it.

I later mentioned the name because a specific false claim was made about their employment status. In that case it was necessary to counter the false claim.

#597 and #713 - you provide a snippet of a quote but not the source. When I search these quotes, the D&D results only include... your posts here on ENWorld.
Are you paraphrasing or is there somewhere we can actually see who penned the words so we can gather context?

These are not quotes from WotC but paraphrases of arguments from the thread.

#705 - seems to just be your own words not a citation of other sources.

#496 - I guess this comes close as you are replying - and so perhaps citing - a specific poster here on ENWorld.
#543 - an expression of your opinion is not really a citation

Again, the point was just that other examples were raised in the discussion. I'm citing my own words because it was easiest to remember where I raised those points. Other people raised similar points at similar times.

 

[AlViking]

The big issue I had with BAB was that its implementation pushed that mechanic player-side rather than keeping it DM-side.

If by "pushed that mechanic to player side" you mean that even casual players can understand I agree. But I've always known all my modifiers in every version of DnD unless something special is happening and whether or not a GM informs the player of target AC has always been up to the GM. If the players are rolling and can see their character sheet they're going to figure out what they need to roll pretty quick. I usually reveal the AC myself after a few hits and misses just because it speeds up the game. Occasionally I have something going on and don't; if someone realizes an attack roll that added up to 20 hit last time and now it's not I'll just shrug and affirm that it missed.

I don't see how changing the math has anything to do with hiding the AC and potential external modifiers. About the only way people wouldn't know what's going on is if you made up a new chart similar to 1e every session. Or I'm just totally missing the point which is quite possible.

 

[ezo]

Understood and understood that it could be improved upon.

Made different, anyway... improvement? Eye of the beholder.

 

[Hussar]

And basically you can apply this anything. When 4e did away with 1-2-1 movement, it was a huge deal. People freaked. The fact that virtually no one ever actually applied the rules accurately didn’t matter. The change was WRONG.

Then 5e comes along with the worst of both worlds - movement is 1-1-1 but area effects are pixelated circles - and that’s apparently ok?

Area effects are misapplied all the time and are incredibly confusing because the rules for area effects have so many exceptions. But any attempt to fix this problem is immediately shot down.

 

[Hussar]

True, but you make it seem like a big thing, it really isnt. There is like 1 maybe 2 people in the entire thread that is fighting for descending AC. Everyone else says good riddance.

Is a big thing because it’s EVERY SINGLE DISCUSSION.

There’s always 1 or 2 people every single time that turns the conversation into an endless chain of back and forth. Over and over and over again. And as soon as those one or two people lose steam they get replaced by another one or two and you do the same dance again.

Endlessly.