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

[Hussar]

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

If by eye you mean your line, solitary eye with zero actual facts to back it up, then sure. Eye of the beholder.

 

[Minigiant]

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, apparently these two things are equal.

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

And the thing is

Descending AC isn't inherently bad. It's just only not confusing you abandon the methodology and tradition of Old School play.

Like you could have AC go down from 10 and roll under to hit. Then have high stats or magic items give rerolls or bonus dice to help roll lower.

But that's not traditional. People still want +1 swords and-2 from having DEX 16. Hence why descending AC was abandoned.

 

[TiQuinn]

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

If you’re happy with it, knock yourself out.

 

[payn]

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.

Na, after awhile you just know the song and the dance. Its easy to develop a mental ignore where you just know X is going to die on the Y hill and you cruise on by going your merry way.

 

[Hussar]

Na, after awhile you just know the song and the dance. Its easy to develop a mental ignore where you just know X is going to die on the Y hill and you cruise on by going your merry way.

I just have a really tough time letting completely unsupported opinions presented as somehow valid arguments go. Have whatever opinion you want but have enough self awareness to understand that when your opinion is based on nothing but your gut, absolutely no one owes you anything other than complete rejection of your arguments.

 

[Staffan]

And the thing is

Descending AC isn't inherently bad. It's just only not confusing you abandon the methodology and tradition of Old School play.

Descending AC, by itself, is a little bad, but not a disaster. Descending AC when there are +X bonuses in the game that make your AC better by lowering it is pretty bad, but something one can deal with. Descending AC when there are both +X bonuses and -Y bonuses that both improve your AC by lowering it, now that's a disaster.

 

[Minigiant]

Descending AC, by itself, is a little bad, but not a disaster. Descending AC when there are +X bonuses in the game that make your AC better by lowering it is pretty bad, but something one can deal with. Descending AC when there are both +X bonuses and -Y bonuses that both improve your AC by lowering it, now that's a disaster.

Exactly.

Having AC 3 to AC 2, +3 bonus and -2 adjustment all be good is objectively bad design.

It was only tolerated because it was all most people had access to and it became a "I got used to it" mechanics.

D&D had and still has some "I got used to it" mechanics that are either bad design or limit commercial success.

 

[Azzy]

The first RPG I ever encountered was 2nd ed D&D. Up to that point, my experiences with RPGs, or RPG-adjacent material was Milton Bradley's HeroQuest and NES games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. THAC0 was weird and obtuse to me then. Wow did WFRP 1E and World of Darkness RPGs made a hell of a lot more sense in just about every way. You can guess which games dominated the 90s to me and my friends.

I started with BECMI and then moved through 1e and 2e, but when I branched out to other RPGs I started to realized how "weird and obtuse", as you put it, that THAC0 and the inconsistent up is better/down is better that it put me off D&D for a while.

 

[Staffan]

I started with BECMI and then moved through 1e and 2e, but when I branched out to other RPGs I started to realized how "weird and obtuse", as you put it, that THAC0 and the inconsistent up is better/down is better that it put me off D&D for a while.

Me, I started with other RPGs – primarily Drakar och Demoner (the predecessor to today's Dragonbane) but also other games like Mutant, Marvel Super Heroes, MERP, Star Wars D6, GURPS, and Warhammer. So it's a bloody miracle that I didn't bounce off D&D and AD&D like a bullet off of Wonder Woman's bracers. It was probably because Dark Sun grabbed me by the collar and wouldn't let go.

 

[payn]

I just have a really tough time letting completely unsupported opinions presented as somehow valid arguments go. Have whatever opinion you want but have enough self awareness to understand that when your opinion is based on nothing but your gut, absolutely no one owes you anything other than complete rejection of your arguments.

Yeap… I hear this from time to time too. It’s the other side of the coin. There is an art to simply moving on and it feels so much better.