D&D General Differences Between D&D Boards

[DammitVictor]

I've spent years wondering whether the better adjective to describe that place is "Orwellian" or "Kafkaesque".

Leaving the political elements aside, the moderators on RPGnet are capricious, hypocritical, and abusive and they vary between being unwilling to acknowledge the problem to being openly proud of it. The fact that they're all clustered around a very narrow band of political positions... just makes it too easy to blame their toxic behavior on their politics, which just provides other political malignancies an excuse to persecute their enemies.

I don't believe we can realistically-- morally-- separate politics from gaming entirely, but I am sick and goddamned tired of having my gaming spaces infested with people who treat gaming like it's a weapon (or a battlefield) in the Culture War.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I wish Optimization received a little bit more focus on EN World. Outside of Esker and Frog Reaver, it seems very lonely there.
Is it because EN World has older posters? Posters that do not play 5e?

GITPG seemingly has a lot more Optimization threads.

GITPG is still fundamentally a 3.5 board - and optimisation is much more fun in 3.5 and 4e alike than it is in 5e simply because each character has a lot more moving parts. In 5e it's entirely normal for a character to not get their first feat until level 12 and muticlassing is discouraged so it's nowhere near the fun game it was in 3.5 or 4e.

 

[clearstream]

There are too many variables to determine what is an optimal way of going about the game.

I know full well lots of people will disagree with me and there is no actual way to resolve who is right.

It's a perennial problem for making progress in discussions. Roughly, I think the way one resolves what is right for a game is to set the terms within which you are calibrating, and then show that for those terms your optimisation (or whatever else you are arguing) is more or less right.

For instance, I can optimise by saying that I want to do on average the most weapon damage per one fight that I can against a given cohort of enemies as a 10th level Fighter. Given those terms, one can easily show right and wrong cases.

Some terms are inherently harder to define, like fun. But if I say that fun for me means playing an elf, it is pretty easy to justify a position that playing an elf is right, and playing a gnome is wrong.

 

[clearstream]

I know my dad likes RPG Stack Exchange. Never been there myself.

In the past I have found some pretty good rules analysis on stack exchange.

 

[Coroc]

I apologize, if this is breaking a social taboo, like starting a group text with your Spouse and Lover and asking which is a better kisser.
.....

No this is hot, let them compete for it

(Of course not in a chat ....)

 

[Coroc]

The Mods over at GitP are total knobs.

The Mods here are infinitely better.

That board over there is the most over-moderated board I've ever encountered. And I moderate a few myself.

Well but order of the stick rulez. I never read in their board though I must admit, so I could not tell.

 

[Coroc]

The other forum I did read apart from ENworld was RPG stackexchange, but I gave up on that one it was the Rulius Magistarius / RAW is the fetish and RAW is above all culmination there. Also Houserule is evil, canon is law according to them.

(Examples: mounted gnomes dual wielding lances somehow justified by some obscure interpretation of RAW to be able to do two charging lance attacks on (one) impact (facepalm), monks using quarterstaff onehanded with shield and polearm mastery (munchkinism extends and leads to group facepalm)

I just got so tired on the discussions there about how to circumvent any sanity in finding weirdo loopholes in holy RAW and defending them tooth and nail to be the only valid interpretation and whatever, absolutely to be used on AL but generally on everybodies table and being nonconform to it totally unbalances the game or at least munchkin build xy versus munchkin build z and so on...

 

[S'mon]

monks using quarterstaff onehanded with shield and polearm mastery (munchkinism extends and leads to group facepalm)

I'm afraid that was always pretty clearly RAW. On the bright side they errata'd Polearm Mastery so you can now use it with a spear, which 1-handed with shield at least looks less silly than 1-handed staff & shield!

Edit: Would certainly be a fine house rule to require 2 hands on weapon for the polearm mastery bonus attack, at least.

 

[Coroc]

I'm afraid that was always pretty clearly RAW. On the bright side they errata'd Polearm Mastery so you can now use it with a spear, which 1-handed with shield at least looks less silly than 1-handed staff & shield!

Thanks for the reminder to add another house rule to my table.
How in all that is holy, shall I visualize this magic PM attack???

Poke the enemy with the spear tip, then twirling the spear around (thereby not colliding with my shield or impaling other objects and individuals close by), to give a good smack, after that back to base position?

With a halberd (or other polearms), a spear wielded two handed etc. you can do tricky maneuvers using the blunt end, but not with a spear and shield combo.

That is exactly the kind of RAW discussion I did miss (not).

Btw a house rule of mine was always, that you can use PM with a spear. But another house rule I always use is that a quarterstaff is 1d6 and two handed use only, just to reflect that you cannot improve a spear by removing the tip and crafting a quarterstaff out of it.

 

[clearstream]

The other forum I did read apart from ENworld was RPG stackexchange, but I gave up on that one it was the Rulius Magistarius / RAW is the fetish and RAW is above all culmination there. Also Houserule is evil, canon is law according to them.

(Examples: mounted gnomes dual wielding lances somehow justified by some obscure interpretation of RAW to be able to do two charging lance attacks on (one) impact (facepalm), monks using quarterstaff onehanded with shield and polearm mastery (munchkinism extends and leads to group facepalm)

I just got so tired on the discussions there about how to circumvent any sanity in finding weirdo loopholes in holy RAW and defending them tooth and nail to be the only valid interpretation and whatever, absolutely to be used on AL but generally on everybodies table and being nonconform to it totally unbalances the game or at least munchkin build xy versus munchkin build z and so on...

For me what RAW entails, and how best to play are separate concerns. Meaning I very much agree that the examples you point to are egregious, yet I like to start out by knowing what the rule qua rule literally and mechanically most consistently and under objective principles of interpretation entails. Do you see what I mean?

We can figure out exactly what is entailed by the words on the page, considered among all the other words, and then we can still make our own decisions about how to play it.