[Forked from the Escapist Magazine Interview Thread] What implications does E...

[Hussar]

My point is that it's legitimate, as legitimate as any other complaint about D&D has ever been over the lifespan of the whole friggin' game. And people can disagree about legitimate complaints -- if they share them, if their experiences are different. Dismissing it as edition warring or rolling your eyes or saying that it's an "incorrect application of the rules" is an attempt to say "Your experiences don't matter. They're not legitimate experiences. You're making it up to push an agenda, or you're doing it wrong." And that's just not the case.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...What-implications-does-E/page17#ixzz34qo7ggFx

Which is what I'm questioning. I really don't see this as legitimate. If someone told you that tennis was a terrible sport and no fun, and you found out that they were holding the racket upside down, would you consider their criticisms legitimate? Which is how I see this. The DM added a factor - keyholes go all the way through doors - then complained about how this interacts with the rules. The DM is obviously ignoring a number of mechanical limitations such as LOS and then complaining about world building issues.

If someone is using the rules incorrectly, isn't it reasonable to conclude that their issues aren't legitimate?

Should we accept that issues created because of a misunderstanding and misapplication of the rules as reasonable issues?

 

[pemerton]

HP-as-morale doesn't make sense

Because?

Isn't that the idea behind exception-based design? "It's like X, unless the rules specify an exception." 4e doesn't have rules for toddlers, so there is not a toddler exception, so RAW, toddladrin can teleport, yeah?

I agree with [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] - this really has nothing to do with exception-based design, which is about interpreting mechanical elements. Eladrin toddlers aren't a mechanical element (at least until a GM chooses to introduce them) and hence don't stand in need of interpretation as such.

If someone posted a thread complaining that, because of exception-based design and the absence of a stated exception human toddlers all move as fast as human adults and all speak at least two languages (even if not spoken by parents or guardians), would I be obliged to take that seriously?

Frankly, people who treat PC-building rules as world-building rules are making rods for their own backs, and my sympathy is pretty limited. And in case it is objected that this is a 4e distinction, here is a passage from Dragon #35 (March 1980), referring to demi-human ability score maximums:

The limitations given for races on the Ability Score Table are intended to apply to the entire race, not lust player characters. Therefore, several inconsistencies between the maximum scores and the player character racial adjustments are not mistakes. For example, although player character elves have a -1 on their constitution, the racial maximum for constitution of elves is 18. This is because, as explained in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, exceptional non-player elves may have a constitution of 18. Likewise, although it is impossible for a player character halfling to roll the maximum 19 constitution, a non-player halfling could, due to the bonus received on constitution for NPC halflings in the DMG​

In other words, it has never been an assumption in D&D world-building that the rules for creating player characters are models for the gameworld at large.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You can make that distinction. Or you might not. Folks approach the game in different ways.

And if you do not, you do not have a leg to stand on when you object to the consequences.

Well, look, tripping oozes doesn't make sense,

You do know that you can make monsters immune to being tripped at a monster-by-monster level? The only thing you can't do is decide that all undead are immune to precision damage, so you can't knock a zombie's head off or stake a vampire through the heart.

and square fireballs don't make sense

4e works better on a hex grid. This I freely accept.

and HP-as-morale doesn't make sense

HP as morale and stamina makes a lot more sense than HP as meat.

What one chooses to "make sense" in their world can be different from table to table. Is Eladrin teleportation something every eladrin can do from birth or is it only a facet of training elite eladrin or something else you want to make up as some excuse for why this doesn't affect the world (and if that's the case, why isn't there an option for a PC to swap it out?)? Choices like this inform the world you make in interesting ways, and there's no one right and true answer that should be the case at every table.

On the other hand when you do not know what a vault door looks like or that only some doors have full length keyholes, you have only yourself to blame.

So, first of all, consumers pay for the game and if the game they pay for doesn't deliver the experience they want, then that game has failed to deliver value to them, and they get to criticize it.

And when it turns out that it's because they have ignored fundamental parts of the game that should be obvious on a simple reading (short rests) and have actively changed real world designs to ensure they don't work (vault doors) then they should suck it up and apologise. Because it isn't the game not delivering what they want - it's their own mistakes. Deep, intricate stuff that's entirely within the game is another matter.

At the very least, the design team has failed to properly telegraph what this element is for and how to use it to that player, and it's a chance to learn where the failures happened and how to improve the design in the future for how it is actually going to be used rather than how the team intends it to be used. Experiences aren't right or wrong, they are experiences, and play experiences are worth analyzing if you want to improve your game. And bad play experiences are especially valuable for that.

Could 4e be presented better? Hell, yes. Should there be more discussion on what a short rest is? Yes. Including options for houseruling. But when a product comes with instructions and you ignore those instructions then a lot of the burden is on the user. Especially when you are the only person with these specific problems.

My point is that it's legitimate, as legitimate as any other complaint about D&D has ever been over the lifespan of the whole friggin' game.

I disagree. I believe that there are times, as here, when the misunderstandings are entirely the fault of the players concerned. To take another example, I've had a combat that slogged on interminably because the DM added a ridiculous amount to the monster's AC so we could only hit a 4e monster on a 17 while it did comparatively little damage. This is not a problem with the system. This is a problem with the DM ignoring the system and doing their own thing.

Problems exist in the game sometimes exist in the system, sometimes exist in the local metagame, sometimes exist with the players, and sometimes exist due to poor DMing. You seem to want to blame bad DMing issues on the system and claim that doing this is legitimate grievances with the system. I consider that when the system says to do one thing and you do something the system clearly says not to do to be a problem with the DMing. And once the rules have been pointed out to continue to blame the system because you are doing the opposite of what the system says is nothing more than edition warring.

You can make a mistake in honesty. Anyone can. And people do. But when your mistakes are pointed out as being unambiguous mistakes, you have two choices. Drop the argument, accepting that the mistake was yours, or edition war. Because you have just shown that you do not care what the game actually says - you are going to pick up the stick to beat the system with irrespective of whether it has anything to do with the actual game published. If you don't care what the game says it is impossible to engage with you - and all you are doing is talking about your personal dislike of the system that exists in your head and not actually on paper. And if the entire usable content of what you are saying is that you dislike something and you keep on saying it then you are edition warring. You certainly aren't adding anything useful to the discussion.

Some folks imagine eladrin teleportation would be huge for a world, and don't like it because of that, and that's OK. They don't have to believe otherwise.

This does not give them the right to make up things you literally can't do with Eladrin teleportation (like teleport through a solid vault door) and then blame that on the system. Or to make your NPCs all idiots, not even taking precautions used in the real world. On the other hand if you want to remove Eladrin from your version of 4e, feel free.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Frankly, people who treat PC-building rules as world-building rules are making rods for their own backs, and my sympathy is pretty limited. And in case it is objected that this is a 4e distinction, here is a passage from Dragon #35 (March 1980), referring to demi-human ability score maximums:

The limitations given for races on the Ability Score Table are intended to apply to the entire race, not lust player characters. Therefore, several inconsistencies between the maximum scores and the player character racial adjustments are not mistakes. For example, although player character elves have a -1 on their constitution, the racial maximum for constitution of elves is 18. This is because, as explained in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, exceptional non-player elves may have a constitution of 18. Likewise, although it is impossible for a player character halfling to roll the maximum 19 constitution, a non-player halfling could, due to the bonus received on constitution for NPC halflings in the DMG​

In other words, it has never been an assumption in D&D world-building that the rules for creating player characters are models for the gameworld at large.

This isn't quite true. D&D 3.0 and 3.5 both did assume that the rules for creating PCs were models for the gameworld at large. Which was IMO creating a rod for the backs of DMs - and is also one of the many ways 3.0 and 3.5 are exceptional and unlike any other form of D&D. 4E was here, as in so many other places, a reversion to pre-3.0 design assumptions.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You can make that distinction. Or you might not. Folks approach the game in different ways.

Oh come now, I tire of this rhetorical silliness, bunkum! Find me the rule that says all eladrin teleport. Nope? OK, then I have made my point, end of argument.

Well, look, tripping oozes doesn't make sense, and square fireballs don't make sense and HP-as-morale doesn't make sense but this doesn't stop them from being rules in the game. Heck, dragons don't make sense and wizards don't make sense and the Feywild doesn't make sense and healing magic doesn't make sense and...

Where did 'make sense' get injected into this discussion, it wasn't by me...

What one chooses to "make sense" in their world can be different from table to table. Is Eladrin teleportation something every eladrin can do from birth or is it only a facet of training elite eladrin or something else you want to make up as some excuse for why this doesn't affect the world (and if that's the case, why isn't there an option for a PC to swap it out?)? Choices like this inform the world you make in interesting ways, and there's no one right and true answer that should be the case at every table.

Where did I say anything about right and true answers? You're interpolating a lot into what I've said. I merely pointed out that EVEN TAKING THE MATERIAL AS PRESENTED, most aspects of the game world aren't really dictated by rules and can be adjusted as the DM sees fit without any significant effort. If someone decides that the law says they have to wear green pants on Fridays then its probably their INTERPRETATION that would need to be investigated assuming they didn't like green pants.

So, first of all, consumers pay for the game and if the game they pay for doesn't deliver the experience they want, then that game has failed to deliver value to them, and they get to criticize it. At the very least, the design team has failed to properly telegraph what this element is for and how to use it to that player, and it's a chance to learn where the failures happened and how to improve the design in the future for how it is actually going to be used rather than how the team intends it to be used. Experiences aren't right or wrong, they are experiences, and play experiences are worth analyzing if you want to improve your game. And bad play experiences are especially valuable for that.

Fine, but some things are so picayune that to imagine they rise to the level of calling them a design team failure is ridiculous. Its a practically insignificant detail of the system. I'm sorry, but the user has some responsibility for his own use of the product, you don't get to say you failed to enjoy it if you didn't even make the most elementary attempt to make your use enjoyable.

Second, this is only inflexible if your end goal is to have a game with teleporting eladrin in it. Not everyone is invested in that goal. Not everyone CARES about having teleporting eladrin in their game. If your end goal is to have a fun game experience, you may not need teleporting eladrin, so it's actually quite flexible to say, "Screw that, no Eladrin in my games." That's adapting the rules to your needs as a DM or player -- you don't like it, so they're out. No one HAS to play a D&D game with blink elves if they don't want to. They're not important. They can be useful, but lots of things can be useful, so that's not really very special.

I'm not sure how this supports your point. I wholeheartedly agree. If 'blink elves' are causing your game to be degraded then just leave them out! D&D is a wonderful thing, you can just leave parts of it out and it still works

My point is that it's legitimate, as legitimate as any other complaint about D&D has ever been over the lifespan of the whole friggin' game. And people can disagree about legitimate complaints -- if they share them, if their experiences are different. Dismissing it as edition warring or rolling your eyes or saying that it's an "incorrect application of the rules" is an attempt to say "Your experiences don't matter. They're not legitimate experiences. You're making it up to push an agenda, or you're doing it wrong." And that's just not the case.

I disagree. This is an absurd sort of argument by which you reduce all human value judgement to nothing. Its one thing to argue that we all have different aesthetics and maybe the guy didn't like eladrin as written. That's fine, but he has many many options besides "our game experience was turned to crap because of this." You are missing where the objection arises. If you tell me that some music sucked because it was too loud and you could have turned it down then I think its legitimate for me to consider your complaint specious. It is likewise in this case.

Some folks imagine eladrin teleportation would be huge for a world, and don't like it because of that, and that's OK. They don't have to believe otherwise.

Nobody is asking them to 'believe otherwise', what we're pointing out is that people have a responsibility for their own entertainment and they need to take charge of it. D&D is a game system, a VERY VERY open-ended set of rules and guidelines that can be used to construct and run fantasy role-playing adventures. Those rules can be interpreted, modified, adjusted, and even discarded wholesale when this will suite the tastes of the people using the game. It is INTENDED that it be so. The very first thing you read when you open the book is that.

Now, its perfectly legitimate for someone to say "gosh, this game just doesn't suite me, and its just easier to play this other game instead." Nothing is everyone's cup of tea, and I'm the last person to complain about someone doing that. I've nothing to say either when someone says "gosh I didn't like this aspect of the game, so I interpreted a rule differently and liked it better" or "removed blink elves from the game and liked it better", etc. That's GREAT. Where I roll my eyes is when they say that their enjoyment of the game was disrupted (in a way large enough to complain at length about, so presumably this was not just a tiny little annoyance) by something so marginal to the design and feel of the game that it can be removed or that the rule can JUST AS EASILY be interpreted a different way and the problem vanishes.

I mean if you had a player that complained bitterly about how he created a Seeker and the character didn't work for him and he thought it was ridiculous you'd just tell him "OK, rocks fall on it, roll up a new one!" right? (OK, you might be a bit less dramatic about it, but the point is taken, right).

 

[Jhaelen]

"It's like X, unless the rules specify an exception." 4e doesn't have rules for toddlers, so there is not a toddler exception, so RAW, toddladrin can teleport, yeah? Heck, newborn eladrin might be able to teleport. Which must make cutting the umbilical cord a cautious process (unless that counts as being grappled? maybe newborn eladrin need to teleport in order to stop being grappled by their umbilical cords? hehehe).

Uh, not really. Eladrin PCs can Feystep. I'm not even sure if all Eladrin NPCs should be able to do it.

Also, I'm not sure if it has already been brought up, but since imho, this argument rooted in the storytelling implications of the ability, you should also consider how the ability is 'fluffed'. The Eladrin isn't actually teleporting. She's quickly slipping into and out of the Feywild. If you think about that for a moment, you realize, there's all kind of interesting complications or restrictions a DM could come up with to solve any issues with this power. For one thing, it obviously won't work while the Eladrin is already physically present in the Feywild. IIRC, in the Eberron setting, the Eladrin cities are all located in the Feywild, which nicely solves any issues anyone might have with the power. Any vaults or prisons the Eladrin might have in their cities can look exactly like they look in the mundane world ans still be just as safe for/from the Eladrin.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Which is what I'm questioning. I really don't see this as legitimate.

"There's yer problem!" /plumber

If someone told you that tennis was a terrible sport and no fun, and you found out that they were holding the racket upside down, would you consider their criticisms legitimate? Which is how I see this.

Well, if it was my job to design the game of tennis, hell yes, absolutely, this is a failure of design. A well-designed game should teach you how to play it as you play it, and if someone does it wrong, it's a failure of that pedagogy.

'course, it's functionally apples and oranges since tennis is not a consciously designed game. And playing D&D with keyholes isn't against the rules. So it's really not accurate at all to view it this way. It's not a good analogy.

The DM added a factor - keyholes go all the way through doors - then complained about how this interacts with the rules. The DM is obviously ignoring a number of mechanical limitations such as LOS and then complaining about world building issues.

A little worldbuilding quirk like keyholes can actually break your game? Your game is too fragile. You seem to think that's the case in 4e, but I disagree -- I don't think that's the case in 4e in general (though it may be the case for unlimited teleportation in 4e for some folks). I think 4e's more flexible than that.

If someone is using the rules incorrectly, isn't it reasonable to conclude that their issues aren't legitimate?

Nope. Part of the role of the rules is to be clear how to use them. There's nothing in any book that says "doors in D&D do not have keyholes."

Should we accept that issues created because of a misunderstanding and misapplication of the rules as reasonable issues?

If that's what the true issue is, yes.

Of course, that's not the true issue here. Playing D&D with keyholes isn't doing it wrong.

The true issue seems to be that you can't seem to accept that people can have different experiences -- that to you, there is One True Way to Play (without keyholes) and any who do it otherwise are doing it wrong and have no right to complain.

But that's not really your position, right? I mean, it sounds silly, to insist that someone's experience is illigitmate because they have keyholes? Wouldn't it be much more in line with how people actually play the game to understand that people have different experiences and that what works for one table doesn't work for others and that some games don't have blink elves and that's OK? Isn't that a lot more reasonable than insisting that D&D games with keyholes are somehow taboo and that everyone must accept eladrin teleport as not a big deal or be banished from the game?

Oh come now, I tire of this rhetorical silliness, bunkum! Find me the rule that says all eladrin teleport. Nope? OK, then I have made my point, end of argument.

End of argument? Silliness? Bunkum? Man, you gotta chill out, we are literally talking about magical elves in a game of make-believe, this isn't anything like an argument. Arguments are what you have with your family at the holidays. And "bunkum" is what you shout at them if you're a snake-oil salesman from 1884.

If you can't find a rule that says that all eladrin don't teleport, then someone's reading of that racial ability as true in all cases of the race is just as valid as someone reading that racial ability as only true in specific cases. It's not wrong to play a game where only certain eladrin teleport, butit's not wrong to do it some other way, either. The point is, experiences are different.

There seems to be a COLOSSAL amount of energy here spent trying to argue that someone who has a different experience is just having BadWrongFun, and that they must accept blink elves as not having a major world effect or be Doing D&D Wrong, So Say The Fun Police, So Say We All, as if it's some sort of grand attack on some core principle of the game to say that you don't like how eladrin teleportation affects the world you make. I don't know when or how or why the bamf became such a totemic rallying point of sacred gameplay that Thou Must Be OK With. I don't know what makes it worth all this line-in-the-sand "you're with blink elves or against all of 4e!" sound and fury. I don't know when keyholes became a point of system failure. This doesn't seem like the game I've been playing for the last 6 years, the game I think of as the most flexible and solid of any version of D&D. That's not a game that relies on eladrin teleportation being OK to function. That's not a game that MUST be played with them in it.

If it's causing you some stress, you might want to try on the counterpoint for size: that it's OK for someone to not like eladrin teleportation. That it's really not a big deal. That they get to not like eladrin teleportation if that's what makes them happier in their games. That you don't have to tell them that they have to like it. That people can play this game in different ways and still have fun.

I mean, what's at stake? What harm would taking that position do to you? If you put away the Fun Police badge and become OK with people playing the game in different ways, what do you lose?

Because?

Ah, just 'cuz it doesn't matter how hard you scream at auntie mildred, she's not going to come back to life. But in the specific, it doesn't matter -- it's in genre, and it's fine for some tables, and that's really the point: what's "realistic" depends on the group. We don't get to tell someone that they have to accept that eladrin teleportation can't a big deal any more than someone gets to tell someone that HP-as-morale can't a big deal or any more than someone gets to tell someone that the existence of wizards and dragons can't a big deal. Folks do their own thing with this game, and that's cool.

 

[Hussar]

Note, KM, you are defending the guy who decided that having keyholes made the game unplayable and quit because of it.

You might want to back off from the idea that we're being too inflexible in our point of view.

 

[pemerton]

Did I miss the inspirational resurrection power when it was printed?

 

[pemerton]

A little worldbuilding quirk like keyholes can actually break your game? Your game is too fragile.

<snip>

you can't seem to accept that people can have different experiences -- that to you, there is One True Way to Play (without keyholes) and any who do it otherwise are doing it wrong and have no right to complain.

<snip>

If you can't find a rule that says that all eladrin don't teleport, then someone's reading of that racial ability as true in all cases of the race is just as valid as someone reading that racial ability as only true in specific cases.

I've highlighted the word "valid".

If someone's reading of the rules is causing their game to collapse because of keyholes, and that's not the most natural reading of the rules, are we still sure that it's a valid reading? Is there any sort of expectation that people will read and apply rules in a way that is consistent with their world-building expectations? Is a rule set too fragile if there is some reading of its rules - however atypical - that causes it to collapse under the pressure of keyholes? Under that measure, the whole of D&D is too fragile given there are readings of its damage rules, its economic rules, etc, that make nonsense of practically every world ever built by the designers and publishers of the game.