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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3884843" data-attributes="member: 4937">1) I don't see anyone here saying 'It's not good that they test new ideas', or even 'It's not good that they test ideas that come from video games'.&nbsp;&nbsp; Nobody is arguing with that.&nbsp; Rather it is indeed that we are arguing, 'It's not good that they tested an aggro mechanic.'&nbsp; 2) It is a good idea to test new ideas, but merely being a new idea doesn't mean it is an idea worth testing.&nbsp; Many new ideas are bad ideas, and you shouldn't waste time testing obviously bad ideas.3) Aggro is not in fact a new idea.&nbsp; It is a new idea in D&amp;D.&nbsp; Merely because it is a new idea doesn't make it worth testing.&nbsp; 'New' doesn't mean good.&nbsp; Some new ideas should be tested, and others shouldn't.&nbsp; Some new ideas have problems that aren't immediately obvious.&nbsp; Others, like the idea in question, are obviously bad because they are designing fun out of the game and being rigid and inflexible for no good reason.&nbsp; No one is suggesting that they reject ideas out-of-hand because they're inspired by a video game.&nbsp; However, ideas that are obviously intended to deal with problems and constraints unique to video games, and which don't apply in a pen and paper 'platform', and which are obviously counter to a good design philosophy should be rejected out of hand as a needless waste of effort (at best).How can you be for a game system which the designer rejected as bad?&nbsp; The better question is, &quot;Why didn't the designer foresee just how unfun this would be ahead of time?&quot;D&amp;D has no mechanics which from round to round determine where NPCs should move or how they should act.&nbsp; Spells like 'Fear' and 'Charm Person' and class features like 'Taunt' and 'Turn Undead' are relatively rare exceptions to the normal freedom allowed to players and DMs to run thier characters how they deem best.&nbsp;&nbsp; You probably could find some people who object to even these as inherently wrong, but that's not what is being discussed right now.&nbsp; The point is that extending the interference of the rules in to participant freedom of choice and making play more mechanistic is a bad idea at the level of overall design philosophy, irrespective of the particular implementation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3884843, member: 4937"] 1) I don't see anyone here saying 'It's not good that they test new ideas', or even 'It's not good that they test ideas that come from video games'. Nobody is arguing with that. Rather it is indeed that we are arguing, 'It's not good that they tested an aggro mechanic.' 2) It is a good idea to test new ideas, but merely being a new idea doesn't mean it is an idea worth testing. Many new ideas are bad ideas, and you shouldn't waste time testing obviously bad ideas. 3) Aggro is not in fact a new idea. It is a new idea in D&D. Merely because it is a new idea doesn't make it worth testing. 'New' doesn't mean good. Some new ideas should be tested, and others shouldn't. Some new ideas have problems that aren't immediately obvious. Others, like the idea in question, are obviously bad because they are designing fun out of the game and being rigid and inflexible for no good reason. No one is suggesting that they reject ideas out-of-hand because they're inspired by a video game. However, ideas that are obviously intended to deal with problems and constraints unique to video games, and which don't apply in a pen and paper 'platform', and which are obviously counter to a good design philosophy should be rejected out of hand as a needless waste of effort (at best). How can you be for a game system which the designer rejected as bad? The better question is, "Why didn't the designer foresee just how unfun this would be ahead of time?" D&D has no mechanics which from round to round determine where NPCs should move or how they should act. Spells like 'Fear' and 'Charm Person' and class features like 'Taunt' and 'Turn Undead' are relatively rare exceptions to the normal freedom allowed to players and DMs to run thier characters how they deem best. You probably could find some people who object to even these as inherently wrong, but that's not what is being discussed right now. The point is that extending the interference of the rules in to participant freedom of choice and making play more mechanistic is a bad idea at the level of overall design philosophy, irrespective of the particular implementation. [/QUOTE]

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