Have any of you been to the Wizards boards?

[blackshirt5]

I check about once every other month, and I don't believe I have ever bothered to post there. Gush fext big time. I think people are afraid to post non-WotC stuff there or something

No wonder with Mods like WizO Sith.

 

[blackshirt5]

I post over there as swordmonkey sometimes, though I find the maturity and levels of discussion to be a good bit higher at enworld and other places.

There is a good amount of fanboy-ness and immaturity, but there are also a very good core of posters like Razorface, Montanakennedy, djorgenson, and several others who I have gleaned some very good information from and had good discussions with.

The moderators are very much active though (sometimes overly so), so there isnt very much nastiness or anything that gets outside of the Code of Conduct for very long.

The only real fanboyishness or negative experience I've had there was after I had the nerve, the sheer audacity, to disagree with Charles Ryan in a thread that ran about the plastic miniatures debate. I received a few emails from posters and a certain moderator saying that I shouldnt be so disagreeable to Mr Ryan, which cheesed me a bit.

Link please?

 

[Felon]

I do like the way that Charles makes an effort to reply to questions about the rules, and even on the occasions when I don't agree with something in the answers it is still nice to hear a designers opinion.

I posted there when UA first came out. I had a question about how Incantations that are offensive in nature (e.g. Baleful Polymorph) are supposed to target opponents considering the considerable constraints involved, and I asked why it was decided that UA races should have such low level adjustments (to the point of allowing bugbears and ogres to have more hit dice than levels). In both cases, the replies were pretty weak, and the latter was just an outright cop-out of an answer.

But the guy does reply, gotta give him that even if you don't like what he says.

 

[Ranger REG]

It's okay to disagree with the designers. I mean to this day, I still don't agree with the d20 Modern version of nonlethal damage. I don't fuss about it. I just replace it with 3e subdual damage.

Not all of the rules COMPONENTS in a ruleset are going to be satisfied by EVERYONE.

 

[ledded]

It's okay to disagree with the designers. I mean to this day, I still don't agree with the d20 Modern version of nonlethal damage. I don't fuss about it. I just replace it with 3e subdual damage.

Not all of the rules COMPONENTS in a ruleset are going to be satisfied by EVERYONE.

I totally agree, which is why our game is a hodge-podge of house rules that we like for various educated and uneducated reasons with Modern as a nice solid base. I'll argue my point endlessly of course , but that doesnt mean anyone else's home-brew rules aren't good for them. I use the forums to gain insight or to discuss different ideas about it, and I've generally found there to be good info on Wizards sometimes because of a few really good educated posters, but more often the actual discussions are much better elsewhere.

Oh, and BTW, I sent Mr Ryan an email and basically said 'hey, sorry if I cheesed you, I was just offerring up discussion, no offense' with that thread I was talking about earlier. He replied and said that he didnt get any offense from it at all and actually enjoys a good debate as long as people are reasonably polite (which I was, in his words). I'm glad to know he doesnt take disagreement personally, but that's no less than I expected from him. Whatever his good points or faults, he's an intelligent professional whose opinions I respect, even if I dont always agree with them.

 

[C. Baize]

I totally agree, which is why our game is a hodge-podge of house rules that we like for various educated and uneducated reasons with Modern as a nice solid base. I'll argue my point endlessly of course , but that doesnt mean anyone else's home-brew rules aren't good for them. I use the forums to gain insight or to discuss different ideas about it, and I've generally found there to be good info on Wizards sometimes because of a few really good educated posters, but more often the actual discussions are much better elsewhere.

Oh, and BTW, I sent Mr Ryan an email and basically said 'hey, sorry if I cheesed you, I was just offerring up discussion, no offense' with that threat I was talking about earlier. He replied and said that he didnt get any offense from it at all and actually enjoys a good debate as long as people are reasonably polite (which I was, in his words). I'm glad to know he doesnt take disagreement personally, but that's no less than I expected from him. Whatever his good points or faults, he's an intelligent professional whose opinions I respect, even if I dont always agree with them.

Sometimes Charles Ryan even hangs out on the same chat server that hosts the channel for this board... Different channel, obviously... He seems to be really cool, the couple of dozen times I've chatted with him.

 

[Felon]

Well, this week's Bullet Points concerned UA. He actually does post the two questions I asked him there (the first regarding monstrous races and the one regarding offensive incantations). Disappointingly enough, his explanations are as vague and flaccid as they were a year ago.

 

[takyris]

Felon, I don't see how "I disagree with his assessment" means "vague and flaccid". I can see other uses for, say, baleful polymorph. It's a great curse to slap onto a captured opponent that one has sworn not to kill, for example. It serves a wonderful plot purpose. Some high-level death-type incantation could be a way to kill a creature that cannot be permanently killed by any other method -- so the arcanists start the ceremony, and the hunters go out and do their best to drag the creature back.

Perfect? Oh, gosh no. Would I like to see rules for increasing the range of the spell or using some sorta other delivery system? Oh, gosh yes. But it's an answer worth disagreeing with in intelligent commentary, rather than just calling him vague and flaccid.

I believe that I've disagreed with enough rulings to have established myself as "not just a Charles Ryan fanboy", but really, there's no need to be insulting just to get your jollies off.

Or, possibly, there is. Which is sad. But hey, mileage may vary.

 

[Ranger REG]

AFAIK, you're not anyone's fanboy, takyris.

 

[takyris]

Aw, crap. I forget. Am I unintentionally stealing from Hong's world or Barsoomcore's?

For the record, my name is a derivation of a language I invented, roughly translating as either "not to be trusted" or "not trusting", I never decided which...

Hermph.