D&D 5E Mike Mearls interview - states that they may be getting off of the 2 AP/year train.

[bmfrosty]

I don't actually know what you mean by that question. According to the definition of 'gaslighting' I just found in a Google search, no.

Gaslighting is when you tell someone that you didn't experience a problem so that they question if it's really a problem.

It's a little hard to see unless you know how to look for it. A good example is here:

https://www.themarysue.com/odyssey-con-issues/

Read Gregory Rihn's letter to Monica Valentinelli.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Why? Why does it make his eyes roll and question the mathematical proficiency of the person who came up with it?

I don't generally grill people on why they like or dislike a thing, so I can't go into any detail here, but while expressing his disatisfaction with the concept, I do remember him saying something about any mathematical complication that doesn't add something being inherently stupid math. IIRC, he likened it to those people who try, poorly, to use advanced vocabulary for no reason other than to seem smarter than they are, and end up communicating poorly as a result.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I don't generally grill people on why they like or dislike a thing, so I can't go into any detail here, but while expressing his disatisfaction with the concept, I do remember him saying something about any mathematical complication that doesn't add something being inherently stupid math. IIRC, he likened it to those people who try, poorly, to use advanced vocabulary for no reason other than to seem smarter than they are, and end up communicating poorly as a result.

I think the actual math was less of a problem for people than wrapping their heads around the idea that the more armour you wear, the LOWER your AC.


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[Remathilis]

Seriously? We're arguing that THAC0 is not annoying?

I consider myself reasonably proficient at mental math, but many people are not. D&D requires you to add a lot of numbers quickly, between attack roll and damage. It's far easier to add a number to a d20, and remember that "high is always good".

The only reason THAC0 survived into 2E was because it was a sacred cow. Thankfully they killed it for 3.

Thac0 got more complicated the more exhausted and/or inebriated one got.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think the actual math was less of a problem for people than wrapping their heads around the idea that the more armour you wear, the LOWER your AC.

I believe that was part of my friend's point. It's more complicated, and potentially confusing for many people, than math that starts at 0, and goes either up or down, but adds nothing to the game via that added complication. It is not, in literally any way, better than other common systems.
There is no gain from the complication. At best, you have a group that doesn't notice.

Broadly, you have groups that get confused by it, to varying degrees, because it runs counter to their intuitive sense of how improvement in a thing should be mathematically represented.

And his...criticism, boiled down, it seemed, to questioning how good at math the designer was, because any competent mathematician knows that you only add complication to a system if there is a benefit to the system via that complication. and he wouldn't take "it was better than the old system" as an excuse.

 

[PMárk]

It was certainly easier on the brain than the dice pools of Earthdawn or the multi-success/multi-failure system from the World of Darkness games.

Really? Wow.

I never got how dice pools are more crunchy? Especially in WoD. Take as many dice as your dots or ability number (in, for example, SR), roll, count the successes, done. I always considered it more easy-to-grasp and intuitive than any version of keeping in mind D&D's myriad modifiers from turn-to-turn.

 

[CapnZapp]

Gaslighting is when you tell someone that you didn't experience a problem so that they question if it's really a problem.

It's a little hard to see unless you know how to look for it. A good example is here:

https://www.themarysue.com/odyssey-con-issues/

Read Gregory Rihn's letter to Monica Valentinelli.

Then in all honesty the term might be too obscure for you to expect others to know it

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[Zardnaar]

Thac0 got more complicated the more exhausted and/or inebriated one got.

Longest session ever of D&D used THAC0- 28 hours school holidays/students/unemployed. Started around 10am one day wenth through to 2 pmish the next day around 1998.

I also discovered 9 PCs is to many, booze does not mix with DMing, rollerblading and happy hour do not go together and some women do not like being called sturdy.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Really? Wow.

I never got how dice pools are more crunchy? Especially in WoD. Take as many dice as your dots or ability number (in, for example, SR), roll, count the successes, done. I always considered it more easy-to-grasp and intuitive than any version of keeping in mind D&D's myriad modifiers from turn-to-turn.

It was an era of overly complex rules systems of one stripe or another. My first RPG was a MERP set my mother bought me when I was 10 or so (Middle Earth RolePlaying, which used the Rolemaster system), and it was just charts charts charts. the next was Earthdawn which my friend bought; I was maybe 13 or 14. That one made enough sense to play, and we did, and it was great.

But then I found 2e D&D, and it was so elegant and simple compared to the others it blew our minds. The Earthdawn setting was great, but the mechanics were wonky and the dice pools and steps were just clunky. D&D, with its simple "roll a d20 and add modifiers" mechanic, was astounding.

We never managed to get a sustained WoD campaign going, largely because, again, the mechanics seemed so finicky compared to the elegance of D&D. We have Castle Falkenstein a shot (based on the positive reviews it got in Dragon Magazine), we played a game called Og for a while, some of us ran Marvel Superheroes and Star Trek and even Toon, but we all came back to D&D. It was just an easier and more flexible system. Almost everybody knew how to play it, and it was simple to introduce new players who didn't.

Again, this was at a nerd farm of a high school, and we lived on campus so we saw each other all the time. But even after graduation, whose of us who went to (and ultimately dropped out of, but that's a different story) the same college kept going with it.

THAC0 was easy. The core D20 system that replaced it may have been easier, but it wasn't by too great a margin.

 

[schnee]

I just remember the balance of positive vs. negative numbers seemed cool.

Going into negatives meant 'powerful', like a switch was flipped. Animals and dinosaurs had positive AC, but demons and devils were negative! Oooooh.

The problem was it was so mentally fidgety that the to-hit table on the AD&D DM Screen is permanently burned into my brain, like the three defensive bunkers on that 30-year old Space Invaders game at your local laundry. We literally could not function without charts because of that 'switch'.

So, it felt thematically cool at the time. I was also twelve, so keep that in mind.

So glad it's gone.