D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[EzekielRaiden]

You get better results if you add up the dice, the bonuses, and everything else, get the original damage total, and then multiply that.

So if your 2x-crit roll on a sword attack is d8+6 and you roll 2, you end up doing 16 damage.

Oooor...you can just do the really simple thing of "maximize base damage".

It's not even hard to calculate. 2d6? 12. 4d8? 4x8=24. It's extremely easy to maximize the (rolled) damage.

And, as noted, the average result of "roll XdY twice and add" is X(Y+1). Naturally, you'll miss out on the handful of times you could've gotten an utterly ridiculous crit, e.g. 2XY, but in return you avoid the anemic ones.

Also, doing the above actually can result in some significant problems, because it means static damage bonuses are extremely powerful. Consider someone using a greatsword (2d6) with Great Weapon Master and a +5 Strength bonus. A crit then becomes (2d6+11)·2, or 2·(2d6)+22, which gives a spread of 26-46 inclusive, average 36. At least half the damage from that attack--in almost all cases--comes from the static damage, not the rolled damage. And this is using the 5.5e version, it would be worse with the 5.0 version, a whopping 2·(2d6)+30, so at least 60% of the damage, even if you roll the max value, comes from the static bonus alone.

Now imagine if we'd tacked on stuff like a +3 magic weapon.

Maximizing the rolled dice for a critical hit really is a sweet spot of simplicity, impact, and reasonable balance. Heck, one could even argue that it actually hearkens back to an idea from yesteryear--attack matrices, which were just precalculated to-hit tables--and to an idea that 5e actually does use anyway, which is letting players take the rounded-up average result for determining HP by level (which, in my experience, everyone does in fact take that option; I'm sure some people don't, but I've never played with anyone who does.)

It's extraordinarily rare when something manages to be simultaneously simple, effective, and balanced. We really shouldn't ignore it when such opportunities present themselves.

 

[Hussar]

If something is going to cause the wheels to fall off in a D&D adventure, the text will say why.

No. It's doesn't. That's the point. WHY is never, ever explained in D&D. All that you get is the result. The character fell. Why did the character fall? We have no idea. The system is silent. Why did the character miss (or hit)? The system is silent. We have no idea.

That's the point.

A simulationist system will provide some nugget of information about how something happened. You missed because the target dodged. You failed to hurt the baddy because it was too tough and you hit wasn't strong enough. So on and so forth. When the system provides NO information about how something happened, it's not simulating anything.

 

[Hussar]

You claimed, way back then, that D&D was bad/difficult for sandbox games because it took too long.

Many of us said "So what? We don't mind if it takes a while to set up. We like that sort of prep. It's fun for us!"

You refused to accept that.

So I repeat: If someone wants to spend six months prepping a sandbox, then that's obviously not something that will make a system bad/difficult for them. Therefore, D&D is not an inherently bad/difficult system for sandbox games.

Well, it's true. I can't really argue against that. If you enjoy walking a thousand miles, a car is certainly not a faster way to travel.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well, obviously.

Potential is nothing until it's realized; and if it's never realized that still doesn't deny its existence.

You're exploiting two different senses of "potential". One is the potential of a seed: an acorn will become an oak, if it is put into the right environment and nurtured correctly. The other is the potential of a pile of carbon atoms. A pile of carbon atoms could theoretically become an oak, but even if you put that pile of carbon atoms in an environment favorable for an acorn to become an oak, there is no potential that the random pile of carbon atoms will self-assemble into an acorn.

Every player is a potential GM in the way that every pile of carbon atoms (augmented with hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, phosphorus, and various trace elements) is a potential acorn. Not every player is a potential GM in the way an acorn is a potential oak.

Some players will be coal; their potential is pure-theory that will never be realized. Others will be acorns; their potential is very much practical, though it might die before it can sprout, or grow, or mature.

If playing in my game makes them want to start running their own, it'll almost certainly be for one of two reasons:

--- they think either my DMing or my game sucks and have in theory identified ways to improve on what I do and-or what I run, or
--- they really like my game and-or system and have ideas for something similar to it

Nah. There are at least two more alternatives you have ignored:

--- they like how they run your game, and have fun playing it, but when they're in the driver's seat, they want something else
--- they believe you can "make it work" with a style they otherwise wouldn't like, so when they drive, they aren't gonna touch it

The one and only potential-GM (now actual-GM, as I understand it) player I have had fell into the first of these two. He explicitly told me that playing in my game opened his eyes to his actual preferences; he very much enjoyed my game and said so.

Theoretically I have the potential to be (or become) a half-decent skydiver even though I've exactly zero desire to do so.

As above, this is conflating pile-of-carbon-atoms potential with acorn-potential. The former is an easy thing to assert, because it says very little. The latter is claiming something fairly significant, and so is harder to convincingly assert.

The fact is, you're not going to, because even if it could theoretically happen in some alternate universe, it won't happen in this one. No viable path exists for it to happen. Just as no viable path exists for a pile of carbon atoms to self-assemble (with the other missing atomic ingredients) into an acorn, even though, by quantum physics standards, there is a nonzero probability that this could happen.

And, to speak to your concerns about absolute power, oftentimes the best people to give that power to are those who never wanted it in the first place.

I didn't read it that way.

Okay...? That's...pretty much literally what was said. Get people to play in your game because you can then mentor them into giving you something. Not because you enjoy GMing and there's a theoretical potential they might someday do so--doing it because one or more of them will eventually do so. That's using others for your own benefit.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because in this example that's exactly the correct interpretation: a player is using the blank areas of the map as an entry to a) subvert and b) sabotage conceits of the campaign that are already in place.

And if I said what I really think of that I'd get (quite rightly!) modded from here to Jupiter.

My game. My world. If that makes me a "vicious tyrant" in your view, then so be it.

You keep asserting without explaining. That's not very useful. Just restating what you believe, without giving me the reasoning, isn't really a discussion.

 

[Enrahim]

I don't understand why tieflings need a thing that corresponds to hell. Why can't they be--for example--people descended from the byproducts of magical experiments? Or, perhaps, an ethnic group from a distant land, that the local population simply falsely believes that they're scary bad guys when literally no such thing exists? Or...(etc.) Point being, I don't understand this bright line. If it's truly an absolute, utter impasse, we find that out by talking, not by people laying down the law from on high.

More or less, this seems to go far beyond "in-fiction integrity"; it is specifically that, because you didn't conceive of something that looks like a tiefling maybe possibly appearing somewhere in this world, nothing with that appearance can ever appear in this world. That's a dramatically stronger position, and is more or less the kind of thing I've been referring to above. It's not just that the fiction must remain unchanged, it's that the visualization in your head must remain unchanged.

There is a difference between being a thiefling and look like a thiefling. I want to be able to reject outright the former without that creating too much fuzz. The latter I can be very happy to work with the player to acheive.

Protecting other players from abuse is presumed by the nature of a cooperative game. I don't even consider that a "bright line"--it's literally foundational to the experience. Those who choose to undermine the foundation by permitting crazy stuff are on their own.

Who are in a position to not permit something?

I don't see how that third thing is a "bright line" for anyone here? That is, this line doesn't seem to apply to anyone participating in the conversation. The GMs who claim "traditional GM" status have already made clear that "the GM is the world". If the GM feels that a dragon hoard being located in the next room is the correct thing to do, it happens. If they don't, it doesn't. And the GMs who don't do that...build table consensus already and if the table consensus is that there should be a dragon hoard, then there is one.

No, this one was actually quite hard to come up with. But there have been aluded to it in connection with nkn-trad games; like exploiting intent resolution to find rubies in drawers, or what would happen if someone corrupted by power started reading runes. In trad games hardly anyone are thinking like this.

However I now remember I think I have one situation where I was close to having to apply this kind of line. A friend was having a d20 I thought seemed a bit suspicious, so I started recording all results from it for quite a few sessions. When presented with the collected data my player luckily volunteered to change die.

I think having this as an explicit formal power can be helpful for keeping certain types of players aproperiately focused on the game; in particular the more competative minded ones. (And these are not that uncommon in trad, which also reflects back on your comment on RPGs being cooperative)

 

[Enrahim]

Okay. For clarity, I consider this extreme control, far above and beyond what I expect of "friends". Strangers/distant acquaintances, sure--I don't know their judgment. Anyone I'd call "friend" I know enough to at least loosely know their judgment.

A person exercising this level of control over their friends is, to put it bluntly, weird and mildly concerning.


Instant deference is incompatible with giving any response--including comment or criticism. I had bolded this previously, here it is again: "rapidly shoots down any idea...that they are worried might damage their toy", coupled with "The friends...do not question or push, but immediately defers to the owner...whenever they voice any opinion regarding this toy's use."

First part means owner acts with maximum (effectively instant) speed when "shoot[ing] down" ideas. Second excludes any form of question or pushback the moment the owner speaks. Hence, together, they entail instant, total deference.


See above. Instant deference is incompatible with commentary or criticism. They are forms of pushback, no matter how gentle. E.g. pausing and asking for an explanation of why an act is harmful is still pushback. (One major part of my issue with "absolute" power. Its absoluteness is what denies or invalidates commentary/criticism.)


Seems an impasse. Analogically, this is saying "never, ever risk scuffing the paint". Never take actions that can meaningfully change the setting; it must be, in some sense, pristine. When even minor, easily removed blemishes (e.g. fingerprints) are seen as a major concession, the primary concern is clearly the toy, not the other people.


Well, I'm sorry, but as noted above, I don't believe such instant deference is something that can be rooted in friendship. Declaring that it arises from such a thing is not the same as that actually being the case. Friendship is rooted in reciprocity; this isn't reciprocal in the least. There are many things we can declare come from "being good friends" (or any other source) without that actually being true.

Or, if you prefer, that declaration is where you have erred, because you have made your reasoning circular. You have presumed that this situation solely arises from "being good friends", when that very thing is what you wanted to demonstrate. I won't accept the conclusion being included as one of the premises.


I just cannot accept this connection. It does not compute. "Friendship" requires back-and-forth--reciprocity--and this has been specifically defined to have no reciprocity whatsoever.

Ok. There we have it. If you quietly, but outright, rejected one of the fundamental facts of my example, and quietly replaced it with something you came up with yourself that you think make more sense. Is there any wonder we end up with differing visions?

 

[hawkeyefan]

During play, the players probably make more decisions in aggregate than I do.

Outside of play, I make loads of decisions during prep.

So, depending whether one is just looking at during-session play or looking at the overall total, both answers can be correct.

I'm talking about all of it. But even if we limit it to just play, I still have a hard time believing that players make more decisions than the DM. I mean... do you typically not use multiple enemies in combat? More NPCs is more decisions. Although individual NPCs don't make as many decisions as a PC, the fact that the DM is deciding everything about them and all their actions is a significant amount of decisions.

There's no way to know, though... but to me, it seems really obvious which is more likely.

 

[hawkeyefan]

One other point regarding the recent discussion of settings. One of my pet peeves is "original settings" that are nothing more than a different map, deities with different names, and then a list of options that have been removed because the GM doesn't like them.

Are some original settings actually engaging and interesting? Sure. Are most? Nope!

 

[Enrahim]

No.

Now the two of them need to decide if it's worth participating together, when they, or at least one of them, is so bullheaded, they cannot ever work with the other to find an amenable solution.

Personally, I consider it an extremely bad red flag when a GM slams their foot down, "pulls rank", before character creation. That tells me enthusiastic player participation is a low priority to them.

What is the reason for the player to insist on playing dragonborn, that is not similarly a red flag for allowing them into the campaign?