What the heck is "Unfun"?

[Cadfan]

Karin's Dad- I'm glad that this works for you, but I tend to think that the fact that you needed a full page to explain your house rules and game aids you use to speed up the resolution of door opening suggests that if a faster mechanic for trapped doors can be created, it should be implemented.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I love how the OP banned fighters for being underpowered. That's genuinely awesome.

Your bringing that up, where it has no bearing to the content of the OP, and with the tone you are using, is also a form of attack by ridicule.

 

[gizmo33]

If I say "my singing sucks" and I don't care whether or not you believe me, I don't have to demonstrate.

But then how do you defend the gaming habits of a group of people that don't exist? If the OP says that 5 headed people are bad drivers, it seems like I would have to prove the existence of 5 headed people before I told him he was wrong.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Your bringing that up, where it has no bearing to the content of the OP, and with the tone you are using, is also a form of attack by ridicule.

I was being 100% serious, I do love it.

We need some sort of icon to indicate one isn't being sarcastic.

 

[gizmo33]

sar·casm Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sahr-kaz-uhm]

Yea, thanks. That pronunciation guide is so not pedantic.

 

[SavageRobby]

(edit: BTW - I got my eye on you "strawman". My spidey sense tells me that you're not being used properly either most of the time.)

Probably true. Also probably true that next to "unfun", it is probably the most overused word in this thread. Yeesh. This was briefly an interesting discussion.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But then how do you defend the gaming habits of a group of people that don't exist? If the OP says that 5 headed people are bad drivers, it seems like I would have to prove the existence of 5 headed people before I told him he was wrong.

If your goal is to convince someone that they are wrong, the onus of proof is always on you.

If you are simply stating that someone is wrong, and do not care whether they accept your statement or not, there is no burden of proof.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I was being 100% serious, I do love it.

We need some sort of icon to indicate one isn't being sarcastic.

Sorry, I thought there was a law requiring sarcasm on the Interweb. We shall send the police around directly.....

 

[Rolzup]

Let me share with you a Truth: Different people want different things.

I was, briefly, a player in a game where the PCs were, essentially, pirates. With an airship. During the first session, one of the players wanted to nail down exactly how much of a percentage each member of the crew would get from the plunder that we took, to the point of (if I remember correctly) writing out a contract.

This was something that she clearly enjoyed doing. Me, though, I found it kinda...pointless. Tedious, even. Every minute spent discussing bonuses and death benefits was a minute NOT spent buckling swashes and running scurvy dogs through with my rapier. This wasn't the reason that I bowed out of the game -- that was lack of time, plain and simple -- but it made the decision a bit easier.

These days, I get to play for about four hours every other week. I want to spend those four hours ADVENTURING, not preparing for the journey or worrying over the minutia. We can (and do) handle those details over e-mail where and when it's really neccessary, but for the most part I don't really think that we bother any more.

And that works, because we're all of like mind on the subject. If we did have someone in the game who insisted on playing this sort of stuff out, I suspect that we'd adapt. Or more, likely, the other guy would.

I'd prefer for the default to be that we don't have to bother with such things. It's easy enough to add resource management to the game if you want it, surely.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't believe that "keeping track of arrows" is anything other than an example. People aren't concerned about arrows, they either keep track of it or don't. No one is going to avoid 4E or buy into 4E because of how it deals with tracking arrows.

Dealing with bookkeeping is an issue. I wouldn't say it's a key issue, but it's not insignificant. The amount of bookkeeping in the game is an issue that some are concerned with. The amount of bookkeeping insignificant things in D&D is something I've seen keep people from trying the game. They don't want to deal with the hassle. They'll sit down and play Scrabble where they have 7 tiles to track, and someone has to keep score.

Agreed.

However, my point remains (although I might have been obscure).

Players in 3.5 (and presumably in 4E) have to keep track of a LOT of things. Not just arrows and coins and food and encumbrance, but 30+ abilities and 100+ spells and 20+ items by 20th level.

That's a lot to keep track of. Using new rules to drop the bookkeeping of arrows and coins and food and encumbrance is hardly a drop in the bucket.

The real difficulty of a level based system (just like the real difficulty in real life of growing older) is that PCs start acquiring more and more and more stuff. Be that actual physical stuff like magic items, or abilities.


This is one of the reasons that high level games are not played as often, or at least in my experience and opinion.

People are complaining about Vanican magic (or precisely, selecting spells). The reason they are complaining about this is because it does indeed take a long time to not only select spells, but to determine which spells are cast first (longer duration ones), which spells stack with which PC abilities or magic items or other spells, and even which spells are better than others, etc.

All of this stuff takes time. No doubt about it.

But, even if all spell casters become spontaneous casters and equipment / encumbrance is removed from the game, higher level play will STILL be a lot of bookkeeping / lookups, etc.

That's the very nature of the beast. When PCs gain stuff (i.e. spells, items, abilities) as they level up, it takes longer and longer to understand and coordinate it all. No matter what the designers do, 4E will not fix that. It's basic math where gaining more at higher levels typically adds to low level acquisitions, it does not replace low level acquisitions.