What the heck is "Unfun"?

[Glyfair]

How hard is it to keep track of 20-30 arrowa??? Give me a break. We need a rules change for this????????!!!!!!!!!!!1

You are reducing it to the minimum level. Keeping track of 20-30 arrows isn't a problem, in isolation.

However, when you keep track of 20-30 arrows you have to keep track of where you keep them. If you are carrying them or your horse is carrying them, then you need to deal with encumbrance. Ever fire an arrow and realize that your load changed because of the loss of that arrow from medium to light?

Then add all the other things to track. However many potions do you have? Hit Points? Condition track? Stat damage? Effects of stat damage? Spells? Special conditions (fatigued, cursed, inebriated)? Action Points? Gold? Copper?

Keeping track of one thing isn't onerous. However, when the things you need to keep track pf keep building up, then it's time to revisit the issue. Find the things where tracking them isn't important and find a better way to deal with it.

In 4E it seems that limited use items will be reduced or maybe even eliminated. There goes some bookkeeping.

 

[SavageRobby]

It does not have to be that way, but what if you and your group want ot that way?

Good question, one that can probably only be answered by WotC market research folks. But really, do you want the game to be focused on bookkeeping and minutia? If you could achieve the same amount of "fun" but with less bookkeeping/minutia, would you still want the bookkeping? Or put another way, if you have X time to spend prepping, and you could choose to spend more time on calculating mechanics and less on fluff/story, or more time on fluff/story and less time on calculating mechanics, which would be preferable?

I'm (obviously) in favor of less bookkeeping/mechanics, and more story/fluff - and I suspect (with absolutely nothing to back it up) that the market researchers have come to that same conclusion.

 

[Cadfan]

Never said that couldn't be the case did I? In battle however, if you run out, you run out. I think 300 is a reasonable amount to assume for the guy and his magical quiver. When he creates a quiver of endless arrows we'll talk.

You... still don't seem to be getting it. The problem is that counting the arrows is time consuming, and adds very little to the game. Its a perfect place to put in a rule which lets the player skate over this issue. We do this already with spell components, and I think its a good idea there. You appear to agree, and don't see a contradiction with your position on arrows for reasons I cannot comprehend. How and why you feel it is right and just that a player count out individual arrows from a quiver of 300, but that another player should be able to just assume he has an infinite supply of small wooden pyramids, woven doll clothes, silver string, chalk, and bat guano, I will never understand. Even if you make that second player occasionally say, "I replenish my components," every so often when he's in town.

C'mon man, I'm talking about obvious expendables like arrows and spell componants, especially expensive componants. Versimilitude doesn't have to be completely simulationist just enough to allow for the suspension of disbelief. Anything more is usually unnecessary.

I agree completely. I simply think that there are situations in the present rules where verisimilitude is getting in the way of speed of game play. As someone quoted earlier, "20 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours."

There is some level of chance and regrettably that can lead to PC death but just as likely it can add up to villian death. Every good sword cuts both ways. Adventure game require the risk inherent in facing off with powerful foes who can kill you and overcoming them, this is what seperates real heroes from the mooks, not just their stats and magic weapons

Again, "I don't like random, unavoidable save or die effects" and "I don't like risk" are not the same thing. Risk is an intrinsic part of the game. Random, unavoidable save or die effects are just arbitrary impediments to actually doing things. What makes risk fun is encountering and interacting with it. You don't interact with a save or die, you just melt.

If you want a warforged monk in my homebrew setting, you maybe, just maybe going to be a one of a kind sentient construct and not part of a race of such beings. The monk may be doable so long as the "warforged" (renamed certainly) hails from a region with such skills. That's fair. Don't ask for another one if this one gets killed though, I'm reasonable but not some schmuck.

Exactly. If you'd taken that position from the beginning instead of ranting about the sense of entitlement the kiddies feel these days, this side of the discussion never would have happened.

You are completely mischaracterizing me and setting up a straw man for you to knock over. I never indicated that I acted in such a manner and the above examples should demonstrate that.

Actually, you had. You seem to really enjoy the use of lengthy hyperbole slamming other people, and today's internet lesson is that this causes other people to respond in kind.

 

[Cadfan]

How hard is it to keep track of 20-30 arrowa??? Give me a break. We need a rules change for this????????!!!!!!!!!!!1

Its easy to keep track of 20-30 arrows. The rules work just fine at level 2. Its when you get to level 16, and you're rapid shot feat lets you fire five arrows per turn, or 4 with manyshot, and your quiver has 300 arrows in it, and it costs 15 gp to fill that entire quiver and you're carrying 60,000 gp in a bag of holding, that it gets obnoxious.

The rule starts out good, and rapidly goes bad. If arrow fire in D&D was based on a "one arrow per round" model, where the individual arrows got better as you leveled up, it would continue to work well. But instead D&D uses a "hail of arrows" model, which makes the bookkeeping much more time consuming as you advance, and for even less importance since the gold to get new arrows is a smaller and smaller portion of your total wealth.

 

[Gallo22]

I haven't read all these posts but from what I've read elsewhere "unfun" is also known as "challenges".

It really stinks in Monopoly when you don't land on the property you want five times around the board, so maybe they should make a new edition where you automaticlaly land where you want after a few tries. Brilliant.

-DM Jeff

SO WELL SAID, WITH SO FEW WORDS, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

 

[Gallo22]

Wait, "only have your character to worry about"? . I also have a job, a fiancee, bills, my homebrew worlds and smaller campaign settings, my cat, some historical reading, and a hotter-than-all-hell 9' by 9' custom-built Necromunda board (WiP) to worry about. Gaming is 5 hours a week, give or take, I get to sit down and play in the classic sense without worrying about getting to choose between a) fulfilling the campaign timeline and clash with the lich lord when he emerges from his sanctuary to finish the ritual or b) casting lightning bolt at all for the next six sessions, climactic fight included, because there's no goddamn amber in this part of the campaign world.

You can count nails and waterskins all you like, I seem to prefer counting apocalypses (apocalyptii?) averted and warlords humbled.

I hope you joking???????.... :\

 

[Raven Crowking]

SO WELL SAID, WITH SO FEW WORDS, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

Seconded.

 

[Gallo22]

Its easy to keep track of 20-30 arrows. The rules work just fine at level 2. Its when you get to level 16, and you're rapid shot feat lets you fire five arrows per turn, or 4 with manyshot, and your quiver has 300 arrows in it, and it costs 15 gp to fill that entire quiver and you're carrying 60,000 gp in a bag of holding, that it gets obnoxious.

The rule starts out good, and rapidly goes bad. If arrow fire in D&D was based on a "one arrow per round" model, where the individual arrows got better as you leveled up, it would continue to work well. But instead D&D uses a "hail of arrows" model, which makes the bookkeeping much more time consuming as you advance, and for even less importance since the gold to get new arrows is a smaller and smaller portion of your total wealth.

As a DM of over 20 years (playing D&D over 30) I don't let my games get this silly. I don't need 4E to know how to prevent this.

 

[Cam Banks]

"Verisimilitude" is hard to spell. That's my first comment.

"Unfun" itself becomes unfun if it's used to eliminate any sense of player understanding over their character's niche. It's why I don't always get people who multiclass out the wazoo and complain that they can't do anything well. "It's not fair that I can't do X and Y and Z as well as single-classed X, Y, and Z!" Funny, that. Or unfunny, perhaps.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Gallo22]

You know, your tone aside, I'll be honest, Sundragon. After that ridiculous list of non-issues you opened with, I haven't been engaging you with any degree of seriousness, and I guess it'd be more polite to do otherwise or bow out.

Since you're busy trying to prove your playstyle objectively right, I'll guess you didn't read my list of lessons very clearly or attentively and not continue responding to your arguments on this matter.

Have a good thread.

oh brother!!!! Go eat a cookie or something....