D&D General Why DPR Sucks: Discussing Whiteroom Theorycrafting

[Maxperson]

Ham and Cheese.

Green Eggs and Ham.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Todd, if you have issues with something Treantmonk said on some other message board, TELL HIM THERE.

I have no problem with Treantmonk at all. I do think it is relevant to this conversation, which has it's genesis from his Monks Suck video essay, his public statements regarding DPS Calculation being an Art and the video just being his opinion, and not definitive.

I didn't hack his email, these are public posts on Giants in the Playground....his responses to other posters. The thread on GITP is called "Treantmonk on Monks in 5e" if people want to read it for themselves...it is only at 16 pages..compared to 40+ here.

Disputes about how to interpret the evidentiary value of complex factors like DPS happen in science all the time. A scientist that responds to questions raised regarding methodology and interpretations of data in their study by stating "well it is just my personal opinion anyway",
would have their professional reputation take a damaging blow.

I'm not insulting Treantmonks intelligence, opinion, right to hold said opinion or anything else about him....that was someone else.
I am just disappointed at his response as I detailed earlier.

I am also disappointed that Galileo recanted....is that somehow insulting Galileo?

At this point, consensus seems to be DPS is an imperfect measurement tool, and thus care needs to be taken in assigning the appropriate weight to values derived from testing DPS to overall impact to gameplay.

I don't think that is an extreme position, as this thread seemingly shows.

Now I will admit to calling Alan Iverson "a chucker"....because well....scoreboard, baby!
(that and 20 year old basketball beefs are best forgotten and forgiven)

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think the reason DPR ends up coming up so often is because modeling and trying to determine the effectiveness of DnD is a lot like economics. There are so many factors that come into play, that you either have to assume certain facts are static, or you just give up on any analysis at all.

And the most static of things to work with is DPR. They are the most raw numbers with the least possible disagreement in their implementation. A longsword with a +4 mod does 1d8+4 if the person is using a shield. No one can disagree with that statement, and a single attack on average does 8.5 damage.


But as the Beastmaster just showed us, there are a lot of factors that come up that just can't be measured. Like, whether or not the DM is going to allow your companion to use armor without a penalty. Barding and armor is a classic trope in fantasy (bears get it all the time) so it isn't unreasonable, and since it needs to be specially fitted, it could be like Elven Chain and just have state that you always have proficiency in it, because wearing it is like wearing nothing at all.

A perfectly valid view, and one that makes a huge difference in the calculations. Because the Snake having 15 AC or 23 AC is massively different.

And then you add in teammates. How much are you getting from the cleric's bless, or the Druid's Faerie Fire? Loot: Are you getting lots of custom magic weapons or not? ECT

And that is only combat. Social interactions are even more complicated, and exploration can be the same. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say the social pillar of the game is so complicated that it is literally unmeasurable. I'm going to use a Comic Book Card Game story as an example.

We have a massive, multiverse ending threat. A being that warps space and time like you crumple paper. You are a gun toting, powerless individual with a gritty past. Oh, and your mother who destroyed one of your eyes and hates your guts is one of the most powerful supervillainesses on the planet who runs a cult of super-powered villains. And after an impassioned "I know you hate my powerless guts, but this thing will kill everything" you get her to help fight, taking the pressure off the team in a key moment.

That may sound like snowflake-ism, but I want to remind people this is supposed to represent a character with decades of comic book history, in the "final arc" of the campaign, who has been dealing with this plot point of their mother for a long time. It was earned, and that is what makes the social pillar impossible to measure.


I am playing a character right now who could fairly trivially raise an army (we actually did) because I am the Lord of a recoverying city, and I control the treasury and the food. I could likely (and would never) coup the other players and leaders of the city easily... except that the Barbarian is the High Priestess of the religion, and due to stupid NAt 100 luck rolls and a blessed pool of water has literally beaten a plague to death in front of the town... twice. (I'm not kidding, she is ridiculous and we love her)

And you can't measure that stuff, even though it is equally important to the game. So, we default to the stuff we can measure

 

[Chaosmancer]

I have no problem with Treantmonk at all. I do think it is relevant to this conversation, which has it's genesis from his Monks Suck video essay, his public statements regarding DPS Calculation being an Art and the video just being his opinion, and not definitive.

I didn't hack his email, these are public posts on Giants in the Playground....his responses to other posters. The thread on GITP is called "Treantmonk on Monks in 5e" if people want to read it for themselves...it is only at 16 pages..compared to 40+ here.

Disputes about how to interpret the evidentiary value of complex factors like DPS happen in science all the time. A scientist that responds to questions raised regarding methodology and interpretations of data in their study by stating "well it is just my personal opinion anyway",
would have their professional reputation take a damaging blow.

I'm not insulting Treantmonks intelligence, opinion, right to hold said opinion or anything else about him....that was someone else.
I am just disappointed at his response as I detailed earlier.

I am also disappointed that Galileo recanted....is that somehow insulting Galileo?

At this point, consensus seems to be DPS is an imperfect measurement tool, and thus care needs to be taken in assigning the appropriate weight to values derived from testing DPS to overall impact to gameplay.

I don't think that is an extreme position, as this thread seemingly shows.

Now I will admit to calling Alan Iverson "a chucker"....because well....scoreboard, baby!
(that and 20 year old basketball beefs are best forgotten and forgiven)

Also @Mistwell , I brought up this point in the thread on monks on this site, because it was relevant to the discussion. Along with a few other points, such as him counting spells with multi-round durations when calculating his baseline damage for a class (specifically he called out Spirit Guardians as something he considers) which, unless we watched all his videos, we likely did not know, and was good to include in a discussion about his analysis.

The only reason I never did link that thread from GiTP was because I vaguely remembered that linking other forums is generally frowned upon.

Also, talking to Treantmonk on that thread would be hard at this point, as shortly after those posts, he said he was leaving the thread, stating the agree to disagree because it is all opinions style of discussion. No judgement on my end, just reporting.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I am also disappointed that Galileo recanted....

Without the benefits of Kepler's observations Galileo didn't have sufficient evidence to justify a paradigm shift. Observations of Venus and the moons of Jupiter where suggestive, but don't tell anything directly about the Earth.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Wait, let's be clear about what the two of you just did. You 1) went to a thread which is different from the one where Treantmonk is at, and bashed him. 2) part of the bash is to name things he said ON A DIFFERENT MESSAGE BOARD (without

Wait, let's be clear about what the two of you just did. You 1) went to a thread which is different from the one where Treantmonk is at, and bashed him. 2) part of the bash is to name things he said ON A DIFFERENT MESSAGE BOARD (without even a link to it) in cross-board drama fashion which I believe is against the rules here. 3) Gammadoodler then make a snarky personal attack against Treantmonk, again doing it in the thread he specifically isn't in rather than the one he was responding it.

Todd, if you have issues with something Treantmonk said on some other message board, TELL HIM THERE. And Gammadoodler, if you have personal issues with Treantmonk such that you're calling him dumb apparently (I have no idea what - it was just a direct context-less insult), maybe don't be a coward and do that directly to his face?

What the heck has gotten into you two? Are you just trolling from some other message board because of some personal beef over something which happened there?

First things first. I acknowledge that snark without substance doesn't really add to a discussion and I should have thought twice before posting.

I have no personal issue with Treatmonk. Guessing so based on less than 20 words is a pretty monumental leap. My 'issue' is with the pattern of behavior.

The video in question, is deliberately inflammatory and is full of arguments that are some combination of incomplete, internally inconsistent, or intentionally ignore normal D&D gameplay (has anyone yet tried to defend the role of horses in his argument?). A lot of time went into this. 45 minutes of video requires scripting, shooting, editing, sound, graphics, etc. So it's not like any of the inconsistencies or omissions are just 'off the cuff'.

And Treatmonk holds himself out as a system master at D&D (optomancer or whatever). And, this board, including you, has regarded him as such, which is fine; I enjoyed the wizard guide too.

So our starting place is with an 'expert' who makes a provocative video, presented as being data-driven, which employs arguments most generously described as 'questionable'. But it's not like the behavior stopped there. Treatmonk decided to then engage with the resulting discussions, apparently on multiple message boards. And, near as I can tell, he has provided zero substantive response to any of the criticisms regarding his methodology, here or elsewhere.

So, he's making inflammatory content, and then following it around the D&D community, discussing it without explaining it, and then disengaging when pressed on his arguments. This is heat, not light.

I don't think he's dumb. I think the behavior is cynical...

which is a sentiment better conveyed with context rather than simple snark, I realize now.

 

[Asisreo]

I think the reason DPR ends up coming up so often is because modeling and trying to determine the effectiveness of DnD is a lot like economics. There are so many factors that come into play, that you either have to assume certain facts are static, or you just give up on any analysis at all.

And the most static of things to work with is DPR. They are the most raw numbers with the least possible disagreement in their implementation. A longsword with a +4 mod does 1d8+4 if the person is using a shield. No one can disagree with that statement, and a single attack on average does 8.5 damage.

Even in economics, they don't just calculate based on numbers. If they did, we'd probably have economic crashes one-after-another.

Most economists use a model determined using past models. Basically, they look at what happened during a past trend to predict what will happen during a present trend.

No matter what field of study you want to be in, unless it's pure mathematics, you want live data.

 

[FrogReaver]

Even in economics, they don't just calculate based on numbers. If they did, we'd probably have economic crashes one-after-another.

Most economists use a model determined using past models. Basically, they look at what happened during a past trend to predict what will happen during a present trend.

No matter what field of study you want to be in, unless it's pure mathematics, you want live data.

Statistics and data can’t answer the types of questions we are asking. There’s no way for the data to differentiate the character from the player. As such the best data can tell us is how much a class contributes with an average player using it. The case could very much be the opposite with expert players or poor players. Then there’s the DM, which matters even for published adventures. Then there’s published adventures which many don’t actually play.

All your data would be able to tell me at the end of the day would be how average players playing a class with a specific build perform in the average dms run through of an average published adventure. Thats not a question anyone cares about.

Recognizing the limitations of data is the most important part of analytics.

 

[Asisreo]

Statistics and data can’t answer the types of questions we are asking. There’s no way for the data to differentiate the character from the player. As such the best data can tell us is how much a class contributes with an average player using it. The case could very much be the opposite with expert players or poor players. Then there’s the DM, which matters even for published adventures. Then there’s published adventures which many don’t actually play.

All your data would be able to tell me at the end of the day would be how average players playing a class with a specific build perform in the average dms run through of an average published adventure. Thats not a question anyone cares about.

Recognizing the limitations of data is the most important part of analytics.

That's why I suggested having an actual play-by-post log, because we'll have a record on exactly what happened.

It wouldn't matter if the player was good or bad, the data will speak volumes. If a player was playing suboptimally, we'd see that. If the DM decided to homebrew a monster, we'd see the hombrew monster's stats.

And we can use that data to determine how often a player will encounter specific sets of monsters or the difficulty of playing a class. These are questions we brush aside because DPR is seen as more important.

No more assuming the average monster a party will face at a specific level is a specific CR, we'll have the data. No more assuming mobility does or does not play a large role in combat, we'll have the data. No more assuming most monsters in a campaign have resistance or immunity to nonmagical attacks, we'll have data.

And we can further organize data into subcategories. Out of all the DM's that use homebrew monsters, which types are more prominent? How often does a DM that allows short rests add time-pressures?

We'll have a plethora of answers that people throw away to make assumptions. But honestly, more often than not, data usually doesn't show what's expected.

 

[Mistwell]

I have no problem with Treantmonk at all. I do think it is relevant to this conversation, which has it's genesis from his Monks Suck video essay, his public statements regarding DPS Calculation being an Art and the video just being his opinion, and not definitive.

I didn't hack his email, these are public posts on Giants in the Playground....his responses to other posters. The thread on GITP is called "Treantmonk on Monks in 5e" if people want to read it for themselves...it is only at 16 pages..compared to 40+ here.

Disputes about how to interpret the evidentiary value of complex factors like DPS happen in science all the time. A scientist that responds to questions raised regarding methodology and interpretations of data in their study by stating "well it is just my personal opinion anyway",
would have their professional reputation take a damaging blow.

I'm not insulting Treantmonks intelligence, opinion, right to hold said opinion or anything else about him....that was someone else.
I am just disappointed at his response as I detailed earlier.

I am also disappointed that Galileo recanted....is that somehow insulting Galileo?

At this point, consensus seems to be DPS is an imperfect measurement tool, and thus care needs to be taken in assigning the appropriate weight to values derived from testing DPS to overall impact to gameplay.

I don't think that is an extreme position, as this thread seemingly shows.

Now I will admit to calling Alan Iverson "a chucker"....because well....scoreboard, baby!
(that and 20 year old basketball beefs are best forgotten and forgiven)

I found the thread on Giant in the Playground and it's NEARLY 500 REPLIES LONG. And the only thing obvious from it was he was having to defend himself against a huge group, it went on for a long time, and like most long threads with 20 to 1, it eventually ended with "Well it's OK if you don't like my opinion".

And then you guys came HERE to continue it. In multiple threads. I guess because he stopped responding to you there? Apparently because, in your words, you want his "professional reputation [to] take a damaging blow" as if he's some professional scientist presenting a paper as opposed to a D&D fan who made a video with his opinion about a class sucking?

Not a good look dude.