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It's not even about optimal builds, it's about getting to build at all. If you make a full Rogue in 5e, you choose your race, occupation, equipment, and level 3 archetype, and that's all the choice you ever get.
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Feb 3, 2015 01:16
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LeSquide posted:Back on the topic of Sports Games, this exists: Someone needs to hack A League Of Their Own out of Night Witches.
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Feb 3, 2015 01:42
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Glorified Scrivener posted:But a sort of semi-related to that discussion occurred to me - do other people really run a campaign settings where every character, pc or npc, is fully tuned and rigorously adheres to a set of optimal choices with no significant deviations? I mean, the logical extrapolation from the advice being given is that there are no longer rogues in-universe, because no character would choose the sub-optimal path to achieving their goals of doing roguish things. While some crazy grogs probably do run games like this, the majority obviously do not. I disagree that this is the logical extrapolation from the advice given, though. A player asks for build advice. Giving build advice usually involves pointing the player towards good choices. That in no way means that optimal builds are the only thing that exists, or that all characters in-universe would follow it. Edit: also another reason why NPCs shouldn't be built like PCs. Builds don't exist for NPCs because they aren't players. Only players get to be classes. IT BEGINS fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Feb 3, 2015 |
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Feb 3, 2015 02:13
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Evil Mastermind posted:The whole problem seemed to hit a nadir during the early days of 4e, when people would be having civil discussions about the game and how they liked it, then some jackass would come in and TABLETOP WOW NOT AN RPG all over the place. Because these people seemed completely unable to wrap their heads around why this pissed people off.
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Feb 3, 2015 02:23
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Glorified Scrivener posted:But a sort of semi-related to that discussion occurred to me - do other people really run a campaign settings where every character, pc or npc, is fully tuned and rigorously adheres to a set of optimal choices with no significant deviations?
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Feb 3, 2015 02:28
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Evil Mastermind posted:I don't think I've ever stated up an NPC who's not intended to be used in a fight scene. What's the point?
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Feb 3, 2015 02:32
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Really Pants posted:It's not even about optimal builds, it's about getting to build at all. If you make a full Rogue in 5e, you choose your race, occupation, equipment, and level 3 archetype, and that's all the choice you ever get. I largely agree with the advice given in the thread - there ain't many choices to be made. It spurred a sort of but not really related thought, which I'm interested in people's opinions of, since TG is the best place i've found to talk about games online. I got interrupted a bunch of times when I was writing the previous post, maybe this is a better restatement; Do other people really care a lot about the optimization aspect of both character building and game design in their home games? I've only gamed in a couple of fairly insular gaming communities (yay living on the fringes of America!) and have found that players trying to build an optimal character to be less common than people who want to build a Legolas or Locke Lamora stand in and have fun. I mean, I get discussing game design as a theory as being fun and that published adventures/organized play needs to be targeted at sort of idealized "average party". But wherever I go online, not just here, threads that discuss games read a lot like MMO character build guides. Which, I get that the mechanics are the mechanics, and there's only a limited number of builds, so certain combinations are advantageous. But in a broader sense, and completely anecdotally, are people really building their pc's the way you do for an MMO, where you don't have any other real input into the game, or are your parties also weird and non-optimal, but fun? And running about in weird, non-optimal settings? IT BEGINS posted:I disagree that this is the logical extrapolation from the advice given, though. A player asks for build advice. Giving build advice usually involves pointing the player towards good choices. That in no way means that optimal builds are the only thing that exists, or that all characters in-universe would follow it. 100% in agreement on NPCs not being built by the same rules as PCs. I don't generally stat them if they're non-combatants, unless social mechanics are part of the game (generic shopkeepers have a barter skill score), except for the occasional exercise in "can I get ideas for the game from looking at what this character can do according to the rules" and then only in certain systems. Mainly 3.5/Pathfinder and older editions. As far as the optimal build thing, if the (N)PCs who make good choices succeed more often, eventually they'll be more common than those who don't. Sort of a natural selection mechanic. I am not proposing in all seriousness that world's should be built like that if the goal is fun, but that they would be if the players and the DM always made the "best" choices for their characters. Seriously, I'm not trying to make a concerted philosophical argument/pick a fight about editions or play styles. I've basically only gamed in three settings - elementary/high school, college and where I live now. The last two of those occurred in western states with relatively small populations, so I'm genuinely curious what the conversations other people have at their tables about character builds sound like.
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Feb 3, 2015 02:33
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I'm playing in 2 real life D&D games at the moment with people I used to play MMOs with, and yeah, some of them really did start out by playing cookie cutter builds they grabbed from the char op boards, because that's simply what they were used to I guess. It probably didn't help that we started by playing Keep on the Shadowfell, so our first few months of the game was pretty much just a series of fights vaguely connected by a story we'd lost interest in, not unlike running an MMO dungeon I suppose 
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Feb 3, 2015 02:53
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I spent like, half an hour one time trying to crop that exact picture into avatar size, before realizing that you couldn't get the whole Modron in without making it really, really tiny and awful, or cutting off a big chunk of it. The fishing rod is just terrible. Ettin, you are far bolder than I.
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Feb 3, 2015 02:54
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Glorified Scrivener posted:But a GM has a huge advantage over a dev team or publisher because they can adjust the difficulty of the adventure to suit the players/characters at that specific table, so balance shouldn't really be the overriding consideration of someone who isn't running an organized play scenario. Sometimes I get to thinking that this is actually a weakness of traditional RPGs: the ability of a GM to tailor the game specifically to the capabilities and preferences of the players can paper over a lot of things that would be otherwise patched out in a video game. When you play a class-based game, I consider there to be an unspoken agreement between the designer and the player that selecting a class includes a guarantee that the class is good at the thing that the class describes itself as. If you select a Rogue, but a Bard is better at being a Rogue than a Rogue, that's a problem. At the same time though, if nobody plays a Bard and the GM plays fast and loose and customized enough that the Rogue still feels like he's really good at being a Rogue, is that still a problem? Some schools of thought (that I do not agree with) would suggest that it isn't.
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Feb 3, 2015 03:22
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gradenko_2000 posted:At the same time though, if nobody plays a Bard and the GM plays fast and loose and customized enough that the Rogue still feels like he's really good at being a Rogue, is that still a problem? Some schools of thought (that I do not agree with) would suggest that it isn't. It's the Oberoni fallacy: "this problem is a non-issue because you can always pretend like it isn't." At some point you stop playing the game and start working against it.
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Feb 3, 2015 04:03
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In any game with a strict mechanical imbalance, you are either ok with it, or you are not. If you are ok with it, there's no complaint to be had; yes, class A is better then class B. Good. If you are not ok with it, getting mad at people who point it out solves nothing. If people are pointing out that there are indeed classes supremely better then others, get mad at the lazy designers, not at the people who noticed the problem. Only in this loving hobby, I swear. Who looked at the Assassin's Creed: Unity bugs and then yelled at the players for encountering them outside of the most mockable fanboys?
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Feb 3, 2015 04:08
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Zurui posted:It's the Oberoni fallacy: "this problem is a non-issue because you can always pretend like it isn't." A.k.a. the "rule zero fallacy".
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Feb 3, 2015 04:15
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Glorified Scrivener posted:But a sort of semi-related to that discussion occurred to me - do other people really run a campaign settings where every character, pc or npc, is fully tuned and rigorously adheres to a set of optimal choices with no significant deviations? I mean, the logical extrapolation from the advice being given is that there are no longer rogues in-universe, because no character would choose the sub-optimal path to achieving their goals of doing roguish things. A long while back I ran an Exalted game where all the antagonists were fully statted and created using the character creation rules from the books. I found that I was being forced to do more and more optimization with all this, not because of any in-setting reason, but just because otherwise the fights were ending up way too one-sided for my min-maxxed players to be entertained by. In retrospect I understand that I was an insane person for following the game's rules, and in the same situation now I'd basically just pick dice pool sizes and then pull some cool thematically-appropriate powers out of my rear end that seem strong enough to challenge people and call it a day.
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Feb 3, 2015 04:22
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Plague of Hats posted:The Fate Communities on G+ seem pretty nice.
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Feb 3, 2015 04:45
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MadScientistWorking posted:I've got that on my Google feed and the only person who really seems to post on it is a designer who started lecturing Cam Banks about the evils of Islam by citing a World Net Daily writer..... ...Are you sure you have the right community? https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117231873544673522940
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Feb 3, 2015 04:51
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Mimir posted:I spent like, half an hour one time trying to crop that exact picture into avatar size, before realizing that you couldn't get the whole Modron in without making it really, really tiny and awful, or cutting off a big chunk of it. The fishing rod is just terrible. Ettin, you are far bolder than I. If someone can do this I'll change it. 
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Feb 3, 2015 04:55
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Evil Mastermind posted:...Are you sure you have the right community? https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117231873544673522940 It wasn't in the community itself. Cam made a personal post about how unawesome the ridiculous anti-muslim sentiment in the wake of the charlie hebdo attack was. Ryan M Danks (gently caress vaguebooking, name names) decides to grace Cam with his unasked for "genius" about how no actually muslims are violent subhumans just waiting to feast on innocent western flesh. E: https://plus.google.com/106054691212656263140/posts/JBAwiEgvFtr Error 404 fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Feb 3, 2015 |
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Feb 3, 2015 05:00
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Error 404 posted:It wasn't in the community itself. Oooooh right, the Jadepunk guy. I remember that now. I misunderstood what Malcom was saying. Although the nice thing about G+ is that you can block someone and never see anything they post every again.
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Feb 3, 2015 05:04
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Evil Mastermind posted:Oooooh right, the Jadepunk guy. I remember that now. I misunderstood what Malcom was saying. Ah, I knew the made the right choice throwing G+ away from my life. :I I even liked Jadepunk somewhat.
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Feb 3, 2015 05:07
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Evil Mastermind posted:...Are you sure you have the right community? https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117231873544673522940 Error 404 posted:It wasn't in the community itself. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Feb 3, 2015 |
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Feb 3, 2015 05:07
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ProfessorCirno posted:If people are pointing out that there are indeed classes supremely better then others, get mad at the lazy designers, not at the people who noticed the problem. Only in this loving hobby, I swear. Who looked at the Assassin's Creed: Unity bugs and then yelled at the players for encountering them outside of the most mockable fanboys?
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Feb 3, 2015 05:17
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TurninTrix posted:Ah, I knew the made the right choice throwing G+ away from my life. :I I've found G+ to be my favorite of any social media platform. It's got incredibly good curating tools, minimal ads or other bloat, and allows long form communication. Pretty disappointed by Danks there. I had just started checking out his stuff not that long ago.
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Feb 3, 2015 05:28
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gradenko_2000 posted:Sometimes I get to thinking that this is actually a weakness of traditional RPGs: the ability of a GM to tailor the game specifically to the capabilities and preferences of the players can paper over a lot of things that would be otherwise patched out in a video game. I'm usually of the opinion that the a good GM being able to tailor the game is a net positive, since it improves the experience for the people present at that specific game. I think I get the idea that it might weaken the strength of the game as a design, but that doesn't bother me as much. I play RPGs to have a different experience than I do playing chess for instance, and as such I'm not as concerned about consistency between all players and plays being 100%. On the other hand, as a social contract a class based game certainly should offer some form of niche protection for each class. The current discussion makes me want to have some sort of matrix that narrows the available range of classes as each successive player picks one. "Well, Pat choose a rogue and Terry picked Wizard, so Bards & Sorcerers are off the table.", etc. Or boil all the hybrid classes down to archetypes/options for a small set of base classes. This doesn't help much with caster supremacy, whether or not you perceive it as a problem. Germane to the discussion of Rogues and other non-casters in a magical world, the one thieves guild centered campaign I played in ended up treating magic and magic users essentially as technology and technicians. Magic ended up being important, but mostly in the way that gadgets are in the super spy genre, useful, but mostly cancelling itself out when used by opposing forces and often a McGuffin. A lot of that was a deliberate decision on the DM's part though and I can see it not working for other people.
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Feb 3, 2015 05:32
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Glorified Scrivener posted:I largely agree with the advice given in the thread - there ain't many choices to be made. It spurred a sort of but not really related thought, which I'm interested in people's opinions of, since TG is the best place i've found to talk about games online. You seem to think that there's some weird divide between being mechanically effective and being fun. There are games that are reasonably balanced and let you have fun and still be roughly as effective in the mechanics portions as anyone else at the table. Like, in a 13th Age oneshot I played my sort-of joke kobold newsie who devoted two thirds of their character resources to non-combat things (and multiclassed which'll hurt your numbers in various ways) alongside a combat monster who I swear must've scrounged for every bonus it was possible to get and we contributed with reasonable parity. From a different session, playing in a game that was reskinning friendly let me take "two-handed weapon" as my weapon choice and throughout the session I switched it from a harpoon stolen off the deck of a boat to a bar stool to a plank of wood with a nail in it without having to jump through bullshit improvised weapon hoops. My 4e game had a party that, fluff wise, was full of weirdos but mechanically they could brawl perfectly well.
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Feb 3, 2015 05:51
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The point of caring about balance pretty much is ensuring that fun choices and effective choices not only aren't mutually exclusive, but are the same thing no matter what you think is fun.
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Feb 3, 2015 06:40
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Error 404 posted:It wasn't in the community itself. Evil Mastermind posted:Oooooh right, the Jadepunk guy. Faaaaaaaaantastic. Well, guess that's a game I can do without. I unironically genuinely appreciate it when elfgame writers flagrantly advertise the fact that they're huge rear end in a top hat bigots because it makes it easier to figure out who I don't want to inadvertently support when browsing through DTRPG.
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Feb 3, 2015 06:41
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I wanted to respond to this a little more substantively now that I'm not on my phone:quote:But a sort of semi-related to that discussion occurred to me - do other people really run a campaign settings where every character, pc or npc, is fully tuned and rigorously adheres to a set of optimal choices with no significant deviations? I mean, the logical extrapolation from the advice being given is that there are no longer rogues in-universe, because no character would choose the sub-optimal path to achieving their goals of doing roguish things. I'm sure there are people out there that play campaigns where maximally optimized PCs is a conscious and deliberate choice. I would even argue that games like Pathfinder were designed partly to appeal to players who like playing games with a lot of potential for optimization. However, when it comes to NPCs, I very much doubt that people run it that way. The PCs are exceptional, sometimes even perfect examples of the adventurer kin because they are the heroes of the story, but everyone else is going to have sub-par stats and skill choices and ability selections because what need would there be for heroes if the peasants are working with a high-stat spread? (that's a rhetorical question - you could probably develop a World of Ubermensch campaign setting, but as a novelty/gimmick rather than as a matter of course) Yes, it is in fact silly to assume that there are no Rogues in the world of D&D 5th Edition just because mechanically speaking nobody would want to be a Rogue to do Roguish things. What one would assume is either: A. there are Rogues in the world and they are worse than Bards at being Rogues but it still "fits" in much the same way that just because you want to be a Marine doesn't mean you're capable of being one. This is also the one where people choose to be Rogues anyway because they're dumb and don't know any better B. there are Rogues in the world and they are worse than Bards at being Rogues but that's entirely due to a failure of the designers to get the mechanics right and that people still choose to be Rogues in order to do Roguish things despite the "physics" of the milieu being wrong for it And in both cases we still give the player the freedom to create a Bard character as their Rogue stand-in because in a way the only reason that we assign "classes" to characters is to be able to quickly determine what they are without having to delve deep into their background, motivations, past, actions, etc. If the players encounter a shady dude on the street, I'm going to call him a Rogue because that conveys who the dude is in a single word, but a player that acts like a Rogue despite having the abilities of a Bard is still correct because of the show-don't-tell being expressed by the player playing the game and acting out their role. quote:Do other people really care a lot about the optimization aspect of both character building and game design in their home games? Yes. The important part is being on the same page with everyone as to how much optimization is going to be needed. If you have one guy that dips into a bunch of 3.5 splatbooks to create a Super-MonkWizardBarbarianLizardHorseManPig while everything one is playing the core straight, it's going to cause friction If the players all like to delve into non-combat options and the DM keeps throwing down-to-the-last-hit-point-hard encounters at the group, it's going to cause friction If some players consider playing RPGs to be "roll a bunch of dice while shooting the poo poo with your friends, who cares" and other players are approaching it as "a complex mathematical/tactical puzzle that needs to be attacked from multiple angles with careful thought" and no attempt is made at reconciling the two, it's going to cause friction Since a lot of the in-game challenge and the need for optimization is going to come from the GM, it usually falls to them to make sure that the game is "tuned" appropriately, but ultimately it comes down to an agreement between the entire table to determine what kind of game they want to play in the first place. quote:The current discussion makes me want to have some sort of matrix that narrows the available range of classes as each successive player picks one. "Well, Pat choose a rogue and Terry picked Wizard, so Bards & Sorcerers are off the table.", etc. I think that there's a subconscious tendency for players to do this even if the rules don't formalize it.
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Feb 3, 2015 06:53
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gradenko_2000 posted:I don't know if you were replying to me, but in any event I was trying to point out that designers end up getting a pass on lovely design so often specifically because the GM acts as another corrective layer that papers over the problems that the designers should have caught and fixed in the first place Oh no, I agree! It was more in point to the whole "optimization" thing, and it's something I've seen come up in this hobby for as long as I've been in it. It feels like everyone wants games with wide enough mechanical choices to allow for optimization, but then get angry murder once you actually do it or call attention to it. The most obvious example was in the lead up to D&D 5e, the 3.x/5e fansite ENWorld was awashed with threads demanding 3.x style multiclassing with the example of "a rogue finds religion and takes a level of cleric" being trotted around constantly. Then the rules were added and someone pointed out that a rogue taking a level of cleric made it more powerful, and suddenly those exact same people started to howl that restrictions were needed to prevent their very loving example.
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Feb 3, 2015 07:05
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Kai Tave posted:Faaaaaaaaantastic. Well, guess that's a game I can do without. I unironically genuinely appreciate it when elfgame writers flagrantly advertise the fact that they're huge rear end in a top hat bigots because it makes it easier to figure out who I don't want to inadvertently support when browsing through DTRPG.  I've only found out one project author was a douchebag once before the project's over. Every other one it's like months after the project's done.
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Feb 3, 2015 07:08
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See this poo poo is why I almost never use kickstarter.
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Feb 3, 2015 07:09
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ProfessorCirno posted:See this poo poo is why I almost never use kickstarter. Honestly, it's only happened four times out of like 50 projects, and one time I was able to cancel when I found the author supported Jimmy D during that DriveThru/Evil Hat mess a few months back.
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Feb 3, 2015 07:17
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Evil Mastermind posted:At least you found out before you bought it, unlike those of us who backed the KS. Maybe if you send him an email and claim to be a Muslim he'll give you a refund. ProfessorCirno posted:Oh no, I agree! It was more in point to the whole "optimization" thing, and it's something I've seen come up in this hobby for as long as I've been in it. It feels like everyone wants games with wide enough mechanical choices to allow for optimization, but then get angry murder once you actually do it or call attention to it. I've remarked on it elsewhere, but I think a not-insignificant number of gamers want lots of options, but that's as far as it goes. They may not ever use any of them, they probably don't care how balanced or robust they are, and they get really pissed when you pull the curtain back and point out which options are traps and which are busted-good and which are totally pointless, but presented with a choice between a game with, say, 20 rigorously balanced options and 200 options whipped out by a freelancer with no playtesting and minimal editing they'll go for the 200 option one almost every time. Maybe it gives the impression that you're getting more value for your money, or "more options" has become inexorably associated with "better game" somehow.
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Feb 3, 2015 07:21
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Evil Mastermind posted:At least you found out before you bought it, unlike those of us who backed the KS. Tianxia looks every bit as good and has a similar niche, though.
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Feb 3, 2015 07:42
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gradenko_2000 posted:I think that there's a subconscious tendency for players to do this even if the rules don't formalize it. In my experience, this isn't even subconscious. Most players don't actually want to step on other players toes, it's just that some games are terrible about informing you which options do that.
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Feb 3, 2015 07:46
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Kai Tave posted:So out of curiosity which recent banee are you? Haven't been banned. Honestly, I haven't even posted there in ages. I should apologize: I had a frustrating day and kinda flew off the handle there. Yeah, I agree, in terms of civility, RPG.net is ok. The systemic pass-agg in there just grates on me to the point I say "gently caress it." I guess when I said I miss the grognards, I mean I miss laughing at their ridiculous behavior, but I guess that's a little like laughing at the mentally ill. So maybe I should just let rpg.net be rpg.net and move on with my life. It's not worth this much aggravation.
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Feb 3, 2015 09:24
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I'm into optimization because I am terrible at system mastery and tend to go for flavor options and if I don't read someone saying "This option is poo poo, don't take it" then I won't realize how terrible it is until like three sessions into the game when I realize that no, the feat that gives you a bonus to damage when you attack a dog or a horse is not going to be useful at all.
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Feb 3, 2015 09:24
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Related to RPG.net and their modding policies, I've posted there on and off for ages now and never got as much as a red text. I like the fact that they're openly anti-MRA and have zero tolerance for mansplaining and concern-trolling. That said, as far as the level of conversation goes, I prefer this subforum: say what you will about megathreads, they keep the conversation focused on a single system/wider topic while at the same time allowing for multiple conversations to take place within those wider parameters. I'd hate for TG to become a sea of single-issue threads like RPG.net's Tabletop Roleplaying Open, with a million variations on "[D&D Next] Can an AoE effect hit a foetus?"
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Feb 3, 2015 09:27
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Mormon Star Wars posted:no, the feat that gives you a bonus to damage when you attack a dog or a horse is not going to be useful at all. I don't even get why somebody would put that in a game at all, unless it was some kind of animal torture simulator. "I need granular char gen to truly realize my vision of Michael Vick as a D&D character!"
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Feb 3, 2015 09:28
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Simian_Prime posted:I don't even get why somebody would put that in a game at all, unless it was some kind of animal torture simulator. It's a feat from the pathfinder Goblins player's guide and it is meant to represent that, storywise, goblins are scared of dogs and horses, and surely this is best represented by taking a feat that give you a +1 to damage or hit or something against them.
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Feb 3, 2015 09:38
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