TRPG General Chat

5:00 AM

@mxyzplk hence my reference to gauntlets

also known as the "same game test"

i.e. a series of nominally CR-appropriate encounters, pit the Wizard against each, the Fighter against each

and a series of encounters where you have three standard characters, and the fourth character is in one case Class A and in the other Class B

LitheOhm

@KRyan what about the subjectivity of CR? It's more of a "this monster" against "these characters" type of thing

mxyzplk

Here's the thing.

In real games, there's no lack of people that want to play non-casters and non-tier1 types.

KRyan

@LitheOhm CR is poor, agreed, but they're facing the same challenges

mxyzplk

Therefore they are not superior, quod erat demonstrandum.

They are superior in some arbitrary test. But not in what makes playing D&D fun, at least not to most people.

KRyan

@mxyzplk for a definition of "superior" that was not under debate?

superior in their ability to single-handedly answer a wide array of challenges

LitheOhm

5:03 AM

@KRyan but the same challenge means mountains of differences between a rogue, fighter, ranger and sorceror. I thought Ernir pit them against one another?

mxyzplk

"Kale is a superfood!"
"Sure but that shit is nasty, so suck it"

KRyan

@LitheOhm for the Fighter 13 vs. Wizard 20, yes. his were far from the only tests

@mxyzplk nowhere did I say that people should only play that which is optimal

mxyzplk

It's the engineering approach vs the scientist approach.

LitheOhm

@mxyzplk how do you mean?

KRyan

I have only made a point of explaining what is and is not optimal for the purposes of knowledge and edification

he means theory vs. practice

LitheOhm

5:04 AM

k. I didn't get to far in my elec engineer degree lol

KRyan

which, of course, ignores the entire reality of experimentation, and the reliance of engineers on solid scientific theory before they can begin work

mxyzplk

Scientists like to prove a lot of stuff that's either blazingly obvious or not terribly relevant, and their conclusions often conflict with real world outcomes. Engineers worry about the real world outcomes. Science underlies it, but is not really the most important part to it.

KRyan

engineering is very much not just "well, this has seemed to work for us in the past"

@mxyzplk uh, no, not usually, no, yes, yes, no

LitheOhm

actually I disagree. I encountered something similar in a book I'm reading where he said a theory without data was useless and I agreed, but the other way around (data without theory) is something he also said was useless. That seems to be similar to here?

Michael Shermer, The Believing Brain

KRyan

@LitheOhm I'm not sure; mxyzplk is pointing out that theory without data is useless, which is of course true but equally of course does not describe any real science

mxyzplk

5:07 AM

You can spend millions of man-hours spinning more and more complex optimizations and playtests, and it just doesn't help real play any more than 15 minutes of good judgement.

It's cool that people like to do that, but it's a hobby separate from actually playing the game.

LitheOhm

@mxyzplk yeah. Rule zero isn't to be a jerk, it's to keep the game flowing

mxyzplk

It's baseball card stats and fantasy teams vs real sport.

KRyan

@mxyzplk in your limited experience, and yes it is limited because you are only one human being, and while there are definitely cases of theoretical optimization that are far removed from actual play, I have not particularly talked about any of it on this site, except for one time I explained Pun-pun to someone, and I think I may have mentioned the damage record

mxyzplk

Which are fine and valid pastimes, but they don't influence the real sport that much

KRyan

for the most part, however, this stuff does actually come up in games

and while you may not have run into those problems

lots of people have

LitheOhm

5:09 AM

but just the fact that not everyone runs into them makes them non-universal

mxyzplk

And they are in fact caused or mitigated by mode of play. Which is my point. We choose a mode of play where your "tier" doesn't really cause such a huge differentiation.

KRyan

@LitheOhm the game runs only on a social contract, @mxyzplk has just had the good fortune to find a group that has implicitly agreed to a social contract without necessarily working out the theoretical details

other groups are not necessarily made of players who are all going to implicitly assume the same things about how the game is played

which is where optimization and theory is helpful, because it informs you about what options you, as a player, and you, as a group, have

mxyzplk

Like, every group I've ever played with has the same kind of "social contract." It's only recently you needed to explicitly militate against custom built, custom geared, charopped stuff. Back in the day it was just "munchkin got himself Blackrazor, sic a rust monster on him and let's move on"

I acknowledge that the problems you cite will come up with groups whose play mode is largely gamist.

Historically that's a rarity. It seems like there's a lot of them because that's who likes to yell on Internet forums.

KRyan

by "mode of play" here you really seem to mean "it's not a problem because no one in the group is bothered by it, not because it doesn't exist"

mxyzplk

And that's not with a sheltered gaming life. I was a leader in the Living Greyhawk RPGA campaign, started a public gaming club in Memphis, etc. The degree of pure game focus that such theory discussions worry about is quite rare in the wild.

KRyan

5:15 AM

I really don't think your personal anecdotal experience leaves you qualified to make that claim

because, of course, my personal anecdotal experience indicates the exact opposite, and I would not make the opposite claim

mxyzplk

@KRyan And that is absolutely true. You see, "but but the numbers" is one of literally a million critiques that can be levied against a game. "It's sexist!" "It's written at a fourth grade level!" "It doesn't contain enough ninjas!" "It doesn't allow for player narrative agency!" All of these matter to you if they matter to you. They do not if they don't.

You can find a million "problems" that "exist" with anything. The question is, are they differences that matter, in other words, generate a negative outcome? In my experience there's many, many larger faults a game can have in terms of gameplay outcome than "not every choice is equally optimal."

KRyan

but my point is that, ok, for example: a well-played Wizard can, in a single action and with a commonly-prepared spell, potentially end an encounter right there. Mop up may still be necessary, but his side has such overwhelming statistical and tactical advantages that the threat is gone. And if he has a day to prepare, he can literally ensure that he has the right such magic bullet. This is not a rare event in 3.5, and I am neither talking about splatbook spells nor am I referring to high levels

grease can do this, glitterdust can do this, solid fog can do this

if your "mode" does not care about this, then that's fine

mxyzplk

And yet somehow, wizards die all the time

KRyan

that can be prevented too, particularly at high levels, but you've said yourself that no one in your group is heavily optimizing, so the fact that those wizards die is not necessarily significant

a Wizard could have mirror image and displacement up, for example; he could still die, but the odds are getting slim

but that's kind of besides the point

LitheOhm

@mxyzplk all that stuff you did, like Living Grehawk, you got to oversee a lot of other games too, aye?

KRyan

5:22 AM

I don't really know where I was going with all of that

mxyzplk

Hey man, you're welcome to enjoy optimizing. Just understand that insisting others should care is just as pedantic as those who insist unceasingly the game art should be a certain way or they shouldn't use gendered pronouns or whatever to those who don't value that part of the game.

@LitheOhm Oh sure.

KRyan

ok, it's not that others should care, it's that others should know that these things do affect real games and the likelihood that a given character will be dominating or useless in a given encounter, or series of encounters

if that does not matter to you, then enjoy

LitheOhm

@mxyzplk reminds me of the one time I got to be at a local gaming store. We were making Vampire characters and all I was concerned about was "not making a suicide machine," ie. bottom tier. Anything else and I was cool with it

KRyan

but don't pretend that "all that theory crap" has no basis in reality of how mechanical victory could be achieved

mxyzplk

@LitheOhm Yeah, I mean you don't want to be so outclassed by other PCs and the opposition that you don't contribute/have fun.

KRyan

5:26 AM

@mxyzplk that would be generally the situation that I offer optimization advice to avoid, yes

I mean, yes, plenty of my answers here have gone well beyond that and into "if you really want to do this the best it can be done"

but at least personally that's more out of an interest in completeness than anything else

mxyzplk

@KRyan Sure, but it's just like when my car-lover friend tells me all about how this one car has the theoretically best engine or whatever, and that still gets it a half-circle rating from Consumer Reports because there's just so much more than that which goes into a real car and a real driving experience

LitheOhm

I didn't need an optimized character, though. Just something that doesn't have all incompatible skills and no combat talent whatsoever

@KRyan a lot of the new players might get really confused by your encyclopedic references, I fear

my little brother could jump on here and ask about feats for his fighter. When someone posts something directing him to X and Y splats and telling him how he shouldn't be doing what he's doing, the game just got more complicated for him and he might not want to play

mxyzplk

A DeLorean has a Yugo engine in it, but it still pulls down a lot more tail than a Toyota Corolla. #justsayin

LitheOhm

there's something to be said for advancing quickly, but also something about just letting people learn on their own pace

KRyan

@mxyzplk well, some optimization advice is very narrowly focused on optimizing a particular thing, others are broader, but for the most part the goal and hope would be that the reader is understanding the underpinnings of the advice and synthesizing it so that they can hit the various goals that they have for the character

and I want to be explicit in saying that not all of those goals should be mechanical

LitheOhm

5:29 AM

I'm not trying to discourage that, just another facet to keep in mind

it's an expert website. But that's why we'll get a lot of beginners as well

KRyan

@LitheOhm feel free to comment on any that are particularly problematic and I will try to improve them

LitheOhm

@KRyan noted

KRyan

@LitheOhm I... try to avoid telling people they're doing it wrong, though I may not be the best at doing so

mxyzplk

Yeah, I think that's a lot of my problem with CharOp centered advice as well. You can kinda shilly-shally about it here in chat but there's a lot of "This is PLAIN BETTER and that is AWFUL..."

KRyan

@mxyzplk not denying that there have been numerous incredibly acerbic optimizers

I mean, Frank & K exist

they're a thing

LitheOhm

5:31 AM

I've taught a lot of new players. A lot. I've moved from Colorado to Ohio and then to Idaho, and online gaming isn't the easiest. Plus some of those people don't even want to online game. Most of my experience is in bringing people into the game and helping them understand the system/goal as a whole

KRyan

even The Logic Ninja, whose advice is actually very party-friendly and encourages players not to take broken options (e.g. polymorph), writes in a very haughty tone

at the same time, context also does matter a lot

I think there is value in the knowledge that, say, Option A is strictly better than Option B (sadly a thing that does happen in 3.x)

doesn't mean you have to avoid Option B, just that you should know that Option A does exist and is better

but I'll be the first to admit that I don't always make that clear, and that plenty of optimizers don't even attempt to make that clear, or even necessarily agree

LitheOhm

the arcane spell failure question is one that comes to mind. But you did make it a new question and it's definitely a handy one. But that looked like a newbie dropping in looking for something for a newbie

KRyan

@LitheOhm I'll think about a newbie section then, because I can think of very simple advice on that point for a new player

it mostly entails a Mithral Buckler and mage armor

LitheOhm

it wouldn't have been just 'their' question, sure - but on the asker, a simpler "twilight enchantment" answer would be more likely accepted

yeah, or even mithral. Or bracers. Something that their GM would probably already have brought into the game

mxyzplk

Y'all have fun, need to hit the sack now

KRyan

5:35 AM

yeah, damn, need to do that too

night all

LitheOhm

and I've found that one newbie among many experienced gamers is the exception. DMs tend to be the more experienced ones but newbies more often come in groups

@mxyzplk cool, night

@KRyan night

bringing in material from [obscure but WotC approved source Y] then brings that in along with it's relatively more complicated rules that the GM has to cover not only for that PC but the others as well. Then instead of learning depth in the system first, they're just shallowly dipping here and there

S. John Ross is referenced here and there on the site and his advice for people learning 3e is to memorize the phrase "I want to play a human fighter." Not because it's powerful but because it's simple. They get many feats which are a simple enough mechanic, not many skills but then they learn combat well and get to vicariously experience things through the rest of the party. That way when they make their next char they've got a solid understanding of at least the very basics

leading to a better idea of what they would like to play

KRyan

@LitheOhm Fighters are, IMO, a really poor first class, because there are a ton of feats, and feats cannot be reselected, and they are really important

Warlock or a Tome of Battle class are my typical go-tos

the list of invocations/maneuvers are much shorter, and those classes are still quite easy to play

Tome of Battle is also a great simple intro to resource management, which is a huge part of 3.5

aaaand I was going to sleep sigh

night, closing this tab now

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

9:04 AM

@BESW, That shaming question is rather interesting.

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