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1:00 PM
@Aaron like wax says you'll get used to it.
 
@JoshuaAslanSmith Its just UTC
 
@BESW Turing says that you can't be sure.
 
right, but im not UTC
 
@JeorMattan I'll err on the side of being nice to machines than being a jerk to humans.
 
@BESW the enjoyment , on the other hand, is always real.
 
1:00 PM
so that 5 hours can make a difference to me
 
@BESW that goes without saying.
 
I entered a phase on this site where I got super active editing, and I'd often edit peoples' questions to ask the way I would ask that question, because my way of writing is clearly superior.
(It isn't, but I think it is pretty good)
 
do unto others, etc.
 
If you login at the same time every day, you will be seen as logging in every day
 
I stopped doing that, and that's a self-moderation thing.
 
1:01 PM
Right, but I dont always do that, real life, etc
 
@Emrakul I ordered House of Leaves. Should be here in under a week, but Guam mail is unpredictable.
 
youre like the 3rd person I know to name drop that novel
 
I am doing a 5e game this weekend. Any suggestions of what to read before I go there? They will have the book available there.
 
@aaron do you mean for system knowledge?
 
Yea. Just want some basic knowledge. I have read the basic rules
 
1:03 PM
oh yeah I mean reread basic rules?
 
already made a character or are you making said character at this session?
 
totally unrelated, but it's a good webcomic and you should read it soon, and before you go there is as good a 'soon' as any
 
Making one there
 
not much more than that I can throw some general advice at you
5e does care about party comp
 
1:06 PM
So not everyone can play the same thing you mean?
So my friend told me this. Is it true?
The rules are easier, but the challenges themselves are more difficult.
[10/21/2014 8:57:18 AM] Corey Roberts: Ex: Standard AC is 14, standard enemy attack roll is 14 (50% hit rate). Average hit points is 10, average enemy damage on a hit is 4. Enemies are in groups of 3-10. Doom.
 
@BESW Hehehe.
Perfect example would be the hulk suit. Made to be able to take a beating from the hulk
 
Okay, bed now. ttfn
 
Gnight
 
@BESW Nini
 
1:09 PM
there is some serious rocket tag in levels 1-3
just making it to level 2 though gives you breathing room
Classes reach their maturity at different levels which can fell odd
usually by level 3 the core character concept of the class is realized
basically the cleric is the only one with real in combat healing
 
From what I gather (without playing), levels 1-2 are designed to be tutorial levels that are passed in a couple of sessions.
 
if no one wants to be a cleric someone needs to be a ranger or a druid or a bard to get more out of combat healing
rangers and rogues need GM buy in for some of their core abilities to truly work
 
Jay Hanlon on September 16, 2013

 

Stack Overflow officially launched on September 15, 2008. In five short years, you’ve answered over 5 million questions on more than 100 sites, and helped hundreds of millions of people find the answers they needed. Today, we want to celebrate how, together, we changed one small corner of the Internet for the better.

We want to hear your stories about how someone on Stack Exchange helped you.

Before it went into beta, stackoverflow.com had a comic on the landing page that came to symbolize what we were setting out to do: …

[whistles]
 
@aaron backgrounds let you optimize your skills to fit a character concept and serve as a nice backstory
@Tritium21 that gels with a lot of stuff Ive seen about volunteer collaborative groups, for example Wikipedians aren't made, they are born. No amount of trianing or experience can make someone proficent to become a power user, power users simply emerge out of the population at a very specific percentage.
Less than 15 hours till I lose all sleep
 
@JoshuaAslanSmith What media is released in 15 hours
 
1:20 PM
@Tritium21 Civilization: Beyond Earth
 
Ah. Never been a civ player
 
Civ 5 is one of my top 5 games
this will be like civ but different enough that itll push it down the ladder
hmmm I wonder what the difference between the player and DM basic rules are
@aaron biggest level 1 choice is quite frankly spells
 
I think I am going to shy away from spell casters for a bit. In all the games I have played I have only ever played spell casters
 
hmm
my suggestions
battlemaster fighter
thief rogue
 
Ok, a question was put on hold as being too broad. I think it has been clarified by the quarent to be answerable. Is there a way to flag it for reopening?
 
1:26 PM
if you want super simple barbarian
yep
 
@Tritium21 Editing automatically puts it in the reopen queue.
Theoretically, anyway.
 
@lisardggY Super
 
Which question would that be?
 
-1
Q: I'm looking for classes that play together

adoptagnomeI'm looking for classes that play together, like Thayan Knight and Red Mage.I'm asking about classes which are specifically called in the lore or class descriptions as being paired. Any suggestions?

 
Hmm. It's still very broad.
 
1:27 PM
it should be between the edit and flag links
 
Which lore? Which setting?
 
you might not have the rights yet to vote to reopen
 
And anyway, I still wouldn't vote to reopen it. It's asking for an open-ended list from any of D&D 3.5's quite endless list of campaign settings and splatbooks.
 
good point
 
Although I trust KRyan when he says he believes it's answerable in a reasonable closed manner.
And since no new 3.5 material will be published, we don't have the "will be obsolete in a year" problem.
 
1:30 PM
@lisardggY Let me introduce you to the fallacy of "End of life open source" - there is always someone creating new content for 3.5
 
@Tritium21 Right, then. Ask the OP if he's willing to limit the question to WotC-published sourceoboks.
 
Having net issues.
@JoshuaAslanSmith Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Drive Thru is kinda filled with titles that are balanced for pfrpg and 3.5
 
@Aaron lemme know if you have other questions/concerns
 
On a completely unrelated note, it is wonderful to go to the kitchen and find a room mate made coffee for themselves and never drank it - cup still in the coffee maker and all.
 
1:41 PM
Modern scavenging lol
When you walk back to the office and there are leftovers from a meeting
 
@JoshuaAslanSmith Funny you mention that. I work overnights, and the day crew explicitly leaves things for us. Sadly, a lunch-stealer is on second shift, so third never gets it
 
Gotta form a posse
hunt that person down
 
The man's name is Howard. He is a shift lead. we can do nothing
 
Blackmail
theres always a social engineering answer its just how far are you willing to go lol
 
@Tritium21 Poison.
 
1:47 PM
Immune to Poison and most forms of social stress. I have seen this man walk into the break room with 5 of the 2 pound hungry man meals, and just chain eat them
 
thats pretty intense
you guys shoudl setup a secret dead drop for the food left for you by 1st shift
though that might be getting too complex
 
I think we are just going to lock the conference room
 
thatll work too
 
2:20 PM
@Metool if Lord Gareth is in #legend, summon him for me please
 
 
1 hour later…
3:43 PM
Halloween session idea: episode 6 of X-files.
"Shadows" is the sixth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on October 22, 1993. It was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, directed by Michael Lange, and featured guest appearances by Barry Primus and Lisa Waltz. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Shadows" earned a Nielsen household rating of 5.9, being watched by 5.6 million households in its initial broadcast. The episode was not well received by the production staff, and received mixed reviews from...
 
4:01 PM
Doesn't strike me as a terribly compelling plot
 
watching the episode made me think so
of course, it depends on the type of game
 
4:21 PM
@afroakuma HE COMES
 
YOU SUMMON ME?
 
I told you to summon Gareth, not Zalgo
ah, there you are
@Lord_Gareth your question has been answered.
 
@afroakuma I noticed, but now I am more confused, not less.
 
Wieso
 
I admittedly only have the brief passage in Ravenloft Campaign Setting to go by, but it implied that sections of a Domain - or an entire Domain - would swap spots with a place on another plane, then swap back later.
Your answer seems to imply that if such a thing happened, the Domain would implode.
Which confuses me.
 
4:23 PM
the 2E RCS had no material on the Grand Conjunction
the 3E RCS is crap
third-party crap, no less.
soooo
 
The 2e one does indeed have no material on the Grand Conjunction
 
what are you basing that on?
 
But it does have a couple of paragraphs about "conjunctions"
 
Because I scoured Roots of Evil to see what you were talking about and it's very clear about what does and does not happen
 
That would indeed be a book I haven't read. As I said, my knowledge base is two, three paragraphs in the 2e campaign setting book.
Which only talks about them as a rare general case.
And makes no mention of any specific event.
 
4:27 PM
Perhaps I misinterpreted your question.
 
It is possible.
I was essentially asking if, while the domain is not in Ravenloft, its Darklord is still empowered.
 
According to later sources, that's never true.
 
hrm.
 
Since it's stupid.
Ludicrously stupid.
I suppose it's too much to hope for a page reference
 
I'm afraid it is. The books are in the same state as me but they're across the state, in a storage locker, behind a bunch of furniture.
 
4:33 PM
That state being extreme mental disrepair?
:P
anyway, I have it up here via my usual sorcerous methods.
No wonder I couldn't recall anything like it
an entire domain will never cross out of Ravenloft
little parts at most
a town, a castle, a forest
 
Oooh, that reminds me.
 
it's that gothic horror effect where on a dark and moonlit night the traveler finds a town that's not on the map
 
Are you familiar with the Headless Horsemen (Darklords supplement, if I remember right)?
 
or sees a light on in the manor
vaguely.
why?
 
I was wondering how you might re-design his encounter/domain to make it less of a random encounter and more of a plot hook.
 
4:42 PM
I shall consider.
 
Danke
 
What did you feel needs changing?
 
Right now the Horseman is a 4 round encounter and that's, well, it. He shows up, makes 3 attacks, and leaves, and then his minions come in behind him to clean up.
And while he's pretty scary he doesn't add to the plot of the campaign, well, at all.
 
What do you expect? He's got no domain :P
 
Well, he has The Road, but yes, I know what you mean.
 
4:55 PM
the Road is no true domain
Anyway, what sort of plot hook did you want? The obvious one would concern the fate of his head, after all
 
Which would be great. Maybe altering the nature of his Domain might help with that as well; that is, as it stands, the Horseman shows up and then leaves, never to return.
If he started haunting a region, overwriting its roads and terrorizing those that live there...
More of a reason to solve the issue
 
6:05 PM
0
Q: Benefit of Armored Kilt

AaronThe Armored Kilt can be added worn alone or added to a piece of armor. I always worked under the assumption that if you added the kilt the AC bonus was increased by 1 and the weight of the armor went up by 1 tier. After a few questions asked recently(I have linked them below) have came up about...

 
6:43 PM
Answered.
er. @Aaron Answered.
 
@Smurfton Is there a specific rules section anywhere that you can quote that says it adds to AC?
Other than that very good answer.
 
I can't find any in the book, now that I'm looking. I can only seem to find it on d20PFSRD.
 
@Smurfton Ah I see your source now. Sorry didn't see it the first time
Where on the armor page does it say they stack?
Sorry if my replies seem delayed my net is screwy right now.
 
@Aaron Follow the asterisk.
@Aaron Weirdly, on page 19 of Adventurer's Armory, where the table of new armors is, it says nothing about the Armored Kilt.
 
I read that all it says it it can be worn alone or added to existing armor.
 
6:54 PM
So why wouldn't it stack?
 
They are both armor bonuses and alike bonuses don't stack.
 
Hm.
I've never actually played PF, just 3.5
 
It would make sense to me that they would stack but this is about mechanics.
 
But there's always this discussion here:
I'll change my answer to reflect the alike bonuses thing.
If I was running a campaign, I would probably call it shield AC.
 
Darn internet
 
7:05 PM
ALRIGHT here we go:
 
Back
I would also rule it stacks I just wanted to know if there was a rules backing for that
 
The armored kilt was taken from Pathfinder chronicles campaign setting.
>Armored Kilt: Popular among the Keleshite soldiers of Qadira, the armored kilt is made of a thick cloth skirt with bars of steel hanging down from the waist and a ring of horizontal steel plates just above the hem. An armored kilt can be worn separately as light armor, or it can be added to other suits of light or medium armor. Adding an armored kilt increases a suit of armor’s armor bonus by +1, but it adds
15 pounds to the armor, lowers the maximum Dex bonus by 1, and increases the armor’s weight category (from light to medium and from medium to heavy). Adding an armored kilt to heavy ar
It looks like it was changed a little bit on the way, but
hm.
 
I like that description better to be honest
I would suggest you put that in your answer stating that the armored kilt came from this setting originally and here is it's original description.
 
I'm doing that right now.
 
Ok. Thank you very much for the help. I always wait a couple days before I accept an answer but your will probably be the one I accept.
 
7:32 PM
@Aaron Well, now you have to choose.
 
The answers are nearly identical aside from enchant-ability.
 
yup.
Strictly speaking, mxyzplk was 5 minutes faster, though.
I suppose that I added the no effect when added to heavy armor.
 
 
2 hours later…
9:27 PM
0
Q: Why would this question be closed for being subjective?

DronzSo, I tried writing a question with the title: "What's the point of risk, or the advantage of avoiding death, in games that let you return at the same level?" And as soon as I moved my cursor to the text editor, I got the warning: "The question you're asking appears subjective and is likely to ...

 
10:27 PM
@Dronz Hey! Get over here!
 
Ping doesn't work if they haven't been in the chat recently, unless you're a mod.
 
Oh, that's too bad.
 
I can't stick around for him right now, but here's my thought on the issue:
RPGs aren't just about mechanics, and that means failure is also narrative: it introduces complications and setbacks to the story far beyond any mechanical "resurrection tax" imposed on the character's abilities.
Narrative complications are actually more interesting than resurrection taxes, because they advance and shape the story.
I feel that resurrection taxes are a poor man's substitute for story complications, an attempt at creating the same kind of risk-based tension without trusting the system's users to be capable of handling story-based complications.
And frankly this gets down into my problems with systems with the failure=death paradigm, because that's also really boring unless you're playing a game where it's specifically the point of the thing, like Paranoia or Great Ork Gods.
 
In a game like Multiverser, it's very definitely a major thing, despite nothing being lost for the character.
damn.
 
@Smurfton [text goes here](http://www.example.com)
 
10:35 PM
Thanks.
 
"Welp, Han failed his Piloting roll to dodge the TIE fighter's attacks. Roll up new characters."
 
I'd say that Paranoia has one of the most creative things for people who die too much. Genetic drift is just a great idea.
 
Heh.
 
Actually, I suppose you could consider changing worlds a sort of loss.
 
Death as a default outcome for failure, when looked at purely from a mechanical standpoint, is almost always tragically boring: it's either trivialised through resurrection mechanics, or it makes the story grind to a halt.
Paranoia makes death interesting by over-trivialising it, but that only works because the game is a satire of other games that trivialise death.
 
10:40 PM
It can still take time, though.
 
This is why games like Fate make death a purely narrative choice made by the folks at the table who can actually figure out whether a character death at that time, in that circumstance, will be good or bad for the game.
 
That's weird. That amount of reliance on people to know what they're doing seems strange to me.
 
Every game has to, because it's impossible for a system to cover every potentiality.
Some games are just more gracious about it, while others try to compensate as much as possible.
 
True.
 
I prefer games that don't assume I, or my players, are raging idiots with no sense of dignity and no clue about what we want out of our game.
 
10:44 PM
Hello, doppel.
 
A lot of the social-construct problems in the RPG community stem, I think, from game systems that present themselves as having more insight into the story we're telling than we have ourselves at the table.
 
Could you rephrase that second part for me? I'm having a bit of trouble parsing it.
 
@BESW This made me lol
 
@Smurfton I think my group is in a good position to make choices about how mechanics apply to the story we're telling. Certainly, we know our story better than a group of game developers on another continent who wrote the system ten years ago.
 
Ah.
 
10:48 PM
@Smurfton To me, the strange thing is games which assume nobody has any idea what they're doing, with the possible exception of the GM.
 
Exactly.
 
It happens. I remember being there.
I didn't ask the book for help, though.
 
@Smurfton Oh, yes. It does. But I feel a big problem is when the system expects it to be the default mode and to be incurable.
 
@Smurfton Sure. And my friends and I have been learning to play Fate together, so I have experienced playing games where none of us have any idea what we're doing and so we're making lots of mistakes and stuff. But the Fate books are written by people who treat us like intelligent people who can and will get the hang of it, and entrust us with lots of power because they trust we'll learn to use it well for the fun of everyone at the table.
 
Most Fate products break things down into easy bite-size chunks and provide a discussion of the philosophy behind the mechanics: they teach us the system so that we can use it from a position of informed agency rather than blind compliancy.
D&D, on the other hand, dedicates many pages to "How to shape your players into the attitudes this game expects" rather than "How to shape this game into the tool your players need."
So it starts out with the attitude that it's right, we're wrong, and it's going to show us the error of our ways. There's some astonishingly blunt articles on that subject in the leadup to the release of 5e.
 
10:53 PM
My favorite part about Paranoia XP's manual is that, rather than starting off the Dungeon Master section with rules, it starts off with some really good general DM-ing tips.
 
I'm rereading that answer about Abraham Lincoln's duel and came across this sentence again: "I didn't want the d—-d fellow to kill me, which I think he would have done if we had selected pistols,"
 
@BESW Got any links? I'm interested to see them.
 
Which word is that!? Diddled? Dogged?
 
I'm also very fond of Call of Cthulhu's discussions about its gameplay.
@doppelgreener damned.
 
"damned" is the correct length
 
10:55 PM
@BESW Aha, that makes sense
I'm surprised at that being censored
 
@doppelgreener It's a pretty strong word, in context.
 
"I hope that you go to hell."
And burn there forever.
If you're actually going for the meaning, rather than just what people say, that is much harsher than most 4-letter words.
I'm jealous of your 'staches.
 
That's true enough.
 
@Smurfton Bah, this is going to take a bit of time to track down again.
 
Don't worry about it, then.
Hello, Phil.
 
11:00 PM
[eyeroll] And the link is dead. Wizards is awful at this.
 
What is so difficult about back-compatability, anyway?
 
Okay, here we go. [fiddles with]
 
you could use that if you want ;)
 
Using.
Thanks.
 
> [Historically in RPGs] it's often been assumed that people already knew how to roleplay and didn't need much guidance for it, and that players would need little prompting to think of their characters as more than just a set of mechanical options for combat, skills, and magic. [Translation: Tabletop gamers instinctively know how to RP, and need no help.]
> For a D&D edition releasing in 2014, things have changed. Plenty of games call themselves RPGs (especially video games) that don't require or even particularly encourage roleplaying. [Translation: video gamers wouldn't know RP if it bit them on the butt while cosplaying as Enzio.]
 
11:06 PM
Oh! are you fluent in jargon, then?
 
> To further highlight the unique traits that make D&D different from other types of games, we've made a point of focusing on the nonmechanical aspects of character creation and on how those aspects can shape the game. [Translation: We've included RP mechanics so video gamers won't be totally lost. We know you, our tabletop gamers, don't need them, but the mouthbreathing controller dorks need all the training wheels they can get.]
 
Oh. Oh my. This actually happened?
 
@Smurfton BESW is fluent in the language of things people are actually saying with the words they are using.
@BESW might be good to link that article too ;)
 
[Desperately trying to not be in the subtext: So, it seems like other RPGs have been using RP mechanics since at least the 1980s. We're not sure why we've just now noticed, but it's so common now that we have to acknowledge it somehow. We hope that by implementing it as half-heartedly as possible, we can appease the New Indie Gamer crowd without alienating the grognards.]
@Smurfton (source article)
Notice that immediately after saying they're "focusing on the nonmechanical aspects of character creation," he gives us a chart to roll for random character traits.
 
The good side to this is it actually encourages having a back story that exists?
 
11:13 PM
That is a remarkably low bar which most other RPGs easily sail over.
 
Yeah.
 
As much as it'd be nice to give Wizards some credit, "Catching up to the 1985 Doctor Who RPG 29 years later" is damning with faint praise.
The White Wolf devs were self-admittedly drugged out of their heads when they designed the oWoD system in the early '90s, and it had a more interesting, flexible, and universally engaging characterisation mechanic.
 
IIRC one of the character bonds or backgrounds or whatever is a small ceramic chunk/tile item your character is compelled to find the meaning/origin of, or something..?
I can't remember the exact wording
 
A lot of the problem is likely not that the D&D devs can't do it (though some of them seem to have drunk their own PR kool-aid), as that they aren't allowed to: D&D's position as the flagship game of the medium is the only reason Hasbro lets it live, and WotC is terrified of losing its existing consumer base.
So they wind up churning out condescending and narrow-minded drivel like that article in an attempt to placate all sides whenever they introduce a change--and because they lack the courage of their convictions, the change is often half-hearted and committal, which means it won't stand up on its own merits.
(Notice that he talks about how RPGs didn't provide RP support "historically," and then jumps to "D&D in 2014." Convenient how "history" apparently stops in the 70s, and his reason for adding RP mechanics now is evil video games rather than all the other RPGs have been doing this for 20 years.
 
But video games are evil! They cut into our profits!
 
11:25 PM
That's a narrative spin which clearly shows they think their audience is folks who have played nothing but D&D for thirty years.
 
I'm about to go afk, so see you guys later.
@BESW didn't you have to leave?
 
It's a recurring narrative: they downplay the fact that any RPG except D&D has existed (and often they present 4e innovations as 5e innovations, because they're trying to ignore 4e too), much less that they're learning from other RPGs.
@Smurfton Meh. Plans change.
 
its an extremely arrogant position to take
 
@Phil Pretty standard for a business. You don't deliberately recognise your competitors products, because that would be stupid.
 
doesn't stop it being arrogant though :)
 
11:28 PM
Ignoring one of their own products is a much less usual choice, but with the level of unpopularity it had I guess they just want to leave it behind.
 
That's a weird thing: it wasn't unpopular! It kept the franchise afloat and justified a new edition. Subscription fees were brilliant.
But it alienated vocal fans of the previous edition and sent them into the arms of Paizo, so 5e is trying to court back those fans without alienating too many of the 4e folk.
 
@BESW It had high levels of popularity and high levels of unpopularity.
Or, if you prefer, it inspired both love and hate in large groups of people.
 
This 2012 Penny Arcade comic is still lodged in my memory on the matter.
Mainly because of what Tycho said at the end of the attached news post discussing D&D Next/5e:
> The old adage is that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, which is the stated goal of this project. The truth of the matter is that some combination of TSR and Wizards of the Coast actually did please all the people, it’s just that they’re each pleased with their own iteration of the system. They’ve already pleased them; they’re pleased. It’s only a problem if you’re trying to sell them something else.
That writing just punches straight to the heart of the issue with so much elegance I can't even begin to describe it. Then it tears that heart out and eats it.
(Well it might not do that last bit but it sure leaves a wound behind)
 
Hey, as long as we are venting, can I vent about this?
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/49954/696
 
Yes, it's a terrible question.
 
11:42 PM
Is there a site-approved way to say, "I beg you to not play this way."?
 
:)
 
You mean 5e with two players, or....?
 
I mean - it's a game. If you want to know how it works, play it. Engage with the mechanics and see what happens.
 
25
Q: How do we handle a desire to challenge the frame of a question?

mxyzplkSometimes, someone asks a question that seems like it might suffer from the XY Problem (asking about your attempted solution instead of your actual problem) and you want to point that out. Or you feel that something about the question frame makes answering the question invalid and the only tenab...

@gomad i'm not sure what the problem is there though
he just wants two people that can regularly do things together, without a goodly portion of one's activities rendering the other one useless
rogue stealth scenarios, wizard solving all the fights, etc
 
I mean this question make me want to zoidberg out "your question is bad and you should feel bad!"
 
11:44 PM
@gomad I think it's reasonable to not expect everyone to gain system mastery independently. That's kinda the point of this site, isn't it?
 
@gomad but there's nothing wrong with wanting to check with people who might be able to give advice so they don't waste their time with a poor experience
 
Sure, but to quote another cartoon, "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!"
 
still don't see the problem
I'd quite happily ask a I am thinking of doing __________________, but wanted to check on the best way of doing it before I waste my time/go down blind alleys/alienate my friends/cause the end of the world etc
 
Also - why do this? Why not let the players play what they are interested in and see how it works out? I hate that at some point d&d became about optimizing your chargen instead of your play.
Which is why I'm here in chat, asking if it's ok to vent instead of crushing this brand new user with my grognard rage.
 
it's not optimising in the traditional sense here though - with only two in the party, I think its important that characters work well together
@gomad I know, but its fun enganging with the rage :D
 
11:47 PM
Just in 5e Basic, there are 4 classes. That's... 16 different combinations of two PCs?
That's four months of weekly gameplay just to try each combination for one session.
 
its actually only ten combinations isn't it?
4+3+2+1
 
Sure, fine. But you know, a cleric isn't a box of bandages. She's a SERVANT OF A GOD. Maybe think about the world and the kind of person you want to be in it instead of what box they fit into. Have no cleric? Sprinkle more healing potions than maybe are really called for in the loot. Or maybe just, you know, find a non-combat solution sometimes.
 
Feel free to challenge the frame of the question when/if it reopens
 
@gomad Here's your mismatch:
(a) this person is new
(b) you are not
 
As I think you have a legitimate view
(just not one I agree with)
 
11:50 PM
This person hasn't thought about things that way, being new. They are not experienced, they're just trying to not make poor decisions as they try out this game.
 
Blimey these cough sweets are disgusting
 
I know they're new. I want them to go play the game instead of plaguing this meta game. I guess I feel like access to all of this information is robbing them of an experience of discovery.
 
An answer of "just try out what you want and see if it works" isn't going to be helpful, because that's not addressing their valid concern that some combinations won't work well together. They have done nothing to earn wrath, either. "Most combinations will work well together, and things aren't so restrictive as all that. So what you want will probably work, as long as you build them so they work well together" is helpful and reassuring though.
@gomad well, you're reading into that way too damn far then
 
Sigh. Yes, you are both correct and rational. I have no wrath, I have pity, and fear that this is what this hobby is about now.
 
there's no ruination of discovery, except that they just don't want to wind up in a bad choice that will explode in their face and destroy their fun which is a legitimate concern because it happens
@gomad well it's not. :P
it's different to what it was before, naturally. but it isn't awful, and there's no one thing it is like.
 
11:54 PM
Put it this way: My players dedicate four to six hours of their extremely busy weeks to my games. Our goal is to have fun together, but I can't let "we're just having fun" allow me to trivialise the time and resources they're expending on doing it.
So if I'm not sure the choices we're making are going to hurt the fun, I'm not going to shrug and go "Oh, well, it's a learning experience," because that would be disrespectful of my players.
 
nn all
 
I'm going to take risks, sure, but I'm going to make the most informed choices I can in order to minimalize Failure of Fun.
And frankly, one reason I've moved away from games like D&D is that they have too many Failure of Fun pitfalls, like the one in that question. I've fallen into it, where my players rolled up the classes they thought would be fun, but the classes got in the way of each others' agency and wound up reducing fun.
 
Yes, you are all correct and I am being curmudgeonly. And his players asked, but....if it turns out that fighter + cleric for instance is the optimal pair! but one player had dreams of wielding eldritch power and the other saw himself as a nimble thief???now neither gets to play what he wanted? What kind of fun maximization is that?
 
That'd be a different question, then.
"My players want to use classes that don't work well together; how can I work with this?"
 
@BESW yes that is exactly why I started this with "I beg you not to play this way"
 
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