The DM of my game right now doesn't use the forums much so I'm putting his two pence on the table and guessing that he will want to change the way cantrips leveled with characters. Instead of giving an additional die at every 5th, 11th, 17th we're going to swap it around so every 4 character levels gives a +1 damage modifier to a maximum of +4 at level 20. We had this idea after today when the rogue (Swashbuckler) of the group is able to mix sneak attack and booming blade together to get higher levels of damage that outpace the rest of the party without needing to dump loads of levels in to a magic class.
So in relation to the thread itself, change the power-gain that cantrips get. (PLACE ANOTHER THREAD TO DISCUSS THIS ONE! I AIN'T FILLING THIS ONE WITH MORE SPAM!)
I would hate that. Subscription based system always feel so parasitic to me, even when you math it out and you aren't actually paying that much money. If you could still buy physical books it would be okay, but I feel like a lot of content might be accelerated just to feed subscribers.
Thats a fair concern. I feel like it could be done right as I see one of the biggest complaints from diehard 5e fans is slow content release in this edition.
However, you are right to worry about bloat as we saw in previous editions. It would need to be done right to work correctly.
It might offer the best of both worlds as DMs could just buy the books and ignore the subscription material. One other positive I can think of is UA could be utilized and feedback directly submitted with build information included.
It has potential but I do agree there could be issues.
To be fair, my dislike of subscription based services is wholly irrational. However, if even a service is only seven bucks a month, that adds up to $84 a year. That could buy you roughly three D&D books from Amazon. I think an app could work, or other digital model, but I hope that paper books are never discontinued.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I would hate that. Subscription based system always feel so parasitic to me, even when you math it out and you aren't actually paying that much money. If you could still buy physical books it would be okay, but I feel like a lot of content might be accelerated just to feed subscribers.
Thats a fair concern. I feel like it could be done right as I see one of the biggest complaints from diehard 5e fans is slow content release in this edition.
However, you are right to worry about bloat as we saw in previous editions. It would need to be done right to work correctly.
It might offer the best of both worlds as DMs could just buy the books and ignore the subscription material. One other positive I can think of is UA could be utilized and feedback directly submitted with build information included.
It has potential but I do agree there could be issues.
To be fair, my dislike of subscription based services is wholly irrational. However, if even a service is only seven bucks a month, that adds up to $84 a year. That could buy you roughly three D&D books from Amazon. I think an app could work, or other digital model, but I hope that paper books are never discontinued.
Same here, I wouldn’t mind a subscription for digital content (might actually use it myself) but it would sadden me greatly if the physical books were discontinued. I still like taking my D&D books out with me to a nice park to read them and write character/story concepts with them on pencil and paper, and I’m a millennial, part of one of two generations that are stereotypically joked about as operating under the assumption that if it isn’t on the internet then it’s not worth my time (this is a joke of course, I actually seem to enjoy making fun of myself for being an anti-stereotypical millennial and I know many millennials that don’t act like this anyways).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
I would hate that. Subscription based system always feel so parasitic to me, even when you math it out and you aren't actually paying that much money. If you could still buy physical books it would be okay, but I feel like a lot of content might be accelerated just to feed subscribers.
Thats a fair concern. I feel like it could be done right as I see one of the biggest complaints from diehard 5e fans is slow content release in this edition.
However, you are right to worry about bloat as we saw in previous editions. It would need to be done right to work correctly.
It might offer the best of both worlds as DMs could just buy the books and ignore the subscription material. One other positive I can think of is UA could be utilized and feedback directly submitted with build information included.
It has potential but I do agree there could be issues.
To be fair, my dislike of subscription based services is wholly irrational. However, if even a service is only seven bucks a month, that adds up to $84 a year. That could buy you roughly three D&D books from Amazon. I think an app could work, or other digital model, but I hope that paper books are never discontinued.
Same here, I wouldn’t mind a subscription for digital content (might actually use it myself) but it would sadden me greatly if the physical books were discontinued. I still like taking my D&D books out with me to a nice park to read them and write character/story concepts with them on pencil and paper, and I’m a millennial, part of one of two generations that are stereotypically joked about as operating under the assumption that if it isn’t on the internet then it’s not worth my time (this is a joke of course, I actually seem to enjoy making fun of myself for being an anti-stereotypical millennial and I know many millennials that don’t act like this anyways).
Paper books are so much more satisfying than PDFs, and I am also a member of the so called digital generation. D&D books are actually quite high quality for their price point, and the glossy pages and vibrant art is very nice to look at. I agree with everything you say.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Trance makes elves less susceptible to sleep effects, but that is pretty rare. I guess they can take long rests in four hours, but if the rest of the party is not elves that doesn't really matter. And if you have time for a four hour rest, you can probably wait eight hours.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I agree. I would hate D&D going all digital. My ADHD brain cannot focus on a digital book as well as it can for a physical one (this is true for most people, but worse for me than the average joe).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
On one hand I think they're an important part of DnD and should always be a part of it. It's the entire point of a pen and paper RPG. Also books are awesome, and just more satisfying to read than content on a screen.
On the other hand I do think they hold the game back in some respects. As books can't be updated or fixed, if WotC releases a bad class or subclass, there isn't an easy way to fix it. It's stuck that way as you can't update peoples books they own. For ranger and sorcerer, as well as subclasses such as the undying, this has left them rotting without an easy fix.
Trance makes elves less susceptible to sleep effects, but that is pretty rare. I guess they can take long rests in four hours, but if the rest of the party is not elves that doesn't really matter. And if you have time for a four hour rest, you can probably wait eight hours.
I'm aware of all of that. I'm asking jasperrdm why they hate it, because all the things you list above are not at all problematic.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I would hate that. Subscription based system always feel so parasitic to me, even when you math it out and you aren't actually paying that much money. If you could still buy physical books it would be okay, but I feel like a lot of content might be accelerated just to feed subscribers.
Thats a fair concern. I feel like it could be done right as I see one of the biggest complaints from diehard 5e fans is slow content release in this edition.
However, you are right to worry about bloat as we saw in previous editions. It would need to be done right to work correctly.
It might offer the best of both worlds as DMs could just buy the books and ignore the subscription material. One other positive I can think of is UA could be utilized and feedback directly submitted with build information included.
It has potential but I do agree there could be issues.
To be fair, my dislike of subscription based services is wholly irrational. However, if even a service is only seven bucks a month, that adds up to $84 a year. That could buy you roughly three D&D books from Amazon. I think an app could work, or other digital model, but I hope that paper books are never discontinued.
Same here, I wouldn’t mind a subscription for digital content (might actually use it myself) but it would sadden me greatly if the physical books were discontinued. I still like taking my D&D books out with me to a nice park to read them and write character/story concepts with them on pencil and paper, and I’m a millennial, part of one of two generations that are stereotypically joked about as operating under the assumption that if it isn’t on the internet then it’s not worth my time (this is a joke of course, I actually seem to enjoy making fun of myself for being an anti-stereotypical millennial and I know many millennials that don’t act like this anyways).
Paper books are so much more satisfying than PDFs, and I am also a member of the so called digital generation. D&D books are actually quite high quality for their price point, and the glossy pages and vibrant art is very nice to look at. I agree with everything you say.
No arguments here! I would hate to see the books go too.
On one hand I think they're an important part of DnD and should always be a part of it. It's the entire point of a pen and paper RPG. Also books are awesome, and just more satisfying to read than content on a screen.
On the other hand I do think they hold the game back in some respects. As books can't be updated or fixed, if WotC releases a bad class or subclass, there isn't an easy way to fix it. It's stuck that way as you can't update peoples books they own. For ranger and sorcerer, as well as subclasses such as the undying, this has left them rotting without an easy fix.
This is my major thought with the digital subscription model...it would allow real time fixes for this kind of stuff and even let them see what options people are using (I think they do already with DnD Beyond) but also get more data on choices made by players as I think it would draw more people in to using the digital tools.
One for years until it was clarified that a Trance = a long rest; lots of arguements. Two a race which can live 1,000 years needs another bonus. Third I always hated the resistance/immune to sleep from elves.
My two cents on the digital book thing: I’m in college, I’m not old, and if the game went all digital I would not play it. I’d stick with the old editions with the physical books. There’s just something so nice about the feel of paper...and your friends not having browsers open while you’re trying to hang out and play a game
One for years until it was clarified that a Trance = a long rest; lots of arguements. Two a race which can live 1,000 years needs another bonus. Third I always hated the resistance/immune to sleep from elves.
Okay then. Trances do equal long rests, but shortening a long rest to 4 hours does not lead to very many exploits (practically only Warlocks gain any benefit from this, and only in special circumstances). I won't argue with you about this, but it seems like a strange "one thing" to have changed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Pick your Race/Subrace first, then randomly determine your family’s Lifestyle (Wretched — Aristocratic), and then roll Ability Scores in order. If the idea of rolling is really that horrible then instead use standard array but assign them randomly. Then pick a background that specifically makes sense for that Race, Lifestyle, and natural inclination from Abilities. Then, pick the class that best suits what that character would be good at based on what you already have.
That’s the closest possible approximation of real random circumstance of birth, followed by years of self discovery in some mundane existence (just like normal people), and finally the moment when that person finally realizes that a life as a [whatever] is not for them. When they finally decide to take control of their destiny and choose for themselves who they want to be based on who they already are.
Or maybe they didn’t choose, maybe it was forced on them by circumstance? Maybe family obligations were placed on them. Maybe they loved their life as a shoemaker and had no intention of changing “when suddenly....” or perhaps they were complacently minding their own business, “but little did they know....” There are countless ways to get from who they were to who they are now.
You just got to experience an analog of childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood for a complete stranger in a microcosm. You’ve figured out how they got from “born” to 1st level. You have now a “character” instead of an archetype. You can understand their motivations based on how they grew up. What lead them to a life as an armed mercenary-adventurer kinda makes sense in a “if D&D were real” sort of way too. Notice that their backstory has already written itself in your mind, just not on paper. Jot that down. That PC is now a practical, conceivable person (even if their world is a fantasyland full of dragons). And you get to discover right alongside them who they will become, and what that journey will be like for them.
If that truly sounds terrible to you, if that’s something you absolutely cannot accept, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but... That’s pretty much how the real world works.
Then just play up to 5th level. That should take, what, 6, maybe 8 sessions max? You can do that, I know you can. And what’s more is I’ll bet that you end up loving the character way more than you expect because of the person they are. The actual character will stand out more than just the archetype. You won’t be playing “[Name], the Barbarian,” you’ll be playing a person.
Of course, that also assumes that everyone at the table is playing the same way, because if everyone else is just optimizing towards an archetype then you’re right and it will suck. That’s why so many folks to this day (myself included) complain about optimizers We’re trying to play characters as people, and when we’re at the same table with someone playing a bunch of perfectly arrayed stats with a name it throws everything out of whack.
Now, I will admit that we did things in a slightly differently when we were kids. That’s because the game had different rules back then:
For one, there were no ASIs. Your PC generally died with the stats you rolled at creation. There were also no Feats, and no Backgrounds either. And There were a bagillian “Proficiencies” instead of a handful of Skills, and no “Proficiency Bonus” so you could only either gain new proficiencies, or level up existing proficiencies (not both) at level up little bits at a time. Heck even a Fighter could only learn how to use one new type of sword every level.
So all of that extra stuff got rolled together into Race on top of the Racial Ability Bonuses. That’s why we still have the legacy of “Racial Weapon and Skill Proficiencies” like Stonecunning and Elf Weapon Training when we no longer need them.
So we rolled, then picked whichever Class was the best fit. But there were rarely ever any perfect fits. And since there was no other way to fill the gaps where the fit was off, we chose Race afterwords since there was quite literally nothing else. Race was kinda like wood putty for PCs back then. It was an exercise in making the best out of what life gave us.
Despite those differences, the general spirit between how we did it forever ago compared to the method I suggested to is largely unchanged. It’s remains an exercise in making the most out of what one has.
The other major difference is that back then, 6-8 sessions didn’t get most characters to 2nd level, and the vast majority of PCs died before they ever even got to learn what 5th level smelled like from a distance. So we had to make new characters almost constantly, and we did it for years.
The takeaway from all of that, at least for me, was to focuses on a person for who they are instead of sticking them in a bin with an arbitrary labeled of a stereotype on it. And not to take the measure of a person based solely on how good they are at fulfilling a concept of a stereotype on a label. That we as people are more than any of that shinola.
We got to prove to ourselves (and each other) that it doesn’t matter if someone isn’t the smartest or the strongest, or how rich they are. We learned that all it takes is for a person to find their niche and play to the strengths they do have. And that if we could surround ourselves with the right group of people on whom we could rely, with a little luck we could still be totally, fully awesome no matter what the DM life through at us. At least until our ticket gets punched.
So when I wrote that “I know you can [play a character like that] for at least 6-8 sessions,” I know it was the truth. Because you and I are both people, which means that no matter the differences between anyone and myself, I am not “better” than anyone else. So if I could do it, so can anyone. Because it doesn’t matter if I’m good at a particular thing. I am unique, but that doesn’t make me ”special,” just different.
Most of us got into D&D around 11-15 year old. We were still a little too new to be quite wholly anchored in this reality, but old enough to appreciate the inevitability of adulthood. I think those were valuable things to learn at that age. And I can thank D&D (at least in part) for helping me learn those lessons.
You know there are CRPGs out there in which you do not pick anything overtly, but rather, you run a mini-adventure at the start to find out what character type you will play. Ultima IV did this by having you (as a normal human from our world) enter a fortune teller's tent. Then she gave you a series of binary answer questions using "tarot" like cards... Things like (inventing because I don't remember them exactly), "You save a wealthy man from a horrible death, and he offers to reward you. Do you do the charitable thing, and give the money away, or the proud thing, and use the money to build a monument to yourself?" But answering the questions in character, the game slowly winnowed you down into one of the 8 classes of the avatar. I started out as a Paladin (my top trait was "honor"). One of my friends started out as a Shepherd (his top trait was "humility"). You eventually got a party of 8, with one character from each class, but which one you started out as, which one was the main PC, depended on how you answered these questions.
I think there is a small adventure like this on Drive Thru RPG that does this as well -- you're "level 0" and you play through it, and when you come out at the end you have a background, maybe race (dunno, haven't played it), class, alignment, and other such things. Chosen by making in-character choices, rather than sitting there optimizing the character like it's a math problem.
And I suppose that's the difference. Some people see a player character as an optimization problem to solve. Others see it as an alter-ego to immerse ourselves in.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The DM of my game right now doesn't use the forums much so I'm putting his two pence on the table and guessing that he will want to change the way cantrips leveled with characters. Instead of giving an additional die at every 5th, 11th, 17th we're going to swap it around so every 4 character levels gives a +1 damage modifier to a maximum of +4 at level 20. We had this idea after today when the rogue (Swashbuckler) of the group is able to mix sneak attack and booming blade together to get higher levels of damage that outpace the rest of the party without needing to dump loads of levels in to a magic class.
So in relation to the thread itself, change the power-gain that cantrips get. (PLACE ANOTHER THREAD TO DISCUSS THIS ONE! I AIN'T FILLING THIS ONE WITH MORE SPAM!)
To be fair, my dislike of subscription based services is wholly irrational. However, if even a service is only seven bucks a month, that adds up to $84 a year. That could buy you roughly three D&D books from Amazon. I think an app could work, or other digital model, but I hope that paper books are never discontinued.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Same here, I wouldn’t mind a subscription for digital content (might actually use it myself) but it would sadden me greatly if the physical books were discontinued. I still like taking my D&D books out with me to a nice park to read them and write character/story concepts with them on pencil and paper, and I’m a millennial, part of one of two generations that are stereotypically joked about as operating under the assumption that if it isn’t on the internet then it’s not worth my time (this is a joke of course, I actually seem to enjoy making fun of myself for being an anti-stereotypical millennial and I know many millennials that don’t act like this anyways).
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
Get rid of the trance ability of elfs.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
. . . May I ask why?
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Paper books are so much more satisfying than PDFs, and I am also a member of the so called digital generation. D&D books are actually quite high quality for their price point, and the glossy pages and vibrant art is very nice to look at. I agree with everything you say.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Trance makes elves less susceptible to sleep effects, but that is pretty rare. I guess they can take long rests in four hours, but if the rest of the party is not elves that doesn't really matter. And if you have time for a four hour rest, you can probably wait eight hours.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I agree. I would hate D&D going all digital. My ADHD brain cannot focus on a digital book as well as it can for a physical one (this is true for most people, but worse for me than the average joe).
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I've got a love/hate with the physical books.
On one hand I think they're an important part of DnD and should always be a part of it. It's the entire point of a pen and paper RPG. Also books are awesome, and just more satisfying to read than content on a screen.
On the other hand I do think they hold the game back in some respects. As books can't be updated or fixed, if WotC releases a bad class or subclass, there isn't an easy way to fix it. It's stuck that way as you can't update peoples books they own. For ranger and sorcerer, as well as subclasses such as the undying, this has left them rotting without an easy fix.
I'm aware of all of that. I'm asking jasperrdm why they hate it, because all the things you list above are not at all problematic.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
No arguments here! I would hate to see the books go too.
I'd make "Surprise" a condition.
This is my major thought with the digital subscription model...it would allow real time fixes for this kind of stuff and even let them see what options people are using (I think they do already with DnD Beyond) but also get more data on choices made by players as I think it would draw more people in to using the digital tools.
One for years until it was clarified that a Trance = a long rest; lots of arguements. Two a race which can live 1,000 years needs another bonus. Third I always hated the resistance/immune to sleep from elves.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
I mean you can always make elves sleep by the 'classic' method.
E.g. a swift blow to the skull.
My two cents on the digital book thing: I’m in college, I’m not old, and if the game went all digital I would not play it. I’d stick with the old editions with the physical books. There’s just something so nice about the feel of paper...and your friends not having browsers open while you’re trying to hang out and play a game
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Okay then. Trances do equal long rests, but shortening a long rest to 4 hours does not lead to very many exploits (practically only Warlocks gain any benefit from this, and only in special circumstances). I won't argue with you about this, but it seems like a strange "one thing" to have changed.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Not entirely random. Try this sometime:
Pick your Race/Subrace first, then randomly determine your family’s Lifestyle (Wretched — Aristocratic), and then roll Ability Scores in order. If the idea of rolling is really that horrible then instead use standard array but assign them randomly. Then pick a background that specifically makes sense for that Race, Lifestyle, and natural inclination from Abilities. Then, pick the class that best suits what that character would be good at based on what you already have.
That’s the closest possible approximation of real random circumstance of birth, followed by years of self discovery in some mundane existence (just like normal people), and finally the moment when that person finally realizes that a life as a [whatever] is not for them. When they finally decide to take control of their destiny and choose for themselves who they want to be based on who they already are.
Or maybe they didn’t choose, maybe it was forced on them by circumstance? Maybe family obligations were placed on them. Maybe they loved their life as a shoemaker and had no intention of changing “when suddenly....” or perhaps they were complacently minding their own business, “but little did they know....” There are countless ways to get from who they were to who they are now.
You just got to experience an analog of childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood for a complete stranger in a microcosm. You’ve figured out how they got from “born” to 1st level. You have now a “character” instead of an archetype. You can understand their motivations based on how they grew up. What lead them to a life as an armed mercenary-adventurer kinda makes sense in a “if D&D were real” sort of way too. Notice that their backstory has already written itself in your mind, just not on paper. Jot that down. That PC is now a practical, conceivable person (even if their world is a fantasyland full of dragons). And you get to discover right alongside them who they will become, and what that journey will be like for them.
If that truly sounds terrible to you, if that’s something you absolutely cannot accept, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but... That’s pretty much how the real world works.
Then just play up to 5th level. That should take, what, 6, maybe 8 sessions max? You can do that, I know you can. And what’s more is I’ll bet that you end up loving the character way more than you expect because of the person they are. The actual character will stand out more than just the archetype. You won’t be playing “[Name], the Barbarian,” you’ll be playing a person.
Of course, that also assumes that everyone at the table is playing the same way, because if everyone else is just optimizing towards an archetype then you’re right and it will suck. That’s why so many folks to this day (myself included) complain about optimizers We’re trying to play characters as people, and when we’re at the same table with someone playing a bunch of perfectly arrayed stats with a name it throws everything out of whack.
Now, I will admit that we did things in a slightly differently when we were kids. That’s because the game had different rules back then:
For one, there were no ASIs. Your PC generally died with the stats you rolled at creation. There were also no Feats, and no Backgrounds either. And There were a bagillian “Proficiencies” instead of a handful of Skills, and no “Proficiency Bonus” so you could only either gain new proficiencies, or level up existing proficiencies (not both) at level up little bits at a time. Heck even a Fighter could only learn how to use one new type of sword every level.
So all of that extra stuff got rolled together into Race on top of the Racial Ability Bonuses. That’s why we still have the legacy of “Racial Weapon and Skill Proficiencies” like Stonecunning and Elf Weapon Training when we no longer need them.
So we rolled, then picked whichever Class was the best fit. But there were rarely ever any perfect fits. And since there was no other way to fill the gaps where the fit was off, we chose Race afterwords since there was quite literally nothing else. Race was kinda like wood putty for PCs back then. It was an exercise in making the best out of what life gave us.
Despite those differences, the general spirit between how we did it forever ago compared to the method I suggested to is largely unchanged. It’s remains an exercise in making the most out of what one has.
The other major difference is that back then, 6-8 sessions didn’t get most characters to 2nd level, and the vast majority of PCs died before they ever even got to learn what 5th level smelled like from a distance. So we had to make new characters almost constantly, and we did it for years.
The takeaway from all of that, at least for me, was to focuses on a person for who they are instead of sticking them in a bin with an arbitrary labeled of a stereotype on it. And not to take the measure of a person based solely on how good they are at fulfilling a concept of a stereotype on a label. That we as people are more than any of that shinola.
We got to prove to ourselves (and each other) that it doesn’t matter if someone isn’t the smartest or the strongest, or how rich they are. We learned that all it takes is for a person to find their niche and play to the strengths they do have. And that if we could surround ourselves with the right group of people on whom we could rely, with a little luck we could still be totally, fully awesome no matter what the DM life through at us. At least until our ticket gets punched.
So when I wrote that “I know you can [play a character like that] for at least 6-8 sessions,” I know it was the truth. Because you and I are both people, which means that no matter the differences between anyone and myself, I am not “better” than anyone else. So if I could do it, so can anyone. Because it doesn’t matter if I’m good at a particular thing. I am unique, but that doesn’t make me ”special,” just different.
Most of us got into D&D around 11-15 year old. We were still a little too new to be quite wholly anchored in this reality, but old enough to appreciate the inevitability of adulthood. I think those were valuable things to learn at that age. And I can thank D&D (at least in part) for helping me learn those lessons.
So, does it make any more sense now?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
This may in fact be one of the few things of yours that I have read that I generally agree with.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
You know there are CRPGs out there in which you do not pick anything overtly, but rather, you run a mini-adventure at the start to find out what character type you will play. Ultima IV did this by having you (as a normal human from our world) enter a fortune teller's tent. Then she gave you a series of binary answer questions using "tarot" like cards... Things like (inventing because I don't remember them exactly), "You save a wealthy man from a horrible death, and he offers to reward you. Do you do the charitable thing, and give the money away, or the proud thing, and use the money to build a monument to yourself?" But answering the questions in character, the game slowly winnowed you down into one of the 8 classes of the avatar. I started out as a Paladin (my top trait was "honor"). One of my friends started out as a Shepherd (his top trait was "humility"). You eventually got a party of 8, with one character from each class, but which one you started out as, which one was the main PC, depended on how you answered these questions.
I think there is a small adventure like this on Drive Thru RPG that does this as well -- you're "level 0" and you play through it, and when you come out at the end you have a background, maybe race (dunno, haven't played it), class, alignment, and other such things. Chosen by making in-character choices, rather than sitting there optimizing the character like it's a math problem.
And I suppose that's the difference. Some people see a player character as an optimization problem to solve. Others see it as an alter-ego to immerse ourselves in.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.