I would bring back the Illusionist as it's own separate class (not just a subclass of Wizard), and also bring back many of the unique Illusionist spells, such as the ones that allowed you to create an illusion with partial reality.
"So, you successfully disbelieve the illusion, unfortunately, you'll still have to fight a 40% real ancient red dragon..."
Every player in the group miraculously rolled exceptionally high (honour system, naturally).
So is the problem really in the 4d6 rolls, or is it in players cheating?
There are plenty of reasons to use rolls (maybe not 4d6, maybe some other system, but randomness) in a game. Colville talks about this in some of his videos -- he makes his players roll 4D6, in the order of the stats, and put their rolls into those stats. He has some rules to prevent players being too weak (I think.. the total of all stats has to be some minimum #, and you must have at least 2 15s to start, or you re-roll all your stats over again).
But his reason for doing this is so that you can "discover" your character at the table with the rest of the players. Everyone is there, they all roll, and after they see their rolls, then they decide what class (and probably what race) they will play, and what kind of character it will be. This causes his table to make up characters as a sort of "team effort," and he has found it to be a good bonding experience for his players, especially when they are new. Furthermore, he has a very specific world, a world into which certain types of characters might not fit. He argues that, especially with new players, people often come to the table with pre-conceived notions of characters that would not work in D&D, or at least in his world (his examples are Wolverine and a character from Avatar the Last Airbender whose name I don't remember). If you roll your stats and have a low str/con high int/wis, odds are you are not going to try to paly Wolverine. But if you use point buy, or you can allocate stats where you want, you could try to make him up and then be frustrated when he doesn't fit into the world, doesn't play like Wolverine really would, and so forth.
Colville's been doing this for years, with multiple groups, and never had a problem with it -- not among players ("Your stats are better than mine!') and not as a DM trying to balance encounters. So random rolling isn't all bad, and there can be some pros to go with the obvious cons (which you mentioned).
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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.
Every player in the group miraculously rolled exceptionally high (honour system, naturally).
So is the problem really in the 4d6 rolls, or is it in players cheating?
There are plenty of reasons to use rolls (maybe not 4d6, maybe some other system, but randomness) in a game. Colville talks about this in some of his videos -- he makes his players roll 4D6, in the order of the stats, and put their rolls into those stats. He has some rules to prevent players being too weak (I think.. the total of all stats has to be some minimum #, and you must have at least 2 15s to start, or you re-roll all your stats over again).
But his reason for doing this is so that you can "discover" your character at the table with the rest of the players. Everyone is there, they all roll, and after they see their rolls, then they decide what class (and probably what race) they will play, and what kind of character it will be. This causes his table to make up characters as a sort of "team effort," and he has found it to be a good bonding experience for his players, especially when they are new. Furthermore, he has a very specific world, a world into which certain types of characters might not fit. He argues that, especially with new players, people often come to the table with pre-conceived notions of characters that would not work in D&D, or at least in his world (his examples are Wolverine and a character from Avatar the Last Airbender whose name I don't remember). If you roll your stats and have a low str/con high int/wis, odds are you are not going to try to paly Wolverine. But if you use point buy, or you can allocate stats where you want, you could try to make him up and then be frustrated when he doesn't fit into the world, doesn't play like Wolverine really would, and so forth.
Colville's been doing this for years, with multiple groups, and never had a problem with it -- not among players ("Your stats are better than mine!') and not as a DM trying to balance encounters. So random rolling isn't all bad, and there can be some pros to go with the obvious cons (which you mentioned).
I love his content but Colville's method is trash IMO. "Discovering" a character through randomness is OK maybe if you have a bunch of really experienced players who know how to build a character with any set of stats but for like 99% of the tables out there its an absolutely terrible idea. He only plays with people he knows and have experience with so it makes sense for his tables though.
The fact he suggests this for new players is the worst part...there is absolutely no better way to get someone to hate DnD then giving them a janked together character they have to make based on a bunch of random stats. I am glad it worked for him but if I did this to my players they would have killed me.
I do not think they will every remove the rolling for stats part of DnD as its so ingrained into the system at this point but I absolutely think rolling is the worst way by far to do stats.
The change I would make is that they go back to the three saving throw system:
The fact he suggests this for new players is the worst part...there is absolutely no better way to get someone to hate DnD then giving them a janked together character they have to make based on a bunch of random stats.
As I said, he has rules about what the random rolls have to be at minimum to avoid "janked" characters. Colville is a good DM. He is not going to let someone go into a game with stats of 15, 3, 3, 15, 6, 3. I mean, give the guy (and frankly most DMs) a little credit. I don't know what all his rules are because he just said "for example" they must have at least 2 scores of 15 or higher. I also know he has a "total" requirement because he mentioned it in the player character creation segment of the first Chain of Acheron episode.
His primary reason for making them roll stats and discover their character is so that you don't have to have that conversation with the player who made up a tiefling sorcerer before showing up to session 0, did it all up on D&D beyond, bought the spell cards, printed out the PDF sheet, and came all ready to play one, only to find out that there are no tieflings in your world, and sorcerers only work for the bad guys, so he can't play one. If he comes knowing that he can't even decide what his Cha will be, he will not come with that pre-conceived character, and even if he rolls a high cha at the table and other stats that would make sense for a Sorcerer, if he says "Hey can I play a tiefling Sorc?" there at the table, the DM can explain why not, and he just moves on.
Without the random rolls -- and I have experienced this myself -- even if you tell players "we are not going to make up characters until we are together in session 0," there will always be that one person who makes the character up ahead of time, secretly if necessary, and has their heart set on it, and then when they find out, "There are no elves in this world," or "in my world Dwarves are slavers and hated by everyone else", they find out their heart's-desire character won't work. Then they either try to make it work anyway, despite the fact that the DM tried to warn them off, and have a beast of a time with it, or else they are miserable playing a gnome druid instead of a halfling death knight or whatever it is they came to the table wanting to play.
It's not a PC, but I just had this out with one of my players last night -- he mentions an NPC girlfriend who ran off in his backstory and has been very clear since day 1 that he wants to meet her again. Originally she was a half-elven rogue type character. Last night he sent me an email, saying instead he wants her to be a feral tiefling (!). This is an optional race, not from the PHB, and to make matters worse, does not appear on the one-sheet I gave them about the playable races in my world. I explained to him that in my world, which is an adaptation of the Roman Empire, a tiefling would not be able to just la-dee-dah around the Roman Empire. She would be considered a devil and servant of Asmodeus, and probably hunted down and killed. So he got his heart set on a certain type of NPC "girlfriend" for his character -- who he wants to be a recurring NPC in the party over time -- without checking the World Anvil site to look up playable races (IMO, his fault).
But now imagine it is his PC concept and this is session 0, where I reveal the type of world we will be playing in. He couldn't have known that ahead of time and now his heart's-desire character won't work. This is what Colville is trying to prevent. He has a specific world, with specific lore, which he has been running for decades. Discovering your character at the table ensures that all PC concepts will fit into the world from day 1 -- and no one has to be disappointed.
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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.
The fact he suggests this for new players is the worst part...there is absolutely no better way to get someone to hate DnD then giving them a janked together character they have to make based on a bunch of random stats.
As I said, he has rules about what the random rolls have to be at minimum to avoid "janked" characters. Colville is a good DM. He is not going to let someone go into a game with stats of 15, 3, 3, 15, 6, 3. I mean, give the guy (and frankly most DMs) a little credit. I don't know what all his rules are because he just said "for example" they must have at least 2 scores of 15 or higher. I also know he has a "total" requirement because he mentioned it in the player character creation segment of the first Chain of Acheron episode.
His primary reason for making them roll stats and discover their character is so that you don't have to have that conversation with the player who made up a tiefling sorcerer before showing up to session 0, did it all up on D&D beyond, bought the spell cards, printed out the PDF sheet, and came all ready to play one, only to find out that there are no tieflings in your world, and sorcerers only work for the bad guys, so he can't play one. If he comes knowing that he can't even decide what his Cha will be, he will not come with that pre-conceived character, and even if he rolls a high cha at the table and other stats that would make sense for a Sorcerer, if he says "Hey can I play a tiefling Sorc?" there at the table, the DM can explain why not, and he just moves on.
Without the random rolls -- and I have experienced this myself -- even if you tell players "we are not going to make up characters until we are together in session 0," there will always be that one person who makes the character up ahead of time, secretly if necessary, and has their heart set on it, and then when they find out, "There are no elves in this world," or "in my world Dwarves are slavers and hated by everyone else", they find out their heart's-desire character won't work. Then they either try to make it work anyway, despite the fact that the DM tried to warn them off, and have a beast of a time with it, or else they are miserable playing a gnome druid instead of a halfling death knight or whatever it is they came to the table wanting to play.
It's not a PC, but I just had this out with one of my players last night -- he mentions an NPC girlfriend who ran off in his backstory and has been very clear since day 1 that he wants to meet her again. Originally she was a half-elven rogue type character. Last night he sent me an email, saying instead he wants her to be a feral tiefling (!). This is an optional race, not from the PHB, and to make matters worse, does not appear on the one-sheet I gave them about the playable races in my world. I explained to him that in my world, which is an adaptation of the Roman Empire, a tiefling would not be able to just la-dee-dah around the Roman Empire. She would be considered a devil and servant of Asmodeus, and probably hunted down and killed. So he got his heart set on a certain type of NPC "girlfriend" for his character -- who he wants to be a recurring NPC in the party over time -- without checking the World Anvil site to look up playable races (IMO, his fault).
But now imagine it is his PC concept and this is session 0, where I reveal the type of world we will be playing in. He couldn't have known that ahead of time and now his heart's-desire character won't work. This is what Colville is trying to prevent. He has a specific world, with specific lore, which he has been running for decades. Discovering your character at the table ensures that all PC concepts will fit into the world from day 1 -- and no one has to be disappointed.
All of this could be avoided much easier with one word:
Communication
The fact you have to build a character on the fly at session 0 with stats you just rolled is a terrible way for a new player to learn about the game.
I give him lots of credit because, as I said, he plays with people he knows and trusts who have experience.
The fact that he thinks the only way to avoid "I want to play Wolverine" is to randomly roll stats and build from there is the craziest thing I have heard a big time DM say to be honest. Its like he forgets simple communication about expectations exist. A simple "Don't buy any materials or actually build a character until we have our session 0" is literally all you have to say. Its not hard if you know what you are doing to work with a PC and actually let them build a character they want to play and (god forbid!) let them pick their own stats.
This feel so much like "I dont want to put the work in to make this character idea work in my world so you will just make one that does and is less interesting than what you had in mind...but its easier for me!"
His DM style is entertaining but honestly I would never want to be in a campaign with him due to this stuff. He loves to kill characters off to set up a story and has done so many times with little regard to the player.
Just watch the first episode of the The Chain. He kills the fighter off and its obvious that the PC reluctantly agrees to let it happen to drive the story....its not subtle and its not that entertaining TBH.
His style may work for your table and if it does great! But its the absolutely worst way to run it if you are a new DM with new players.
For your feral teifling example by the way....Could she not be a warlock an is hiding her nature? Maybe she is constantly in fear for her life hiding who she is and that plays into the story. The point being there is always options if you give it some time to think over and try to make it work. The "Yes and" rule is important when you want to build a collaborative world with your players. It wont always work but its worth trying.
Its so much more creatively limiting to not embrace an idea at all then try to make it work.
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
How to beat the DM in that scenario: Just keep swan diving into the arms of the nearest monster and making a new character until you get one you want.
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
It was still usually 'any order,' i.e. the player could choose to put that 16 into Str.
AH ok that does make it better.
They were talking about doing 4d6 down the line so thats much less forgiving than what you are suggesting. 4d6 rolls still produce a lot of bad variation in my experience but thats at least better as it gives you the ability to actually make a barbarian if you want to.
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
How to beat the DM in that scenario: Just keep swan diving into the arms of the nearest monster and making a new character until you get one you want.
This was generally punished as well if you did this...honestly old DnD was pretty lame in hindsight. Do not get me wrong I am super grateful we got it and that we built from the humble beginnings but I am glad they have moved on.
Thats exactly why we are talking about changes for the next edition...we grow and learn to do better the next time.
His DM style is entertaining but honestly I would never want to be in a campaign with him due to this stuff. He loves to kill characters off to set up a story and has done so many times with little regard to the player.
Just watch the first episode of the The Chain. He kills the fighter off and its obvious that the PC reluctantly agrees to let it happen to drive the story....its not subtle and its not that entertaining TBH.
His style may work for your table and if it does great! But its the absolutely worst way to run it if you are a new DM with new players.
AFAIK he addressed the controversial beginning of his campaign. Supposedly all the players knew that the beginning will be railroady AF and agreed to it and Matt said that he would never do it to someone he doesn't know.
But before that happened many people pointed out how he commited some of the most egregious DM mistakes in his own campaign which was ironic given how most of his advices for running the game are solid ("most" - I disregard his love for 4ed, that one needs to die xD).
His DM style is entertaining but honestly I would never want to be in a campaign with him due to this stuff. He loves to kill characters off to set up a story and has done so many times with little regard to the player.
Just watch the first episode of the The Chain. He kills the fighter off and its obvious that the PC reluctantly agrees to let it happen to drive the story....its not subtle and its not that entertaining TBH.
His style may work for your table and if it does great! But its the absolutely worst way to run it if you are a new DM with new players.
AFAIK he addressed the controversial beginning of his campaign. Supposedly all the players knew that the beginning will be railroady AF and agreed to it and Matt said that he would never do it to someone he doesn't know.
But before that happened many people pointed out how he commited some of the most egregious DM mistakes in his own campaign.
Oh for sure...he admits that he is a horrible example to follow as he knows his players and communicates well but he does some really dumb stuff for the sake of story. It works for them because of that but doing it as a standard for new DM/Players is asking for a horror story.
Honestly this is the type of stuff they need to address in the DMG and PHB....the Do's and Don'ts of DMing and Playing.
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
Well, back in the day people had a sense of making the best out of what life handed us. Lemonade out of lemons as it were.
What we liked about it was the idea that, no matter we we had (or didn’t), no matter what our innate attributes were, we could still all be heroes if we made the best of it. In that sense, it was not only more realistic, it was even a bit inspirational for us as players.
Now everyone feels entitled to be and do exactly what they want like the world owes them or something. Which is not very realistic. 🤷♂️
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
Well, back in the day people had a sense of making the best out of what life handed us. Lemonade out of lemons as it were.
What we liked about it was the idea that, no matter we we had (or didn’t), no matter what our innate attributes were, we could still all be heroes if we made the best of it. In that sense, it was not only more realistic, it was even a bit inspirational for us as players.
Now everyone feels entitled to be and do exactly what they want like the world owes them or something. Which is not very realistic. 🤷♂️
Its DnD...nothing is realistic.
Unless you commonly cast fireball on your commute.
Let Old DnD die...its ok to let it go into that sweet night. It gave us a good start but we can do better.
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
Well, back in the day people had a sense of making the best out of what life handed us. Lemonade out of lemons as it were.
What we liked about it was the idea that, no matter we we had (or didn’t), no matter what our innate attributes were, we could still all be heroes if we made the best of it. In that sense, it was not only more realistic, it was even a bit inspirational for us as players.
Now everyone feels entitled to be and do exactly what they want like the world owes them or something. Which is not very realistic. 🤷♂️
And then, a few chosen ones even got to be a paladin :D
AFAIK he addressed the controversial beginning of his campaign. Supposedly all the players knew that the beginning will be railroady AF and agreed to it and Matt said that he would never do it to someone he doesn't know.
Yes, he did address it. The first couple of sessions were supposed to be "the fall of the Chain." They had been planning this for over a year when they filmed it. The players didn't know what was going to happen specifically, but they knew that the campaign was going to be about rebuilding a defeated and demoralized "army of hell" (the Chain of Acheron) into a formidable fighting force that could challenge Saint Ajax, the usurper of the gods' powers. Matt explained the following after the show (and after the chat blew up over it):
First, he put several campaign ideas in front of the players (you can read it on his website). Of the ones he gave them, the players chose, willingly and happily, to play out the Chain scenario of being officers of a defeated and demoralized former army that are trying to recruit and build up their army again. Second, them having made this decision, and after doing some roughing in of the campaign, Matt went to them asked if they would like to start out in the city of Capital, and use the Chain's fall as backstory, or if they would like to play out the fall of the Chain. They unanimously said, "We want to play out the fall of the Chain." Matt then warned them it would be railroady -- that he would have to set up a scenario they could not win, and they would have to flee for their lives to Capital. They all knew, before the first session started, that it would include a defeat of their company, the loss of most of their NPCs, and the ignominious defeat that led to their flight to Capital. They didn't know exactly how it would occur or how many sessions it would take, but they knew in broad strokes -- and (this is key) they asked for it.
I will admit when I watched it I was like, "Holy cow, he is both brutal and railroading!" -- Both of which he seemed not to be in his Running the Game and Campaign Diary videos. Then I watched the Diary about the episode and it was all explained.
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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.
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
Well, back in the day people had a sense of making the best out of what life handed us. Lemonade out of lemons as it were.
What we liked about it was the idea that, no matter we we had (or didn’t), no matter what our innate attributes were, we could still all be heroes if we made the best of it. In that sense, it was not only more realistic, it was even a bit inspirational for us as players.
Now everyone feels entitled to be and do exactly what they want like the world owes them or something. Which is not very realistic. 🤷♂️
Its DnD...nothing is realistic.
Unless you commonly cast fireball on your commute.
Let Old DnD die...its ok to let it go into that sweet night. It gave us a good start but we can do better.
Quite frankly, I for one feel that the world would be vastly improved with a departure from the sense of entitlement that seems to have swept it, and a return to a more “make the best with the hand dealt” attitude. IRL, there are no participation trophies, and people thinking that they are entitled to fairness is a mistake. Who ever said life was fair? Or that it is even supposed to be? Life ain’t fair.
It's not real life, it's pure recreational pleasure. If you don't get to play what you want, why would you bother? If I wanted to play Assassin's Creed but, was offered Flinstones Follies instead, I would say no thanks and take my free time elsewhere. Just because something was a certain way doesn't make it great, it was just the best(possibly) there was at the time.
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
Well, back in the day people had a sense of making the best out of what life handed us. Lemonade out of lemons as it were.
What we liked about it was the idea that, no matter we we had (or didn’t), no matter what our innate attributes were, we could still all be heroes if we made the best of it. In that sense, it was not only more realistic, it was even a bit inspirational for us as players.
Now everyone feels entitled to be and do exactly what they want like the world owes them or something. Which is not very realistic. 🤷♂️
"Back in the day" comparisons are just generation gap points of view, totally irrelevant. Today's Millennials will be bragging about how they actually had to use their phones to make posts on Facebook, and how much work that was compared to the younger generations Open Your Mind app which pipes directly into their brain waves.
It's not real life, it's pure recreational pleasure. If you don't get to play what you want, why would you bother? If I wanted to play Assassin's Creed but, was offered Flinstones Follies instead, I would say no thanks and take my free time elsewhere. Just because something was a certain way doesn't make it great, it was just the best(possibly) there was at the time.
It's not real life, it's pure recreational pleasure. If you don't get to play what you want, why would you bother? If I wanted to play Assassin's Creed but, was offered Flinstones Follies instead, I would say no thanks and take my free time elsewhere. Just because something was a certain way doesn't make it great, it was just the best(possibly) there was at the time.
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
Well, back in the day people had a sense of making the best out of what life handed us. Lemonade out of lemons as it were.
What we liked about it was the idea that, no matter we we had (or didn’t), no matter what our innate attributes were, we could still all be heroes if we made the best of it. In that sense, it was not only more realistic, it was even a bit inspirational for us as players.
Now everyone feels entitled to be and do exactly what they want like the world owes them or something. Which is not very realistic. 🤷♂️
"Back in the day" comparisons are just generation gap points of view, totally irrelevant. Today's Millennials will be bragging about how they actually had to use their phones to make posts on Facebook, and how much work that was compared to the younger generations Open Your Mind app which pipes directly into their brain waves.
It's not real life, it's pure recreational pleasure. If you don't get to play what you want, why would you bother? If I wanted to play Assassin's Creed but, was offered Flinstones Follies instead, I would say no thanks and take my free time elsewhere. Just because something was a certain way doesn't make it great, it was just the best(possibly) there was at the time.
People have used games to teach children and prepare them for life for thousands of years. Specifically because of the way D&D used to work, I can now play any character at any time with no problem. I was educated to “make it work” in part by D&D, as were many others.
I don’t want to do what I do for a living. So why should I? Why not just drop it and go be a baseball player? Oh, that’s right, because I’m old and out of shape and was never a fast runner to begin with.
It isn’t a matter of “the best possible,” that’s the whole point. It was a matter of taking a character, finding their strengths, and making what they could do into something greater than their stats. That’s why I have a job that requires one to be able to store vast amounts of highly technical data in one’s head, access it readily at any time, and communicate it it effectively to others who don’t have those skills in a way that will let them learn it well enough to not kill anybody. Because that’s what I’m good at.
So I teach instead of play baseball. It doesn’t matter one iota if I wanted to be a “Fighter” (athlete), in the womb I rolled stats for a Wizard/Bard (teacher), so that’s what I am, and I make the best of it.
Isn’t it a good thing for me personally that I was able to learn that lesson playing D&D? I think so. 🤷♂️
It's not real life, it's pure recreational pleasure. If you don't get to play what you want, why would you bother? If I wanted to play Assassin's Creed but, was offered Flinstones Follies instead, I would say no thanks and take my free time elsewhere. Just because something was a certain way doesn't make it great, it was just the best(possibly) there was at the time.
It is how we normally played 'back in the day.' We did not expect to have everything we wanted. So much today is taken for granted as necessary or 'owed.....'
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
Well, back in the day people had a sense of making the best out of what life handed us. Lemonade out of lemons as it were.
What we liked about it was the idea that, no matter we we had (or didn’t), no matter what our innate attributes were, we could still all be heroes if we made the best of it. In that sense, it was not only more realistic, it was even a bit inspirational for us as players.
Now everyone feels entitled to be and do exactly what they want like the world owes them or something. Which is not very realistic. 🤷♂️
"Back in the day" comparisons are just generation gap points of view, totally irrelevant. Today's Millennials will be bragging about how they actually had to use their phones to make posts on Facebook, and how much work that was compared to the younger generations Open Your Mind app which pipes directly into their brain waves.
It's not real life, it's pure recreational pleasure. If you don't get to play what you want, why would you bother? If I wanted to play Assassin's Creed but, was offered Flinstones Follies instead, I would say no thanks and take my free time elsewhere. Just because something was a certain way doesn't make it great, it was just the best(possibly) there was at the time.
Something having been a certain way did not make it bad, either. Such accusations go both ways.
Honestly both are bad but choice for players is honestly the best way to go. Rolling down the line is ok if the players choose to do it because they are analysis paralysis but forcing it as the only method or for a new player is likely a bad idea.
If someone enjoys the more sadistic nature of the early systems I guess its fine...but I just dont want to commit 100+ hours to a character that isn't good due to poor stats and a class I didnt want to play.
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I would bring back the Illusionist as it's own separate class (not just a subclass of Wizard), and also bring back many of the unique Illusionist spells, such as the ones that allowed you to create an illusion with partial reality.
"So, you successfully disbelieve the illusion, unfortunately, you'll still have to fight a 40% real ancient red dragon..."
So is the problem really in the 4d6 rolls, or is it in players cheating?
There are plenty of reasons to use rolls (maybe not 4d6, maybe some other system, but randomness) in a game. Colville talks about this in some of his videos -- he makes his players roll 4D6, in the order of the stats, and put their rolls into those stats. He has some rules to prevent players being too weak (I think.. the total of all stats has to be some minimum #, and you must have at least 2 15s to start, or you re-roll all your stats over again).
But his reason for doing this is so that you can "discover" your character at the table with the rest of the players. Everyone is there, they all roll, and after they see their rolls, then they decide what class (and probably what race) they will play, and what kind of character it will be. This causes his table to make up characters as a sort of "team effort," and he has found it to be a good bonding experience for his players, especially when they are new. Furthermore, he has a very specific world, a world into which certain types of characters might not fit. He argues that, especially with new players, people often come to the table with pre-conceived notions of characters that would not work in D&D, or at least in his world (his examples are Wolverine and a character from Avatar the Last Airbender whose name I don't remember). If you roll your stats and have a low str/con high int/wis, odds are you are not going to try to paly Wolverine. But if you use point buy, or you can allocate stats where you want, you could try to make him up and then be frustrated when he doesn't fit into the world, doesn't play like Wolverine really would, and so forth.
Colville's been doing this for years, with multiple groups, and never had a problem with it -- not among players ("Your stats are better than mine!') and not as a DM trying to balance encounters. So random rolling isn't all bad, and there can be some pros to go with the obvious cons (which you mentioned).
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.
I love his content but Colville's method is trash IMO. "Discovering" a character through randomness is OK maybe if you have a bunch of really experienced players who know how to build a character with any set of stats but for like 99% of the tables out there its an absolutely terrible idea. He only plays with people he knows and have experience with so it makes sense for his tables though.
The fact he suggests this for new players is the worst part...there is absolutely no better way to get someone to hate DnD then giving them a janked together character they have to make based on a bunch of random stats. I am glad it worked for him but if I did this to my players they would have killed me.
I do not think they will every remove the rolling for stats part of DnD as its so ingrained into the system at this point but I absolutely think rolling is the worst way by far to do stats.
The change I would make is that they go back to the three saving throw system:
Fortitude: Str or Con
Reflex: Dex or Int
Will: Wis or Cha
As I said, he has rules about what the random rolls have to be at minimum to avoid "janked" characters. Colville is a good DM. He is not going to let someone go into a game with stats of 15, 3, 3, 15, 6, 3. I mean, give the guy (and frankly most DMs) a little credit. I don't know what all his rules are because he just said "for example" they must have at least 2 scores of 15 or higher. I also know he has a "total" requirement because he mentioned it in the player character creation segment of the first Chain of Acheron episode.
His primary reason for making them roll stats and discover their character is so that you don't have to have that conversation with the player who made up a tiefling sorcerer before showing up to session 0, did it all up on D&D beyond, bought the spell cards, printed out the PDF sheet, and came all ready to play one, only to find out that there are no tieflings in your world, and sorcerers only work for the bad guys, so he can't play one. If he comes knowing that he can't even decide what his Cha will be, he will not come with that pre-conceived character, and even if he rolls a high cha at the table and other stats that would make sense for a Sorcerer, if he says "Hey can I play a tiefling Sorc?" there at the table, the DM can explain why not, and he just moves on.
Without the random rolls -- and I have experienced this myself -- even if you tell players "we are not going to make up characters until we are together in session 0," there will always be that one person who makes the character up ahead of time, secretly if necessary, and has their heart set on it, and then when they find out, "There are no elves in this world," or "in my world Dwarves are slavers and hated by everyone else", they find out their heart's-desire character won't work. Then they either try to make it work anyway, despite the fact that the DM tried to warn them off, and have a beast of a time with it, or else they are miserable playing a gnome druid instead of a halfling death knight or whatever it is they came to the table wanting to play.
It's not a PC, but I just had this out with one of my players last night -- he mentions an NPC girlfriend who ran off in his backstory and has been very clear since day 1 that he wants to meet her again. Originally she was a half-elven rogue type character. Last night he sent me an email, saying instead he wants her to be a feral tiefling (!). This is an optional race, not from the PHB, and to make matters worse, does not appear on the one-sheet I gave them about the playable races in my world. I explained to him that in my world, which is an adaptation of the Roman Empire, a tiefling would not be able to just la-dee-dah around the Roman Empire. She would be considered a devil and servant of Asmodeus, and probably hunted down and killed. So he got his heart set on a certain type of NPC "girlfriend" for his character -- who he wants to be a recurring NPC in the party over time -- without checking the World Anvil site to look up playable races (IMO, his fault).
But now imagine it is his PC concept and this is session 0, where I reveal the type of world we will be playing in. He couldn't have known that ahead of time and now his heart's-desire character won't work. This is what Colville is trying to prevent. He has a specific world, with specific lore, which he has been running for decades. Discovering your character at the table ensures that all PC concepts will fit into the world from day 1 -- and no one has to be disappointed.
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.
All of this could be avoided much easier with one word:
Communication
The fact you have to build a character on the fly at session 0 with stats you just rolled is a terrible way for a new player to learn about the game.
I give him lots of credit because, as I said, he plays with people he knows and trusts who have experience.
The fact that he thinks the only way to avoid "I want to play Wolverine" is to randomly roll stats and build from there is the craziest thing I have heard a big time DM say to be honest. Its like he forgets simple communication about expectations exist. A simple "Don't buy any materials or actually build a character until we have our session 0" is literally all you have to say. Its not hard if you know what you are doing to work with a PC and actually let them build a character they want to play and (god forbid!) let them pick their own stats.
This feel so much like "I dont want to put the work in to make this character idea work in my world so you will just make one that does and is less interesting than what you had in mind...but its easier for me!"
His DM style is entertaining but honestly I would never want to be in a campaign with him due to this stuff. He loves to kill characters off to set up a story and has done so many times with little regard to the player.
Just watch the first episode of the The Chain. He kills the fighter off and its obvious that the PC reluctantly agrees to let it happen to drive the story....its not subtle and its not that entertaining TBH.
His style may work for your table and if it does great! But its the absolutely worst way to run it if you are a new DM with new players.
For your feral teifling example by the way....Could she not be a warlock an is hiding her nature? Maybe she is constantly in fear for her life hiding who she is and that plays into the story. The point being there is always options if you give it some time to think over and try to make it work. The "Yes and" rule is important when you want to build a collaborative world with your players. It wont always work but its worth trying.
Its so much more creatively limiting to not embrace an idea at all then try to make it work.
Yeah stuff changes sorry....players actually want to play the character they want to play not forced to play by rolls. Want to be a barbarian? Too bad you rolled a 10 and 11 for STR and CON...but your INT is 16 so just be a wizard. Sorry no re-rolls!
How to beat the DM in that scenario: Just keep swan diving into the arms of the nearest monster and making a new character until you get one you want.
AH ok that does make it better.
They were talking about doing 4d6 down the line so thats much less forgiving than what you are suggesting. 4d6 rolls still produce a lot of bad variation in my experience but thats at least better as it gives you the ability to actually make a barbarian if you want to.
This was generally punished as well if you did this...honestly old DnD was pretty lame in hindsight. Do not get me wrong I am super grateful we got it and that we built from the humble beginnings but I am glad they have moved on.
Thats exactly why we are talking about changes for the next edition...we grow and learn to do better the next time.
AFAIK he addressed the controversial beginning of his campaign. Supposedly all the players knew that the beginning will be railroady AF and agreed to it and Matt said that he would never do it to someone he doesn't know.
But before that happened many people pointed out how he commited some of the most egregious DM mistakes in his own campaign which was ironic given how most of his advices for running the game are solid ("most" - I disregard his love for 4ed, that one needs to die xD).
Oh for sure...he admits that he is a horrible example to follow as he knows his players and communicates well but he does some really dumb stuff for the sake of story. It works for them because of that but doing it as a standard for new DM/Players is asking for a horror story.
Honestly this is the type of stuff they need to address in the DMG and PHB....the Do's and Don'ts of DMing and Playing.
Well, back in the day people had a sense of making the best out of what life handed us. Lemonade out of lemons as it were.
What we liked about it was the idea that, no matter we we had (or didn’t), no matter what our innate attributes were, we could still all be heroes if we made the best of it. In that sense, it was not only more realistic, it was even a bit inspirational for us as players.
Now everyone feels entitled to be and do exactly what they want like the world owes them or something. Which is not very realistic. 🤷♂️
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Its DnD...nothing is realistic.
Unless you commonly cast fireball on your commute.
Let Old DnD die...its ok to let it go into that sweet night. It gave us a good start but we can do better.
And then, a few chosen ones even got to be a paladin :D
Yes, he did address it. The first couple of sessions were supposed to be "the fall of the Chain." They had been planning this for over a year when they filmed it. The players didn't know what was going to happen specifically, but they knew that the campaign was going to be about rebuilding a defeated and demoralized "army of hell" (the Chain of Acheron) into a formidable fighting force that could challenge Saint Ajax, the usurper of the gods' powers. Matt explained the following after the show (and after the chat blew up over it):
First, he put several campaign ideas in front of the players (you can read it on his website). Of the ones he gave them, the players chose, willingly and happily, to play out the Chain scenario of being officers of a defeated and demoralized former army that are trying to recruit and build up their army again. Second, them having made this decision, and after doing some roughing in of the campaign, Matt went to them asked if they would like to start out in the city of Capital, and use the Chain's fall as backstory, or if they would like to play out the fall of the Chain. They unanimously said, "We want to play out the fall of the Chain." Matt then warned them it would be railroady -- that he would have to set up a scenario they could not win, and they would have to flee for their lives to Capital. They all knew, before the first session started, that it would include a defeat of their company, the loss of most of their NPCs, and the ignominious defeat that led to their flight to Capital. They didn't know exactly how it would occur or how many sessions it would take, but they knew in broad strokes -- and (this is key) they asked for it.
I will admit when I watched it I was like, "Holy cow, he is both brutal and railroading!" -- Both of which he seemed not to be in his Running the Game and Campaign Diary videos. Then I watched the Diary about the episode and it was all explained.
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.
Quite frankly, I for one feel that the world would be vastly improved with a departure from the sense of entitlement that seems to have swept it, and a return to a more “make the best with the hand dealt” attitude. IRL, there are no participation trophies, and people thinking that they are entitled to fairness is a mistake. Who ever said life was fair? Or that it is even supposed to be? Life ain’t fair.
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It's not real life, it's pure recreational pleasure. If you don't get to play what you want, why would you bother? If I wanted to play Assassin's Creed but, was offered Flinstones Follies instead, I would say no thanks and take my free time elsewhere. Just because something was a certain way doesn't make it great, it was just the best(possibly) there was at the time.
"Back in the day" comparisons are just generation gap points of view, totally irrelevant. Today's Millennials will be bragging about how they actually had to use their phones to make posts on Facebook, and how much work that was compared to the younger generations Open Your Mind app which pipes directly into their brain waves.
It's not real life, it's pure recreational pleasure. If you don't get to play what you want, why would you bother? If I wanted to play Assassin's Creed but, was offered Flinstones Follies instead, I would say no thanks and take my free time elsewhere. Just because something was a certain way doesn't make it great, it was just the best(possibly) there was at the time.
People have used games to teach children and prepare them for life for thousands of years. Specifically because of the way D&D used to work, I can now play any character at any time with no problem. I was educated to “make it work” in part by D&D, as were many others.
I don’t want to do what I do for a living. So why should I? Why not just drop it and go be a baseball player? Oh, that’s right, because I’m old and out of shape and was never a fast runner to begin with.
It isn’t a matter of “the best possible,” that’s the whole point. It was a matter of taking a character, finding their strengths, and making what they could do into something greater than their stats. That’s why I have a job that requires one to be able to store vast amounts of highly technical data in one’s head, access it readily at any time, and communicate it it effectively to others who don’t have those skills in a way that will let them learn it well enough to not kill anybody. Because that’s what I’m good at.
So I teach instead of play baseball. It doesn’t matter one iota if I wanted to be a “Fighter” (athlete), in the womb I rolled stats for a Wizard/Bard (teacher), so that’s what I am, and I make the best of it.
Isn’t it a good thing for me personally that I was able to learn that lesson playing D&D? I think so. 🤷♂️
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Honestly both are bad but choice for players is honestly the best way to go. Rolling down the line is ok if the players choose to do it because they are analysis paralysis but forcing it as the only method or for a new player is likely a bad idea.
If someone enjoys the more sadistic nature of the early systems I guess its fine...but I just dont want to commit 100+ hours to a character that isn't good due to poor stats and a class I didnt want to play.