It's [i]always[/i] been all about the PCs

[fendrin]

Oh dear, yes we did get a bit off topic. Sorry! If anyone wants to continue that conversation, please start a new thread rather than continuing in this one.

[Zincorium]

I don't know how but this thread outdid the Paladin one.

The thing is, in the paladin people were angry at each other.

This is a civil, friendly debate over whether it's reasonable to believe in something that everyone agrees is rather fantastical despite it's attraction. It's even fun.

On the other hand, it is rather astray from what the thread started as (which has been satisfactorily answered by all sides who care). So if someone starts a new thread somewhere else, I'll happily go there instead.

[Rutee]

The thing is, in the paladin people were angry at each other.

For what it's worth, I was laughing. Also this thread also was EE'd.

[Mike_G]

Also this thread also was EE'd.

To be fair, for a moment before that, it seemed like it might wind down in general polite consensus.

[Yahzi]

1) You say that you aren't saying that only PCs are able to do the things they are able to do, then you talk about getting rich because you are the only one who can do what you do. There is a contradiction there.
What I'm trying to point is that if only the PCs can do certain things, then those things will make them rich. So you can't make the PCs that unique without breaking your world.


There will be no cause for war, as all people's needs will be met
Humans on Earth have perfected the art of growing food to the point where poor people are fat (a unique experience in all of history!) and wealthy nations throw away food by the ton. Yet, there are still wars over food. There are still people starving to death.

Just because people have the technology to make life wonderful doesn't mean they do.


Personally, I smite any player that tries something like that in my games:
Don't you think smiting is a bit of an over-reaction?


"Your god(dess) gave you those spells to help people, not take advantage of them.
Unless your diety is LE.


You claim that there are no psychics, but cannot prove it.
The James Randi Educational Foundation has a million bucks that says there aren't any psychics. That's a pretty good bet.

But perhaps more convincing is that a doctor got a Nobel prize in Medicine for figuring out that you should move a feeding tube to a larger vein so people on life support wouldn't starve to death. Imagine what kind of prize you could get for casting Mage Hand.

And finally, there is a 50 year, 50 billion dollar, 50 million person experiment on the existence of psychic powers. It's called Las Vegas. Go into any casino and tell them you're a card-counting mathematician, and they'll show you the door. Tell them you're a psychic... and the drinks are on the house. :smallbiggrin:


It is impossible to prove that something does not exist unless you can prove it cannot exist.
I refer you to Russel's Teapot.

Also, the Standard Model of physics. (Edit: I see Dervag's already there. Of course. :smallbiggrin: )

Something really interesting and worth reading is Isaac Asimov's take on proof and knowledge:

http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm



On Occam's razor and inductive logic:
Occam's Razor doesn't get nearly enough credit in general philosophy discussions, IMHO. It's more than just a good idea - it's a fundamental underlying principle of logic. It allows you to dispense with things that might exist but have no evidence of existing - of which there are literally an infinite number.

To put in Yahzi terms: "If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from it's non-existence, then we say that thing does not exist."

:smallbiggrin:

[fendrin]

What I'm trying to point is that if only the PCs can do certain things, then those things will make them rich. So you can't make the PCs that unique without breaking your world.
The point I was trying to make is that 'making the PCs unique' is a straw man. No one is claiming that PCs should be unique (though some are claiming (fallaciously, in my opinion) that the designers want them to be unique).


Humans on Earth have perfected the art of growing food to the point where poor people are fat (a unique experience in all of history!) and wealthy nations throw away food by the ton. Yet, there are still wars over food. There are still people starving to death. Well, I thik it all depends on where you put the line for 'poor'. If you are talking about Americans below the poverty line, then yes, you have fat poor people. The thing is though is that they are not fat from an abundance of food, they are fat from unhealthy eating habits fostered by corporations trying to make a profit of them. Nations throwing away food is a waste. It's not that it isn't needed. It's that it is not properly distributed. Amarta Sen has a number of interesting writings about how famine does not cause starvation, bad Governments cause starvation (one of the main claims is that truly democratic nations have gone through famines without widespread starvation, but in undemocratic nations even during non-famine times there is starvation).


Just because people have the technology to make life wonderful doesn't mean they do. Well, that's certainly true. On the other hand, improved food production still pales in comparison to the infinite source of food that is Create Food and Water. No matter how many times you cast the spell, so long as you do not anger your deity, you can reasonably expect to be able to cast it again tomorrow, and even 10, 20, or more years down the road. Even if we could reliably produce sufficient food to feed everyone in the world, the desire to stockpile food (or money or other valuables) still exists because there is the possibility that food production will not be able to keep up with an ever-growing population. Indeed, there is some evidence that many nations are 'strip-farming' their arable land, and thereby reducing the amount of food they will be able to produce in the future. So long as the threat of starvation threatens us or our heirs, evolutionary imperatives drive us to stockpile food/valuables. Having Create Food and Water be widely and relatively freely available eliminates the threat of starvation, both in the present and in the future.



Don't you think smiting is a bit of an over-reaction? No. To be clear, I refer to any divine punishment as smiting.


Unless your diety is LE. I don't allow evil characters or neutral clerics of evil deities in my games. I also try to discourage clerics of deities of trade, wealth, etc.


The James Randi Educational Foundation has a million bucks that says there aren't any psychics. That's a pretty good bet. Pretty good, but not guaranteed. Some people used to claim that the X prize would never be won, but they were wrong. Someday JREF may actually have to shell out that million bucks.


But perhaps more convincing is that a doctor got a Nobel prize in Medicine for figuring out that you should move a feeding tube to a larger vein so people on life support wouldn't starve to death. I don't see the relevance.
Imagine what kind of prize you could get for casting Mage Hand. If you were the only one who could do it, you could make a lot of money. Not a new idea. However if, say, one in every thousand people could do it, you would have to actually market it as useful to make money off of it. Being one of that .1% of the population makes you pretty unusual and extraordinary, but not to the point of being able to get rich off of your notoriety.


And finally, there is a 50 year, 50 billion dollar, 50 million person experiment on the existence of psychic powers. It's called Las Vegas. Go into any casino and tell them you're a card-counting mathematician, and they'll show you the door. Tell them you're a psychic... and the drinks are on the house. :smallbiggrin:
You seem to be assuming perfectly controllable, major effects. Minor abilities like empathy won't help you at blackjack or roulette, though it would be an asset at poker. Of course, it would be really hard to notice it in action (as opposed to, for instance, noticing someone using telekinesis to win at roulette or craps).


I refer you to Russel's Teapot.Yup, it really could be out there. I would say it is even lower in probability than the existence of actual psychic abilities, but it could be there.


Also, the Standard Model of physics.
I don't see the relevance... unless you were saying that psychics are like the Higgs boson, neither proven to nor not to exist?


Something really interesting and worth reading is Isaac Asimov's take on proof and knowledge:

http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I've read it before. Interesting, but not directly applicable. I am not claiming that because our knowledge is flawed, it is wrong. I am saying that we can refine our knowledge, and in the process some things that we didn't think were possible are (cyborgs were once considered pure fantasy, now they exist), and some things that we thought existed don't (much like what the Michelson-Morley experiment did to the idea of aether).

[Dervag]

I didn't say it was. I was merely providing a counterpoint to Dervag's claim that '...you can make a good argument that nothing made out of matter can possibly do what psychics claim to be able to do, simply because there are no forces in nature that work that way and if there were it would show up in other places.'I know enough about how quantum entanglement works to know that quantum entanglement can't duplicate the effects of what psychics claim to do under the conditions psychics claim to do them.

As you say, psychic powers could not work by quantum entanglement. For example, to entangle the particles in my brain with the particles in your brain so we could communicate telepathically, I would have to make all the particles in your brain interact with particles in my brain to form entangled states. Which would involve pureeing both our brains on the subatomic level, so we couldn't use that for communication.


What I'm trying to get at here is that we actually have a pretty darn good idea of how matter works at this point. The stuff we don't understand is exotic enough that you can't find it anywhere on Earth except for places where some deeply geeky people have gone far out of their way to make it happen.


Absolutely. Again, I wasn't trying to claim that psychic abilities exist and function off of quantum mechanics. Just that quantum mechanics can be used in ways that look a lot like what psychics claim to do.But not under Uri Geller conditions (macroscopic objects, Earth-ambient temperatures). That's the key. To say "quantum mechanical effects can do X" is misleading unless you provide the details about when it can do X and what it can do X to. At which point it stops looking like an "anything's possible" card.


Key word: yet. We really don't know that much about neurobiology. Yet.But we do know that much about atomic physics. We know brains are made out of atoms, and we know that there are some things atoms simply cannot do. "Psychic stuff" in the spoon-bending, mind-reading sense falls into that category.

Therefore, unless there are emergent properties of assemblies of atoms that don't occur except inside brains, brains can't do psychic stuff.

Now, it is remotely possible, though there is no convincing evidence for it, that such emergent properties might exist. But the odds against it are so mindblowing that we can honestly say "there can't be any psychics" with the same kind of confidence we use to say "the sky will be either blue or grayish white (from clouds) tomorrow at noon."

Once upon a time, the sky was red at noon (that was a long time ago). Some bizarre industrial accident or other factor might make it green or yellow. But that's not the way to bet, and I would bet any sum of money on its continuing to be blue or grayish white tomorrow at noon.

[Yahzi]

No one is claiming that PCs should be unique (though some are claiming (fallaciously, in my opinion) that the designers want them to be unique).
If the PCs can cure disease 2xday with a wave of a hand, and nobody else can, then the PCs are unique.

If the PCs aren't unique, then you have to have enough NPCs who can cure disease. Which means that any decent community already has it. Which means those same communities have Zone of Truth. Which I think has a much larger impact on society than Create Food.


The thing is though is that they are not fat from an abundance of food, they are fat from unhealthy eating habits fostered by corporations trying to make a profit of them.
There's so many things wrong with that, I can't even start. So I won't.


Amarta Sen has a number of interesting writings about how famine does not cause starvation, bad Governments cause starvation
Indeed. I've heard it said that there has never been a true famine; only a distribution problem. During the Irish Potato famine, Ireland was exporting food.

Blaming it on "Governments" seems a bit unfair. The culprit, as we both know, is human nature.

There's no particular reason to think that would change if some people could summon food and water out of thin air. After all, they can only summon a limited amount.


On the other hand, improved food production still pales in comparison to the infinite source of food that is Create Food and Water.
It's not that far out whack. A 5th level cleric can feed 45 people. A single modern American farmer with a tractor and a combine can feed at least 100 people. 20% of our workforce is in agriculture, but that includes textiles and exports. A small portion of that grows the food we need.

Also, the spell explicitly states the food created is "bland." That's gonna go over like a lead balloon.


Even if we could reliably produce sufficient food to feed everyone in the world
We already do.


the desire to stockpile food (or money or other valuables) still exists because there is the possibility that food production will not be able to keep up with an ever-growing population.
People stockpile valuables because they can trade them for stuff they want. Nobody in this country is afraid of going hungry.


Having Create Food and Water be widely and relatively freely available eliminates the threat of starvation, both in the present and in the future.
So the clerics who spend every freaking day casting the spell don't get paid?

Again, no one in the Western world is afraid of starvation.


No. To be clear, I refer to any divine punishment as smiting.
Smacking your players around because they did something you didn't think of strikes me as unfun. For the players, at least.


I don't allow evil characters or neutral clerics of evil deities in my games. I also try to discourage clerics of deities of trade, wealth, etc.
What does that have to do with a discussion on how D&D is broken? Isn't this that the Oberoni fallacy or something (the one where the idea is that the DM can fix anything)?


You seem to be assuming perfectly controllable, major effects. Minor abilities like empathy won't help you at blackjack or roulette, though it would be an asset at poker. Of course, it would be really hard to notice it in action (as opposed to, for instance, noticing someone using telekinesis to win at roulette or craps).
I don't mean to sound mean, but you don't really understand the gambling industry. Slot machines, for example, are required by law to pay out a certain percentage. The casino is highly motivated to make sure it doesn't pay out a penny more than that. You know what? Those guys are really, really good at their job. If the machines started paying out 0.1% more than they should, people would notice. People would lose their jobs over it, even.

If you're suggesting that psychic effects are so minor they are outweighed by ordinary effects like being a good judge of people, then what you're suggesting is that psychic effects are below the noise level. Which I totally agree with. :smallbiggrin:


Yup, it really could be out there. I would say it is even lower in probability than the existence of actual psychic abilities, but it could be there.
That is exactly correct. It's all a matter of probability.

For instance, it is perfectly within the laws of physics for the pebbles in your driveway to spontaneously spring into the air and spell out "I WANTZ CHZBRGR." This is a statistically possible event allowed by quantum physics (note that the same laws require the pebbles to get colder by doing this). However, the statistical likelihood of this event is small enough that several hundred billion trillion universes will be born and die before it happens.

And when it does happen, it'll probably be when nobody's home to notice. :smallbiggrin:

The statistical likelihood that the Standard Model of physics is wrong enough to allow psychic phenomena to be real is somewhat smaller than the likelihood of the above event.


Pretty good, but not guaranteed. Some people used to claim that the X prize would never be won, but they were wrong. Someday JREF may actually have to shell out that million bucks...

I've read it before. Interesting, but not directly applicable. I am not claiming that because our knowledge is flawed, it is wrong. I am saying that we can refine our knowledge, and in the process some things that we didn't think were possible are (cyborgs were once considered pure fantasy, now they exist), and some things that we thought existed don't (much like what the Michelson-Morley experiment did to the idea of aether).
The article is, in fact, directly applicable to the above statements.

No matter how many times we refine the roundness of the Earth, we will never discover that it is square. No matter how small we delve into the quantum world, we will never discover forces of nature large enough to allow psychic phenomena to work. We count photons at a time now; we measure atoms in singles. We've mowed the lawn too close to the ground to leave room for any hidden oak trees.



to entangle the particles in my brain with the particles in your brain
Dude... this is a PG rated board. Keep it clean.

:smallbiggrin:

[EvilElitest]

See those things I put in bold? Those are called 'qualifiers' and these ones indicate that the concept they are qualifying is not always the case. And it might also be that one excerpt from a book doesn't tell the whole story. Like, I could post an excerpt from Wizard and Glass that makes the Dark Tower series seem like romance novels, because it just contains a part where Roland and Susan are flirting, not the gunslinging that comes before and after. Or the part where Susan gets burned at the stake, that's a pretty important point that you'd miss in an excerpt.

1. Necessarily implies only for the few NPCs who have class levels, and most of them won't even follow the same rules as the PCs. And the ones who do will be weaker than PCs. So we might have a few "special NPCs" who i imagine working out like plot characters
2. Um, dude your second doesn't even make sense. The sentence is saying that a few NPCs might be powerful veterans from many conflict, but they will still only be low level NPC classes. Ergo inconsistency
3. Nice try, except i'm quoting from the section in Worlds and Monsters where they explain the nature of what the world is like. And nothing disproves what i said, nor what hte books have openly stated. I could only be accused of cheating if i took the quotes out of context, which as it falls under the world section, is clearly not the case



Nothing in there says that PCs are unique.
Exceptional? Yes. Unusual? Yes. Unique? No.
Other than the part that the NPCs aren't like that?


Although some of the non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a different purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd Level fighter an army of elves is largely made up of nonclassed solders"
Don't make me spell it out please



Why do you believe that there is any risk of someone not using rules consistently? As far as I can tell, you're totally convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the authors of 4th Edition are going to pack in all these game mechanics that only apply to the PCs and not to anyone else in the universe. Why are you so convinced that you keep sticking up for this when so many other people aren't convinced?
If the NPCs and the PCs don't follow the same rules, then the rules and the world are inconsistent. Ergo, illogical and no verisimilitude



Also, I would point out that there are game systems where that kind of "inconsistency" works fine. In those systems, some people are Powerful, others are not, Powerful people have qualities that not everyone has. Some people are the flashy adventure heroes, others are part of the Minions of Dread or Foot Soldiers of Light or whatever.
Sure like Exalted. Except Exalted is made to be a game designed for one particular style of gaming. Exalted makes it clear for hte get go that it is designed for the sort of epic/storytelling/anime styled gaming and that is the target audience that hte game was made to target. D&D isn't one of those systems.
Also games taht uses points of light tend to be specific setting games, ones that if you like that sort of thing, you go for it. However D&D is far more wide and versatile and as such cannot, or at least should not go for one particular style of play


And yet the people playing those games have fun. So in Heaven's name why not have a game like that? If no one is making you do it, why get so wigged out over the 'threat' that it will happen in someone else's game?
This argument goes for the supporters of the game. D&D was not tailored for this style of play, through it had elements in the past, however if you've played 3E, then the style is very different from what we've seen of 4E. 4E should fix 3E, not remove both the good and the bad. Only fix what is broken, a message taht WotC hasn't gotten



Frankly, the rules of any game system are not and never will be good enough to construct a perfectly consistent world. Unless, of course the game system is so boring no one would want to play it, in which case it will die under its own weight.

Sooner or later you're going to have to rule that the universe can't be explained simply by extending the existing rules to cover all of space- that things there are no rules for may be necessary and important.
Sure, every game will have a pun-pun. However it is important for the game to try. Sure no game could pull it off perfectly, however they should make that attempt to and make the incosistencies small enough that they only cause small mistakes. When the game is tailored to be a game that's very description bring about inconsistency, we have a problem




I don't know how but this thread outdid the Paladin one.
No trolls?


For what it's worth, I was laughing. Also this thread also was EE'd.
Considering every accusation you throw at me is something you do as well, you really do have some sick double standard here


Your god(dess) gave you those spells to help people, not take advantage of them.
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, right, considering how many of the gods don't do that this seems rather silly
Bane
Hexor
Obla-hai (or whatever his name is, nature guy)
God of Rouges
Neurall
Venca
Cytric
Just a few right there
from
EE

[Serenity]

No, the idea that most NPCs are relatively low-level is a 3.5 one. The DMG explicitly states that the vast majority of soldiers are 1st level warriors or commoner conscripts, and actual fighters are rare on the battlefield. Ever read the calibration article? 6th level characters are pretty much the peak of human ability in real life. So a 3rd level character as a professional soldier makes perfect sense.

You are taking the quote out of context. In fact, you are ignoring the context that is right in the quote, the qualifiers which indicate that such differences are not absolute. We showed you another quote that contradicted the point you claim is in yours, and you tried to say that it didn't count because it wasn't the quote you were referring to. The context fairly clearly indicates that adventurers are exceptional people who will challenge and be aided by exceptional people. But if most people were exceptional, it wouldn't be exceptional now, would it? Hence, most people in the world will never achieve great feats. They're regular people trying to get through their lives. They have no zealous drive, supreme willpower and grit, divine favor, prophesied power, or any of the other qualities that allow someone to push themselves past human limits and become the stuff of legends.

[ShadowSiege]

:smallsigh: Consistency for PC & NPC creation led to the current mess of monster stat blocks, NPC tables, and level 20 commoners. This was an idea they used for 3e, and it seems to have failed, considering the length of time required to create a fully statted new monster or NPC. They're going back to first and second edition's segregation of PC & NPC rules for the sake of expediency.


2. Um, dude your second doesn't even make sense. The sentence is saying that a few NPCs might be powerful veterans from many conflict, but they will still only be low level NPC classes. Ergo inconsistency
He's saying that that single excerpt you keep quoting to try and prove your point is only a small bit of information about 4e that you are expounding upon and exaggerating to fit your perspective.

Yes, the rules are inconsistent when it comes to advancing in levels. Consistency isn't necessarily a virtue. Muffin batter, if mixed to an even consistency, comes out wanting. Consistent rules for NPC & PC advancement and generation results, as I said before, in a time sink, so they're chucking the consistency out.



3. Nice try, except i'm quoting from the section in Worlds and Monsters where they explain the nature of what the world is like. And nothing disproves what i said, nor what hte books have openly stated. I could only be accused of cheating if i took the quotes out of context, which as it falls under the world section, is clearly not the case


Nothing in there says that PCs are unique.
Exceptional? Yes. Unusual? Yes. Unique? No.



Other than the part that the NPCs aren't like that?

Don't make me spell it out please


Although some of the non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a different purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd Level fighter an army of elves is largely made up of nonclassed solders"

Nowhere in there does it say that the PCs are unique. It states they are an exception to the general rule, but not the only ones. You're drawing a false conclusion.


If the NPCs and the PCs don't follow the same rules, then the rules and the world are inconsistent. Ergo, illogical and no verisimilitude
Logic and verisimilitude are not dependent upon consistency to exist. You're confusing association with causation.


Sure like Exalted. Except Exalted is made to be a game designed for one particular style of gaming. Exalted makes it clear for hte get go that it is designed for the sort of epic/storytelling/anime styled gaming and that is the target audience that hte game was made to target. D&D isn't one of those systems.
Except for that D&D has always had the PCs be exceptional. AD&D 1e had gaining a parcel of land, followers and a fort as part of the progression provided you clear it of all the monsters in an x-mile radius. Or you became the Grand Master of the Assassin's Guild


Also games taht uses points of light tend to be specific setting games, ones that if you like that sort of thing, you go for it. However D&D is far more wide and versatile and as such cannot, or at least should not go for one particular style of play

It's the generic setting for D&D, use it or lose it. It seems to make your own worlds for the game, why should the generic setting matter then? D&D is and will be versatile enough settings other than the points of light, as is evidenced by Eberron not being extremely shaken up by the 4e switchover. In comparison, Forgotten Realms probably needed it. It was bloated, and they could have stood to kill of Elminster and Drizzt while they were at it, though the argument of boatloads of cash is a persuasive one.


This argument goes for the supporters of the game. D&D was not tailored for this style of play, through it had elements in the past, however if you've played 3E, then the style is very different from what we've seen of 4E. 4E should fix 3E, not remove both the good and the bad. Only fix what is broken, a message taht WotC hasn't gotten

You're arguing for a 3.6e here it seems. 4e scrapped a lot of 3e, just as 3e scrapped a lot of 2e. Just because it isn't broken doesn't mean it can't be improved. There are plenty of real world examples of this. The printing press of today is a much different machine than that which Johann Gutenberg created.


Sure, every game will have a pun-pun. However it is important for the game to try. Sure no game could pull it off perfectly, however they should make that attempt to and make the incosistencies small enough that they only cause small mistakes. When the game is tailored to be a game that's very description bring about inconsistency, we have a problem

It all boils down to the fact that you are obsessing over consistency. Creating rules for an entirely consistent world is an exercise in futility, and time spent that could have been put towards making good rules. Wizards decided to worry less about simulating everything in the world and focus intently on making rules that result in a fun game (and ultimately lots of money).


ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, right, considering how many of the gods don't do that this seems rather silly
Bane
Hexor
Obla-hai (or whatever his name is, nature guy)
God of Rouges
Neurall
Venca
Cytric
Just a few right there
from
EE

It's "Obad-hai", "Nerull", "Olidammara", and "Vecna". You are, however, correct in that there are gods that don't give out spells to help people.

[Dervag]

You seem to be assuming perfectly controllable, major effects. Minor abilities like empathy won't help you at blackjack or roulette, though it would be an asset at poker. Of course, it would be really hard to notice it in action (as opposed to, for instance, noticing someone using telekinesis to win at roulette or craps).Of course, an uncontrollable minor effect may be totally indistinguishable from no effect at all. In which case I see no reason to throw the experimentally justified principles we've been working on.

On a side note, a telekinetic would have to be really good to have much effect on roulette or craps; controlling the ball or dice in such a way that it wasn't obvious they were being controlled would be hard because the 'natural' motion of dice and bouncing balls looks nothing like the kinds of motions a person would use to seize the dice or ball and make it go where they want.

I mean, if you were invisible, could you physically grab a pair of dice and make them look like they were bouncing to come up with the desired number? I doubt it.


I've read it before. Interesting, but not directly applicable. I am not claiming that because our knowledge is flawed, it is wrong. I am saying that we can refine our knowledge, and in the process some things that we didn't think were possible are (cyborgs were once considered pure fantasy, now they exist), and some things that we thought existed don't (much like what the Michelson-Morley experiment did to the idea of aether).Thing is, cyborgs were indicated to exist, because there was no obvious reason of theory why they couldn't and at least some valid speculation as to how to build them.

Conversely, the luminiferous aether was never indicated to exist. Nothing anyone had discovered or proven in the 1800s or earlier required there to be a luminiferous aether. Aether was just assumed to exist because no one could imagine it not existing. There's a difference, albeit a subtle one.

Or maybe I'm wrong and there is no real difference- I can't rule that out.

Psychics fall into the category of "never indicated to exist" as far as scientific theory goes. We have plenty of people who think it can be done, but they've never backed their claims up in a way that suggests it should be possible to observers who don't expect to see it happen.

So this isn't something we think we could probably do if only we knew more (like cyborgs or manned spaceflight to other planets, or even other stars). It's something that we simply have no indication that we're ever going to be able to do, like generating gravity or travelling faster than light.


If the PCs can cure disease 2xday with a wave of a hand, and nobody else can, then the PCs are unique.

If the PCs aren't unique, then you have to have enough NPCs who can cure disease. Which means that any decent community already has it. Which means those same communities have Zone of Truth. Which I think has a much larger impact on society than Create Food.You're making things too binary.

If most people who are qualified for a PC class have one, then you are right and no two ways about it. But if the percentage of people with qualifications who have one (so there are Wisdom 18 commoners even though such people could be clerics), then your objection goes a little far, I think.

It might be that large communities have clerics who can cure diseases and feed large numbers of people and create zones of truth, while tiny communities (like farming villages) do not. For that matter, a successful cleric who comes from a tiny community may very well end up moving to a larger community. Either someone is recruiting clerics, or he develops a taste for the high life, or his hierarchy tells him to go somewhere. Thus, you might easily find small communities without a cleric, or that depend on a 'traveling cleric' who makes circuits.

There were large real areas in colonial America where preachers traveled circuits, so this is by no means unprecedented.


Indeed. I've heard it said that there has never been a true famine; only a distribution problem. During the Irish Potato famine, Ireland was exporting food.

Blaming it on "Governments" seems a bit unfair. The culprit, as we both know, is human nature.

There's no particular reason to think that would change if some people could summon food and water out of thin air. After all, they can only summon a limited amount.On the contrary, there is.

Created food tastes like cardboard, or "rather bland" at any rate. It doesn't keep well, either. As an export commodity it's horrible. Created food will mostly be consumed near the point of its creation, because nobody would take the trouble to transport it long distances. Especially given that any place you could export it to will have clerics of their own who are quite capable of making it themselves.


It's not that far out whack. A 5th level cleric can feed 45 people. A single modern American farmer with a tractor and a combine can feed at least 100 people. 20% of our workforce is in agriculture, but that includes textiles and exports. A small portion of that grows the food we need.About 2%, as I recall.

Can we get one person in 50 of our society up to 5th level in cleric?


I don't mean to sound mean, but you don't really understand the gambling industry. Slot machines, for example, are required by law to pay out a certain percentage. The casino is highly motivated to make sure it doesn't pay out a penny more than that. You know what? Those guys are really, really good at their job. If the machines started paying out 0.1% more than they should, people would notice. People would lose their jobs over it, even.

If you're suggesting that psychic effects are so minor they are outweighed by ordinary effects like being a good judge of people, then what you're suggesting is that psychic effects are below the noise level. Which I totally agree with. :smallbiggrin:If a few people had psychic powers, the casinos wouldn't notice unless those people got greedy and started coming back over and over. The casinos expect a certain number of customers to get lucky and win more than they spend. It's only when they spot a really suspicious winning streak, or a pattern of wins, that things get weird.

For an example of how one individual with psychic powers might be able to gamble a lot and not cause any disasters, start from "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" by Roald Dahl.


No matter how many times we refine the roundness of the Earth, we will never discover that it is square. No matter how small we delve into the quantum world, we will never discover forces of nature large enough to allow psychic phenomena to work. We count photons at a time now; we measure atoms in singles. We've mowed the lawn too close to the ground to leave room for any hidden oak trees.Unless there's an emergent property of atoms in combinations that we don't know about, which I really really doubt.


It's "Obad-hai", "Nerull", "Olidammara", and "Vecna". You are, however, correct in that there are gods that don't give out spells to help people.That said, some of those gods won't mind if you do choose to help people. And even of the ones who would mind, they won't mind if you use your magic to feed people who agree to convert to your church in a famine condition. Which you'd see a lot of in a D&D world anyway. In a polytheistic world where churches can provide bodily salvation, loyalty to churches is a mercenary thing.

Of course, in most real polytheisms you don't find people worshipping one and only one god. The same guy might pray to Athena because he's a citizen of Athens, and to Apollo when he wants to avoid catching the flu, and to Zeus when he wants the dice to come up in his favor, and to Hermes when he wants his store to be successful, and to Aphrodite when he wants the widow across the street to think he's handsome, and to Poseidon when he takes a sea voyage, and...

you get the picture.

[fendrin]

Not much time, so I'm just going to respond to specific points that others haven't already covered.

Yahzi-
Some statistics about hunger in America (http://www.frac.org/html/hunger_in_the_us/hunger_index.html)
Why? Because people stockpile wealth and food (and waste food, too).
If Locke's idea of property actually worked, this wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, though his ideas were incomplete, his conclusions have still largely shaped western capitalism.

CF&W creates bland food, but in time we will lose our sense of taste. Taste evolved as a way to teach us what and what not to eat. Once acquisition of perfectly nutritious and safe food is guaranteed, taste becomes irrelevant, like sight to cave-dwelling fish.

EE-
It is obvious that you started playing in 3e or 3.5e. The point of a new edition is not to just 'fix' problems in the previous version. it is a complete re-build from the ground up. That (used) to be what a new numbered version in software meant, as well. So version 1.1 would be a modification of 1.0, but 2.0 would be a complete re-write to address systematic flaws. That is what WotC is doing (or at least attempting) with 4e.

A bit of logic for you: 'might' and 'might not' should always be interpreted as "might or might not". Thus in that example an NPC veteran of many battles might be a Fighter.

Dervag-
You are absolutely correct about pantheons. The really fascinating thing about the Greek Pantheon is that despite the large number of deities, the pantheon was almost always depicted in art as twelve gods. Not always the same twelve, either. Also, the ancient Greeks had no compunctions about largely re-writing their mythology to reinforce changing notions of life (for instance Hesiod's Theogony is echoes the transition to the Polis model of life).

Yahzi, Dervag, et al -
Again, I was talking primarily about human-to-human communication (telepathy or empathy), not telekinetics. As for some of the specific criticisms that have been brought up...
1) Quantum entanglement is performed at room temperature
2) We have a few artificial ways to induce QE, but it is very likely to happed in nature, we just don't know how or when.
3) The known artificial methods do not require the particles to impact each other, indeed, often they are gases in separate containers that are entangled by means of a laser.
4) It is possible (but not probable) that quantum entangled particles are passed as part of the genetic material from parent to child. Given that all humans have a large portion of our DNA in common, it is thus also possible (though also not probable) that all humans have quantum entangled particles in common.
5) This really should be it's own thread. In fact, I will not to say any more about it in this thread. Get in your last words if you feel so inclined, or start a new thread. Neither matters to me. :smallsmile:

[an kobold]

Also games taht uses points of light tend to be specific setting games, ones that if you like that sort of thing, you go for it. However D&D is far more wide and versatile and as such cannot, or at least should not go for one particular style of play


More news from the designers of 4th Ed:



We're not actually building a world out of the "core" setting. In a sense, the core setting is simply a collection of proper names, artifacts, and legends we expect many generic D&D games to share. This has always been true to some degree; even back in 1st Edition, just about *every* campaign every DM ran assumed that Corellon Larethian put out Gruumsh's eye, that the drow fought the other elves and were driven underground, that Acererak the lich created a Tomb of Horrors somewhere on the planet, or that the Rod of Seven Parts was lying around someplace waiting to be found.

The big new thing in the "fluff" of 4e D&D is that we're not tethering these names and stories to the world of Greyhawk; we've created a new skeleton of linked assumptions (proper names, artifacts, stories) to anchor the fluff of the "implied" setting. Since we're telling a story that tieflings are the descendants of a ruling elite from a human empire that made pacts with devils, we might as well attach a "placeholder" name to it. Some DMs will use the name Bael Turath; other DMs will make up their own infernal empire. But "Bael Turath" looks nice than "[insert your chosen name here]".


No where does it say that any of the "linked assumptions" involve defining a level of civilization or government. They aren't even assuming that a specific core setting exist, only an "implied," not enforced or tailored to or the only way to play, points of light situation.

[Dervag]

CF&W creates bland food, but in time we will lose our sense of taste. Taste evolved as a way to teach us what and what not to eat. Once acquisition of perfectly nutritious and safe food is guaranteed, taste becomes irrelevant, like sight to cave-dwelling fish.Is it the case that you expect these kinds of societies to develop over evolutionary time scales? Because that's what it would take for people to lose a sense. It certainly won't happen over a period of a few centuries- there are families in real life where no one has actually been in real danger of starvation or even of eating unsafe food for centuries. And they haven't lost their sense of taste.

It takes hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years for sensory organs to just up and disappear like that.


2) We have a few artificial ways to induce QE, but it is very likely to happed in nature, we just don't know how or when.
3) The known artificial methods do not require the particles to impact each other, indeed, often they are gases in separate containers that are entangled by means of a laser.
4) It is possible (but not probable) that quantum entangled particles are passed as part of the genetic material from parent to child. Given that all humans have a large portion of our DNA in common, it is thus also possible (though also not probable) that all humans have quantum entangled particles in common.QE doesn't really work that way; it's a subtle and random enough effect that mechanisms for exploiting it won't evolve in nature. I could go on at considerable length about why that is, but since it's obvious that neither of us really cares about the subject enough to get into a big argument over it, I'm just going to leave it at that.

I invite anyone interested in the subject to get second opinions directly from physicists, preferably ones who really work with quantum field theory. Trying to learn this kind of thing by reading popularizations is a dangerous game, because popularizations often try to show off the 'cool' aspects of science without making it clear how narrowly defined the practical consequences of the coolness are.

[fendrin]

Is it the case that you expect these kinds of societies to develop over evolutionary time scales? Because that's what it would take for people to lose a sense. It certainly won't happen over a period of a few centuries- there are families in real life where no one has actually been in real danger of starvation or even of eating unsafe food for centuries. And they haven't lost their sense of taste.

It takes hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years for sensory organs to just up and disappear like that.

Aye, but it takes a lot less time to get to the point where the sensory organs exist bare non-functional, or function but have lost their instinctual effect. For instance, blind fish still have eyes, and humans still have appendixes. It also only takes a single generation (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E5DB133EF936A25752C0A96E9C8B 63&scp=1&sq=blind+fish&st=nyt) or an eye transplant (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9907E6D7163EEE3ABC4E53DFB166838A 639EDE) to get sight back...

Which shows that though the ability to see is lost, the complicated structures (such as the visual cortex) remain for quite a while longer.

[Dervag]

Aye, but it takes a lot less time to get to the point where the sensory organs exist bare non-functional, or function but have lost their instinctual effect. For instance, blind fish still have eyes, and humans still have appendixes.If blind fish can't see after one generation, it's because of atrophy- eyes that receive no stimulation might simply not develop into something that can work if they did get stimulation.

But unless you posit a society where suddenly everybody decides to eat nothing but "cleric food" all the time, that's not going to happen in a civilization that makes heavy use of cleric food. People will still eat things that have flavor now and then, stimulating their taste buds. Certainly, anyone with enough money to pay someone to keep up a vegetable garden or a small orchard would be inclined to do so.

I really think it's too extreme to argue that people in a world where cleric food is available will lose all sense of taste simply because there is an available source of utterly bland food that costs only as much as the local clergy feels the need to charge for it. That's making an awful lot of soup from a very small stock, as it were.

[fendrin]

If blind fish can't see after one generation, it's because of atrophy- eyes that receive no stimulation might simply not develop into something that can work if they did get stimulation.
Um, i said it took 1 generation to recover sight, not lose it.


But unless you posit a society where suddenly everybody decides to eat nothing but "cleric food" all the time, that's not going to happen in a civilization that makes heavy use of cleric food. People will still eat things that have flavor now and then, stimulating their taste buds. Certainly, anyone with enough money to pay someone to keep up a vegetable garden or a small orchard would be inclined to do so.
When available, yes. On the other hand, (European) peasant food in the middle ages wasn't nearly as tasty as a lot of people think. Even the wealthy ate meals that were much blander than our modern fare (and yes, I have eaten medieval food... cooked by a culinary scholar, not an academic who can't cook or a cook using an inaccurate recipe). Especially considering that many fruits & vegetables were only in season for a short period of time, and food storage was... difficult at best (a lot of drying, pickling, and corning). Not to mention the scarcity of meat for the peasantry (hence poaching being a major crime). Also, a lot of commonly used seasonings today simply weren't widely available then, and certainly not all throughout the year.


I really think it's too extreme to argue that people in a world where cleric food is available will lose all sense of taste simply because there is an available source of utterly bland food that costs only as much as the local clergy feels the need to charge for it. That's making an awful lot of soup from a very small stock, as it were. Which often happened. Good example.

Anyway, it of course wouldn't happen until the rising population caused more food demand than could be met through conventional methods. The wealthiest would be the last to give up real food, but even they would eventually have to give it up as the population reached a point where there was less and less farming land available. Especially seeing that all the while the churches will be growing in power (as they control not only the dominant food source, but also the only reliable method for curing disease), which would eventually force the nobles from power (they lose power if nobody gives them power, and they no longer have control over the food supply, so they can't force compliance). Seriously, if you were a peasant, would you rather serve a church and always have enough to eat, even if bland, or would you rather spend your days in back-breaking labor so that the landowner can eat well, and you barely manage to survive the winters?

Also, seeing that the deities seem to actually care about having worshipers, evil clerics would have to start offering free food as well (worshipers are a commodity to churches, so market effects come into play), plus they could offer the incentive of their worshipers not being sacrificed (they would kidnap and sacrifice others). eventually, this would lead to a true holy war.
Evil church(es): fight or we stop feeding you! Good church(es): fight or they'll kill us all!

Presumably, worshipers must have some positive effect on deities, or they (at least some of them) simply wouldn't care enough to grant spells in the first place. So presumably once a deities base of worshipers was broken, the deity would be ripe for slaying. Once the deity is dead, they no longer provide spells, and thus those worshipers will have to convert to survive.

Eventually, one side or the other would eliminate all other sides, leaving only one dominant church (or collection of allied good/neutral churches).

So, eventually, you have a single world government, a theocracy. If it is a good deity, then no one really has any reason to rebel (especially seeing rebelling would lead directly to starvation). In fact, the only ways to excel would be to work your way up the ranks of the theocracy, or be able to do something (desirable) that no one else can do. Given that no one has to work to survive, people will naturally find the professions that they enjoy, or do nothing productive. Every good is produced as a labor of love, good quality is the norm (except maybe for things that have artistic value as well).

Now, as I said before, there are plenty of adventures to be had along the way, but I just don't like the idea of a game system that logically leads to a certain outcome.

A simple fix is to make clerical abilities rare. Again, though, to be clear to everyone, rare is not the same as unique...

[Zincorium]

Any world with enough clerics to provide everyone with food may well get a large selection of people capable of casting prestidigitation, which makes the bland food very, very tasty. So as long as you can learn 0-level spells, and there would be very few who couldn't with such an excess of leisure time as we are positing, either from wizard, bard, or adept, you don't ever have to eat bland food.

[Ulzgoroth]

Um, i said it took 1 generation to recover sight, not lose it.
It took one hybridization with a genetically divergent population to get sight back. This is a demonstration of a few interesting things, like complementation and convergent evolution (or devolution?). It has nothing to do with the topic at hand, though. They regained whatever they did as a result of genetic trickery, not any sort of evolution.

A simple fix is to make clerical abilities rare. Again, though, to be clear to everyone, rare is not the same as unique...
I would note that the most magically endowed D&D metropolis possible, by standard generation rules, can feed only 7152 people of its 25k+ with magically created food. With every capable cleric expending every spell slot of level 3 or higher on it, not counting possible attribute bonus slots.
(note: slots x clerics x level x 3)
26x4x18x3 + 6x8x9x3 + 1x16x5x3 = 7152
For a large city,
19x3x15x3 + 5x6x8x3 = 3285
I'm pretty sure it goes downhill from there.

So unless you upgrade your cleric density somehow, it's really not much of an issue. Even if it were, look at the opportunity cost! Instead of feeding 3xlevel people for one day, you could have removed a disease, blindness or deafness, or a magical curse, interrogated a dead body, or done any of a few other valuable and miraculous things, none of which could easily be done by the equivalent agricultural labor (especially agricultural labor supported by Plant Growth once per year per 500 acres).

[EvilElitest]

No, the idea that most NPCs are relatively low-level is a 3.5 one. The DMG explicitly states that the vast majority of soldiers are 1st level warriors or commoner conscripts, and actual fighters are rare on the battlefield. Ever read the calibration article? 6th level characters are pretty much the peak of human ability in real life. So a 3rd level character as a professional soldier makes perfect sense.

1. Sure, but the NPC still follow the same rules as the PCs, they jsut have inferior levels/classes
2. Also, if you look at this from a percent standard, there will still be more NPCs with PC levels then PCs (because normally you have like 6 PCs)




You are taking the quote out of context. In fact, you are ignoring the context that is right in the quote, the qualifiers which indicate that such differences are not absolute. We showed you another quote that contradicted the point you claim is in yours, and you tried to say that it didn't count because it wasn't the quote you were referring to. The context fairly clearly indicates that adventurers are exceptional people who will challenge and be aided by exceptional people. But if most people were exceptional, it wouldn't be exceptional now, would it? Hence, most people in the world will never achieve great feats. They're regular people trying to get through their lives. They have no zealous drive, supreme willpower and grit, divine favor, prophesied power, or any of the other qualities that allow someone to push themselves past human limits and become the stuff of legends.

1. Your other quote only demonstrated that there will be some few
2. When the quote was put up, a claim was made that was the quote i was referring to. Which it is not. Also the other quotes i provided support my theory
3. and that quote only proved that such as standard wasn't absolute, not that my assumption was wrong
4. There is a difference between exceptional and talented. In 3E the average PCs is talented. He has a PC class, he is powerful, cool. however he isn't the only person who has such a class, other people like him are running around the world. in time, he hopefully will rise up and become the local cool PC and eventually hit epic levels however he isn't the only dude in the world with these powers.


Consistency for PC & NPC creation led to the current mess of monster stat blocks, NPC tables, and level 20 commoners. This was an idea they used for 3e, and it seems to have failed, considering the length of time required to create a fully statted new monster or NPC. They're going back to first and second edition's segregation of PC & NPC rules for the sake of expediency.

1. Not because of the system, because they handled it somewhat badly. Also level 20 commoners wasn't the problem
2. your presuming that going back to 2E is a good thing, i'm not.
3. Because the PC/NPC equal rules gives more towards consistency, and hte feeling that the world functions in a logical manner


He's saying that that single excerpt you keep quoting to try and prove your point is only a small bit of information about 4e that you are expounding upon and exaggerating to fit your perspective.

Considering i'm quoted more than one excerpt, that is rather silly


Yes, the rules are inconsistent when it comes to advancing in levels. Consistency isn't necessarily a virtue. Muffin batter, if mixed to an even consistency, comes out wanting. Consistent rules for NPC & PC advancement and generation results, as I said before, in a time sink, so they're chucking the consistency out.

Constancy i one of the basic wants of a system, or a fantasy book, or anything ect. The feeling that the fantasy world your in makes sense within its own boundaries. If you don't have constancy, then the world feels rather dead and static, not to mention illogical. It is good for the world to make sense within its own boundaries, and not simply rely on the power of hte plot to explain what happens



Nowhere in there does it say that the PCs are unique. It states they are an exception to the general rule, but not the only ones. You're drawing a false conclusion.



Although some of the non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a different purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd Level fighter an army of elves is largely made up of nonclassed solders

NPC and PC are not using the same level/class system. The PCs certainly are unique



Logic and verisimilitude are not dependent upon consistency to exist. You're confusing association with causation.
WotC has offered no logical reason why these half dozen dudes are so special compared to everyone else. or why every other character they make is going to be super special awesome in a unique sort of way



Except for that D&D has always had the PCs be exceptional. AD&D 1e had gaining a parcel of land, followers and a fort as part of the progression provided you clear it of all the monsters in an x-mile radius. Or you became the Grand Master of the Assassin's Guild
1. 3E didn't. PCs were talented, not unique
2. about 1E, what?



It's the generic setting for D&D, use it or lose it. It seems to make your own worlds for the game, why should the generic setting matter then? D&D is and will be versatile enough settings other than the points of light, as is evidenced by Eberron not being extremely shaken up by the 4e switchover.
Because when i make my own games and worlds, i rather like being able to take the fluff form the original game and simply cutting and pasting it into my own world. With 3E i can make a nation based or points of light based game without even greatly altering the fluff. Now however, i'm going to have to change practically all of the fluff i see just to make it work in my game


In comparison, Forgotten Realms probably needed it. It was bloated, and they could have stood to kill of Elminster and Drizzt while they were at it, though the argument of boatloads of cash is a persuasive one.

ok, rather basis that you think Ebberon is fine but not FR
1. How did it need it? It was a well developed, fleshed out, well mapped and thought through (except for those other continents that we never here about any more sadly).
2. How was it bloated? It was a setting that made sense within its own boundries. sadly, everything has been scraped however



You're arguing for a 3.6e here it seems. 4e scrapped a lot of 3e, just as 3e scrapped a lot of 2e. Just because it isn't broken doesn't mean it can't be improved. There are plenty of real world examples of this. The printing press of today is a much different machine than that which Johann Gutenberg created.
1. I'm fine with a new edition, when 4E first came out, i argued that that changed was needed, as 3.5 was broken sadly. what i wanted was a system that kept the nice elements of 3E, destroyed the bad elements, and was still recognizable as the same game.

Some changes i didn't like i'm not complaining about. The change in wizards for example. I don't like it, i liked the old concept. It was horrible broken, however you can balance it and make it workable. Its been done on these boards. however WotC simply remade it. I don't like it, but i understand it, the original concept was broken and needed fixing. There method wasn't the best one, but it works (I hope). So while i personally dislike it, i'm not going to go on a rant against it. It is an understandable change

The new LA thing is something i don't personally like, but from all indications it seems better than the old LA, so hey what do i have to complain about

However a lot of changes are simply unnecessary, or silly.
Getting ride of gnomes seems to have no real justification, along with the death of consistency. These are changes that aren't fixing problems, just creating new ones


It all boils down to the fact that you are obsessing over consistency. Creating rules for an entirely consistent world is an exercise in futility, and time spent that could have been put towards making good rules. Wizards decided to worry less about simulating everything in the world and focus intently on making rules that result in a fun game (and ultimately lots of money).

Because i think consistency and logic are good for a game. I feel that the thing that you think is fun is making the game more like a video game in my option, lack of consistency and reason. that is my main complaint with 4E. i like some things in the new edition that i'm very interested in, however the whole video game/consistency lack is really really taking away my interest in 4E. Which is a pity because i rather like some elements of the game

from
EE


2.

[EvilElitest]

No, the idea that most NPCs are relatively low-level is a 3.5 one. The DMG explicitly states that the vast majority of soldiers are 1st level warriors or commoner conscripts, and actual fighters are rare on the battlefield. Ever read the calibration article? 6th level characters are pretty much the peak of human ability in real life. So a 3rd level character as a professional soldier makes perfect sense.

1. Sure, but the NPC still follow the same rules as the PCs, they jsut have inferior levels/classes
2. Also, if you look at this from a percent standard, there will still be more NPCs with PC levels then PCs (because normally you have like 6 PCs)




You are taking the quote out of context. In fact, you are ignoring the context that is right in the quote, the qualifiers which indicate that such differences are not absolute. We showed you another quote that contradicted the point you claim is in yours, and you tried to say that it didn't count because it wasn't the quote you were referring to. The context fairly clearly indicates that adventurers are exceptional people who will challenge and be aided by exceptional people. But if most people were exceptional, it wouldn't be exceptional now, would it? Hence, most people in the world will never achieve great feats. They're regular people trying to get through their lives. They have no zealous drive, supreme willpower and grit, divine favor, prophesied power, or any of the other qualities that allow someone to push themselves past human limits and become the stuff of legends.

1. Your other quote only demonstrated that there will be some few
2. When the quote was put up, a claim was made that was the quote i was referring to. Which it is not. Also the other quotes i provided support my theory
3. and that quote only proved that such as standard wasn't absolute, not that my assumption was wrong
4. There is a difference between exceptional and talented. In 3E the average PCs is talented. He has a PC class, he is powerful, cool. however he isn't the only person who has such a class, other people like him are running around the world. in time, he hopefully will rise up and become the local cool PC and eventually hit epic levels however he isn't the only dude in the world with these powers.


Consistency for PC & NPC creation led to the current mess of monster stat blocks, NPC tables, and level 20 commoners. This was an idea they used for 3e, and it seems to have failed, considering the length of time required to create a fully statted new monster or NPC. They're going back to first and second edition's segregation of PC & NPC rules for the sake of expediency.

1. Not because of the system, because they handled it somewhat badly. Also level 20 commoners wasn't the problem
2. your presuming that going back to 2E is a good thing, i'm not.
3. Because the PC/NPC equal rules gives more towards consistency, and hte feeling that the world functions in a logical manner


He's saying that that single excerpt you keep quoting to try and prove your point is only a small bit of information about 4e that you are expounding upon and exaggerating to fit your perspective.

Considering i'm quoted more than one excerpt, that is rather silly


Yes, the rules are inconsistent when it comes to advancing in levels. Consistency isn't necessarily a virtue. Muffin batter, if mixed to an even consistency, comes out wanting. Consistent rules for NPC & PC advancement and generation results, as I said before, in a time sink, so they're chucking the consistency out.

Constancy i one of the basic wants of a system, or a fantasy book, or anything ect. The feeling that the fantasy world your in makes sense within its own boundaries. If you don't have constancy, then the world feels rather dead and static, not to mention illogical. It is good for the world to make sense within its own boundaries, and not simply rely on the power of hte plot to explain what happens



Nowhere in there does it say that the PCs are unique. It states they are an exception to the general rule, but not the only ones. You're drawing a false conclusion.



Although some of the non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a different purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd Level fighter an army of elves is largely made up of nonclassed solders

NPC and PC are not using the same level/class system. The PCs certainly are unique



Logic and verisimilitude are not dependent upon consistency to exist. You're confusing association with causation.
WotC has offered no logical reason why these half dozen dudes are so special compared to everyone else. or why every other character they make is going to be super special awesome in a unique sort of way



Except for that D&D has always had the PCs be exceptional. AD&D 1e had gaining a parcel of land, followers and a fort as part of the progression provided you clear it of all the monsters in an x-mile radius. Or you became the Grand Master of the Assassin's Guild
1. 3E didn't. PCs were talented, not unique
2. about 1E, what?



It's the generic setting for D&D, use it or lose it. It seems to make your own worlds for the game, why should the generic setting matter then? D&D is and will be versatile enough settings other than the points of light, as is evidenced by Eberron not being extremely shaken up by the 4e switchover.
Because when i make my own games and worlds, i rather like being able to take the fluff form the original game and simply cutting and pasting it into my own world. With 3E i can make a nation based or points of light based game without even greatly altering the fluff. Now however, i'm going to have to change practically all of the fluff i see just to make it work in my game


In comparison, Forgotten Realms probably needed it. It was bloated, and they could have stood to kill of Elminster and Drizzt while they were at it, though the argument of boatloads of cash is a persuasive one.

ok, rather basis that you think Ebberon is fine but not FR
1. How did it need it? It was a well developed, fleshed out, well mapped and thought through (except for those other continents that we never here about any more sadly).
2. How was it bloated? It was a setting that made sense within its own boundries. sadly, everything has been scraped however



You're arguing for a 3.6e here it seems. 4e scrapped a lot of 3e, just as 3e scrapped a lot of 2e. Just because it isn't broken doesn't mean it can't be improved. There are plenty of real world examples of this. The printing press of today is a much different machine than that which Johann Gutenberg created.
1. I'm fine with a new edition, when 4E first came out, i argued that that changed was needed, as 3.5 was broken sadly. what i wanted was a system that kept the nice elements of 3E, destroyed the bad elements, and was still recognizable as the same game.

Some changes i didn't like i'm not complaining about. The change in wizards for example. I don't like it, i liked the old concept. It was horrible broken, however you can balance it and make it workable. Its been done on these boards. however WotC simply remade it. I don't like it, but i understand it, the original concept was broken and needed fixing. There method wasn't the best one, but it works (I hope). So while i personally dislike it, i'm not going to go on a rant against it. It is an understandable change

The new LA thing is something i don't personally like, but from all indications it seems better than the old LA, so hey what do i have to complain about

However a lot of changes are simply unnecessary, or silly.
Getting ride of gnomes seems to have no real justification, along with the death of consistency. These are changes that aren't fixing problems, just creating new ones


It all boils down to the fact that you are obsessing over consistency. Creating rules for an entirely consistent world is an exercise in futility, and time spent that could have been put towards making good rules. Wizards decided to worry less about simulating everything in the world and focus intently on making rules that result in a fun game (and ultimately lots of money).

Because i think consistency and logic are good for a game. I feel that the thing that you think is fun is making the game more like a video game in my option, lack of consistency and reason. that is my main complaint with 4E. i like some things in the new edition that i'm very interested in, however the whole video game/consistency lack is really really taking away my interest in 4E. Which is a pity because i rather like some elements of the game

from
EE


2.

[ShadowSiege]

Although some of the non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a different purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd Level fighter an army of elves is largely made up of nonclassed solders


NPC and PC are not using the same level/class system. The PCs certainly are unique

It says that most NPCs don't use the same level/class system as the PCs. It's become obvious that you are drawing a false conclusion, have been proved to be doing so, and refuse to recant it in the face of the evidence. This is no longer simply an exercise in futility but also one of folly and wasted time, I'm simply going to place you on ignore. I could say that I would miss arguing with you, but that would be an egregious lie.