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Dec 17, 2009 -- 1:19PM, Wavester wrote:

Dec 17, 2009 -- 1:12PM, bgibbons wrote:

Dec 17, 2009 -- 11:43AM, Wavester wrote:

People need to calm down and stop acting like somebody came into their house and turned their PS3 into an Atari or their 55 inch widescreen into an old wooden box tv with no remote. It's a game.

By the way, what rules or verbal wordplay allowed players to create new LFR characters over 1st level at Gencon because they had signed up for L4-7 or L7-10 adventures, and it was more convenient to come up with an alternate solution than follow the rules?  Once I figure out the rationale underlying that decision, perhaps we'll have a coherent philosophy to tell us when ignoring the rules is cheating and when it's just creating an appropriate play experience.

Nothing allowed anybody to create new LFR characters over 1st level at Gencon. I specifically said as much on multiple boards (including the Gencon forums) that this was not allowed before the show and when I found it I would correct it. So I know of no instance this happened at Gencon and did not hear a peep about it happening until well after the show. Now I'm not an idiot. I'm sure it did happen at the show and probably most of the players at the table never had a clue about it. I cannot audit 7-800 characters every 5 hours to make sure it's not happening.

To be clear though if somebody walked up to me at the start of the slot and said person X just made a 4th level character and could he play in a lvl band 4-7 adventure my answer would be no. I would find something else for him to do that slot (even if I had to grab some other similar types and get a lvl 1-4 adventure running).

If somebody came up in the middle of a slot and told me that I would remove them from that table and they would continue playing.

If somebody came up to me at the end of a slot then I would have a talk with that player about what is and is not acceptable, he would not get any rewards for that adventure (since he was not legal to play in it), and the rest of the party would be just fine (as they should not be punished for something they had nothing to do with and probably did not even know about).

Dave C

Just curious on the whole "rules" thing.

Looking at the RPGA rules (which are still in effect, aren't they?)

I find:

• Playtesters, editors, reviewers, cartographers, and writers of an adventure used by the RPGA may not play in that adventure at RPGA-sanctioned events, though they may (and are encouraged to) play these adventures as a playtest.
• A Senior GM may play in an adventure he or she has ordered for larger events (convention and game day events) up to or including the last day that event is scheduled, as long as she or he has no foreknowledge of the adventure. For home play events, the GM is not allowed to play in an adventure from the day the event is sanctioned and the adventure downloaded.
• GMs who have previously run an adventure may not participate as a player in that adventure. GMs who are slated to run an adventure and have received that adventure in any format (electronic or paper) may not participate as a player in that adventure irrespective of whether he or she actually ran that adventure. The exception to this rule is in the case of Dungeon Magazine adventures for home play events. Subscribers of that magazine are not restricted from playing those adventures, only players who have read or played the adventure the GM is slated to run. There is another exception to this rule in the case of larger-event Senior GMs (see above).
• Players may not play the same adventure multiple times, even with different characters.

Dec 17, 2009 -- 1:12PM, Wavester wrote:

Call it condescending or whatever but if errata to a game has you that worked up then ya you need to work something out.

You mean something like just changing the feats and items that don't work anymore for things that do?

Oh wait, you're busy telling people not to do that and that if they do it they are cheaters.

From the one side of your mouth, you tell people not to do anything until you have figured out what is appropriate for them to do. From the other side of your mouth, you tell them to work something out. Figure out which side of the fence you're on, but for crying out loud quit pretending that there are no legitimate issues here and that people should be happy to play with characters that no longer do what they are supposed to do.

For my part, I suspect that taking rational decisions that comply with the rules to continue play with severely impacted characters at the moment will probably work out to the worst possible outcome for those characters. If the player of the avenger doesn't play until the powers that be finally figure out how to say that he should be able to get the feat he spent for leather armor back, I expect that he will probably get some kind of fair way out some time between two weeks and three months from now. If the player of the avenger swaps that feat under the table and crosses out "+3 leather" and writes "+3 cloth" on his character sheet as Wolfstar suggested, I expect that whenever the guidelines come out, he will probably be within those guidelines or able to adjust to them. (Whether he bothers to adjust a character to guidelines that come out 3 months after the fact is another question). But the guy who figures, "I want to play this character and I want to abide by the rules, so I'm going to pay to buy a scroll of transfer enchantment and transfer the enchantment from my leather armor to cloth armor, and when I level in two adventures, I'll use the retrain option to fix my wasted feat rather than to try out the shiney new distant vengeance feat and see if it works"? I'll lay pretty good odds that that guy is not going to be refunded the money that he spent on the transfer enchantment scroll and he won't get to retroactively change the retain he used to fix the errata. What's more, I'd venture to guess that, far from saying, "you know, I'm impressed by how you stuck to the rules even when they screwed you; you're a capital fellow," the other guys in his local community probably say things like, "I really don't see what all the fuss is about; everyone else just changed their character sheets and was done with it."

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that people should point-blank ignore the rules. But I expect that most players who took reasonable actions will probably be grandfathered in, even those who took unreasonable actions won't be caught or punished, and I hope that the LFR powers that be will eventually do right by those who put severely effected characters into retirement until it's all over. But those who suck it up and continue to play the characters in the interim; I'll be surprised if they get the resources they spend sucking it up returned to them. Thus it is quite rational to determine that, if you are not willing to ignore the rules, you should not play any characters severely impacted by the recent rounds of errata.