“Hydrogen enthusiast” made me chuckle. I know what you mean mean, of course, but I had a flood of images in my head. You know, people enjoying hydrogen in bongs. And of course... we live in this vast universe, we are all hydrogen enthusiasts.

Wait! Garp was wrong?!

Accidental discharges are actually negligent discharges. You had a round in the chamber, had the safety off, the clip in while cleaning, didn't follow proper procedure for storing, cleaning, maintaining, you were pointing the gun improperly etc. Sure, guns can malfunction, but a discharge always has a hint of…

Now that would be a crime. Diversify, man!

I wish you were just an idiot, unfortunately you're a troll. Meh, low hanging fruit, bad attempt, 2/10.

Tachymenoides excrementumcani, more like.

I wasss alssso confussssed.

I have played other systems, just not PF. In Vaesen, for example, you start with an archetype and can choose skills from other archetypes as you level up. In Vaesen, though, there are like 6 archetypes (classes, if you will) and a couple of dozen or so skills (ever). This still gives freedom to create any character…

I did not say lazy. But I did say complacent (“phoning it in”). Don’t tell me developers don’t get complacent. Don’t tell me they don’t know they’re working on a piece of crap (at some point in development, obviously they don’t set out to make a bad game). Does anyone do anything? Do developers go to their team lead?…

I am not trying to attack people. Do developers have no responsibility? Always in proportion to their station, sure, but still? If you choose to believe in evil corporate managers and pure developers, that’s great. I take responsibility for my work. If it sucks, I try to find out why and see if I can effect change. If…

So you are saying that the cogs have 0 responsibility. I say they have >0. We will have to agree to disagree.

We are not talking about China, though. We are talking about developers in the western world. Don't tell me they are cogs. I am not saying they are the main culprit, not at all. But they are not blameless.

Your analogy is incorrect. It's like going to Walmart and blaming people making Walmart brand products for the products being crap. Sure, they don't run the place, but they help produce substandard items. So they do share some responsibility.

I have never run  published adventures, so I can't say anything about that. But how does 5e limit your choices? It's just a system for adjudicating actions. There are so many classes and combinations...

But they do share some responsibility in their parent company's decisions and in the product they're making. They're not blameless.

Someone *should* be fired for that movie, but I don't think it should be 300 Singaporeans.

I am not saying they always phone it in, but I'm sure it happens. My point is, developers are not absolved of all responsibility. They do not make all the decisions, but they are an integral part of the process.

I understand. Why is it better, or “less vanilla roleplaying” than 5th edition’s “easy 10, medium 15, hard 20"? The question is rhetorical and I really don’t want to get into “what is the best system”. It’s just that the article (the longer I think about it) feels like a cheap shot at a venerable, flexible and OK…

I (think I) get and don’t quite get what you’re trying to say.

I kind of ascribe to this point. “Sure, it’s a shitty game, but I am just a developer” seems understandable, but at the same time a bit of a cop-out. Change can come from the outside (I wish people would vote with their wallets), but also from the inside. Just phoning in a bad vampire game, pocketing the cheque and…