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In the last days there has been quite a bit of controversy regarding the relocation of threads from General Discussion into the Suggestions/House Rules/Homebrew forum, due to perceived weight ratios of discussion about the system itself vs. suggestions made on how to change it to function in a better way.
The main problem perceived is that the Suggestions/House Rules/Homebrew forum is an awkward mix of people posting their own homebrewn classes/skills/etc. versus people wanting to theorycraft and compare how their proposed solutions to the perceived problems of the system compare to each other.
Hence, I would make a recommendation to the forum moderation staff to split the forum into a Houserules/Homebrewn and a Theorycraft/Suggestions forum.
This way, people who just want to present their houserules or homebrewn classes/feats/etc. can continue to do so ( and please, do not assume that I do look down on that, I myself created a Swashbuckler class which is posted on that forum ).
And the people who want to have a discussion on parts of the existing Pathfinder system, throw up some theories on how to improve it and then bounce those off the opinions of other people can do so on a forum dedicated to that purpose. The designers can take a look in which direction players are going in their opinions, maybe giving them also some ideas on where they want to take Pathfinder for its second edition ( which we all know is coming in the future, although I personally hope it is still at least five years down the line ). Or not, depending on how much player feedback is wished for on that topic.
I would normally say that the General forum served the purpose of theorycrafting well enough, but since lately it seems that threads posted there are always in danger of suddenly being moved to another forum, I would suggest that ending that awkwardness and just simply making a proper forum for theorycrafting would be the best way to go.
I must admit, I was expecting to hear at least a "No" back from the forum staff. ^^
Monday morning may have a number of other things on the schedule. I'd give it a few work days.
Monday morning may have a number of other things on the schedule. I'd give it a few work days.
Yeah, true. Sorry, I'm just a bit impatient, since I've been crunching RP numbers all day and the two games I'm running were on hiatus this last week. Just a case of the jitters. ^^
Yar!
I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment. This idea is worth discussing, but I can see reason for it not to change/why they were put together in the first place.
What happens when someone comes along and sees all this discussion on suggested changes to the rules of this game, all the theory-crafting of fixes/solutions/improvements to perceived problems/faults, and says "Wow! These are great suggestions! Regardless of whether paizo implements these into the core rules or not, I think you are right, and thus I'm going to implement them into my home games anyways as my personal house rules!"
Suggestions and theory-crafting on rules changes/improvement can be used in games right now as house rules, and house rules can eventually turn into published rules.
The perfect example of this is the recent Monkeying Around blog along side the most recent monk FAQ. Discussions of the original rules itself took place here (Rules Questions forum), a mass of suggestions and theory-crafting on fixes and improvements took place here (Suggestions/House Rules/Homebrew forum), and the final product was an actual change to the core rules here and here (paizo blog & FAQ).
I dare say, that seems a pretty good reason to have the three (Suggestions, House Rules and Homebrew) together in one unified location.
~P
Actually, that pretty much was a perfect enumeration why it is nonsensical to have theorycrafting/suggestion threads spread around all the board, instead of concentrated in one place, as far as I am concerned.
It also doesn't address the concerns I raised in the OP about homebrewn/houserules threads being a bad mix with theorycrafting/suggestions. These are different kind of topics. One concerns already finalized houserules, which are presented to be critiqued and copied, the other one discusses the ins and outs of the system, with ideas being thrown at the wall to see what bounces back from the community.
Yar.
Actually, that pretty much was a perfect enumeration why it is nonsensical to have theorycrafting/suggestion threads spread around all the board, instead of concentrated in one place, as far as I am concerned
I must admit, this sentence really confused me. Did you mean "having theory-crafting/suggestions thread mixed with houserules in the same forum, instead of being in their own forum"? Because as it is, they are not "all over the board", but in one place: the Suggestions/House Rules/Homebrew forum. Or is this a comment about the monk discussion being in more than one thread in more than one forum? If so: the thread in the rules forum was almost entirely about questions and discussion of the actual rules. There was no theory-crafting or suggestions within it (except for one single post out of 536). It belongs in the Rules Forum, which is where it is. People got nasty, and it was locked.
The second monk thread was all about theory crafting fixes and improvement, discussing the ins and outs of the system, with ideas being thrown at the wall to see what bounces back from the community, suggesting and developing potential fixes and house rules as well as putting forward house rules already in place/used by others and discussions on how to implement and improve them. Seems to me like a good argument for keeping the forum unified.
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I actually see theory-crafting rule changes and house rules to be very similar topics, worthy of being kept together. Many of the "already finalized houserules" still get comments and suggestions on improving them, implementing them, and sometimes even see changes themselves as well. The forum in question seems to me to be about theory-crafting alternate rules, bouncing them off the community, both to share them with all and to improve the game itself. After all, isn't that was house rules are? Rules that you (ambiguous you to mean all people) feel need to be changed/implemented in order to make the game better. Regardless of whether the intended audience is the paizo staff, you and your players, or just to put an idea out there, they are all essentially the same thing.
EDIT: changed some formatting
~P
Yar!
I don't personally see any need to change, but I'm happy to hear community feedback here that may convince me otherwise.
Huzzah!
~P
I must admit, this sentence really confused me. Did you mean "having theory-crafting/suggestions thread mixed with houserules in the same forum, instead of being in their own forum"? Because as it is, they are not "all over the board", but in one place: the Suggestions/House Rules/Homebrew forum. Or is this a comment about the monk discussion being in more than one thread in more than one forum? If so: the thread in the rules forum was almost entirely about questions and discussion of the actual rules. There was no theory-crafting or suggestions within it (except for one single post out of 536). It belongs in the Rules Forum, which is where it is. People got nasty, and it was locked.
The second monk thread WAS all about theory crafting fixes and improvement, discussing the ins and outs of the system, with ideas being thrown at the wall to see what bounces back from the community, suggesting and developing potential fixes and house rules as well as house rules already in place and discussions on how to implement and improve them. Seems to me like a good argument for keeping the forum unified.
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I actually see theory-crafting rule changes and house rules to be very similar topics, worthy of being kept together. Many of the "already finalized houserules" still get comments and suggestions on improving them, implementing them, and sometimes even see changes themselves as well. The forum seems to me to be about theory-crafting alternate rules, bouncing them off the community, both to share them with all and to improve the game itself. After all, isn't that was house rules are? Rules that you (ambiguous you to mean all people) feel need to be changed in order to make the game better. Regardless of whether the intended audience is the paizo staff, you and your...
Well, I said my piece why I think Houserules/Homebrew and Theorycrafting/Suggestions are very different animals and I'd rather see them separated. I don't think repeating it once more will make my case any clearer. Also, bed, work tomorrow, so writing long posts makes the next day more unpleasant. Night. ^^
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I don't personally see any need to change, but I'm happy to hear community feedback here that may convince me otherwise.
Theorycrafting the official rules versus discussing houserules is a pretty thin distinction. One is "this is how I handle it" and the other is "in theory, you could handle it like this." That seems to be a pretty thin distinction.
-Skeld
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I must admit, I was expecting to hear at least a "No" back from the forum staff. ^^I don't personally see any need to change, but I'm happy to hear community feedback here that may convince me otherwise.
I would like an ironing out of where threads meant as suggestions to Paizo will be placed, and ideally either a forum dedicated to that or allow them in Paizo Products, where other suggestions (such as new books) are allowed.
I think there's a feeling amongst the community that Suggestions is a location where Paizo never looks, except as moderation. James Jacobs at one point said that he doesn't go there so there isn't the thought that some homebrew is better than others due to a Paizo staff posting on it, and I know that personally I was very shocked when Wes posted there the other day to link his Mass Effect campaign.
Due to this perception, whether based in reality or not, that forum feels like the place where threads as suggestions to Paizo go to die. And that kind of sucks.
I can see magnuskn's point.
Suggestions/Theorycrafting focusing on already existing rules that need modifications or feedback to make them cleaner or more balanced.
Houserule/Homebrew covering things that are more in the way of complete changes from the rules as written, or additions to.
That said...is there enough traffic to keep both forums from looking like a desert wasteland? (I haven't taken to frequenting it so I don't know)
Another solution that could be implemented by the community, and supported by paizo staff with a sticky would be encouraging tagging topics with identifiers as to what they are.
Example of thread titles:
[Suggestion] Ideas for the stealth mechanic
[Houserule] Quick and Dirty NPC income rules
[Homebrew] magnuskn's Swashbuckler class
A sticky with a community definition for what the three actually mean and the recommendation to tag your topics appropriately might get the level of organization you're looking for. It might take moderators changing the name of a few posts at first to get the front page tagged...but I think after that people would catch on and follow accordingly.
I don't personally see any need to change, but I'm happy to hear community feedback here that may convince me otherwise.Theorycrafting the official rules versus discussing houserules is a pretty thin distinction. One is "this is how I handle it" and the other is "in theory, you could handle it like this." That seems to be a pretty thin distinction.
It's the difference of making hypothesis and theories vs. implementing them on a practical level. Ask any scientist if that's trivial or not.
I think there's a feeling amongst the community that Suggestions is a location where Paizo never looks, except as moderation. James Jacobs at one point said that he doesn't go there so there isn't the thought that some homebrew is better than others due to a Paizo staff posting on it, and I know that personally I was very shocked when Wes posted there the other day to link his Mass Effect campaign.
Well, making a Theorycrafting/Suggestions forum may very well end up as another such place, but then again who knows? One other factor I had not mentioned yet is that I am taking the long view forward to Pathfinder 2.0. I'd like a place where there is a concentration of people who look at the systems nuts and bolts. This way the developers have an easier time if they want to see where the general perceived problems of the game are and which solutions players are using to fix those.
I think we all know that Pathfinder 2.0 is coming at some time in the future, probably half a decade away at the least. The developers will in all probability announce it 1-2 years before its release date and I guess that we will get another public playtest.
However, development cycles are much longer than that, so work on a new edition of Pathfinder will begin internally at least three years before its release.
And I think a dedicated Theorycraft/Suggestions forum would be a good tool to provide ideas. Not with the expectation that developers would just point at a particular idea and just copy it wholesale, but rather that following discussions about the different mechanical aspects of the game would open new avenues of thinking.
That said...is there enough traffic to keep both forums from looking like a desert wasteland? (I haven't taken to frequenting it so I don't know)
General, Advice, Rules Questions and Suggestions/Homebrewn are some of the most frequented forums, so the dilution would stay in acceptable parameters, IMO.
Would you please take your current obsession with this guy elsewhere?
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Would you please take your current obsession with this guy elsewhere?
I can see how starting a thread about how the forum should be laid out can lead to a wee little bit of "I'm helping to improve the forum" entitlement, but jumping to a "I'm the boss around here" conclusion might be a slight exaggeration of things.
This is a discussion forum. I've made a semi-serious proposal, because the only person I can see throwing fits about how his thread is not where it belongs is the person in question, so perhaps his own dedicated corner of the universe would go great lengths towards having mods not jump around moving threads while they could be doing something more useful.
Oh, I also recall one more such situation. At least there the OP was sincere - he was angry that the thread is no longer in General Discussion because it's the most popular forum and he won't get as many reads in the other parts.
Would you please take your current obsession with this guy elsewhere?I can see how starting a thread about how the forum should be laid out can to a wee little bit of "I'm helping to improve the forum" entitlement, but jumping to a "I'm the boss around here" conclusion might be a slight exaggeration of things.
Bosses don't need to use "please". I'm politely asking you to not derail the thread.
You have been obsessing about harassing shallowsoul for the last days. And I get that the guy is grating with his definitely impolite behaviour. But me asking for a forum for theorycrafting has nothing to do with the guy, even if he would too benefit from it.
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It actually has. Up until the ShallowStorm of recent days, the "where the discussion is" was a non-issue. Suddenly it is.
Another problem is that you operate under the apparently 100% bulletproof assumption that a new edition of Pathfinder is in the works, while no signs indicate that's the case.
If a "Suggestions for Official Rules Changes" subforum appears, many people will interpret it as:
1. A sign that new edition indeed is in the works (immediately triggering edition flamewars across the forum).
2. An indication that devs are scooping the new subforum for ideas, and expectations that they will pop in and comment. (triggering "hey Paizo you're clearly making a new edition but you're not listening to our brilliant ideas RAGERAGERAGE".)
3. An immediate re-surfacing of each dead horse (monks, martials vs. casters, alignment, evil undead) each ending in the usual way, read: in flames.
I doubt Paizo needs either of the above.
It actually has. Up until the ShallowStorm of recent days, the "where the discussion is" was a non-issue. Suddenly it is.
Well, it was a non-issue until mods suddenly started to move threads which, IMO, should not have been moved. And also SKR posted his very interesting ideas about removing the expensive item component for Raise Dead/Resurrection.
Something always is the catalyst for change. I'm using the opportunity to present an idea which was already percolating for some time in my mind.
Another problem is that you operate under the apparently 100% bulletproof assumption that a new edition of Pathfinder is in the works, while no signs indicate that's the case.
I said that there is a 100% certainty that we'll see a new edition of Pathfinder somewhen down the line. I did not say that the developers are working on it right now. But I firmly believe that the current edition of Pathfinder has matured enough that players can see design trends, faults in the current system and so. And that they can have fruitful discussions about those issues. I only think that a dedicated forum would be a good place to put those discussions, instead of spreading them all around the forum and moving them when the author didn't want them to be moved.
If a "Suggestions for Official Rules Changes" subforum appears, many people will interpret it as:
1. A sign that new edition indeed is in the works (immediately triggering edition flamewars across the forum).
2. An indication that devs are scooping the new subforum for ideas, and expectations that they will pop in and comment. (triggering "hey Paizo you're clearly making a new edition but you're not listening to our brilliant ideas RAGERAGERAGE".)
3. An immediate re-surfacing of each dead horse (monks, martials vs. casters, alignment, evil undead) each ending in the usual way, read: in flames.I doubt Paizo needs either of the above.
First off, that's a worst case scenario. And all that can be easily avoided by James/Jason/SKR/whoever posting "We are currently not working on a new edition of Pathfinder."
I can see magnuskn's point.
Suggestions/Theorycrafting focusing on already existing rules that need modifications or feedback to make them cleaner or more balanced.
Houserule/Homebrew covering things that are more in the way of complete changes from the rules as written, or additions to.
That said...is there enough traffic to keep both forums from looking like a desert wasteland? (I haven't taken to frequenting it so I don't know)
Another solution that could be implemented by the community, and supported by paizo staff with a sticky would be encouraging tagging topics with identifiers as to what they are.
Example of thread titles:
[Suggestion] Ideas for the stealth mechanic
[Houserule] Quick and Dirty NPC income rules
[Homebrew] magnuskn's Swashbuckler classA sticky with a community definition for what the three actually mean and the recommendation to tag your topics appropriately might get the level of organization you're looking for. It might take moderators changing the name of a few posts at first to get the front page tagged...but I think after that people would catch on and follow accordingly.
I like that idea. It's quite simple to implement and gets people to participate into keeping the forum in order.
First off, that's a worst case scenario. And all that can be easily avoided by James/Jason/SKR/whoever posting "We are currently not working on a new edition of Pathfinder."Yeah, that's going to work as splendid as "we're going to make changes to Monk, please be patient" did :)
Conjuring up an imaginary disaster and then running around with your hair on fire sure is fun. :)
It's worked pretty well for a certain poster that may or may not have sparked this thread :-)
I would much prefer splitting suggestions off. Where it goes, I don't care but would prefer Paizo Products. When in house rules, it's a bit redundant. Of course you're at least partly posting there to suggest them to other players and the same goes for home brew.
That said, I'm fine with where the specific threads on question ended up.
Splitting off Suggestions is basically all I am proposing, with the added caveat to include "Theorycrafting" ( or something similar ) as a title, so that the range of the sub-forum would be a bit broader.
Theory craft does often diverge into house rules though, so I do understand why they are set up this way.
I see Houserules/Homebrewn as the practical implementation of hypothesis and theories presented by theorycrafting and suggestions. That's where I draw the major distinction between the two topics.
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Theorycrafting the official rules versus discussing houserules is a pretty thin distinction. One is "this is how I handle it" and the other is "in theory, you could handle it like this." That seems to be a pretty thin distinction.It's the difference of making hypothesis and theories vs. implementing them on a practical level. Ask any scientist if that's trivial or not.
Keeping them in the same forum allows posting the theory and the application in the same place instead of different places. It's kinda handy to have them in the same forum.
Also, I'm a scientist. Nothing here is like science. ;)
-Skeld
Yeah, well, I'm a historian, so also a scientist. And I see dissecting rules rather as something which can benefit from using the scientific method.
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Hah! I'm a historian of science. That means I get to feel superior to both, right?
Ah, I am beginning to see the distinction.
Your Ideas are simply "House Rules" or, the more provincial,hehe, Homebrew, sort of nonsense.
Whereas MY ideas are Theorycrafting and have the potential to reshape the very essence of the hobby as we know it.
yes, that is what this is begining to sound like.
I guess I'll quote myself here.
I see Houserules/Homebrewn as the practical implementation of hypothesis and theories presented by theorycrafting and suggestions. That's where I draw the major distinction between the two topics.
Not sure where there is the condescension you seem to imply I am propagating.
Hah! I'm a historian of science. That means I get to feel superior to both, right?
Everything is better with SCIENCE!
But you don't wear proper science goggles, as demonstrated in the link above.
I am a scientist of law. Bow down and obey.
Bah! Science that deals in man-made law is flimsy and temporary, at best.
Real science deals in natural law.*ducks for cover*
The distinction between discussing aspects of the system and making suggestions as to how improve said aspects is a very thin one. Both topics flow pretty naturally into another. I don't envy moderators the job of having to weigh if a thread still belongs in one section or in the other. Creating a dedicated forum would solve the problem.
Well, I obviously disagree on the distinction being so clear. I think there is a case to be made that moderators have problems with it, too, hence threads being moved because of that very fine between theorycrafting and making suggestions.
Suggestions/Theorycrafting
Conversion/Houserules/Homebrew
?
Adding conversions to that second suggested sub-forum would be appropiate.
But I guess the suggestion of the forum split is dead on arrival, anyway, given how Vics first reaction was.