Karanthir wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2020 3:54 am
Making the game more accessible is surely a good thing.
I agree. But if I were truly a brand-new GM, I'd probably try one of the *free* intro adventures C7 advertises and offers. And those have pre-built adversaries. Criticism of the lack of such in the core book is fair. But credit where it's due, C7 then gave us two freebies to make up for it.
The thing is, putting creatures in the bestiary that are ready to use without modification makes it easier for new GMs (and GMs with other time constraints), but also still leaves more experienced GMs the option of modifying the creatures as they see fit. Seems like a win-win to me.
I agree here too. But, unfortunately, the designers went for a "build from component" type system and (as Andy himself mentioned), didn't explain it as well as they should. So that's what we have. And while it's not my preference, I also think it's an issue already plumbed to it's depths.
from the other side it feels like this sort of reaction tars any and all critics with the same brush and seems like a way of shutting down any critical discussion
Fair enough. Perhaps a good rule of thumb would be that if someone or a group wants to discuss the beastiary's problems, they start a thread called "my problems with the beastiary" and discuss it there? That won't shut down critical discussion or individual critics, and in fact if there are any lurkers from C7 around, keeping individual threads on topic might even
help them find and understand player's opinions on various topics. For my part, I'd love coming to a forum like this, seeing a thread title like "combat examples", opening it up, and reading about....y'know...
combat examples.