Author Topic: Noob Hanbook Discussion  (Read 7399 times)

Offline Concerned Ninja Citizen

  • Legendary Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1578
  • I am Concerned
    • View Profile
Re: Noob Hanbook Discussion
« Reply #20 on: April 02, 2013, 10:35:09 PM »
Tonymitsu raises an excellent point.

Is this a beginner's guide to D&D or a beginner's guide to character optimization in D&D?

Right now it seems to be trying to be both, which is problematic. Readers looking for the former will probably not have the level of fluency necessary to benefit from the latter and may end up turned off by the complexity. Readers looking for the latter will probably find the lengthy opening section on whether playing RPGs is a good idea/safe thing to do irrelevant and may become bored and stop reading before they get to the part that applies to them.

Additionally, the "you are a new player and don't know anything so listen and learn" attitude may well turn off experienced players who are looking for an introduction to optimization.

Offline Captnq

  • DnD Handbook Writer
  • ****
  • Posts: 1602
  • Haters gonna hate. Dragons gonna drag.
    • View Profile
    • Ask the Captain
Re: Noob Hanbook Discussion
« Reply #21 on: April 03, 2013, 05:23:33 PM »
Sorry for not responding sooner.

I'll just be blunt, I take in ill and injured cats that my local cat shelter cannot take care of. It's like hospice care for felines. I have a fairly good track record, but this last one has been... difficult. Alex the Grape has been by far the single best cat I have ever taken care of. There is no cure for FIP and death is slow and painful, but in the past I have had success with extending life, as well as improved the cat's quality of life.

A cat his age should not have developed the wet form, but he did and I am not good with that. I screwed up somewhere and I cannot figure out how. I have failed. I hope the necropsy report will shed some light on things. I will most likely be spending a great deal of time beating myself up over this. I am not seeking out sympathy or anything of that nature. I am providing this information to explain that I do not care about this handbook at this time.

I have no doubt I could "correct" the handbook, whatever "correct" would be, but the fact is I am a Ones and Zeros sort of guy. I don't do very well with subjective opinions and that's all this handbook is. I have no message, no agenda, no point. This is nothing more then a summary of what I found. I enjoy the process itself, not the result. I have already been feeling that I took on a project that was beyond my skill set, but I do not admit failure easily. The fact that I may have, either through action or inaction, caused the premature death of one of my charges has forced me to re-prioritize. I simply cannot devote the time needed to fix this, but I do not like leaving things unresolved, either.

I have stated before if anyone else wants to tackle this, feel free to take what I have written and rewrite it. I will delete the first section, because that seems to be the majority of the problem. If anyone wishes to handle the matter, just post here and ask to have the original handbook thread deleted, then post your own. Feel free to refer the monitors to this post for permission to delete it. I need to focus my attention on more important matters at this time.
If you have questions about 3.5 D&D, you might want to look at the:
Encyclopedia Vinculum Draconis

Currently: Podcasting