Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

[Infinitron]

 

[Major_Blackhart]

See this shit? That cocksucker criticizes everything about AD&D, D&D, etc. but given the chance, me and everyone else would choose one of those systems over the garbage he created.

 

[Tyranicon]

I wonder if some game designers have such boring jobs they genuinely don't know what to say that can be interesting to the general gaming audience or other devs.

I'm in the trenches, so to speak, with lots of other low-level amatuer devs and the shit they talk about is way more interesting.

For example, just had a conversation about the design philosophy around being able to delay turn orders in a turn-based RPG, and whether it was meta-gaming because turns are supposed to be slices of realtime during the 6/10/whatever seconds that constitute a round. And being able to delay your action is like some kind of time travel because your slice has already passed.

That's the kind of boring, hyper-niche shit I'd be interested in.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

"Half of the base weapon and armor choices in every edition of A/D&D are unambiguously bad and if you have an aesthetic in mind for a character that uses one of those things, eat shit."
"Padded armor must be an equally valuable choice for a fighter; to have it otherwise would be unfair to players wanting the padded armor aesthetic for their characters!"

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Honestly it drives me nuts. And it's beyond autism. Like why the fuck does he need to make everything fucking viable and the same?

Mother fucker is like Syndrome from the Incredibles. When everybody is special than nobody is.

 

[Butter]

It's one thing to say "All classes should be balanced. I don't want players rolling a class that sounds fun and then being useless all game." But it's really fucking easy to switch weapon type if the one you're using sucks. "But muh character concept hinges on using bec de corbins!" Big brain developer response is to make all weapons deal the same damage.

 

[caffeine]

Like why the fuck does he need to make everything fucking viable and the same?

Probably attended this talk and took it to heart

 

[Beastro]

Honestly it drives me nuts. And it's beyond autism. Like why the fuck does he need to make everything fucking viable and the same?

Mother fucker is like Syndrome from the Incredibles. When everybody is special than nobody is.

It's not even, there's something more and gets into the aesthetics thing. He wants allow people the freedom to pursue whatever style they want without suffering the consequences of it.

I mean, if you wanna be a Wode warrior, naked and painted up, you're not going to do well against someone in full plate, but his argument is that you should.

I'd think an autistic person would be focused upon what is more effective and eliminating what isn't.

 

[REhorror]

Perhaps one day a porn director can share all his tips and tricks on Xitter when he comes of ages.

 

[Robert Erick]

Honestly it drives me nuts. And it's beyond autism. Like why the fuck does he need to make everything fucking viable and the same?

Mother fucker is like Syndrome from the Incredibles. When everybody is special than nobody is.

It's not even, there's something more and gets into the aesthetics thing. He wants allow people the freedom to pursue whatever style they want without suffering the consequences of it.

I mean, if you wanna be a Wode warrior, naked and painted up, you're not going to do well against someone in full plate, but his argument is that you should.

I'd think an autistic person would be focused upon what is more effective and eliminating what isn't.

He can't grasp that making sacrifices for aesthetics is not a bad thing. The risk in which you put yourself to be flamboyant is what makes it fun. It's what panache, sprezzatura, style, etc, is. Dark souls players beat bosses with the broken shit sword they get at the start because it's funny and courageous. Sawyer doesn't have autism, he has Terminally Wrong Syndrome, where everything he believes is wrong. Or maybe Terminally German Syndrome, where everyone has to be a conformist nazi.

 

[luj1]

"Padded armor must be an equally valuable choice for a fighter; to have it otherwise would be unfair to players wanting the padded armor aesthetic for their characters!"

You see, only a retard could say that.

But again, this is a person who claims that Wizardry *was" an RPG, but now it's not.

 

[luj1]

He wants to allow people the freedom to pursue whatever style they want, without suffering the consequences of it.

This is *exactly* what it was. Trying to please everyone killed Pillars. This man has no spine, even in a most distant sense.

And that's why I hope he will never again be considered for a lead, fortunately for us.

 

[luj1]

See this shit? That cocksucker criticizes everything about AD&D, D&D, etc. but given the chance, me and everyone else would choose one of those systems over the garbage he created.

That is the tragedy of his career. He wanted to reinvent the wheel, and rolled a critical failure.

 

[luj1]

Honestly it drives me nuts. And it's beyond autism. Like why the fuck does he need to make everything fucking viable and the same?

I don't know but it sounds like some old PnP frustration of his. Dude is terminally insane. You can see it just by listening to him.

 

[Robert Erick]

He wants to allow people the freedom to pursue whatever style they want, without suffering the consequences of it.

This is *exactly* what it was. Trying to please everyone killed Pillars. This man has no spine, even in a most distant sense.

And that's why I hope he will never again be considered for a lead, fortunately for us.

He's going to make his Darklands dream game that will review well and perform well on the game pass and then he'll semi-retire. No one will talk about it, of course, because the gameplay will be like wet newspaper and every character will be a lesbian, but it will be a twitter darling for 2 days.

 

[luj1]

No one will talk about it

The twitter bot Infinitron will report on his master's farts until the heat death of the Universe. October 10, 2054. This morning Josh let out a long, wet one while ducking to tie his pink shoelaces.

Additionally, I am confident that Roguey, who is technically a prostitute, would do anything for but a glance from Sawyer.

 

[Cross]

In Sawyer's balanced utopia, the broken chair leg you use as an improvised weapon during a bar fight is as useful as a holy weapon forged by the gods themselves.

Wait a minute...a system where nobody is better than anybody else and all power is distributed equally? Isn't there a name for that?

And why does it sound so eerily familiar when Sawyer keeps repeating that real balance has never been tried before?

 

[Beastro]

I honestly hate balance. I've found the most entertaining games are the most unbalancednones, especially those where different sides can gain OP advantages on each other and turn the tide so suddenly.

 

[luj1]

I honestly hate balance. I've found the most entertaining games are the most unbalanced ones, especially those where different sides can gain OP advantages on each other and turn the tide so suddenly.

Asymmetry is the lifeblood of games. I think Jarlo said it.

OP skills *should* exist. Weak skills *should* exist. "1-point wonder" type of skills (utility skills) *should* exist, etc.

What makes games fun is so simple, yet some devs vastly overthink and overanalyze this, until they literally go crazy.

 

[REhorror]

I really hate the term "balance" (everything must be viable) in games, it really has taken a dark turn to gaming and really makes games easier as a whole.

Put it on the same as "artificial difficulty", "difficulty spike" and "trial and error".

 

[luj1]

In Sawyer's balanced utopia, the broken chair leg you use as an improvised weapon during a bar fight is as useful as a holy weapon forged by the gods themselves.

Wait a minute...a system where nobody is better than anybody else and all power is distributed equally? Isn't there a name for that?

And why does it sound so eerily familiar when Sawyer keeps repeating that real balance has never been tried before?

Yeah, he is a Californian hipster commie.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

The only good balance is a dead balance.

 

[luj1]

Balance was never important, actually. Tell me which Codex Top 10 CRPG was balanced?

 

[Peachcurl]

Balance was never important, actually. Tell me which Codex Top 10 CRPG was balanced?

There are probably some, if you include the non-rpgs in the top rpg list.

I mean... disco is balanced, right?

 

[processdaemon]

He's going to make his Darklands dream game that will review well and perform well on the game pass and then he'll semi-retire. No one will talk about it, of course, because the gameplay will be like wet newspaper and every character will be a lesbian, but it will be a twitter darling for 2 days.

If he'd just make the lesbians hot I would absolutely pay for Dykelands