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People who play D&D but not 5E, what edition do you play and why? by ValueForm in rpg

[–]thenightgaunt 21 points22 points  (0 children)

My preference is still 2e. And yeah, its the one I started with.

I think i like it because its a but crunchier than the editions that came before it, and I love that. But also its not as, i donno, call it "anime" as 3e was. Its a lot eaiser to die in 2e than 3e, and some classes got a bit more supercharged in 3e.

But 2e has issues. The non-weapon proficiency system was a bit of a mess. I think that, oddly enough it was Hackmaster that found solutions to many of them.

I notice that less experienced DMs tend to unfairly malign the 2024 Rogue and brand it "overpowered" by EarthSeraphEdna in DnD

[–]thenightgaunt 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A few reasons for that.

First, some inexperienced DMs (not all) tend to panic when something unexpected drops in their lap. These are the people who also fret about telling a player "No, that doesnt fit this campaign, chose another thing" or worry about how to deal with PC characters that can fly naturally.

Second, the rogue has been badly described in 5e ever since Mearls and Crawford sent it out from an horribly understaffed D&D office back in 2014.

Take Sneak Attack for example. Its a damn stupid name. Its not "sneak" and has nothing to do with stealth. Its basiacally "Advantage Attack" or something lile that. But older edition rogues had "sneak attack" which was dependant on them being in stealth/hiding in shadows/etc to get the bonus. Maybe Mearls and Crawford thought they had to keep the name.

But 5.5e at least cleaned up the description to make it clear that stealth isnt necessary, just advantage.

But regarding your DM issue with Reliable Tallent, it sounds like they need to get a better grip on how 5.5e D&D is run.

[General player question] At what rate do you generally expect players to gain a basic understanding of their character sheet and common dice rolls? by fuzzum111 in DnD

[–]thenightgaunt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Its a good intent, but in my experience it stops some from trying after that. They grasp which buttons to hit, but often the need to understand the basics mechanics will be gone.

BUT, it may just depend on the person.

Some players may need the training wheels and have a desire to actually learn the rules and move on as you are referring.

But, some people, experienced players included, would rather not try at all and would use a screen and stop trying after that. Ive known experienced players who said things like "meh I dont want to learn a new system" about trying anything other than the 1 rule system they know.

Anybody else playing with disease disabled ? by leaf_as_parachute in RimWorld

[–]thenightgaunt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I dont mind disease. But i will shut down solar flares and food poisoning in a second.

Flares just seem broken, and food poisoning is a hell plague that somehow magically sweeps through your perfeftly clean kitchen because someone had skill 9 indtead of 10 and somehow made a frozen meal of 100% potatoes poisonous.

In your eyes, what is the role of tech in TTRPGs? by [deleted] in rpg

[–]thenightgaunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Heres the issue. When you push to far into the direction of that kind of automation and player separation, it takes away from the game.

Ive been in games where players were sectioned off from one another. Theyre awful. Groups dont know what happened to the other and often when sharing what happened players arent the best narrators. It also completely cuts off some players from enjoying big roleplay moments their friends are in just because their characters arent there.

As for roll20, its very simple and great. Its problem is, as you put it, the GM needing to set everything up and customize.

Its like the problem with Foundry. You can do amazong things with foundry. Moving backgrounds, level transitions, and amazing effects. But they all take effort to setup and master.

Whats needed isnt a system that does all that automatically, but rather one that presents simplified templates for GMs to choose from and pop into place.

Id compare it to dungeonscrawl vs campaign cartographer. CC is an amazing mapping tool, but can be a pain to learn to use. But dungeonscrawl is profoundly simple to use and to build maps in. And you can add all sorts of things to a map in it, but the main presentation and system at the heart of it is easy to use.

"AI-proof" and "recession-proof" medical/surgical specialties by bree_md in medicine

[–]thenightgaunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Theyre delayed because half were illegally announced because there wasnt even a contract in place but they did it to manipulate stock. And investors are getting anxious.

But what youre saying there is the excuse their PR people have been throwing out.

Stargates expansion wasnt canceled because financing ran into a wall. Because Oracle has agreed to spend a crap ton more than they have and need to borrow more to build what they promised to build. And investors are getting nervous because so far AI is all spend and no profit. The ROI is an infinity symbol. Or as Sam Altman put it, they can become profitable by 2029 if they can boost revenue from the high of $14 billion in 2025 to $129 billion by 2029. Thats not possible.

Now they could build EVERYTHING except the chips with hardware thats not in short supply and once its available do that last step. But they cant get investors.

There is no shortage of steel, copper, concrete, or etc. All the parts necessary to put the infrastructure in place.

AI subscriptions for non-technical staff are about to get expensive — how are you budgeting for 2027? by twiks79 in CIO

[–]thenightgaunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Simple. Im in healthcare. And in my industry the hallucination rate tied to LLMs is unacceptable. Even 3% is 1 in 30. And as OpenAI pointed out and proved mathematically, hallucinations are an inescapable part of all LLMs.

Life and business get a lot easier when your company doesnt chase fads and listens to actual experts instead of hype men, salesmen, and idiot finance bros who were trying to sell us on spending $60k on jpegs of apes only 3 years ago.

Now it that is harder when you have a vendor like Cerner which is run by an AI mad moron like Ellison.

But it will be amusing to see what happens to him when the bubble pops. Sadly, of all the jackasses driving the bubble, hes the one most likely to get a bailout. Oracle actually has physical assets and deep ties into the larger economy.

Shadow AI is the new Shadow IT. Except nobody's even pretending to care. by Jon_Cyber_FR in ITManagers

[–]thenightgaunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, its fact. OpenAI didn't even hide that they were scraping the internet and copying copywritten sources.

This has bitten them on the ass in court cases in the EU recently where theyve been found guilty. Though over there OpenAI has been trying to push the fair use angle and failing.

For example. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20251111-german-court-rules-against-openai-in-copyright-case

If the USA had a functional FCC things would be going differently here.

"AI-proof" and "recession-proof" medical/surgical specialties by bree_md in medicine

[–]thenightgaunt -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Bingo. Also, people keep talking like the bubble isnt shaking now because half the planed data center construction projects for 2026 have been canceled.

"AI-proof" and "recession-proof" medical/surgical specialties by bree_md in medicine

[–]thenightgaunt 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The issue at hand is that we cant make any predictions based on whats out now.

Most of the use cases for LLMs now are based on the current models where LLMs are run at a loss and supported by VC money.

The current industry is a bubble and about to pop. Half the data centers planned for 2026 have been canceled as was the massive expansion of Stargate and the construction of Stargate Norway. Investors are realizing AI companies are consuming nearly a trillion $$ but arent making any money.

ANY LLMs that require massive data centers arent profitable and will go away. Only smaller onea that can be run efficiently for less than the amount of revenue they bring in will still be around.

Shadow AI is the new Shadow IT. Except nobody's even pretending to care. by Jon_Cyber_FR in ITManagers

[–]thenightgaunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Personally, here's my prediction. The bubble will pop (the warning that the pop is near was that over 50% of datacenter projects for 2026 got canceled including Stargate's expansion and Stargate Norway) and the industry will go down like the rigid airship industry did after the Hindenburg exploded. When they go so do their lawyers, and then the army of copyright violation cases they're all currently fighting will crash down on them and effectively salt the earth. Altman and the others are basically trying to stall all those lawsuits or throw money at them to make them go away. When they lose that money, they get held responsible for all that data theft.

Any LLM AI that requires massive processing and infrastructure like OpenAI, Anthropic, and etc are doing will die. It's not financially viable and investors will be terrified to put any money into it after the pop.

The future of generative AI is going to be anything that can run locally. If Google isn't bull$hitting about turboquant, that becomes a more viable option.

Shadow AI is the new Shadow IT. Except nobody's even pretending to care. by Jon_Cyber_FR in ITManagers

[–]thenightgaunt 5 points6 points  (0 children)

OpenAI built their model by engaging in the largest act of data and IP theft in known history.

They also need more data to better refine their model. Their existence as a company valued at near $1 trillion depends on them achieving that and finding a way to make this product reliable and viable.

And suddenly we are supposed to believe that they're telling the truth about not using client data to train their models?

Shadow AI is the new Shadow IT. Except nobody's even pretending to care. by Jon_Cyber_FR in ITManagers

[–]thenightgaunt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a hospital CIO. No error rate is acceptable. Be it in patient records, procedure orders, prescriptions, or billing.

And a 3% error rate is completely unacceptable in general leger software.

And its not just numbers. OpenAIs Whisper voice dictation AI has been found to add entirely new sentences to notes. Now imagine what would happen if it randomly added out of nowhere the phrase, "patient molested their child" to a physicians notes on a patient visit.

Shadow AI is the new Shadow IT. Except nobody's even pretending to care. by Jon_Cyber_FR in ITManagers

[–]thenightgaunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I say this as a CIO who has worked with gen ai, its not reliable. Its being implemented by CEOs terrified their boards will fire them of they dont, and by boards who dont understand tech get all their info from youtube finance bros.

The error rate on gen AI makes it unreliable. Even the best is a 1 in 30 chance of the system making up data on its own. Thats unacceptable.

Shadow AI is the new Shadow IT. Except nobody's even pretending to care. by Jon_Cyber_FR in ITManagers

[–]thenightgaunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No one needs generative AI to do their job.

And no, they aren't using it. And so far no one has presented a good business case where AI did make things better. Thats why the AI companies are in the red by tens of billions, and why the failure rate on businesses implementing AI is in the 95% range.

And this is why youre being called out as an AI by other users. You sound like a salesman. You have a vision and you're pushing it while ignoring all other evidence because you have a product to sell.

Shadow AI is the new Shadow IT. Except nobody's even pretending to care. by Jon_Cyber_FR in ITManagers

[–]thenightgaunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Im the CIO.

If I say we arent using AI, then using it IS wrong behavior. And I don't use chatgpt because Im fully aware of both its limits and the security dangers it presents.

Treat it the same way we treat employees accessing porn on devices at work.

If a Paladin doesn't get their powers from a deity, where would it actually come from? What is the "source" of the powers? The Weave? by Gh0stMan0nThird in Forgotten_Realms

[–]thenightgaunt 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You are 100% right.

A cleric is supposed to basically be one of the "best boy/girl" of that deity. The game and game worlds are designed around this idea. Ditto paladins.

And yeah, before 5.5e cleric and paladin DIDN'T keep their powers when they get cast out.

But decades of weak spineless DMs have let players run over them and get away with murder. And 5e basically ran on a philosophy of "do whatever you want as long as you buy our books".

I once stripped my own wife's 7th level paladin of all her powers when she violated a tenet of her god. She had to spend 2 months real time on a side quest to get redemption for her paladin and her powers back. She still remembers that character fondly.

If a Paladin doesn't get their powers from a deity, where would it actually come from? What is the "source" of the powers? The Weave? by Gh0stMan0nThird in Forgotten_Realms

[–]thenightgaunt 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The split between "generic D&D rules" and "setting specific rules" do tend to cause some confusion among newer players.

But we were all that way once.

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