@A_Random_Idiot Yes, I think everybody has a reactive component to their plan? In the current situation, being reactive in some form appears to be table stakes.

But keeping higher barriers (is believed?) to make it easier to do that, and keeps some of the initial noise down, and pushes the timing off.

AND PUSHING THE TIMING IS A GAIN (to the makers of competitive PvP games)

@KrokanteBamischijf @hperrin (my wife suggested auditing suspected cheats in games like battlefield by forcing them to play in real world paintball tournaments.

I think her experience as a teacher is impacting her suggestions)

@melpomenesclevage sacrifice 100% of 2% balanced against 5% of 98%? Are you sure that's math you want them doing?

(And based on my 2nd hand experience, "5% enjoyment" kinda seems low. The cheaters do ruin things)

@A_Random_Idiot That's .... not entirely wrong, but doing more to raise the barriers higher keeps the game fun longer before the cheaters ruin it.

(Again, ... limiting discussion to competitive PvP-style games)

@A_Random_Idiot That's basically a form of @sugar_in_your_tea 's suggestion about making cheating more expensive: "We'll find your cheat program later, and retroactively find that you were cheating and ban you. Well after the match ended and everyone else's game was ruined"

@sugar_in_your_tea Your response about wall-hacks is my "don't tell the game anything" comment. It's really really damn slow. You typically don't want to do frame-by-frame determination of if an opponent is just in view or not (because that's a full render), so you send the info to the client once it's possible... at which point the client knows.

Even if the game isn't hacked, the video pipeline "knows", and hacks have moved to be outside of the game space (thus the move to kernel-based)

@sugar_in_your_tea Private servers exclude MMOs as a class of game. That works well for death-match style (or BG3 style) 4-player games, but doesn't work for 30-300-3000 people games.

Anti-cheat server-only allows too many cheats. There's already enough trouble distinguishing someone using wall-hacks from someone with good headphones in a game that does 3d-spacial-sound... trying to do that on the server side ... just won't work. Same applies for other ways of increasing the costs if detected

@KrokanteBamischijf @hperrin Protecting code from the computer it runs on is either impossible or really really hard, depending.

https://multicians.org/thvv/mirror/obfreport.pdf
https://www.iacr.org/archive/crypto2001/21390001.pdf

@KrokanteBamischijf @hperrin But it needs to stop in a way that keeps those competitive games fun...
- Trusted Computing-based solutions
- Don't tell the game anything-based solutions...
- ??

Trusted-Computing requires a more locked down system than any distro provides, and also (effectively) everyone going along with some MS-controlled standards for TPMs and so forth.

Ignorant-Games approaches perform terribly.

What else ya got?

@smeg What I’ve done with other systems is to try and turn it a bit more narrative….

Each “episode” (hopefully game day) starts with a long rest. Each “scene” starts with a short rest. If your episode covers a week? One long rest. If you deliberately break one challenge into multiple fights? Still one scene, no rests.

@sammytheman666 @LoamImprovement one I've considered is just not resetting the failed death save count until a short/long rest. Wanna wait until save 3 to heal? Sure hope they don't have to roll again any time soon...

But I just want less tubthumping, and rebalancing everything healing related seems too hard.

(Alternately, a level of exhaustion from every time you go unconscious?)

@LoamImprovement I hate it when I'm the invisible one. I'm frequently telling dms "oh, I'm not hidden. He should know where I am/what square I'm in"

@LoamImprovement For 5th edition, I've overwhelmingly played in AL, so ...

But I've seen a LOT of "inspiration can be used for a reroll" and "inspiration can be shared across the table".

I've also seen (too much) "Invisibility == Hidden", which I hate and don't use when I run. I've also seen a large number of variations of the bonus-action-casting rule

AL kinda inherently runs with a "every adventure starts with a long rest" pseudo house rule, which I like.

@Phantaminum the asymmetric balance I'm suggesting avoids "round after round of 'i attack''... but does so by virtue of dedicated damage dealers killing things too fast. It's not for everyone, but it is for some. :)

That sounds like you're not ok with the relevant amount of PC damage, and so I return to the "maybe a different system " suggestion.

@Phantaminum I've been happy with a asymmetric balance, where martials are REALLY good at murder, and casters suck at it. You can get there with belts of Giant Strength and GWM (and giving out legendary resistance like candy) and ... being "comfortable" with huge damage numbers.

Alternately it's a lot of work to make 5e balanced at higher levels, and I'd consider if you'd be ok with an all caster party or another game system.

@jjjalljs I was focused more on the direct role-playing and less on the writers-room aspect... So by the time I was going "wait what?, I shouldnt need to roll?", the RP had already gone off the rails because the GM declared the bouncer pulled out a magical face id thingy and declared some trivial lie of mine was false

I.e.: failure always unless I spent fate points

@jjjalljs kinda exactly? "Hero" a-la Snow Crash obviously had a "best swordsman in the meta verse" aspect. But did he have to spend a fate point to win the swordfight when he was challenged in a bar early on?

In my game, my character was supposed to be talky-McTalk face, and I failed to talk my way into a bar because I wasn't willing to spend a fate point to do so. I shouldnt have had to.

@Phantaminum @jjjalljs I enjoyed Fate more in concept and rules book than as played. My GM was a firm believer in giving me as many opportunities to earn fate points as possible, and "constantly failing" didn't feel good

@jjjalljs @Phantaminum that mostly to me sounds like you're done with that GM? Which is very reasonable...

Have you considered running?

@jake_eric @Thyrian changing the stat jumps distance is based on seems as important.. for many, tripling the distance only effectively triples the static portion.

That said, this doesn't bother me: a few things will give fly.

But:
* mobility
* damage
* alternate attack

Kinda feels like 5th level to me. I'm not sure what i'd want from a 4th level version...