Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

[Infinitron]

 

[Major_Blackhart]

For fuck's sake. He is so goddamn full of himself. And this quote I'm clearly taking out of context sets me off to another level of atomic rage:

"If everyone has the same potential bonuses, the Worst Case Scenario for a min-maxed build doesn’t really change that much."

I want Styg, Vault Dweller & co. to go toe to toe with this mother fucker and just run circles around him. Better yet, fuck it. Ignore the cocksucker, don't communicate, and just keep churning out brilliant, entertaining, replayable games.

Also, his bitching about things like stats and race clearly shows that he's never roleplayed a character against the type because in his mind "obviously Dumb Trolls can't be sorcerers or wizards because of their stats. They'd be hamstrung that way, and it wouldn't be fun."

So, maybe that's where his issue is: challenge. Maybe he doesn't like challenge, or he doesn't think that's fun. It would explain why the POE fights were just awful. Not one thing was challenging about them.

 

[Darth Canoli]

For fuck's sake. He is so goddamn full of himself. And this quote I'm clearly taking out of context sets me off to another level of atomic rage:

"If everyone has the same potential bonuses, the Worst Case Scenario for a min-maxed build doesn’t really change that much."

I want Styg, Vault Dweller & co. to go toe to toe with this mother fucker and just run circles around him. Better yet, fuck it. Ignore the cocksucker, don't communicate, and just keep churning out brilliant, entertaining, replayable games.

Also, his bitching about things like stats and race clearly shows that he's never roleplayed a character against the type because in his mind "obviously Dumb Trolls can't be sorcerers or wizards because of their stats. They'd be hamstrung that way, and it wouldn't be fun."

So, maybe that's where his issue is: challenge. Maybe he doesn't like challenge, or he doesn't think that's fun. It would explain why the POE fights were just awful. Not one thing was challenging about them.

My first encounter with fun weird archetypes was a Troll Shaman from a PnP Shadowrun session.
There's probably an overpowered D&D build to make with a Troll Wizard or Cleric self buffing himself and trashing hordes of Generic-Giant-Spider on every swing.

But this guy probably only plays PnP RPG with novices to impress them so his idea of what people think is fun biased toward his own goals, whatever they are.

The best thing that could happen to the RPG world would be EVERYONE stopping to follow him on every fucking social media, he's not just has been, he's the incarnation of the decline.

Edit: Look at the retards rating blackhart's message "butthurst"
Infinitron, nothing new here.
3 alts/lurkers sawyerists or sawyer own lurking account... (Cosmo, pomenitul, Sannom)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The only people who will ever play this garbage are his co-workers he forces at gunpoint.

 

[purupuru]

I like how he mixes up low-mid-high checks. If high level quests consist of nothing but xxx100 checks it feels highly artificial.

 

[Strange Fellow]

The amount of butthurt that you fellas manage to fabricate out of completely innocuous comments by Joshua Eric Sawyer continues to surprise me.

 

[Nutria]

Maybe the bland generic Tolkein ripoff fantasy genre could have a come-to-Jesus moment here and think about what they're all about. Make up your fucking minds. Either the races are not supposed to represent anything in the real world except in a very metaphorical way, or else they're racist shit made up by boys in English homosexual boarding houses in the 1930s. You don't get to have your Tolkein orcs and then say that actually they're the same as everyone else because they're just black people. Why the fuck are you making them orcs then? Just have a game with black people in it.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I like how he mixes up low-mid-high checks. If high level quests consist of nothing but xxx100 checks it feels highly artificial.

I remember when I played Wasteland 2 in one of the endgame areas there were far higher skillchecks on lockers on mobile toilets than in a super secret science base in early-mid game area

 

[Alienman]

Maybe the bland generic Tolkein ripoff fantasy genre could have a come-to-Jesus moment here and think about what they're all about. Make up your fucking minds. Either the races are not supposed to represent anything in the real world except in a very metaphorical way, or else they're racist shit made up by boys in English homosexual boarding houses in the 1930s. You don't get to have your Tolkein orcs and then say that actually they're the same as everyone else because they're just black people. Why the fuck are you making them orcs then? Just have a game with black people in it.

The thing is, there is already black people in the setting. So I have no idea what is going on.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I like how he mixes up low-mid-high checks. If high level quests consist of nothing but xxx100 checks it feels highly artificial.

I remember when I played Wasteland 2 in one of the endgame areas there were far higher skillchecks on lockers on mobile toilets than in a super secret science base in early-mid game area

Have you ever had to REALLY go #2?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The amount of butthurt that you fellas manage to fabricate out of completely innocuous comments by Joshua Eric Sawyer continues to surprise me.

does feargus pay you extra to shill for sawyer?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

But this guy probably only plays PnP RPG with novices to impress them so his idea of what people think is fun biased toward his own goals, whatever they are.

The best thing that could happen to the RPG world would be EVERYONE stopping to follow him on every fucking social media, he's not just has been, he's the incarnation of the decline.

Edit: Look at the retards rating blackhart's message "butthurst"
Infinitron, nothing new here.
3 alts/lurkers sawyerists or sawyer own lurking account... (Cosmo, pomenitul, Sannom)

This is all true. I mean, I don't think he actually plays PnP but rather acts as DM all the time, and attempts to force players to play the way he wants.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

This is all true. I mean, I don't think he actually plays PnP but rather acts as DM all the time, and attempts to force players to play the way he wants.

He's talked before about how he strongly prefers to be a player rather than a DM, but is frequently forced to DM because most of his fellow Obsidian employees are too lazy to learn a ruleset well enough to DM (he put it more politely than that, obviously).

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I know that's what he says, but I wouldn't doubt it's more along the lines that they don't memorize every fucking detail and like to play with fun rather than by the book exactly, he loses his shit and throws an autist hissy fit, and so now he insists on DM'ing because he can't handle their loosey goosey rooles interpretations.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

they don't memorize every fucking detail and like to play with fun rather than by the book exactly, he loses his shit and throws an autist hissy fit

Never played pnp, but let me ask: is this a bad thing? If players don't know rules, then what kind of gaming is that?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

It's more of a fun free wheeling type of thing vs. strict interpretation. Some guys love rules lawyering, and others just want to emphasize ridiculousness or fun over the rules.

• Best examples I can think of are Black Crusade or Rogue Trader Lets Plays, some of which you can find online.
• It's the temperament of the group too. I've played games that were rules focused in pathfinder, vs. Black Crusade. Both have been fun for me.
  • HOLY FUCK if the GM just wants shit to go nuts, in Black Crusade that can HAPPEN. That can make things a lot of fun.
  • Especially if you're forced to roleplay the fuck ups out in front of everyone.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

The only people who will ever play this garbage are his co-workers he forces at gunpoint.

I doubt he needs to do it at gunpoint, they'll line up for the sake of getting in good with the Director and they'll secretly hopefully to achieve Protected and Priviledged Status for being in his seeming orbit.

They should take a clue for how well that works from Feargus, since Slam Dunk Feargus is full-on Trumpian when it comes to loyalty, it seems. (I didn't know Feargus had threatened to fire Josh, for example, even if it was an empty threat.)

Every time Sawyer posts on Twitter and Tumblr just makes me grab more popcorn to read whatever high-browed nose-up idiocy he thinks is The Way.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

When did Feargus threaten to fire Josh? I mean, nobody is safe with that guy, simply because for whatever reason I believe what MCA posted about him more than I believe what other people might say to defend him.

Though he hasn't really had a lot of defenders. And hidden devs that have posted about it just confirm what MCA posted.

 

[Roguey]

When did Feargus threaten to fire Josh? I mean, nobody is safe with that guy, simply because for whatever reason I believe what MCA posted about him more than I believe what other people might say to defend him.

Though he hasn't really had a lot of defenders. And hidden devs that have posted about it just confirm what MCA posted.

When Pillars of Eternity was running over budget Josh and Adam insisted on an extension of a few months and Feargus said okay, but that if it didn't ship by then they'd both be fired.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

That's reasonable actually. It's the best warning they could have gotten in fact. They have an influx of cash and are on life support, so now the managers have brought the game to a point of being overbudget and overdue. I can't say I would have said anything different.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Oh great he's running another game. Of which we've seen nothing...

 

[Frozen]

I don't understand how can you interact with this person. He is the most boring bland character on planet earth.
Intellectually he is so average to stupid but thinks so highly of himself.
I'm surprised he still didn't cut off his penis like every good SJW boy would do. But then again that would at least make him 1% more interesting so a big NO.
I don't know is he technically a good programmer so that could be the case, but intellectually everything that comes out of his mouth is boring hipster garbage.

 

[DeepOcean]

First paragraph, him wanting to replace race with species is just pandering for social media, nothing more. Second paragraph is also raycism bs that doesnt improve game design at all. Third paragraph is lame, a +1 or +2 on low level DnD is actually HUGE and not at all as he claims.

Fourth paragraph is he admitting he is for all races having the same attributes because it wouldnt affect min maxing that much, what is wrong as I already said on the case of DnD and it also a circular argument (you make a system where racial differences are meaningless then claim racial differences are meaningless and should be removed), also, if you read the first paragraph, you will notice contradictions because he is against attributes differences but he is for racial perk packs that would actually achieve the same thing he is against unless they arent strong enough bonuses into a direction (ie, orcs get warrior perks), then the final result is all races being the same, what is bad design.

So bad design, that he kinda admit on the next paragraph, as his system would end with giants having the same strength of a halfling to keep some level of consistency and dont create two different systems for playable races and non playable races what is a bad bandaid for a bad design.

Also, what he mean for implicit issues on the last paragraph? Someone can translate Sawyerism here? I actually like some races are stronger or smarter or dumber than my characters and this creates variety on encounters, from a gameplay point of view, zero issues here. Unless he means issues on "normalizing" fictional racism against some fictional races and if that is his point, I dunno why that is a bad thing as that would actually make the setting better and more belieavable, unless the problem is your personal political ideology (and you think that might lead to normalize real raycism, what is a dumb position with zero evidence behind). Also, notice that not having different racial potential attributes result in mind flayers being as dumb as kobolds, what is retarded on so many ways but for some weird reason, Sawyer tip toes around that without giving a clear answer. He seems to know he is wrong but at same time cant throw the bone away and concede.

 

[sser]

I'm still so very amused that this whole "race" nonsense basically came into being because allegedly liberal minds projected violent orcs as black people.

My own two cents is that everyone is overlooking game design 101, which is that with good art you can tell at a glance what something is. If you see a big ogre, then you can assume on the fly that it is big and dangerous and probably pretty nasty with physical damage. If instead it is running parity with a regular human then nothing makes any sense, you can't tell what anything is at a glance, and the player's sense of perspective is washed out. And that's just one of many ways you end up with people who leave those reviews about games feeling vaguely wrong, or just something being "off."