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Colmarr
2009-06-11, 10:53 PM
From the Chatty DM (http://chattydm.net/2009/06/10/chatty-on-4e-one-year-later/#comments):


Chatty on 4e: One year later

A little more than a year ago, as excitement (and hype) was building around the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, I wrote a series a posts based on what I thought D&D 4e would be about.

Nostalgia vs Fun
Retro Stupid vs Retro-Stupid
I Hearth Grapple
Schooled by the Old Combat School
Exploration vs Competence,
Fun vs Satisfaction

It’s interesting for me to look back at them and see my own excitement and wariness about the new edition. I think I got a lot of things about D&D 4e right and this has helped me accept the new game, warts and all.

When the game came out, I published a few more posts about my initial experience reading/playing 4e

While my initial reaction to the new version of the game was mostly positive, a few things struck me as odd or even wrong. It took me a while to accept that Magic Items and Feats were less powerful. I had trouble with the whole concept of Treasure Parcel, feeling it robbed me of the time honored tradition of generating treasures randomly.

Oh and the Class and power books were a chore to read. After 2 or 3 classes, I had a feeling that all classes had the exact same powers!

Thus, like many bloggers who play 4e have said, I don’t believe that the game is without flaws. In fact, once the sense of novelty died down, I found myself on the fence about some key elements of game for quite a while (including Parcels, length of fights and feeling of apparent uniformity of classes).

But as I started playing it, first at the D&D game Day, then at Gen Con and finally with my friends, I slowly found that the little things that bugged me didn’t bug me so much. As my players and I explored what the game could do, I discovered the strengths of the 4th edition that played to my own play preference.

My players, as a gaming group, prefer heroic character that are competent from the onset of play. They also prefer that all classes are balanced within their respective roles. My players love having powers that can be managed like resources. They also love how many elements of the game can come together to create rich and challenging encounters to play through. They appreciate that the game lost many elements that they found aggravating like level drains, equipment destruction and, mostly, no more “Save or miss the whole fight” effects.

As a DM, I remain amazed at how easy running encounters was. Card sized monster stat blocks, dungeon tiles, combat was easy to run, not fast, but easy to run.

However, what really sold me completely to the game was when I started writing my own adventures. I was constantly using the tools of the Dungeon Master Guide and those of D&D Insider. Making encounters were really easy, changing monsters on the fly also. This was such a nice break from 3.5!

All the time I saved in prepping went into two things: writing more compelling stories around my game (as my Primal/Within campaign can attest) and making my encounters more exciting with the help of interactive elements (traps, terrain, stunts and Skill Challenges). In fact, after fiddling with Skill Challenges, I finally found how to implement them in fun and creative ways, thus making my encounters even cooler to play.

Anyway, all this to say that my conversion to 4e is complete and I foresee quite a few more seasons of playing it with my friends. Our ongoing campaign is slowing down for summer and I hope to get my players to the 10th level by the time we retire for our annual summer vacations.

So what do I expect from 4e for the next year? Well, I actually was invited to participate in Jeff Greiner’s The Tome Show a few days ago and I got the privilege of asking that very question to James Wyatt and Chris Perkins of Wizards of the Coast. So why don’t you check it out?


Interesting to get the opinion of someone who "turned to the dark side" over a period of time, rather than heart and soul the minute he read the 4e PHB (like me :smallsmile:).

Theodoriph
2009-06-11, 11:29 PM
No, sorry, it's not really interesting at all. :smalltongue:

The fact that he was "wary" at first doesn't make his argument more compelling in the same way that the admission by a Toronto Maple Leafs fan that the Leafs suck doesn't mean that the Leafs must really, really suck. I mean...he's a Leaf fan right?

*sigh*

This really just boils down to another 3.5 v. 4....and honestly, this forum has had enough of those.

Lord_Kimboat
2009-06-11, 11:41 PM
It took me a while to love 4e. I agree almost completely with the comments above and while I still love 3.x, I look back at all the problems I had with it. Like spending 20 minutes before the game selecting my 10th lvl Druid's spells (from a list of about 250!) or trying for the 6th time to work out stats for his animal companion!

I was skeptical of 4e and I still know many people who hate it. I still have some problems with it - I'd like modules that run a lot more story than combat. I thought hit points and armor class were flawed under 3.x and now they are worse under 4e.

But there are some really good things about 4e. Combat turns that don't sit on one player for 5 minutes while they work out thier 5 attacks and extra damage for power attack (not forgetting the +1 for bless and the extra attack for haste). Now granted, combats can go a long time but they don't seem to bog down as much IMHO.

So while I simpathize with the haters and I'm sorry WotC has stopped supporting 3.x, I'm not sorry that 4e came out.

Colmarr
2009-06-11, 11:58 PM
This really just boils down to another 3.5 v. 4....and honestly, this forum has had enough of those.

It would be another 3.5 v 4 thread, if there were any "v" to the opening post. Other than Chatty's mention of "conversion" and my tongue-in-cheek mention of the dark side, there is no "v" here.

The New Bruceski
2009-06-12, 01:28 AM
In fact, after fiddling with Skill Challenges, I finally found how to implement them in fun and creative ways, thus making my encounters even cooler to play.

I don't follow him, do you know if he's talked about this in more detail somewhere? While I like the ultimate idea behind skill challenges they always feel clunky when I put them in.

The_Werebear
2009-06-12, 01:35 AM
Good for him, I say.

Still, the stuff he likes is the stuff that's turned me off of fourth edition and stuck me solidly in 3.5 land.

BobVosh
2009-06-12, 01:51 AM
This really just boils down to another 3.5 v. 4....and honestly, this forum the internet has had enough of those.

Fixed it for ya. No mention of the few things I liked in 4ed, mainly stuff I was neutral or disliked. Odd.

Colmarr
2009-06-12, 02:21 AM
I don't follow him, do you know if he's talked about this in more detail somewhere?

Yeah, he has. At length :smallsmile:

You'll need to follow the link I posted and read back through some of his older posts (particularly the session logs for his Primal/Within campaign).

His particular hobbyhorse is combining skill challenges with combats to create half-and-half encounters, and they seem to work well for him (I've never tried one).

The Chatty DM
2009-06-12, 05:30 AM
Hi there,

I won't comment on the liking 4e v not liking it, I totally get that some don't and I know why.

About skill challenges, I've found that it helps to design them more openly. Let player describe how they would go at performing the task they want to do, help them embellish the description and give the appropriate bonuses to their skill rolls.

Using Skill challenge in combat has allowed us to create two new types of combat scenes. First we had scenes where PCs had to perform a complex task while being attacked, juggling resources to complete the task and fight off monsters (I put in-scene pressure to prevent PCs from just killing monsters before doing the task).

Secondly I would create challenges that provided PCs with an alternative for winning the encounter. For instance, in a recent game PCs try to unravel the enchantment (silver runes) that were placed on a Bullete. Mechanically speaking it allowed PCs to debuff a Solo monster back into an Elite, thus making the fight shorter.

Hope that helps.

BooNL
2009-06-12, 05:51 AM
I leafed through the 4th edition books when they first came out and wasn't really excited by it. The simplicity of the rules is amazing though and after reading through the books once I understood everything (unlike 3.5 with grappling, etc...) but, like The Chatty DM I wasn't impressed by the streamlining of the classes.

Now I'm thinking I should maybe give it another chance. The game has had a year, people have learned how to adapt and a couple of new books have come out.

I hope this forum will pick up on this as well and support a couple more 4th edition games.

RebelRogue
2009-06-12, 06:16 AM
I leafed through the 4th edition books when they first came out and wasn't really excited by it. The simplicity of the rules is amazing though and after reading through the books once I understood everything (unlike 3.5 with grappling, etc...) but, like The Chatty DM I wasn't impressed by the streamlining of the classes.

Now I'm thinking I should maybe give it another chance. The game has had a year, people have learned how to adapt and a couple of new books have come out.
There's a big difference between just reading the rules and actually playing the game. I remember being pretty disappointed when reading through the rules, but once we started gaming, I changed my mind.

The Chatty DM
2009-06-12, 08:14 AM
Something that 3e had and 4e missed is that reading a 3e book was often as fun as playing it.

In 4e, the books are all buisness and are sometimes as exciting to read as a phonebook.

They are, however, very handy at the table, once you know how they're structured.

So yeah, reading 4e and playing 4e are 2 different monsters.

BooNL
2009-06-12, 08:22 AM
That's true indeed. It might be the fact that 3.5 might be a bit clearer on the actions a character takes, as they are all standardized (eg. attack, cast spell, grapple, trip). Selecting spells from a big spellbook has its charm as well.
When I was looking at the 4e books I remember thinking that every character had a couple of "signature moves", where every fighter yells out his attack name anime-style.

I get the same feeling when I look at Tome of Battle though...

The Chatty DM
2009-06-12, 08:30 AM
Tome of Battle was my among favorite 3.5 books, along with the Fiendish Codex(es). It seemed to me that fluff and crunch were perfectly mixed in those books.

Now, the little fluff lines in italics found in the powers sometime sound like badly written Magic the Gathering cards.

So yeah, I love 4e, but not unconditionally so.

Doc Roc
2009-06-12, 08:33 AM
{Scrubbed by poster...}
I think maybe I'll keep my opinions to myself.....

Decoy Lockbox
2009-06-12, 03:47 PM
That's true indeed. It might be the fact that 3.5 might be a bit clearer on the actions a character takes, as they are all standardized (eg. attack, cast spell, grapple, trip). Selecting spells from a big spellbook has its charm as well.
When I was looking at the 4e books I remember thinking that every character had a couple of "signature moves", where every fighter yells out his attack name anime-style.

I get the same feeling when I look at Tome of Battle though...

Definately, I would expect younger players who might be into combat animes to play like that. But the king of called out attacks has got to be the Five fingered icy enervation thing from ToB. It felt very tongue-in-cheek though.

One thing I like about the martial powers in 4e is how easily they can be reflavored to fit a particular character concept. I once built a robot Mike Tyson (warforged fist fighter/barbarian), who took "Griffon's Wrath" and reflavored it as "Ear Bite".

Colmarr
2009-06-13, 12:24 AM
Hi there

Hi Chatty.

Hope you don't mind me cross-posting from your blog like that.

The Chatty DM
2009-06-13, 06:37 AM
Of course not Colmarr,

Like all bloggers, I like being quoted. :)

Thanks for reading.

Leeham
2009-06-15, 05:26 AM
Something that 3e had and 4e missed is that reading a 3e book was often as fun as playing it.

In 4e, the books are all buisness and are sometimes as exciting to read as a phonebook.

They are, however, very handy at the table, once you know how they're structured.

So yeah, reading 4e and playing 4e are 2 different monsters.


Yeah, this is what initially put me off 4e. But then i realised, it was kind of a good thing really. in a way it encourages DMs to write their own fluff. I think that the fluff that's in the book is thin for a reason, sort of WotC's way of saying "hey, this is your campaign, make it what you want". And the little bit of fluff with the attacks is a good little starting point for players to be more descriptive with their character's attacks.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-15, 06:52 AM
Yeah, this is what initially put me off 4e. But then i realised, it was kind of a good thing really. in a way it encourages DMs to write their own fluff. I think that the fluff that's in the book is thin for a reason, sort of WotC's way of saying "hey, this is your campaign, make it what you want". And the little bit of fluff with the attacks is a good little starting point for players to be more descriptive with their character's attacks.

Respectfully, if I buy a RPG book, I want good fluff AND good crunch. THEN I'm free to choose or change what I want, but a little bit of effort from designers could be well accepted, we can say.

Otherwise, I'll look for another product.

Zeta Kai
2009-06-15, 08:00 AM
Respectfully, if I buy a RPG book, I want good fluff AND good crunch. THEN I'm free to choose or change what I want, but a little bit of effort from designers could be well accepted, we can say.

Otherwise, I'll look for another product.

Agreed. I've never read an RPG product that had so little fluff as a 4E book. Hell, I've read electronics manuals that had more prose. As an avid homebrewer, I am all about taking what the books give me & running with it to go create my own world. But the lack of fluff in 4E books feels like neglect on the part of WotC. They abandoned a portion of the game that made their books fun to read, & it shows. I bought the Oriental Adventures 3.0 book because I loved playing OA from AD&D. I paid retail ($29.95), read it, loved it, & have never used anything in the book other than a couple of monsters & a feat or two. And I don't regret that purchase, because it was a fun read, with great fluff. But when/if OA for 4E comes out, I can rest assured that it will be devoid of any fluff value, & so I'll never buy it & never play it. WotC can now rest assured that they won't make any sales based on the power of their prose.

People should not tout this as a good thing, either. D&D is not as universal a game system, in any edition, that a complete lack of default setting info is feasible. D&D is not GURPS by any stretch of the imagination, as flexible as it might be. That default fluff may be something that not everyone uses, but it makes for a great starting point. I knew that when I played a game from an older edition, there would be baatezu from the Nine Hells in an endless Blood War with the tanaar'ri from the Abyss, & as a Paladin of Pelor, I knew what to do with my character before even sitting down at the table. Now, a DM running 4E has to make up all the fluff on their own.

WotC said repeatedly that they were gonna make the DM's job easier, but I fail to see how they accomplished that. Planning & running encounters might be a little faster, & treasure might have been simplified into little cookie-cutter packets, but the world that the players are in has never been emptier. The DM now has to describe his monsters on his own, because the MM doesn't have descriptions. The DM has to make up everything about his world, just like he did in every other edition, but the books are less helpful than ever in giving him a baseline to start with. Nobody will ever accuse the fluff writers at WotC of being brilliant crafters of fine prose. But at least you used to have something to ponder while you tried to digest the rules of a D&D book. Now though, there are less points of light in the darkness than ever before.

Panda-s1
2009-06-15, 10:18 AM
Agreed. I've never read an RPG product that had so little fluff as a 4E book. Hell, I've read electronics manuals that had more prose. As an avid homebrewer, I am all about taking what the books give me & running with it to go create my own world. But the lack of fluff in 4E books feels like neglect on the part of WotC. They abandoned a portion of the game that made their books fun to read, & it shows. I bought the Oriental Adventures 3.0 book because I loved playing OA from AD&D. I paid retail ($29.95), read it, loved it, & have never used anything in the book other than a couple of monsters & a feat or two. And I don't regret that purchase, because it was a fun read, with great fluff. But when/if OA for 4E comes out, I can rest assured that it will be devoid of any fluff value, & so I'll never buy it & never play it. WotC can now rest assured that they won't make any sales based on the power of their prose.

People should not tout this as a good thing, either. D&D is not as universal a game system, in any edition, that a complete lack of default setting info is feasible. D&D is not GURPS by any stretch of the imagination, as flexible as it might be. That default fluff may be something that not everyone uses, but it makes for a great starting point. I knew that when I played a game from an older edition, there would be baatezu from the Nine Hells in an endless Blood War with the tanaar'ri from the Abyss, & as a Paladin of Pelor, I knew what to do with my character before even sitting down at the table. Now, a DM running 4E has to make up all the fluff on their own.

WotC said repeatedly that they were gonna make the DM's job easier, but I fail to see how they accomplished that. Planning & running encounters might be a little faster, & treasure might have been simplified into little cookie-cutter packets, but the world that the players are in has never been emptier. The DM now has to describe his monsters on his own, because the MM doesn't have descriptions. The DM has to make up everything about his world, just like he did in every other edition, but the books are less helpful than ever in giving him a baseline to start with. Nobody will ever accuse the fluff writers at WotC of being brilliant crafters of fine prose. But at least you used to have something to ponder while you tried to digest the rules of a D&D book. Now though, there are less points of light in the darkness than ever before.

Y'know, I hate to ask, but you ever read the 2nd ed. core books? Those aren't exactly "fluffy" either. And incredibly generic, at least 4e gives you gods and some sense of a background story to the world. And honestly, how many campaigns in 3.5 actually, explicitly took place in Greyhawk? From how I see it, 3.X isn't that much fluff heavier than 4e is.

More than that, from a DM perspective I like not having super-detailed everything. Does it really matter how a goblin eats his meals? Or what he eats? I'd rather have loose fluff I can work with instead of having to go against something that was established in a book.

As for the lack of fluff in 4e books... Have you read any of the Power books? Those have fluff. And roleplaying tips, like what your ranger's Hunter's Quarry is like, or the thing that makes your warlock obscure (I forget what it's called).

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-15, 10:34 AM
Y'know, I hate to ask, but you ever read the 2nd ed. core books? Those aren't exactly "fluffy" either. And incredibly generic, at least 4e gives you gods and some sense of a background story to the world. And honestly, how many campaigns in 3.5 actually, explicitly took place in Greyhawk? From how I see it, 3.X isn't that much fluff heavier than 4e is.

More than that, from a DM perspective I like not having super-detailed everything. Does it really matter how a goblin eats his meals? Or what he eats? I'd rather have loose fluff I can work with instead of having to go against something that was established in a book.



See, I use an homebrew campaing world in wich I change and invent what I want. But a lot of times, something I read in a monster or prestige class entry inspires me for an interesting RPG enconunter, an RPG based quest, and many other things. This increase the value of the book for me.

Yeah, maybe I will not use that god with that name, but could be a good idea see how someone else managed to build a pantheon, then I'm free to choose. This is the point.

Renegade Paladin
2009-06-15, 10:37 AM
Wonder how much Hasbro paid him to write that.

Livor
2009-06-15, 01:42 PM
So the only possible way someone could like 4E and write about it on the internet is that they're getting paid? I really think Hasbro would be bankrupt by now.

oxybe
2009-06-15, 01:50 PM
they gave me character sheets made of gold, a set of onyx dice and diamond-studded minis.

the swimming pool full of doubloons was a nice bonus, but hurts like the dickens to dive in.

TheThan
2009-06-15, 01:57 PM
they gave me character sheets made of gold, a set of onyx dice and diamond-studded minis.

the swimming pool full of doubloons was a nice bonus, but hurts like the dickens to dive in.

Sounds like you need to learn from the master Scrooge McDuck (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frGLMtGsotc)

oxybe
2009-06-15, 02:21 PM
glad you got the reference! :smallsmile:

but seriously, trying to do that would result in a painful (though youtube worthy) faceplant. if i get rich, having most of my money in loonies in a large, obvious money bin is not the best way to do so.

Awesomologist
2009-06-15, 03:27 PM
I've mentioned this before in other threads, but I came to 4e after not playing D&D for over 10 years so I completely skipped 3e. In fact I heard about the game in December of '07 when there was a piece about it on NPR. I listened to it on my way home from work and that night I ordered the two preview books from Amazon.

In all I'd say playing 4e has been inedibly positive, even with its flaws. We found most of the rules to be fairly clear, although we did find that some better editing could have cleared up a few mistakes. Encounters have been easy to run, even if they do tend to run long. The lack of fluff has been no problem for us since we're fine with just coming up with our story as we like. We keep notes of most of the important things we make changes to but the rest we just ignore. We don't care about being told what gods are supposed to do what or where dragonborn come from since thats the kind of stuff we like to make up on our own. While most of the pre-made adventures turn into dungeon crawls we find they have enough info to answer our questions. Anything else is explained enough between the PHB, DMG, MM, and D&DI.

I think the most important thing for me about 4e is that it gave me an excuse to get in touch with old friends and get to know them all over again. You guys can have your edition wars, I'll keep my friends.

TheThan
2009-06-15, 05:34 PM
I think the most important thing for me about 4e is that it gave me an excuse to get in touch with old friends and get to know them all over again. You guys can have your edition wars, I'll keep my friends.

this is truly the best reason to play any game, not just dnd.

Panda-s1
2009-06-15, 07:49 PM
See, I use an homebrew campaing world in wich I change and invent what I want. But a lot of times, something I read in a monster or prestige class entry inspires me for an interesting RPG enconunter, an RPG based quest, and many other things. This increase the value of the book for me.
Same here. And I like monster fluff, but too much of it feels restrictive, IMO.

Yeah, maybe I will not use that god with that name, but could be a good idea see how someone else managed to build a pantheon, then I'm free to choose. This is the point.
Wait, what? 4e has a pantheon in it. 2nd ed. doesn't. I mean they list examples of different gods that might exist, but otherwise core books have very little in the way of example religions :smallconfused:

Wonder how much Hasbro paid him to write that.
Wonder how much Paizo paid you to hate 4e.

kjones
2009-06-15, 08:51 PM
Something that 3e had and 4e missed is that reading a 3e book was often as fun as playing it.

In 4e, the books are all buisness and are sometimes as exciting to read as a phonebook.

They are, however, very handy at the table, once you know how they're structured.

So yeah, reading 4e and playing 4e are 2 different monsters.

I'm glad someone else feels this way. Some of my favorite memories of 2nd edition D&D were sitting under a tree in the summertime and just reading sourcebooks.

This isn't really a dig at 4th edition - I'm sure that if the books read differently, I'd be complaining that they wasted too much time and needed to get to the rules. Still, I feel that something has been lost.

EDIT:


Y'know, I hate to ask, but you ever read the 2nd ed. core books? Those aren't exactly "fluffy" either. And incredibly generic, at least 4e gives you gods and some sense of a background story to the world. And honestly, how many campaigns in 3.5 actually, explicitly took place in Greyhawk? From how I see it, 3.X isn't that much fluff heavier than 4e is.


Maybe it's just the bliss of youth, but I never felt that way about the 2nd edition core books.

Yeah, probably the bliss of youth.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-17, 10:11 AM
Same here. And I like monster fluff, but too much of it feels restrictive, IMO.


Quick question: is more easy to skip a fluff paragraph or to write it ex-novo?

AstralFire
2009-06-17, 11:56 AM
Quick question: is more easy to skip a fluff paragraph or to write it ex-novo?

Write it. Takes me about the same time, and it's far more useful as a DM who likes to build things from scratch - I only use one WotC-published campaign setting and I have not once run a 'generic high fantasy campaign.' I hate those.

I prefer blank monsters. Means that my PCs get less preconceptions about them from browsing. Means that when I use a monster in an unconventional way, the less attentive ones don't constantly keep trying to reset to what they read in the Monster Manual.

Panda-s1
2009-06-17, 12:03 PM
Quick question: is more easy to skip a fluff paragraph or to write it ex-novo?

Neither, because either A) I'd do the latter anyway, or B) go with the former, but then it might never be pertinent to the campaign ever. If there is a gap, then I just use common sense to fill it in, it's not that hard for me. If the MM says goblins live in all kinds of places (sewers included) then I just think "Hmmm, if I were a small, smelly humanoid with no real sense of hygiene, how would I live?" and go on from there.

oxybe
2009-06-17, 12:36 PM
Quick question: is more easy to skip a fluff paragraph or to write it ex-novo?

neither and both.

if it's homebrew, then it's easier to skip it entirely. i'm already doing things from scratch, that means picking that critters infest my lands giving them their own flavor. having that pre-made fluff doesn't help much in that regard if instead of being the default "cowardly runts that live in holes" i want goblins to be "curious & inventive garbage scavenger". it's nice to read, but useless if it doesn't fit my needs. i don't need preconceptions in my homebrew games since they aren't created with "default" in mind.

if it's a premade setting then you will either announce that you're not playing it as is and modifying it, or get ready to have some upset players. premades are played because default fluff exist. while i can understand wanting to make it your own, you should point out those changes to the players since they are playing in it because of the preconceptions. in most cases it's easier to just skip the re-write and use as-is.

Zeta Kai
2009-06-17, 02:12 PM
Quick question: is more easy to skip a fluff paragraph or to write it ex-novo?

The time it takes to not read something? 0.00 seconds.

The time it takes to write up a monster description on your own, out of whole cloth? ~15 minutes, at least.

Now, there will be people who question my numbers above. They will say something akin to "dude, it takes, like, a minute to describe a monster, tops". I disagree with their optimism on several points. To truly describe a monster in any depth, you need to have a concept for it; this could be revised several times before you get to something that you actually like & can use. Next, you have to take your concept & extrapilate from it several factors of their existence:

How big are they?
Where do they live?
What do they eat?
Why would my players oppose them?
What words will I use to describe them to my players?
What language do they speak?
What is their temperment?
What do my players know about them?

The Monster Manuals in the days of yore told you most of this stuff, & in some cases, the books told you all of this & more. The 4E monster manual tells you virtually none of these things, & expects the DM to make it all up. How this reduces the DM's prep time (a stated goal of 4E) or streamlines play is beyond me.

Yes, if you skip this stuff & make up your own fluff, then you're at square one. But you had a guideline for what to make up, a benchmark for what was needed & wanted. And you didn't have to if you didn't want to.

People may say that nobody cares if goblins prefer poultry to fish, or that trolls like to collect fingers from their victims. But the fluff often provides the reason for the adventure. How do you know that the nobleman's daughter was taken by goblins & not the sahuagin? Because the nobleman's chickens were taken that same night, & the sahuagin hate chickens. How can you track the trolls to their next assault on the kingdom? Follow the fingerless corpses. If you can incorporate the fluff into your game & use it to further the action, then it's vital & necessary. If a game designer strips the game of fluff, then it's just Diablo. If they force the DM to make up the fluff, then they have shifted one of the responsibilities that they once assumed to the DM, without giving anyone a say in the matter.

I find the complete & utter lack of fluff in the Monster Manual to be a sign of things to come. One day, not far from now, D&D 5E will come out. It will have no fluff whatsoever; the races, classes, monsters, gods, etc. with be just pure, context-free statistics. Enjoy.

Nu
2009-06-17, 02:20 PM
I find the complete & utter lack of fluff in the Monster Manual to be a sign of things to come. One day, not far from now, D&D 5E will come out. It will have no fluff whatsoever; the races, classes, monsters, gods, etc. with be just pure, context-free statistics. Enjoy.

Slippery slope is a well-documented logical fallacy.

oxybe
2009-06-17, 02:29 PM
If a game designer strips the game of fluff, then it's just Diablo. If they force the DM to make up the fluff, then they have shifted one of the responsibilities that they once assumed to the DM, without giving anyone a say in the matter.


the issue you bring up is: who should be responsible for fluff? Designers or DMs?

IMO the DMs. Designers make the mechanics so i don't have to. they've already done their part. I make the fluff so i can tailor it to my group.

wormwood
2009-06-17, 03:49 PM
the issue you bring up is: who should be responsible for fluff? Designers or DMs?

IMO the DMs. Designers make the mechanics so i don't have to. they've already done their part. I make the fluff so i can tailor it to my group.

Not wanting to take sides, but still feeling the need to point out something I feel is being overlooked: All the arguments I've seen so far for leaving out the fluff come from folks who are experienced DMs. A new DM, being thrown into the mix with nothing to work from, is going to have quite a chore. It might just drive away a lot of that new audience that 4e could bring in through the simpler/more consistent rules.

oxybe
2009-06-17, 04:34 PM
the fact that they added an entire chapter in the DMG (Ch.11 - fallcrest) is proof that they care about the newbie GM and it mirrors most of the advice i tell new guys:

-create a town or two so the characters have
-create the surrounding area
-populate with NPCs so the Characters can interact with
-add an "adventure location" where something interesting happens (catacomb, spooky forest, goblin burrows, the town itself)

grow from there and start creating more NPCs, adding more critters, more towns, larger towns, geographical topologies, ect...

Reverent-One
2009-06-17, 04:53 PM
Not wanting to take sides, but still feeling the need to point out something I feel is being overlooked: All the arguments I've seen so far for leaving out the fluff come from folks who are experienced DMs. A new DM, being thrown into the mix with nothing to work from, is going to have quite a chore. It might just drive away a lot of that new audience that 4e could bring in through the simpler/more consistent rules.

I agree there should be some fluff for any given monster, if for no other reason than the fluff is where some of the monsters stats and abilities will come from.


The Monster Manuals in the days of yore told you most of this stuff, & in some cases, the books told you all of this & more. The 4E monster manual tells you virtually none of these things, & expects the DM to make it all up. How this reduces the DM's prep time (a stated goal of 4E) or streamlines play is beyond me.

Wait, what? First off, the 4e MM does have most, if not all of that information. Secondly, what other edition are you comparing the 4e MM too? 3.5? Because I just skimmed through the 3.5 MM I again, and to my surprise after reading your post about how much fluff there was in the past edition's MMs, I found there to be little difference between the two. Both generally have a paragraph or two of fluff for any given monster, with some variance for more or less detailed monsters. I will say that from what I saw, the 3.5 MM I had a little more fluff on average, about a couple of sentences, maybe as much as a paragraph or two on occasion, and that does sometimes include more minor details, but even then, occasionaly I think the 4e MM actually has more. Unless later MM's in 3.5 changed the format, I don't see where you're coming from at all.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-06-17, 08:23 PM
I think everyone is having flashbacks to the old DiTerlizzi 2e Monstrous Manual when they talk about fluff. In that book, each monster had it's own page, and the art didn't take up much of that, to say the least. They all had crazy stuff like the timeframe the monster was active during the day, diet, etc. It even explained where Medusas come from :smallbiggrin:

Colmarr
2009-06-17, 09:21 PM
Edit: Never mind. Nothing to see here.

Panda-s1
2009-06-18, 02:46 AM
The time it takes to not read something? 0.00 seconds.

The time it takes to write up a monster description on your own, out of whole cloth? ~15 minutes, at least.
*snip*


Uh... Wha... No. Okay, no. Obviously, you didn't read the 4e MM carefully. Or at all. Reverent-One has a point, 3.X MM wasn't super detailed either, and nearly all the questions you asked could be answered by the 4e MM (well okay, I'm still not sure what a Warforged eats, but even then I can't see how it's that pertinent to the story).

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-18, 04:40 AM
People may say that nobody cares if goblins prefer poultry to fish, or that trolls like to collect fingers from their victims. But the fluff often provides the reason for the adventure.



Yeah, this my point. I change flauff of some monsters, sometime dramatically (my minotaurs are civil and neutral folks, abncient greeks in style).

Sometimes monsters pass by and are strange creatures.

Sometimes, they are deeply known by the PCs because are sworn enemies or great allies.

Again, I WANT A CHOICE. Again, if you are fine with less fluff, fine. But I continue to don't understand why people with different needs must be screwed.

Aharon
2009-06-18, 05:46 AM
I like fluff. Currently, I dm 3.5, and the fluff helped me flesh out the game. But I wouldn't need it. I've read countless fantasy novels, I can imagine how a goblin behaves or what dark elves do (one of my first fantasy stories was Raymond E. Feists Riftwar Saga, and that influenced me a lot). Fluff is nice, but given the choice between fluff and crunch, I would choose crunch - I can get the fluff elsewhere. Why do I still play 3.5, then? Two reasons:
1) Money
2) Time.
I can't afford the books at the moment, and I think a subscription to DnD Insider will be far more worth its money in a few years, when it contains a lot of crunch.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-18, 08:20 AM
Fluff is nice, but given the choice between fluff and crunch, I would choose crunch

Me too. But as a customer, I WANT BOTH. If you, company, are unable to bring be both in:

1) A reasonable amount, price wise AND

2) a reasonable quality

Goodbye.

Oracle_Hunter
2009-06-18, 12:15 PM
Me too. But as a customer, I WANT BOTH. If you, company, are unable to bring be both in:

1) A reasonable amount, price wise AND

2) a reasonable quality

Goodbye.
Ah, the consumer's choice :smalltongue:

Seriously, all you're saying is "unless the supplier delivers what I want for the price I want, I'm not buying it." If you like to have a lot of fluff in your mechanics, play oWoD or Shadowrun; if you like to have a lot of mechanics without fluff, play GURPS. If you'd like a mix somewhere in-between, play something else :smallwink:

AstralFire
2009-06-18, 12:19 PM
I'm glad I'm not the only person wondering where there was an apparently huge flavor loss from 3E to 4E - apparently you're referring to some 2E books?

I always figured flavor was what the Campaign Setting books should be primarily for.

KIDS
2009-06-18, 12:24 PM
While the amount of fluff is really smaller in 4E, I don't think content has actually been lost. I still recall books overflowing with some really pointless fluff, from explaining why hexblades hate wizards to why freedom spell is a good choice to prepare to why monks can't return to their class after multiclassing to scene descriptions that were not supported by rules. I had no use for that fluff, and it was just another roadblock that I had to avoid while creating a character that made sense.

The important bits - what typical members of a race are like, what a class does and why it does it, information about deities and such - are all still there. I don't think 4E is a low-fluff edition just because it dumped some info that I've never used.

That said, if they can write something like Races of the Wild again and fill most of it with interesting and inspiring things about a few races, I'll like it just as well. I'm not sure if Dragon Magazine has more of stuff like that.

Meek
2009-06-18, 04:32 PM
Chatty, what are you doing here bro? Run for your life man! Run now!

Oh, the date. Thank god. Thank god you left while you could. SAVOR THE LIGHT!

The Chatty DM
2009-06-18, 04:37 PM
I'm still around. If only to savour being called a Hasbro shill for the first time. :)

ColdSepp
2009-06-18, 05:06 PM
That said, if they can write something like Races of the Wild again and fill most of it with interesting and inspiring things about a few races, I'll like it just as well. I'm not sure if Dragon Magazine has more of stuff like that.

WHen I got it, it did. Lots over fluff, which I really enjoyed.

Colmarr
2009-06-18, 05:28 PM
Chatty, what are you doing here bro? Run for your life man! Run now!

Oh, the date. Thank god. Thank god you left while you could. SAVOR THE LIGHT!

Us 4ites gotta stick together in these parts :smallwink:

The Chatty DM
2009-06-18, 05:32 PM
I'm sure I have an encounter power somewhere that can help us deal with the haters. :)

Seriously though, I get the feeling that WotC will publish fluff-heavy books made up of the best Dragon mag articles. Thus, we,ll have Core rule book made to actually use at the table and fluff books, much like campaign setting sourcebooks, for those who like them.

I won't deny that Hasbro isin't trying to milk the game for all it's worth. I just don't care as long as I get quality books.

Then again, I get them for free, along with booze, cars, dope and girls. Cuz you know, that's how they got some of us RPG bloggers to like the game.

:)

kjones
2009-06-18, 05:44 PM
As far as descriptions go, the 2nd edition Monstrous Manual blew 3e and 4e out of the water. IIRC, each monster had a paragraph on Habitat/Terrain and Ecology.

These were separate paragraphs.

Meek
2009-06-18, 06:15 PM
Us 4ites gotta stick together in these parts :smallwink:

I never thought of it that way previously, especially when I get barked at by 4ites, 3ites, WhiteWolfites, Everyites.

People just don't like me.

AstralFire
2009-06-18, 06:26 PM
I never thought of it that way previously, especially when I get barked at by 4ites, 3ites, WhiteWolfites, Everyites.

People just don't like me.

Long time no see, SIMP.

And yeah we all hate you. What's up?

Meek
2009-06-18, 06:35 PM
Just Chillin'. Surprised to see Chatty on forums! Especially these forums.

The Chatty DM
2009-06-18, 06:39 PM
Before I became a blogger I was a Forum poster. After getting tired of being ignored or insulted, I started a blog. :)

I used to hang out at Monte's place a lot.

AstralFire
2009-06-18, 06:45 PM
I have no idea who Chatty is.

Alteran
2009-06-18, 06:49 PM
Then again, I get them for free, along with booze, cars, dope and girls. Cuz you know, that's how they got some of us RPG bloggers to like the game.


:smalleek:

I need to start a blog. :smallwink:

Meek
2009-06-18, 07:21 PM
Before I became a blogger I was a Forum poster. After getting tired of being ignored or insulted, I started a blog. :)

I used to hang out at Monte's place a lot.

Reminds me of myself. Except with less perks. It seems like I'm always too late to sign up for preview copies of stuff I actually like, and I wouldn't bother with the stuff nobody's signing up for...

The Chatty DM
2009-06-18, 07:34 PM
Maybe it's time I create a signature so people can get to know who I am. :)

@Meek The preview copies and free stuff only appeared after I had done the blogging gig for more than a year.

Zeta Kai
2009-06-18, 07:43 PM
Seriously, all you're saying is "unless the supplier delivers what I want for the price I want, I'm not buying it." If you like to have a lot of fluff in your mechanics, play oWoD or Shadowrun; if you like to have a lot of mechanics without fluff, play GURPS. If you'd like a mix somewhere in-between, play something else :smallwink:

So, for all occasions, we shouldn't be playing D&D? :smallamused:


People just don't like me.

I've always liked you, Meek. We may not agree on editions, but your homebrew fluff is par excelence.

Reverent-One
2009-06-18, 07:47 PM
So, for all occasions, we shouldn't be playing D&D? :smallamused:

I believe that D&D falls into the grouping of "something else", as it is neither of the two extremes.

Meek
2009-06-18, 09:02 PM
I've always liked you, Meek. We may not agree on editions, but your homebrew fluff is par excelence.

Yeah, you never bugged me either, but I stay out of Edition wars stuff anyway. Much love for the Eden map, by the way. It's still on the page with your name on it and your profile linked.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-19, 05:48 AM
Ah, the consumer's choice :smalltongue:

Seriously, all you're saying is "unless the supplier delivers what I want for the price I want, I'm not buying it." If you like to have a lot of fluff in your mechanics, play oWoD or Shadowrun; if you like to have a lot of mechanics without fluff, play GURPS. If you'd like a mix somewhere in-between, play something else :smallwink:

Er.. so what?

That was my point. I don't consider the amount of fluff and crunch of a product making it worthy.

I don't understand what you are meaning here. Some people consider the fluff mindset change good, someone else says thatthe fluff remanied the same (and I respect the point of view of both).

Someone else consider the fluff of say, 4th edition MM very bad.

It's a fault?

BTW, Chatty DM, I don't think that if you say that 4th edition is good, you are paid by Hasbro. A lot of people like 4th edition because it's the game for them, period.

But if I THINK that 4th edition it's the worst edition of D&D, guys, you have to accept it.

It's my opinion, not a fact, of course.

The Chatty DM
2009-06-19, 06:00 AM
@Kaiyan: I'm way cool with your opinion. And to some extent, given your personnal gaming preferences, there's a good chance that 4e is the worst version of D&D for you.

The game broke so many assumptions we have always associated with the game (I played from 1e to 4e, skipped 2e) that many many gamers found that the game didn't cater to them anymore. It just happens that 4e got rid of most of the things that annoyed me in D&D. I'm however very aware that what made my day probably broke the game for others.

Hell, I created something called the Dungeon Reality Show for 4e and while it's a blast to play, many would find it atrocious to use D&D for such silliness.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-19, 06:50 AM
Hell, I created something called the Dungeon Reality Show for 4e and while it's a blast to play, many would find it atrocious to use D&D for such silliness.

Actually, I like some silly thing in campaing, but only if the campaing is VEEEEEERY short

OR the silly moment is circumscribed and well placed (very difficult).

This could be a good topic, BTW :smallwink:

Meek
2009-06-19, 08:31 PM
The game broke so many assumptions we have always associated with the game (I played from 1e to 4e, skipped 2e) that many many gamers found that the game didn't cater to them anymore.


I'm here wishing it had broken more of them, like removing alignment entirely and not updating monsters from old D&Ds that embody aspects of those games that aren't part of D&D 4e anymore. For example, the Rust Monster. What, am I going to be seeing ragamuffins and man-eating floors next?

Though I'm perfectly fine ignoring those aspects of the game anyway. I did it in 3.5.

Oracle_Hunter
2009-06-21, 12:12 AM
I'm here wishing it had broken more of them, like removing alignment entirely and not updating monsters from old D&Ds that embody aspects of those games that aren't part of D&D 4e anymore. For example, the Rust Monster. What, am I going to be seeing ragamuffins and man-eating floors next?

Though I'm perfectly fine ignoring those aspects of the game anyway. I did it in 3.5.
Hey, "everything can kill you" is one of the more entertaining aspects of a dungeon crawl.

Besides, I've always enjoyed Piercers :smallbiggrin:

More seriously: the 4E take on the Rust Monster is an interesting adaptation. It certainly works within the WotC D&D mindset while still providing a medium-term hazard; if there is one thing 4E doesn't have enough of, it's hazards that have effects that last longer than 1 encounter.

For example, in my games I've adapted the Disease Track system for certain particularly nasty poisons. I will later apply them to curses (from traps and certain nasty monsters) and possibly in other incarnations. Even with Cure Disease, those sort of afflictions are non-trivial, and can shape the course of an adventure without wrecking the advancement curve for the campaign.

The New Bruceski
2009-06-21, 01:29 AM
Hey, "everything can kill you" is one of the more entertaining aspects of a dungeon crawl.

Besides, I've always enjoyed Piercers :smallbiggrin:

More seriously: the 4E take on the Rust Monster is an interesting adaptation. It certainly works within the WotC D&D mindset while still providing a medium-term hazard; if there is one thing 4E doesn't have enough of, it's hazards that have effects that last longer than 1 encounter.

For example, in my games I've adapted the Disease Track system for certain particularly nasty poisons. I will later apply them to curses (from traps and certain nasty monsters) and possibly in other incarnations. Even with Cure Disease, those sort of afflictions are non-trivial, and can shape the course of an adventure without wrecking the advancement curve for the campaign.

The trick is finding the balance between "lasting effect adding danger" and "**** you attack". Sunder/Rust Monster/some spells were at the extreme end of the scale, and I think as a reaction to that 4e might have gone a bit too far. As you noted though, it's adaptable (like any RP system).

Something I've enjoyed are abilities like petrification/sleep in 4e. Instead of one save making you fine or useless you get gradual change as you fail multiple saves.

Gralamin
2009-06-21, 01:37 AM
The trick is finding the balance between "lasting effect adding danger" and "**** you attack". Sunder/Rust Monster/some spells were at the extreme end of the scale, and I think as a reaction to that 4e might have gone a bit too far. As you noted though, it's adaptable (like any RP system).

Something I've enjoyed are abilities like petrification/sleep in 4e. Instead of one save making you fine or useless you get gradual change as you fail multiple saves.

Remove Affliction has to be fixed though. The PC -still- might die after the encounter is done when you go to remove the petrification.

Oracle_Hunter
2009-06-21, 11:25 AM
Remove Affliction has to be fixed though. The PC -still- might die after the encounter is done when you go to remove the petrification.
No, I think that's appropriate. It makes Petrification a Serious Business affliction - which is as it should be - without also making it a Coinflip Of Doom power.

The 4E Rust Monster, in case anyone isn't aware, eats a metal item (as a recharge power IIRC) but only digests it after a certain period of time. Like Petrification, this gives the PCs more time to save themselves, but not without the continual risk of major/lasting harm.

Remember: Risk & Reward are central to every incarnation of D&D; the question is just what Risks are fun to take and what Rewards can be given out before satiating the player's desire for more.

kjones
2009-06-21, 11:46 AM
The trick is finding the balance between "lasting effect adding danger" and "**** you attack". Sunder/Rust Monster/some spells were at the extreme end of the scale, and I think as a reaction to that 4e might have gone a bit too far. As you noted though, it's adaptable (like any RP system).

Something I've enjoyed are abilities like petrification/sleep in 4e. Instead of one save making you fine or useless you get gradual change as you fail multiple saves.

This is an excellent point - especially regarding the nature of "**** you attacks", which is a very apt name for them.

For another example, consider the progression of level draining - in 1e/2e, I don't think you even got a saving throw. In 3e, they introduced the concept of "negative levels", so the level loss isn't permanent until 24 hours later, giving you time to prepare - and even then, you get a saving throw.

Losing a level is brutal, especially at higher levels. I've never hit my party with level draining unless I'm sure that they have access to Restoration or something like that. (It doesn't have to be easy access...) So I don't miss that.

But I agree that they seem to have gone too far. As anyone who has ever played in one of my games knows, I'm a big fan of ability damage - it occupies a solid middle ground between "things that deal hit point damage" and "things that outright kill you instantly". It saddened me to see it go in 4th edition.

Oracle_Hunter
2009-06-21, 11:50 AM
But I agree that they seem to have gone too far. As anyone who has ever played in one of my games knows, I'm a big fan of ability damage - it occupies a solid middle ground between "things that deal hit point damage" and "things that outright kill you instantly". It saddened me to see it go in 4th edition.
Except for "drain the low stat" attacks that were Save or Suck - without the save.

Or CON poison, which was an insta-kill.

Of course, you could just carry around Restoration scrolls and nullify the impact of those stat-drains instantly.

This is why they got rid of stat-drains in 4E - aside from the "Save or Suck" aspect, after a certain point stat-drains became on/off afflictions; you were either crippled or unaffected, thanks to magic.

kjones
2009-06-21, 01:05 PM
Except for "drain the low stat" attacks that were Save or Suck - without the save.

Or CON poison, which was an insta-kill.

Of course, you could just carry around Restoration scrolls and nullify the impact of those stat-drains instantly.

This is why they got rid of stat-drains in 4E - aside from the "Save or Suck" aspect, after a certain point stat-drains became on/off afflictions; you were either crippled or unaffected, thanks to magic.

Nullifying the impact of drained stats is far from "instantaneous" - Lesser Restoration and Restoration have a casting time of 3 rounds, so you won't be using them in combat. It was a good way to impose a significant penalty without going too far.

And if ability damage/drain is too much for you, there's always ability penalties - Ray of Enfeeblement on the charging barbarian. I can understand why they did away with all of these things, but I think they went too far and removed almost anything that can impose a negative effect on your character for longer than an encounter.

Diseases are a notable exception, and the disease track mechanism is clever, but that's it.

Leeham
2009-06-21, 03:23 PM
People just don't like me.

i don't know who you are, but i like you :smallsmile: