[4e DDi] - Playing... Vistani?

[Shadow_Elf]

Wait, what? This article... has no crunch. Its not a playing article at all. Its basically a bunch of backgrounds and NPC tips.

Does anyone think this is remotely like previous (very awesome) Playing... Articles? This article seems mostly for DMs to use as NPCs, which is silly ,since they said they were putting all that stuff in Dungeon.

[Thajocoth]

Looks exactly the same to me, only, instead of a single group, it's Gypsies with a new label.

[Danger Jim]

If I recall, the article mentioned a heritage feat for PC Vistani. Perhaps they're going to release another article with the crunch? Although doing it that way seems silly to me.


Just checked the calendar, looks like two more vistani articles are planned this month. So the crunch is probably in one or both of those.

[Not Five]

Wait, what? This article... has no crunch. Its not a playing article at all. Its basically a bunch of backgrounds and NPC tips.

Does anyone think this is remotely like previous (very awesome) Playing... Articles? This article seems mostly for DMs to use as NPCs, which is silly ,since they said they were putting all that stuff in Dungeon.

Sigh.

They had some trouble editing this particular feature. And they had just made this big announcement about moving toward smaller, more frequent articles. So, they figured that--rather than waiting to get a full fifteen-page article later in the month--we might prefer to get three five-page articles sooner, each making up a third of the typical Playing X feature (in the same order, you'll note, if you look at the previous ones).

Evidently they were wrong. So I suppose it's good that this is a one-time thing.

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EDIT: and why do you believe that if an article has no crunch in it, it must be for DM purposes only? What, are players not supposed to be interested in their own characters' culture?

[Shadow_Elf]

EDIT: and why do you believe that if an article has no crunch in it, it must be for DM purposes only? What, are players not supposed to be interested in their own characters' culture?

That's not what I believe at all - rather, I personally believe that PCs need less help with fluff than DMs - maybe this is because my group is pretty good with handling fluff, but one of the things I really dislike about 4e are backgrounds (minor benefits for selecting a very very specific or incredibly general pre-written backstory) and that was really all they gave PCs in this article. I would just like to see some support for actually playing vistani - if they outline at the start "play a vistani is you want to have a backstory different from that of your normal race", and then give a bunch of equally shoe-horned backgrounds as vistani options, it seems weird to me.

[Terraoblivion]

They better not bring rules for how to play a Vistani. Their being written to be playable would completely ruin the mystique and magic of them. Not to mention that creating crunch for a Vistani that would be playable for NPCs rather than serve as plot device would be a nightmare.