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View Full Version : Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)



Yora
2011-07-15, 07:29 AM
Yes, you suspected right, this is a 5th Edition thread.

Right at the beginning let me say that I intend this thread not to become a discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of the rules of recent and older editions, but to have the focus on marketing strategies and business descisions. Since this topic has come up quite a bit in several threads in recent weeks, I think having a dedicated thread for it might be a good idea, so it doesn't swamp other threads about completely different issues.

I didn't believe any rumors about 4th Edition until the official announcement, but right now I expect "something" to be announced within this year. It's not that I think something is wrong with the 4th Edition (though I don't play it) or have any wishes how any upcomming publications should be. I just think that the current business situation indicates that 4th Edition will not continue as it is to see a full 10 year run up until 2018 (roughly the time AD&D 1st Ed., AD&D 2nd Ed, and D&D 3rd Ed lasted).

- A revision in the form of Essentials has been nothing unusual for D&D editions, though it has been by far the fastes one.
- Shortly after Essentials was launched, many upcomming releases had been canceled.
- Reportedly WotC has been laying off staff over the last months and what books are released are written by freelancers.
- Some store owners claim that the direct competitor Pathfinder is outselling D&D. Also, recent releases like the Dark Sun books seem to no longer be able to be restocked if sold out.
- Finally, the head of the 4th Edition development team has released some blog entries in his column (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Archive.aspx?category=all&subcategory=legendslore) on the offixial website, in which he is analyzing what D&D is really about, and what are the bare bones on which every D&D edition has to be build on to really be D&D. I think such thoughts are the first step to develop a new edition, or to look back on your work and consider what was done right and what done wrong.

As it is right now, it does not look as if there will be any more major releases for the 4th Edition. But since D&D is a hugely popular brand and brand recognition is one of the most valuable things a company can have, I really can't imagine WotC continuing D&D with only four minor releases per year or just discontinuing it and leave the brand dormant.
Something has to happen, and a second reboot of 4th Edition after just one year is something nobody would really dare to risk.

If it will be called Dungeon & Dragons 5th Edition, I don't know. It's merely the most simple way to again make some good money with the brand. An alternative could be to pull out of the RPG market as it seems to be widely considered that the real profits of WotC are made in trading card games and other products. And who would have thought that TSR, Sega, or Atari would one day not be the big names of the RPG and video game business? Though as of now, I see nothing indicating a sell of the brand in any way.
With GenCon and PAX the next months, I expect an announcement of any kind to be made rather soon.

Again, this is not about the pros and cons of any rules system. I just can't see the D&D brand disappearing in some drawer to gather dust.
Share your thoughts.

Neoxenok
2011-07-15, 10:56 AM
I'm not really sure how much I can or can't say about 4th edition's successes/failures in terms of Wizard's ability to do business with the D&D brand using that system.

I've never been much of a fan of 4th edition, but it is a fun game to play the few times I have played it.

As to your comments, I would be very interested in seeing if there will be an announcement as you've indicated. I'll have to keep an eye on the wizards of the coast website to see if there are any developments. The situation does get curiouser and curiouser (if that's even a word.)

I doubt they'd sell the D&D brand, however, if there's any chance of making money from it in the future, even if it isn't doing so hot right now.

Do you have a link to the relevant blog entry or entries?

Knaight
2011-07-15, 11:02 AM
Regarding the brand, I seriously doubt it will be sold. It is the single most important brand in tabletop RPG's right now, and nontrivial outside of it. Among CRPGs, D&D based games occupy a fairly major niche, and the opportunity to maintain that niche is somewhat significant. Outside of them, there is DDO, which, while a minor RPG, is still reasonably successful. Pathfinder, by contrast, doesn't have anything beyond recognition in the sphere of tabletop RPGs, and even if it were to outsell D&D in that regard -which it may be doing- it is a less major brand.

Gryffon
2011-07-15, 12:57 PM
5th edition is not around the corner.

They have too much leveraged into 4th edition. All of the software tools they've created took long enough for them to create for 4th edition, not to mention their still working on some of them.

Neverwinter(the software) will be launching soon which is based on 4e rules. I'm sure they expect to get plenty of synergy from this.

A movie coming out this December with source material tie-in.

They're not expecting to leave 4e soon. They're spending too much effort in the brand to do so.

Friv
2011-07-15, 03:57 PM
None of the big RPG publishers are doing well right now:

* White Wolf has switched to an online-only model, and has drastically cut back their sales of pretty much every line. Most of their lines are down to 0-1 books released so far this year.
* Steve Jackson Games is also producing a lot of PDFs, along with a lot of PDF releases of older games. I could only find 3 GURPS books, 3 In Nomine books, plus their magazine so far this year. (Which, to be fair, is more than White Wolf put out for most of their lines.)
* Palladium seems to be doing alright, with another 24 books planned between now and 2012, but I keep running into references that a lot of their books never actually get made, so I don't know how much to trust that.

Regardless, my point is that the industry's been hit by the recession, and are looking at how to deal with that. General agreement seems to be that a new edition of a game is more likely to act as a barrier than an encouragement at the moment.

bloodtide
2011-07-15, 04:22 PM
I can see a 5th Edition easy enough. It would be a great way for them to attempt to win back some of us customers.


Take myself for example. I used to put aside a good $20-$30 a paycheck to buy RPG stuff. I have a ton of books, and a lot are WotC books. I'd even buy books I only had a vague interest in, but every month I was planning to spend around $50 on RPG stuff.

And D&D used to put out lots of stuff.....in 2E we got tons and tons of nice softcover books to buy cheep. 3E almost did away with softcover books, for some reason, and when to big hard cover ones.

And 3E started my shift away from WotC D&D stuff. I would just want something 'new' for my weekly game. It did not need to be a ton of stuff, just a little. And with the desert left by WotC, I bought tons and tons of third party d20 stuff. I loved all the School spell books, the quintessential books and such. While WotC put out like one book every other month.

Worse WotC would put out a massive hard cover $40 adventure book......but someone else would put out an $11 book about some random thing...guess the one I picked.

Then with 4E, it's like they don't even want to put out things any more....

But if the can do a good 'back to basics' 5E, they can get a customer out of me.

Yora
2011-07-15, 06:24 PM
I don't really care what edition books are for when they are fluff-heavy. I think the 4th Ed Manual of the Planes is a very nice book that I like a lot. But apart from the Campaign Settings, on which I already have much more much more detailed material from 3rd and 2nd Edition, there don't seem to be any. The last three years, it seem to have been exclusively about more powers and magic items. If that would change, I wouldn't mind if 4th Edition continues. If it doesn't, I don't mind what edition it is at all.

Knaight
2011-07-15, 06:25 PM
I don't really care what edition books are for when they are fluff-heavy. I think the 4th Ed Manual of the Planes is a very nice book that I like a lot. But apart from the Campaign Settings, on which I already have much more much more detailed material from 3rd and 2nd Edition, there don't seem to be any. The last three years, it seem to have been exclusively about more powers and magic items. If that would change, I wouldn't mind if 4th Edition continues. If it doesn't, I don't mind what edition it is at all.

This is a very good point, and I know full well you aren't alone on this. I personally don't play GURPS much at all, and never GM it. I would never buy a GURPS book for crunch, and yet I have several GURPS books, largely because the fluff tends to be very well written, very well researched, and fundamentally interesting.

Gamer Girl
2011-07-15, 09:28 PM
I think They should do a nice 50/50 between fluff and crunch. Really, it's not so hard..for each piece of crunch, make fluff for it.

But I too think WotC made a bad, bad mistake with going for all 'big expensive hard cover books'. I've bought lots of other d20 stuff to fill the void they left. And what gets me is...it's not that hard to put out cheap soft cover books...yet WotC completely dumped the idea.

Good example:

My group was just about to head to a thinly detailed city, where I have nothing planned. I needed a bit on inspiration. So head to the book store where on the self are the five big hard cover WotC books that I already have. But also in the self I find a D20 'Wererats', a nice little paperback 50 pages for $11.00. I've never cared much for wererats, but I buy it anyway. It has lots of fluff about wererats, and then some were feats, classes and such too. Just flipping though it I get the idea of using the 'Rat Lord' wererat druid as an 'urban avenger'. And with the book I'm able to write up a nice adventure for the next game, using all the fluff backed up by the crunch. And the game works out great!

All for $11...not $30 for a hardcover WotC book. Just think, if WotC put out a were book for each one...that's $11 times what? five? ten? I would have bought them all over time.


And why does not WotC put out adventures anymore? That would be a great way to make money...nice, soft cover under $20 adventures.

Dacia Brabant
2011-07-15, 09:51 PM
- Finally, the head of the 4th Edition development team has released some blog entries in his column on the offixial website, in which he is analyzing what D&D is really about, and what are the bare bones on which every D&D edition has to be build on to really be D&D. I think such thoughts are the first step to develop a new edition, or to look back on your work and consider what was done right and what done wrong.

Actually, as a fan of 4e, this is the best news I've heard in months. Like I said in your previous thread, I think they lost sight of what the game is about, and without a sense of coherence built around that idea the game was doomed to be no more than rules in a pretty package. So if the head developer is asking these questions, this is a good sign that they realize what the problem is and hopefully they'll be able to solve it. (Hopefully because you never know if the execs will get in the way.)

What 4e D&D is supposed to be about, to my view at least, is giving every player at the table equal opportunity to have fun playing their character the way they want to play it. Granted that every party has to have a Leader (which makes sense from an OOC perspective anyway--teams that don't have a captain are going to fail, it's just human nature), the way powers were developed allowed every role and every archetype within that role to do something effective every turn. This is great! But they forgot one very important thing: playing a character isn't just powers and stats and dice, it's about knowing who your character is, and about exploring the world they're in and what they should be doing in it.

The movement against "fluff" during 4e's initial outlay was just flat-out stupid in my opinion. If people don't buy a bunch of setting splatbooks and that's just a waste, fine, but you can still include a good amount of flavor in the main releases. There are DM-oriented books that are quite good in this regard, but the player-oriented ones missed that boat completely. And much as I like the Essentials classes for restoring some classic class archetypes, those books are even worse in this regard than the PHBs or "Setting X: Players Guide" books. But at least they're cheap.

And on that note, Gamer Girl above makes very good points, too, especially the books all being high-end hardcovers that are just too much money in this economy. I think they forgot who their market is. You can get a lot of mileage out of those cheap softcover books as long as they're well written and have some useful character-creating or adventure-creating material in them.

But at the end of the day I think what the devs need to realize is there's more to a tabletop RPG than mechanics and art. If anything that's the video game comparison right there, you can have a PC or console RPG that's mostly graphics, rules and a user interface and that's fine, Torchlight is a fun game, but tabletop RPGs are a social experience and need tools to facilitate that.

Yora
2011-07-16, 05:42 AM
But I too think WotC made a bad, bad mistake with going for all 'big expensive hard cover books'. I've bought lots of other d20 stuff to fill the void they left. And what gets me is...it's not that hard to put out cheap soft cover books...yet WotC completely dumped the idea.
There were a small number of softcover books in 3.0, but they went completely hardcover with 3.5. And when 4th Ed. started, they kept to it, so I guess the 3.5e books had still been quite profitable so continuing that way seemed like a good idea.
That said, I don't think that their problem really lies in the huge expanses and retail prices of hardcover books. The content seems to be a much more likely reason for low profits.

Gamer Girl
2011-07-16, 10:47 AM
There were a small number of softcover books in 3.0, but they went completely hardcover with 3.5. And when 4th Ed. started, they kept to it, so I guess the 3.5e books had still been quite profitable so continuing that way seemed like a good idea.
That said, I don't think that their problem really lies in the huge expanses and retail prices of hardcover books. The content seems to be a much more likely reason for low profits.

I just don't get why dropped soft cover books. You can't tell me it has to do with expenses. I'm sure that a single $40 hardcover costs much more then a dozen soft cover ones.

Gaming books will always have a 'content' problem: everyone likes different stuff. I own plenty of 100 page books that I've used like three magic items from and ignored the rest. I mostly only use about half of a book anyway.

Bigger is not always better. Take the 'race' books. They mash three races in a big hardcover book. So I like gnomes and see they are 1/3 of Races of Stone, but I don't care about the wasted space about the other two races. And at $30 I just decide to skip the book. But if WotC would have put out a soft cover Gnome book for just $10, I'd buy that in a second.

Crow
2011-07-16, 03:13 PM
The "Races of" books are a great example. If they split those into 3 separate softcovers, I may have bought some of them.

However they decide to continue the brand, I hope that things move away from the "everybody uses powers" thing. Let me explain. As someone above said, playing D&D is about playing the game how you want to play the game. But for me, this goes a little bit further.

One of the things that turned me off of 4e was the whole powers system in general. Not because it was bad in and of itself, but because sometimes, I don't want to sift through a bunch of one-shot abilities. Sure you could just do a "melee basic attack", but the system is pretty much built on you being effective by using your powers...but I'm straying from the point. In previous editions, if I was in a "toolbox" mood, I could pick up a wizard or cleric, then as more material was released for 2nd, I could grab a sorcerer or something for "toolbox lite" if I felt like it. If I wasn't in the mood to play that way, I could roll up a relatively simple fighter, perhaps with a few tricks (in 3e+), or a thief/rogue.

4e restricted all characters to "toolbox lite" mode, which I just don't feel like playing *all* the time. I've heard Essentials fixed this somewhat, but there were a few other things I didn't like about 4e that are still keeping me away from it, which don't belong in this thread.

Either way, whatever they do, I think they could benefit from releasing material *slower* than they have for 4e. The amount of content they were releasing for 4e was just too much, too fast. Even if you have a regular game-a-week schedule that nobody misses, you're only getting 4 games before new material is being inserted into the game (not that you *have* to include it, but some people feel compelled to do it on principle it seems). Granted this quick release schedule was almost neccessary at first because of the barebones material included in the first three books (partly because powers were formatted in a way to take up oodles of space).

Oh and let's hope that when they do release a new edition, the core books have an index that's actually worth a damn. Compare the index in the 4e PHB to the 3.5 one.

KingofMadCows
2011-07-16, 03:47 PM
Don't underestimate D&D CRPG's. The two most successful 3E D&D games, NWN and NWN2, sold a combined 4 million copies, along with an additional 4 million copies of their expansion packs.

No 4E D&D games have been released yet but there is a lot of potential there. Obsidian has said that they're interested in making another Icewind Dale game and they finally have their own game engine that they used for Dungeon Siege 3, and it's pretty bug free.

Kislath
2011-07-17, 09:04 AM
I'm an old-schooler who, quite frankly, has a bit of trouble figuring out, converting to, and keeping up with all the new rules which have come out over just the past few years. Bear in mind that I was once considered one of the all-time great DM's, too, with memorized specs and stats and rules enough in my head to rival Brian van Hoose.

Today I feel like a complete idiot when it comes to D&D, though, and I've given up on even trying to make any sense of it. I stopped buying books at 3.0.

If they really want to bring D&D to a new generation, they would do well to make it simple again, and then add in all the splatstuff over time. if I heard a rumor that D&D 5 was going to be as fun and easy to learn as 1st edition, or even 2nd, then I'd scarf up every new book they made. It's hard for me to teach & reach new players when I can't get into it myself, but if it went back to the golden age, new players would swell the ranks and D&D would be secure for another 25 years at least.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-17, 09:19 AM
For what it's worth, WOTC has mentioned one 4E splatbook for 2012, about heroes from the Elemental Chaos.

Yora
2011-07-17, 11:21 AM
Aren't Heroes books about thematically fluffed powers and equipment?

Tyndmyr
2011-07-17, 11:50 AM
There were a small number of softcover books in 3.0, but they went completely hardcover with 3.5. And when 4th Ed. started, they kept to it, so I guess the 3.5e books had still been quite profitable so continuing that way seemed like a good idea.
That said, I don't think that their problem really lies in the huge expanses and retail prices of hardcover books. The content seems to be a much more likely reason for low profits.

While they did focus much more heavily on hardcover, they technically didn't go completely hardcover. For instance, I have a softcover 3.5 phb.

They did stop the old brown thin softcovers, though.

Personally, price has never been a huge discriminator for me. There has always been cheap RPGs on the shelves that I've ignored. Sure, cheap is nice, but if something doesn't interest me, I'm not gonna touch it no matter how cheap it is.

Cybren
2011-07-17, 12:43 PM
None of the big RPG publishers are doing well right now:

* White Wolf has switched to an online-only model, and has drastically cut back their sales of pretty much every line. Most of their lines are down to 0-1 books released so far this year.
* Steve Jackson Games is also producing a lot of PDFs, along with a lot of PDF releases of older games. I could only find 3 GURPS books, 3 In Nomine books, plus their magazine so far this year. (Which, to be fair, is more than White Wolf put out for most of their lines.)
* Palladium seems to be doing alright, with another 24 books planned between now and 2012, but I keep running into references that a lot of their books never actually get made, so I don't know how much to trust that.

Regardless, my point is that the industry's been hit by the recession, and are looking at how to deal with that. General agreement seems to be that a new edition of a game is more likely to act as a barrier than an encouragement at the moment.
Switching to online only is more them knowing where the market is. Yes RPGs in general aren't doing too well, but i'd argue that the sheer size of D&Ds market share back when 4th edition launched wasn't exactly healthy. Pathfinder splintering their audience was not good for WotC, and them pulling all PDFs to stop piracy only to release a software program thats monthly fee was absurdly cheaper than actually buying all the material it gave you access to seemed contrary to that point. I think 4th edition has been a series of haphazard management decisions

bloodtide
2011-07-17, 01:37 PM
Switching to online only is more them knowing where the market is. Yes RPGs in general aren't doing too well, but i'd argue that the sheer size of D&Ds market share back when 4th edition launched wasn't exactly healthy. Pathfinder splintering their audience was not good for WotC, and them pulling all PDFs to stop piracy only to release a software program thats monthly fee was absurdly cheaper than actually buying all the material it gave you access to seemed contrary to that point. I think 4th edition has been a series of haphazard management decisions

I don't think that WotC can do anything about pirate PDFs. But most of the people that download them (kids) won't buy the real book anyway(or can't buy the real book anyway). Only about 20% of the adults do the 'get D&D for free', and the rest of us buy the books.

Why not do the video game-like thing. Have to books filled with unique codes that can access online stuff?

I never liked the idea of D&D software.....I knew they could never, ever do that right.

Gamer Girl
2011-07-17, 01:47 PM
I'm an old-schooler who, quite frankly, has a bit of trouble figuring out, converting to, and keeping up with all the new rules which have come out over just the past few years. Bear in mind that I was once considered one of the all-time great DM's, too, with memorized specs and stats and rules enough in my head to rival Brian van Hoose.

Today I feel like a complete idiot when it comes to D&D, though, and I've given up on even trying to make any sense of it. I stopped buying books at 3.0.

If they really want to bring D&D to a new generation, they would do well to make it simple again, and then add in all the splatstuff over time. if I heard a rumor that D&D 5 was going to be as fun and easy to learn as 1st edition, or even 2nd, then I'd scarf up every new book they made. It's hard for me to teach & reach new players when I can't get into it myself, but if it went back to the golden age, new players would swell the ranks and D&D would be secure for another 25 years at least.


Now that's a good idea. Come out with D&D Classic: the 1E rules. Then add Classics 2 and 3 and then even add WoW 4 and 5. But make it so you can play any number.

A simple game like 1E is a great way to get players. It's easy to do..''ok you have a sword and a cloak, lets go adventure'' then it is to go ''OK you have different types of powers, once an encounter you can shift wowzer move a foe you hit with a weapon 2 squares''. 4E is tough with even just the square stuff.(''Um, Dm how far is a 'square'?'')


I think it also might be important to shift the focus away from the little kids. WotC is way to focused on the little kids; ''I wants to be a kool radical zoom zoom dragon necromancer holy warrior assassin, wooo hoo! My mistikal sword of omens can cut through 18 demensions at one time and does monga-zonga damage, woo hoo!''. While I think it's a good idea to make a D&D variant for them (the Woo Hoo edition), I also think they should put out more intelligent and sophisticated stuff for us over 18 types.

Yora
2011-07-17, 02:01 PM
Little kids have quite some money to spare, no expanses, and are easy to get to buy compulsively anything by a brand they currently like.
When I see a new RPG, I might give the basic rulebook a try and even like it a lot and play it with my group. But then we keep playing for years with just one book.

Lord Raziere
2011-07-17, 02:17 PM
@ Gamer Girl: A more sophisticated version of DnD you say? :smallamused:
hmmm....I dunno....what would that involve?
oh right, an entire revamp of DnD as we know it. I would like such a version myself, but your basically asking reinvent the entirety of the game. from a business perspective that might be too radical a shift.

I mean first we would have to throw out the black and white morality, then we'd have to establish rules that would loot incredibly rare a lot of being restricted to plot purposes, then would have to come up with justifiable reasons as to why there are adventurers around without looking silly or just being a handwave, as well as giving the players to actually act like heroes instead of looting murderous hobos, then make an actual consistent economy, make the monsters you have to face actually scary and competent, oh and make sure that this all makes sense ok? I'm all for a sophisticated DnD but it would take work, and all of that without being lazy and just blatantly making it darker and edgier.

SlashRunner
2011-07-17, 02:31 PM
Now that's a good idea. Come out with D&D Classic: the 1E rules. Then add Classics 2 and 3 and then even add WoW 4 and 5. But make it so you can play any number.

A simple game like 1E is a great way to get players. It's easy to do..''ok you have a sword and a cloak, lets go adventure'' then it is to go ''OK you have different types of powers, once an encounter you can shift wowzer move a foe you hit with a weapon 2 squares''. 4E is tough with even just the square stuff.(''Um, Dm how far is a 'square'?'')


I think it also might be important to shift the focus away from the little kids. WotC is way to focused on the little kids; ''I wants to be a kool radical zoom zoom dragon necromancer holy warrior assassin, wooo hoo! My mistikal sword of omens can cut through 18 demensions at one time and does monga-zonga damage, woo hoo!''. While I think it's a good idea to make a D&D variant for them (the Woo Hoo edition), I also think they should put out more intelligent and sophisticated stuff for us over 18 types.

Hey, a person's age is in no way a measure of how intelligent or sophisticated they are. I'm not giving away my age on principle, but I'm going to put it out there that I'm not over 18. When I first decided to try D&D, I tried 4th edition.
I was appalled. It didn't feel like REAL fantasy, it felt like an MMO (by the way, I love MMO's and play them quite often, but that's besides the point). When I want to play an MMO, I'll go sit down on my computer and look at the pretty effects instead of sitting around at a table moving little miniature figures and rolling dice. When I sit down to play D&D, a tabletop RPG, I want to play an RPG.

So don't say that we "under 18 types" are incapable of doing intelligent and sophisticated things. Because I assure you, we are.

Lord Raziere
2011-07-17, 02:43 PM
Slash, I agree with you to, I've been sophisticated and mature since I was 14, but can't we keep the things that are good about 4e? like all the classes and races being equally powerful? I want a game thats sophisticated sure but I also want one that is fair.

Eric Tolle
2011-07-17, 04:06 PM
From a business standpoint, most of the ideas I'm seeing bandied about here are really bad, much as they may be favorites of individual fans. Not that I'm a publisher, but here's what I've heard from people in the business:

Hardbacks cost more to produce, but are more profitable.

Adventures and "fluff" books cost the same to produce, but sell much less than rules and mechanics based books. Therefore time spent in production is better spent on mechanics.

Adventures are pretty much the least profitable thing a company can put out, for all the goodwill it builds among vocal fans

Not to be too cynical, and there's obviously a few companies that have made a profit disregarding the above rules. But in general, it's decent busines sense for a company to listen carefully to the most vocal fans online, and then do something else.

hangedman1984
2011-07-17, 04:29 PM
but can't we keep the things that are good about 4e? like all the classes and races being equally powerful?

not sure how great an idea that is, 4e classes are all equally powerful cuz they're all the same. I'm not saying that its impossible to be both balanced and varied, but WotC hasn't managed it yet.

Lord Raziere
2011-07-17, 04:52 PM
not sure how great an idea that is, 4e classes are all equally powerful cuz they're all the same. I'm not saying that its impossible to be both balanced and varied, but WotC hasn't managed it yet.

so.... you deride them all as the same, because of one incredibly flexible mechanic?

by that logic, all Exalts are the same, they all use Charms after all.

and all 3.5 casters are the same, they all use the vancian spell system after all.

Crow
2011-07-17, 05:17 PM
so.... you deride them all as the same, because of one incredibly flexible mechanic?

by that logic, all Exalts are the same, they all use Charms after all.

and all 3.5 casters are the same, they all use the vancian spell system after all.

Yes, but in 3.5 if you don't feel like playing with a vancian system, you can always roll up a rogue or something.

Lord Raziere
2011-07-17, 05:25 PM
Yes, but in 3.5 if you don't feel like playing with a vancian system, you can always roll up a rogue or something.

so? go ahead keep saying that all 4e classes are the same, by that logic all vancian casters are the same, and all the noncasters are the same because they all use feats and skills

Crow
2011-07-17, 05:40 PM
Not all classes are the same. I never said they were. But to many (as evidenced on these boards), they feel the same. A wizard is toolbox lite, a warden is toolbox lite, a fighter is toolbox lite.

Every class does not need to use the same mechanic to be balanced with one another. Basically, WotC balanced their classes the lazy way. There are plenty of systems out there that are balanced, but have separate and flavorful mechanics for different classes; 4e isn't one of them.

Lord Raziere
2011-07-17, 05:49 PM
Not all classes are the same. I never said they were. But to many (as evidenced on these boards), they feel the same. A wizard is toolbox lite, a warden is toolbox lite, a fighter is toolbox lite.

Every class does not need to use the same mechanic to be balanced with one another. Basically, WotC balanced their classes the lazy way. There are plenty of systems out there that are balanced, but have separate and flavorful mechanics for different classes; 4e isn't one of them.

{{scrubbed}}

kenjigoku
2011-07-17, 06:17 PM
{{scrubbed}}:

This is a textbook composition fallacy...

Lord Raziere
2011-07-17, 06:26 PM
This is a textbook composition fallacy...

exactly the argument I'm parodying- the argument that all 4E classes are the same, good day, my job is done here.

kenjigoku
2011-07-17, 06:47 PM
But that is not the argument being presented. You are attacking a point you can win.

The point that is being made is that in 4th edition DnD you feel like a Candy Apple. You can be topped with caramel and M&M's or chocolate and sprinkles, but your still an apple at the core.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-17, 07:28 PM
so.... you deride them all as the same, because of one incredibly flexible mechanic?

by that logic, all Exalts are the same, they all use Charms after all.

and all 3.5 casters are the same, they all use the vancian spell system after all.

Technically, that's certainly not the case for 3.5. Even ignoring obvious alternatives such as spell points and refresh magic, you have casters like the artificer, which basically bend the vancian system out of recognition.

But there's no value in getting into an edition war. Surely we can agree that the more similar things are, the easier it is to balance them? Sure, a 3.5 wizard bears little similarity to the barbarian, but WOTC didn't do a terribly good job of balancing them, and it's not even particularly easy to balance world-shaping powers against the ability to rage and hit things hard.

Dacia Brabant
2011-07-18, 12:49 AM
From a business standpoint, most of the ideas I'm seeing bandied about here are really bad, much as they may be favorites of individual fans. Not that I'm a publisher, but here's what I've heard from people in the business:

Hardbacks cost more to produce, but are more profitable.

Adventures and "fluff" books cost the same to produce, but sell much less than rules and mechanics based books. Therefore time spent in production is better spent on mechanics.

Adventures are pretty much the least profitable thing a company can put out, for all the goodwill it builds among vocal fans

Not to be too cynical, and there's obviously a few companies that have made a profit disregarding the above rules. But in general, it's decent busines sense for a company to listen carefully to the most vocal fans online, and then do something else.

Okay, so that being the case, what is the source of the problems WotC is having with the D&D brand? Why is the lead developer talking only 3 years into the new edition about reducing D&D down to its bare bones (presumably for a rebuild)?

turkishproverb
2011-07-18, 02:38 AM
Technically, that's certainly not the case for 3.5. Even ignoring obvious alternatives such as spell points and refresh magic, you have casters like the artificer, which basically bend the vancian system out of recognition.

But there's no value in getting into an edition war. Surely we can agree that the more similar things are, the easier it is to balance them? Sure, a 3.5 wizard bears little similarity to the barbarian, but WOTC didn't do a terribly good job of balancing them, and it's not even particularly easy to balance world-shaping powers against the ability to rage and hit things hard.

Taking away all the penalties for casting didn't help.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-18, 04:16 AM
not sure how great an idea that is, 4e classes are all equally powerful cuz they're all the same. I'm not saying that its impossible to be both balanced and varied, but WotC hasn't managed it yet.
Also, 4E classes are not all "equally powerful" either. There are clearly strong classes (e.g. ranger, wizard, warlord), weak classes (e.g. seeker, binder, vampire), and a middle group.

The variation is smaller than in 3E, but remember that the variation in 3E tends to be greatly overstated on message boards.

stainboy
2011-07-18, 04:40 AM
exactly the argument I'm parodying- the argument that all 4E classes are the same, good day, my job is done here.

In a thread about the future direction of D&D from a business perspective, it's sufficient to know that a large number of people didn't like the 4e class homogenization. Whether you think they're wrong is immaterial.

And anyway, Essentials seemed to be deliberately moving away from this design, at least as much as they could while retaining compatibility.

E: Does anyone have a link to the blog mentioned in the OP? Googling "4th edition lead developer blog bare bones" gets me right back here.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-18, 09:15 AM
Okay, so that being the case, what is the source of the problems WotC is having with the D&D brand? Why is the lead developer talking only 3 years into the new edition about reducing D&D down to its bare bones (presumably for a rebuild)?

Look, it's not that D&D 4e is a bad game...it's not a game I particularly enjoy, but it is well designed. It's that it's a very different sort of game from 3.5. And when you make a big leap in design philosophy, you're going to have a lot of customers that don't agree.

Kudos to Pazio for responding rapidly to the changes, and basically continuing 3.5 support. I don't agree with all their game design decisions, but from a business standpoint, good work.

The big problem for WoTC isn't that 4e was a flop...it wasn't. If it had been a terrible flop, they could have rolled back to 3.5, and everyone would have high fived. If it had been a smashing hit, well...also no problem. Instead, it was a moderate success, leaving the player base split. This is much more awkward. If you make 5th ed a 3.5 upgrade, you probably alienate the 4e players. If you go with a 4e design style, you probably don't win back the 3.5 players. It's a nasty situation.

Shadow Lord
2011-07-18, 09:46 AM
Which is why I want WotC to mix the Balance of 4e with the Variability of 3e. But then again, that's simply not possible.

Yora
2011-07-18, 10:02 AM
E: Does anyone have a link to the blog mentioned in the OP? Googling "4th edition lead developer blog bare bones" gets me right back here.
Here (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Archive.aspx?category=all&subcategory=legendslore) are the articles. I think those from last months are the most telling.

hangedman1984
2011-07-18, 10:38 AM
and all 3.5 casters are the same, they all use the vancian spell system after all.

That is ABSOLUTELY not the case at all
-psionics
-binders
-warlocks
-incarnum users
all casters that do not use the vancian system

Lord Raziere
2011-07-18, 12:31 PM
That is ABSOLUTELY not the case at all
-psionics
-binders
-warlocks
-incarnum users
all casters that do not use the vancian system

I agree, exactly what I'm talking about, I have no right to say that all the casters in 3.5 are the same, and neither do you have any right to say that 4e classes are all the same, cause they aren't.

on topic, lets get back to that:
we already know what they tried. Essentials, and look how thats turning out, its being even more divisive, guys like me who like 4e's powers don't like it because it seems like a step back, I've heard of some people who like 3.5 like Essentials because of the variation, but mostly Essentials seems like a flop cause we don't really know what its targeting here, some say old timers, some say newbies, some say its a 3.5 hybrid....Wizards made a bad situation worse by introducing something that we honestly don't know what its supposed to do, made worse by some people mildly liking it.

but this bare bones examination thing you are talking about, it can go either way. right now it can be interpreted anything from a light of hope to a sign of doom, and only the results of this will determine how things play out.

Erloas
2011-07-18, 01:00 PM
Adventures and "fluff" books cost the same to produce, but sell much less than rules and mechanics based books. Therefore time spent in production is better spent on mechanics.

Adventures are pretty much the least profitable thing a company can put out, for all the goodwill it builds among vocal fans
The thing with this is "who can use this book?" If its stats and generic classes and other mechanical things then almost anyone can use the book, if you are running a campaign in predefined setting X, one-off games, custom campaigns, heavily houseruled games, etc. The more specific you get with your book the smaller the target audience. People running one-off games aren't going to be interesting in campaign settings fluff, people running their own campaign aren't either. A short adventure path only works well for people in the right level range and only if it fits into their game world, also no where near a given.

You also get a lot of people that refuse to read past fluff they don't like. Make a fairly generic class and give it some fluff and you'll get a lot of people that will take that fluff as unchangeable and just "how the class is." And if that doesn't fit with what they want from a fluff standpoint then they look for something else even if mechanically it fit just fine. Which is why in a lot of cases they take out the fluff from the mechanics.

But then for other people that doesn't work very well either. I started to play GURPs with someone (didn't actually happen but I got information for the system and started to make a character) but none of the classes had any appeal. They were too blank and just made the system seem dull and uninteresting. Its a fairly hard line to walk because people want vastly different things from the same thing at time.

Toofey
2011-07-18, 01:01 PM
I just don't get why dropped soft cover books. You can't tell me it has to do with expenses. I'm sure that a single $40 hardcover costs much more then a dozen soft cover ones.


I used to work in printing and I can say that this is not necessarily the case. It all depends on what types of binding is used (the hard cover vs softcover is not actually decisive if you go with cheap hard cover stock vs nicer softcover cover stock)

edit: as far as all this goes, I am getting a strong subtext that they're trying to get back to the anyone can try anything spirit of the older eds. Hopefully that'll go ok. I personally would love to see something that married the good in all the editions, simplified the mechanics, and got back to some of the flexibility in how you could play it that the older systems had.

nyarlathotep
2011-07-18, 02:44 PM
Which is why I want WotC to mix the Balance of 4e with the Variability of 3e. But then again, that's simply not possible.

Silly person you of course it's possible. The problem is simply that it takes far far more fine tuning that WotC is willing to do. Is that unreasonable of course not real balance requires months of prerelease testing under numerous circumstances and constant fine tuning after release, something that is financially unviable and completely understandable.

Then again considering how 4th ed is only sort of balanced I think that sort of balance could be achieved with variability, just not perfect balance.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-18, 02:49 PM
I don't think perfect balance is necessary...or even realistic. 4e certainly doesn't have perfect balance, even though balance as made a priority. I've certainly enjoyed and played many games with notable balance issues.

I do LIKE it, of course, but from a business perspective, I see it as something that could easily be considered not worth the cost.

stainboy
2011-07-18, 06:49 PM
It is possible to get a versatile game with better balance. 4e isn't "balanced" in the sense that if two players generate characters in separate rooms they will both contribute equally. That's just not possible, or a good goal, or even something 4e tried to do.

Once you accept that you're going to lean on the social contract for balance anyway, it's OK for some builds to be better than others. It's not OK that a barbarian can only contribute in melee combat, or that a rogue needs obscure build options and magic items just to use her iconic abilities, or that every cleric knows every spell ever printed, but D&D could fix those without going to the lengths 4e did.

Gamer Girl
2011-07-18, 07:18 PM
I used to work in printing and I can say that this is not necessarily the case. It all depends on what types of binding is used (the hard cover vs softcover is not actually decisive if you go with cheap hard cover stock vs nicer softcover cover stock)

I'm not in printing, but common sense tells me that a softcover unlaminated pages and black and white art book cost less to make then a hardcover laminated pages filled with full pages of color artwork.

nihil8r
2011-07-18, 07:32 PM
so one of the things i don't see people talk about very much is this: 4.0 isn't a role-playing game. it's a miniatures game. while 3.x has a large miniatures component, it's still supposed to be a rpg. 4.0 however, was designed first and only to replicate mmo-style combat on a battle grid, with tanks, healers, and damage-dealers given mechanical effects to recreate the same things characters in (hugely successful) games like world of warcraft do, such as taunting and self-heals.

the first problem with 4.0, then, is that it reduced the rpg element in an attempt to become world of warcraft the miniatures game, but it didn't go all the way. sure, you can buy the wotc power cards for your character, and you can buy wotc plastic miniatures. but those products weren't pushed that hard with the core book. you can play 4.0 with just scrap paper and dice and a grid you drew yourself on the back of a pizza box. but you shouldn't be able to! what wotc should have done, and what i predict they will do for 5.0, is sell special cards and miniatures that must be used in order to play the game. because 4.0 is a miniatures game, it needs to be sold like a miniatures game. selling it like a rpg (which allows characters much more freedom and creativity) was a mistake.

the second problem with 4.0 then, is that it attempted to become a miniatures game, but it just wasn't a very good miniatures game. sure it had some good ideas, but fighting on a grid using pre-selected powers is boring compared to a real wargame. and playing a watered-down version of world of warcraft with dice also is boring compared to just playing world of warcraft.

so as far as where the brand is headed . . . well, there are tons of great video game possibilities using the 4.0 rules. they are simple and based on video games, so making games with those rules should be easy. but as far as the next iteration of the game and the actual d&d brand . . . expect 5.0 to cost much, much more to play (and probably be even less fun). :smallbiggrin:

bloodtide
2011-07-18, 07:38 PM
I just don't think there is anywhere for D&D to go.....nothing will work.

They only have two options as far as they are concerned:
1.They can stick with 4E and add tweaks
2.They can come out with 5E and fix/change/balance things

But no matter the one they do, it won't work.

All of us 'classic' D&D gamers only want to play D&D 0-3E, the modern gamers want the wow of 4E, and all the others don't even want to play a role-playing game. So no classic gamer will pay money for wow D&D and no modern gamer will pay for hard and unfair D&D.

And then there is the balance and fairness. A good half of all gamers want everything to be in perfect balance, so that everyone is fair and equal and has the same amount of fun(or whatever the pure balance people want). Plenty of us classic gamers like imbalance and unfairness and making it more of an win or loose game. So the balance people are not going to buy a book where a wizard can cast a spell and a fighter can swing a sword. And us classic gamers won't buy a book where fighters get sort of magic abilities 'just like spells'.


It comes down to a simple fact: No matter what D&D product WotC puts out, roughly only half of the role-players will buy it, or less. And with that problem, it does not matter much what they put on the self, as it will just sit there.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-18, 07:44 PM
I'm not in printing, but common sense tells me that a softcover unlaminated pages and black and white art book cost less to make then a hardcover laminated pages filled with full pages of color artwork.

While true, the difference is nowhere near what you said/implied it would be. TBH, writing costs tend to stay the same regardless of printing option chosen. So, at least one major source of costs for the company doesn't scale. You're really only saving on marginal costs, and even then, the amount isn't excessive.

I've had the dubious fun of dealing with company mass print jobs before. A quality paperback can still be fairly costly. And I don't suspect anyone really wants D&D books to be terrible quality stuff.

nihil, I recognize that 4e is a very miniature centric game. I, personally, tend to use minis in combat anyway, so it's less of a deal for me than many...but I do appreciate games that allow me flexibility to use or not use minis.

I think if 5th ed was specifically designed to be MORE like a CCG/MMO, it might still make money, but it'd lose market share. CCGs and MMOs are all fine things, but they are not what defines D&D historically. The more you fold in into other niches, the more you leave the existing niche unsatisfied.

Now, perhaps you COULD have a successful MMO and CCG alongside a successful RPG, but they need not be the same thing. And frankly, MTG and DDO pretty much are as close to these things as WOTC is likely to get. The one big way in technology can boost them is if they get the promised online play fully functional. I heard a rumor that was coming out for 4th ed. Despite being a 3.5 fan, I'd probably check that out if it was notably complete.

turkishproverb
2011-07-18, 07:54 PM
I just don't think there is anywhere for D&D to go.....nothing will work.

They only have two options as far as they are concerned:
1.They can stick with 4E and add tweaks
2.They can come out with 5E and fix/change/balance things

But no matter the one they do, it won't work.

All of us 'classic' D&D gamers only want to play D&D 0-3E, the modern gamers want the wow of 4E, and all the others don't even want to play a role-playing game. So no classic gamer will pay money for wow D&D and no modern gamer will pay for hard and unfair D&D.

And then there is the balance and fairness. A good half of all gamers want everything to be in perfect balance, so that everyone is fair and equal and has the same amount of fun(or whatever the pure balance people want). Plenty of us classic gamers like imbalance and unfairness and making it more of an win or loose game. So the balance people are not going to buy a book where a wizard can cast a spell and a fighter can swing a sword. And us classic gamers won't buy a book where fighters get sort of magic abilities 'just like spells'.


It comes down to a simple fact: No matter what D&D product WotC puts out, roughly only half of the role-players will buy it, or less. And with that problem, it does not matter much what they put on the self, as it will just sit there.

There is another solution. Go for both markets:

Press release/demonstration announcement/short trailer:

Dark Screen

Flashes of painted and drawn fantasy images, some iconic, some not,

Dungeons and dragons

A letter A Fades in in front and above, followed by the full word, leaving the new logo:

Advanced
Dungeons and Dragons.

Cuts to more action-oriented, hardcore, varied, and unusual combination that harken back to old eras and their complexity and style.


Final text:
Welcome back to the deep side of the dice-pool.
Coming in 2012

Tyndmyr
2011-07-18, 07:55 PM
I also would approve of this idea. I have no trouble with the concept of two games labeled D&D at once.

Reverent-One
2011-07-18, 08:00 PM
so one of the things i don't see people talk about very much is this: 4.0 isn't a role-playing game. it's a miniatures game. while 3.x has a large miniatures component, it's still supposed to be a rpg. 4.0 however, was designed first and only to replicate mmo-style combat on a battle grid, with tanks, healers, and damage-dealers given mechanical effects to recreate the same things characters in (hugely successful) games like world of warcraft do, such as taunting and self-heals.

You mean they have mechanical effects to recreate the same things characters in D&D 3.5 could do (and continue to be able to do in Pathfinder)?

Talakeal
2011-07-18, 08:17 PM
{Scrubbed}

Tyndmyr
2011-07-18, 08:33 PM
My particular favorite:


you can play 4.0 with just scrap paper and dice and a grid you drew yourself on the back of a pizza box. but you shouldn't be able to!

Honestly, a small part of me wishes they had made an MMO based on 3.5. Pure RAW. Yes, I realize it would be utterly, horribly broken. I just really wish to see such a monstrosity.

Crow
2011-07-18, 08:35 PM
I think their best bet would be to go back to the Open Gaming License, regardless of what their next system looks like.

edit: I too would like a completely RAW 3.5 MMO, just to see the craziness.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-18, 08:39 PM
I think their best bet would be to go back to the Open Gaming License, regardless of what their next system looks like.

Oh, god yes. It's a big part of why they remained dominant for so long. See, competing head to head with D&D is a poor choice so long as you can instead release a third party book FOR D&D and ride their coattails. But, if you make that last option harder...you push the other designers into competing with you on a system level.

The OGL was a wonderful, wonderful thing for designers and gamers alike. I note that pathfinder has taken this concept even further, with a rather surprising amount of material online. It certainly hasn't prevented them from being successful.

Othniel Edden
2011-07-18, 09:15 PM
One thing I think Wizards should do is tap into the design creativity of their cash cow, magic the gathering. You have hundreds of unique settings there, new material coming out all the time, lots of design notes, and they already work for you. How hard would it be to release "Creatures of Ravnica" as softcover colored mini monster manual for whatever the current addition and attract fans for it? People would buy that for $14.($8 for the PDF, but it comes free if you buy the book)

I think its an absolute mistake not to put some of that material out there. Especially with the amount of cross over the MTG has with RPG players. The advertise for each other for goodness sake.:smallsigh: And Honestly not everyone wants there to only be FR, Ebberon, Random setting, and Grayhawk. Most of use our own ideas anyways.

bloodtide
2011-07-18, 09:22 PM
I also would approve of this idea. I have no trouble with the concept of two games labeled D&D at once.


Wow....you know the crazy thing about this: This is exactly what it was like in the old days!


In the Ye Old Days you had D&D and you also had AD&D, both made by the same company and both supported at the exact same time!

Tyndmyr
2011-07-18, 09:24 PM
Wow....you know the crazy thing about this: This is exactly what it was like in the old days!


In the Ye Old Days you had D&D and you also had AD&D, both made by the same company and both supported at the exact same time!

Oh, I'm aware. I suspect turk's choice of advanced was intentional.

stainboy
2011-07-18, 09:42 PM
Two product lines goes against a game design philosophy that's become popular in both PnP and video games in the last ten years:

The customer is a mouthbreathing idiot with the attention span of a gnat. He cannot be trusted to learn anything. He cannot make informed choices. If you try to explain anything to him, he will zone out until you are done and then complain because he doesn't understand it. A game designer's job is not to write a game that he would enjoy; it's to think of someone more stupid than him and figure out what that person would enjoy.

It's misguided, it's insulting, it fails to realize that gamers are more informed than ever because of the internet, and I can't wait until the various game industries get over it. Unfortunately this philosophy is alive and well at WotC; half the point of Essentials was to keep our fragile brains from hemorrhaging if we had to pick two of four daily powers. As long as this philosophy persists, WotC will assume the customer is too stupid to realize that D&D basic and AD&D are two different product lines.

nihil8r
2011-07-18, 10:16 PM
You mean they have mechanical effects to recreate the same things characters in D&D 3.5 could do (and continue to be able to do in Pathfinder)?

3.5 and pathfinder characters can taunt (force monsters to fight them instead of other characters)? no. 3.5 and pathfinder characters can always self-heal without using healing spells or potions? no.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-18, 10:28 PM
3.5 and pathfinder characters can taunt (force monsters to fight them instead of other characters)? no. 3.5 and pathfinder characters can always self-heal without using healing spells or potions? no.

Aggro management is a sticky thing. Without it, certain things, like tanks, have a difficult time doing their jobs. But...it's very highly associated with MMOs. And is terribly easy to become unrealistic, especially with an intelligent enemy. It's a hard thing to get right, and most RPGs mostly skip by the question of NPC targetting.

Reverent-One
2011-07-18, 10:37 PM
3.5 and pathfinder characters can taunt (force monsters to fight them instead of other characters)? no.

The knight says hi. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=2) As does Antagonize. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/antagonize) Note that unlike in 4e, where marking merely gives enemies the incentive to attack the defender, both the Knight and Antagonize can actually force an opponent to do so.


3.5 and pathfinder characters can always self-heal without using healing spells or potions? no.

Who said anything about always? From the beginning, you had things like the barbarian gaining health simply by getting angry, and in Unearthed arcana, they introduced the idea of Reserve points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/reservePoints.htm). To my understanding, several ToB maneuvers allow non-magical self-healing as well. So the idea of non-magical healing isn't anything new to 4e, though 4e did do more with it.

turkishproverb
2011-07-18, 11:02 PM
Oh, I'm aware. I suspect turk's choice of advanced was intentional.

Read my location. :smallwink:

Tyndmyr
2011-07-18, 11:05 PM
The knight says hi. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=2) As does Antagonize. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/antagonize) Note that unlike in 4e, where marking merely gives enemies the incentive to attack the defender, both the Knight and Antagonize can actually force an opponent to do so.



Who said anything about always? From the beginning, you had things like the barbarian gaining health simply by getting angry, and in Unearthed arcana, they introduced the idea of Reserve points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/reservePoints.htm). To my understanding, several ToB maneuvers allow non-magical self-healing as well. So the idea of non-magical healing isn't anything new to 4e, though 4e did do more with it.

I'm wary of getting drawn into an edition war here, but I believe the initial allegation was of uniformity of 4e design. Things like healing surges are quite widespread in 4e, and really have no direct correlation in 3.5. Yes, non magical healing options exist, but they're not really anything like a uniform, widespread system for all in the style that healing surges are.

nyarlathotep
2011-07-19, 12:53 AM
I'm wary of getting drawn into an edition war here, but I believe the initial allegation was of uniformity of 4e design. Things like healing surges are quite widespread in 4e, and really have no direct correlation in 3.5. Yes, non magical healing options exist, but they're not really anything like a uniform, widespread system for all in the style that healing surges are.

To be honest I like the tank using more crowd control physical abilities rather than aggro. For instance chain trippers and shieldbashing for stuck, get around the whole "Why would an intelligent enemy go for the fighter'.

Knaight
2011-07-19, 01:13 AM
To be honest I like the tank using more crowd control physical abilities rather than aggro. For instance chain trippers and shieldbashing for stuck, get around the whole "Why would an intelligent enemy go for the fighter'.

I rather prefer the abstract movement and turn systems where one can choose to move an engage an enemy when it "isn't their turn". In D&D 3.x and onward, one can simply be walked around, even if there is no way a character couldn't have intercepted them.

Yora
2011-07-19, 04:53 AM
I'm wary of getting drawn into an edition war here, but I believe the initial allegation was of uniformity of 4e design.
From my MMO days, I think this is a bad idea. Many of my friends were exited for Addons because they invcluded new classes that work differently than the old ones they already played. People want their classes to work differently.


Honestly, a small part of me wishes they had made an MMO based on 3.5. Pure RAW. Yes, I realize it would be utterly, horribly broken. I just really wish to see such a monstrosity.
Back in the day, there were lots of Neverwinter Nights servers that worked just like MMOs with player numbers in the high dozens. It was great, but no game allowed for that ammount of relatively fast custom content creation since.

Reverent-One
2011-07-19, 07:24 AM
I'm wary of getting drawn into an edition war here, but I believe the initial allegation was of uniformity of 4e design. Things like healing surges are quite widespread in 4e, and really have no direct correlation in 3.5. Yes, non magical healing options exist, but they're not really anything like a uniform, widespread system for all in the style that healing surges are.

He made many allegations to begin with, but to stay away from the subjective aspects that lead to an unending edition war, I dealt with the one that is objectively false, that things like taunts and self-heals are new to D&D with 4e or come solely from trying to mimic a MMO combat style. As I've shown, both sorts of things existed in 3.5, and Pathfinder continues to use them. Were they mechanically identical to their uses 4e? Certainly not, but 4e doesn't identically replicate any MMO taunts or self-heals I'm aware of either, so drawing the connection to the 3.5 material is at least as valid, if not moreso.

Also, the Reserve Points rule means there was an option for uniform, widespread non-magical healing system for all in 3.5. Whether or not people used it, it existed as a viable option that was created by the developers.

stainboy
2011-07-19, 07:40 AM
To be honest I like the tank using more crowd control physical abilities rather than aggro. For instance chain trippers and shieldbashing for stuck, get around the whole "Why would an intelligent enemy go for the fighter'.

I like this too, but the catch is that wizards are better at it. Not just because wizards are better at everything, wizards have always been better at action denial. It's tradition, and anyway try to come up with a martial Sleet Storm that won't break suspension of disbelief.

4e marking is conceptually pretty inoffensive, it just demands too much of the players' attention. You can have an ability that gives -2 to hit your allies without it being billed as the whole reason for the fighter's existence, or without the group needing poker chips to keep track of it.

Actual taunt abilities (Test of Mettle, Goad, Come and Get It) need to go die in a fire.



He made many allegations to begin with, but to stay away from the subjective aspects that lead to an unending edition war, I dealt with the one that is objectively false, that things like taunts and self-heals are new to D&D with 4e or come solely from trying to mimic a MMO combat style.

There's a big difference between a couple splat options no one cares about having aggro mechanics, and one member of every party having aggro mechanics. Aggro mechanics feature in almost no games in 3e and in every game in 4e. You know this, you know it's what nihil8r meant, stop pretending you don't.

Reverent-One
2011-07-19, 08:27 AM
There's a big difference between a couple splat options no one cares about having aggro mechanics, and one member of every party having aggro mechanics. Aggro mechanics feature in almost no games in 3e and in every game in 4e. You know this, you know it's what nihil8r meant, stop pretending you don't.

A) This post makes it obvious that you're misreading him and he thinks such options didn't exist at all in 3.P.


3.5 and pathfinder characters can taunt (force monsters to fight them instead of other characters)? no. 3.5 and pathfinder characters can always self-heal without using healing spells or potions? no.

And B) You're missing the point, nihil8r is linking the existence of marking to MMOs, when it can just as easily be them making more use of an underused mechanic they liked in 3.5. I'll repeat, 4e might not use such concepts identically to 3.5, but it doesn't identically replicate the way MMOs use them either, so drawing the connection to the 3.5 material is at least as valid, if not moreso.

EDIT: Also, if you could stop this trend of telling me what I should be thinking, I'd appreciate it.

stainboy
2011-07-19, 09:07 AM
Knee-jerk defense of 4e's design decisions would earn the D&D brand exactly zero new customers.

A thread about "Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)" is going to require that people discuss commonly perceived flaws in past editions. {{scrubbed}}

Kurald Galain
2011-07-19, 09:12 AM
I just don't think there is anywhere for D&D to go.....nothing will work.
I don't think that's true. It's a solid brand name; if they wait a few years and make a new edition, then many people (including young new players) will buy it just to see what it's like. Of course the internet will complain, but then it always does.


Knee-jerk defense of 4e's design decisions would earn the D&D brand exactly zero new customers.
Precisely.

If players have the impression that "4E is like a video game", then from a marketing perspective it is absolutely irrelevant whether or not these people are "right". What is relevant is whether or not they're buying your product, and telling them that "no, you're wrong!" is not going to encourage them to do so.

Reverent-One
2011-07-19, 09:15 AM
Knee-jerk defense of 4e's design decisions would earn the D&D brand exactly zero new customers.

How is a position supported by facts a "knee jerk defense"?


A thread about "Continuation of the D&D brand (from a business perspective)" is going to require that people discuss commonly perceived flaws in past editions. {{scrubbed}}

It's not even a flaw, it's a misunderstanding of not just one edition, but multiple ones. Such misunderstandings are conterproductive to the purpose of this thread, so debunking them is not derailing it. If you can't stand my points, no one is making you read my posts.

hamishspence
2011-07-19, 09:15 AM
I wondered- how many of 4E's design decisions can be traced to perceived problems with older editions?

And how serious those problems actually were.

Thus- it might be handy to identify which things they are somewhat unlikely to change back.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-19, 09:51 AM
I wondered- how many of 4E's design decisions can be traced to perceived problems with older editions?
Quite a lot, I'd say.

There was an insightful article by a 4E developer, that at one point was creating a 3E convention session. It was, basically, a team of characters around level 15, vs a big dragon; the intent was that players could walk in unprepared, play the fight for about an hour, and move on.

The problem he ran into is that casters can prepare way too many spells at that level, and that this (1) requires too much prep time, and (2) results in option paralysis. His reaction was to remove all their lower-level spells, and instead write "spells of this level are too weak to help you against a dragon" (and also, take just a few high-level spells and prep them multiple times each). This is basically why 4E characters are limited to just four encounter powers, and are expected to drop lower level powers when they get to paragon.

Of course, this facilitates one particular style of convention play, which doesn't necessarily match up with people's home campaigns.

Crow
2011-07-19, 09:55 AM
I absolutely loath aggro mechanics. For me, they really shatter my willing suspension of disbelief, and that makes it hard for me to want to play a game that includes them.

I like games where people choose to attack the fighter because he is capable of hurting you pretty badly if you don't. Everybody seems to forget that while an M1 Abrams has massive armor, it also has a big frigging gun as well! But because in 4e everyone has to be "balanced" you can't have this. You're forced to use abstract and immersion breaking mechanics to manage "aggro" because every target the bad guys can attack is about equally as threatening as any other.

The problem with my tank fix though, is that whoever gets to be the tank is going to be probably quite better in combat than some other classes, but for a class called "Fighter", shouldn't that be expected? Still, many will not like this, so what is the solution?

Kurald Galain
2011-07-19, 10:03 AM
I absolutely loath aggro mechanics. For me, they really shatter my willing suspension of disbelief, and that makes it hard for me to want to play a game that includes them.
The question, then, is whether it's possible to create a balanced game without using mechanics that break SOD too much.

Clearly 4E's emphasis on balance stems from the perennial complaints about how unbalanced 3E is (again, it doesn't matter whether these complains are right, it matters whether they cause people to not buy the product).

Reverent-One
2011-07-19, 10:05 AM
I wondered- how many of 4E's design decisions can be traced to perceived problems with older editions?


Probably quite a few. Something I've seen players in 3.5 want to do is play the big tough fighter that protects his allies, which is hard to do unless you follow one or two very specific builds (like being a tripper). It does not seem to be a coincidence that the 4e fighter has elements of a 3.5 lockdown build built into it, he may not knock the enemy prone on his AoO as the 3.5 fighter can, but he still stops the movement, punishes them even if they take the equivalent of a 5 foot step, and does so without having to spend two of his feats and use a specific weapon.



I like games where people choose to attack the fighter because he is capable of hurting you pretty badly if you don't. Everybody seems to forget that while an M1 Abrams has massive armor, it also has a big frigging gun as well! But because in 4e everyone has to be "balanced" you can't have this. You're forced to use abstract and immersion breaking mechanics to manage "aggro" because every target the bad guys can attack is about equally as threatening as any other.


Which is incorrect, a fighter mainly "aggro's" an enemy by A) not letting them get to his buddies in the first place, like a 3.5 tripper fighter, and B) being more threatening by getting additional attacks if the enemy ignores him to attacks his buddies. While there's also the -2 marked penalty, that is by far the weakest element of the fighter's capabilty to protect his friends.

Crow
2011-07-19, 10:23 AM
Which is incorrect, a fighter mainly "aggro's" an enemy by A) not letting them get to his buddies in the first place, like a 3.5 tripper fighter, and B) being more threatening by getting additional attacks if the enemy ignores him to attacks his buddies. While there's also the -2 marked penalty, that is by far the weakest element of the fighter's capabilty to protect his friends.

Yes, but many of those abilities are dependant upon the target being "marked" in the first place.

I think they should do away with Strikers altogether, and merge the Tank and Striker roles. You could have things like fighters acting as "armor tanks", while rogues would be evasion or speed tanks. Both would be capable of dishing out enough punishment to make it worthwhile to remove them from the fight.

Reverent-One
2011-07-19, 10:30 AM
Yes, but many of those abilities are dependant upon the target being "marked" in the first place.

For the record, while the additional attack is dependent on the target being marked, the stopping movement with an AoO isn't. Even if that wasn't the case though, I'd still have to ask, so what? It still fits your idea of attracting attention by being more of a threat.

Crow
2011-07-19, 10:33 AM
For the record, while the additional attack is dependent on the target being marked, the stopping movement with an AoO isn't. Even if that wasn't the case though, I'd still have to ask, so what? It still fits your idea of attracting attention by being more of a threat.

But you aren't more of a threat. You're back to the old problem of enemies just walking around you.

Reverent-One
2011-07-19, 10:36 AM
But you aren't more of a threat. You're back to the old problem of enemies just walking around you.

Which they can't do because you stop their movement. And even if one of your buddies is right beside them as well, you still can be more of a threat because ignoring you means they get beaten more than they would otherwise.

EDIT: And we seem to just be going in circles now, you say they aren't any more of a threat than anyone else, I explain how they're a threat, you mention marking, I ask so what, and you say then they're not a threat, which brings us back here. To clarify my last post, if that is the issue, when I asked so what, I was asking about what's the big deal about having to mark an enemy? For a fighter, it merely means you've engaged some enemy, and it is easier to simply say they are marked than listing each effect seperately.

Yora
2011-07-19, 11:08 AM
The question, then, is whether it's possible to create a balanced game without using mechanics that break SOD too much.

I think a big problem of D&D is that it focuses too much on giving players tonnes of options. You have rules creep all the time, but late 3rd Edition wasn't funny anymore, and 4th seems to head in the same direction since day 1.
It's not so much that individual abilities are unbalanced, it's the completely unpredictable synergies between abilities from widely different sources that causes many of the big problems.
The major problem here is, that churning out tonnes of character options is WotCs main business model here. In older editions you had kits, but you could put three or four of them on a single page. In the late 3.5e books, it was five to six pages for each PrC.
I think with TSR and many of the smaller publishers, they are in the business for the love of the game. It has to make some profits and pay the employees, but there's some general interest and care for the product. With WotC, the game is a means to generate maximum profit, so you need a very high quantity of sells. A neat and tidy game, that would be relatively easy to balance and run, is just not in the companies interest.

Crow
2011-07-19, 11:19 AM
Which they can't do because you stop their movement. And even if one of your buddies is right beside them as well, you still can be more of a threat because ignoring you means they get beaten more than they would otherwise.

EDIT: And we seem to just be going in circles now, you say they aren't any more of a threat than anyone else, I explain how they're a threat, you mention marking, I ask so what, and you say then they're not a threat, which brings us back here. To clarify my last post, if that is the issue, when I asked so what, I was asking about what's the big deal about having to mark an enemy? For a fighter, it merely means you've engaged some enemy, and it is easier to simply say they are marked than listing each effect seperately.

But AoO's are easy to avoid, and always have been. They don't make you anymore of a threat. You shouldn't have to declare that you have engaged an enemy. Your actions and ability to harm the target should be evident on their own.

Reverent-One
2011-07-19, 11:24 AM
But AoO's are easy to avoid, and always have been. They don't make you anymore of a threat.

So how does one avoid the fighter's AoO's then?


You shouldn't have to declare that you have engaged an enemy. Your actions and ability to harm the target should be evident on their own.

Which is likely why the fighter marks an enemy by attacking them.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-19, 11:26 AM
But you aren't more of a threat. You're back to the old problem of enemies just walking around you.

I think this is inherent in the approach of having a game board and individual initiative. In 2E the fighter could just declare that he's standing between the orc and the wizard.

bloodtide
2011-07-19, 02:28 PM
I wondered- how many of 4E's design decisions can be traced to perceived problems with older editions?

And how serious those problems actually were.

Thus- it might be handy to identify which things they are somewhat unlikely to change back.

A lot.

The modern versions of D&D, 3E and 4E, were all written by the old ''I did not have fun in that one game session'' type players. There was a huge effort to 'fix' all the things that single individuals found wrong with the game, based only on their individual gameplay. There was no over all fix, other then to 'fix the bad stuff'.

For example if a player in OldE polymorphed, they dropped all there stuff. You can just see a player whine 'my stuff'. So for 3/4E they added the cheat of 'oh all your stuff comes with you. Now some players did whine as they could not polymorph into a bird and take their maul+5 with them, but most players just accepted the limits like that and kept playing. But as there were 10 or 11 complainants, they change the whole rule system.


The other big overall problem that started with 3E is the idea that the DM is 'just a player' and is 'a slave to the rules too'.

Crow
2011-07-19, 02:37 PM
A lot.

The modern versions of D&D, 3E and 4E, were all written by the old ''I did not have fun in that one game session'' type players. There was a huge effort to 'fix' all the things that single individuals found wrong with the game, based only on their individual gameplay. There was no over all fix, other then to 'fix the bad stuff'.

For example if a player in OldE polymorphed, they dropped all there stuff. You can just see a player whine 'my stuff'. So for 3/4E they added the cheat of 'oh all your stuff comes with you. Now some players did whine as they could not polymorph into a bird and take their maul+5 with them, but most players just accepted the limits like that and kept playing. But as there were 10 or 11 complainants, they change the whole rule system.


The other big overall problem that started with 3E is the idea that the DM is 'just a player' and is 'a slave to the rules too'.

Careful. That attitude will draw you a lot of ire around here and on other message boards. But it also serves to prove your point to a degree. Vocal minority and all.

That said, I agree for the most part. Our group never experienced the massive balance problems in AD&D that people on message boards insist are so terrible as to demolish *every* game of D&D ever played. I would venture that the majority of groups never had the problem either.

nyarlathotep
2011-07-19, 03:08 PM
I think a big problem of D&D is that it focuses too much on giving players tonnes of options. You have rules creep all the time, but late 3rd Edition wasn't funny anymore, and 4th seems to head in the same direction since day 1.
It's not so much that individual abilities are unbalanced, it's the completely unpredictable synergies between abilities from widely different sources that causes many of the big problems.
The major problem here is, that churning out tonnes of character options is WotCs main business model here. In older editions you had kits, but you could put three or four of them on a single page. In the late 3.5e books, it was five to six pages for each PrC.
I think with TSR and many of the smaller publishers, they are in the business for the love of the game. It has to make some profits and pay the employees, but there's some general interest and care for the product. With WotC, the game is a means to generate maximum profit, so you need a very high quantity of sells. A neat and tidy game, that would be relatively easy to balance and run, is just not in the companies interest.

To be fair the huge number of options is what some people love about 3.5. Finding cool synergies and combinations was part of the fun, but it wasn't necessary to play as there were also plenty of strong out of the box classes like ToB and ardent.


Careful. That attitude will draw you a lot of ire around here and on other message boards. But it also serves to prove your point to a degree. Vocal minority and all.

That said, I agree for the most part. Our group never experienced the massive balance problems in AD&D that people on message boards insist are so terrible as to demolish *every* game of D&D ever played. I would venture that the majority of groups never had the problem either.

Hmm? In my experience people say that AD&D was more balanced than 3.5 or 4th ed the rules are just clumsy at times. Though I see the uppity player designing 3.5 to a degree. In particular a player who enjoyed playing blaster wizards but didn't understand the rules behind how everything functioned.

Crow
2011-07-19, 04:02 PM
AD&D had many of the potential problems that 3e had, like god mode wizards, but there were some ways to deal with them. It got worse in 3e as they removed a lot of wizards' limiting factors. Still, most groups probably didn't have as much trouble with it, even in 3e as some people claim.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-19, 04:23 PM
The modern versions of D&D, 3E and 4E, were all written by the old ''I did not have fun in that one game session'' type players. There was a huge effort to 'fix' all the things that single individuals found wrong with the game, based only on their individual gameplay. There was no over all fix, other then to 'fix the bad stuff'.

This is probably true. The philosophy has slowly changed from "random or nasty things can happen, deal with it" to "everybody must be at maximum efficiency all the time, because it's not fair otherwise".

nyarlathotep
2011-07-19, 04:42 PM
AD&D had many of the potential problems that 3e had, like god mode wizards, but there were some ways to deal with them. It got worse in 3e as they removed a lot of wizards' limiting factors. Still, most groups probably didn't have as much trouble with it, even in 3e as some people claim.

True and most groups also didn't have as much trouble with optimizers as boards claim.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-19, 06:25 PM
It's not even a flaw, it's a misunderstanding of not just one edition, but multiple ones. Such misunderstandings are conterproductive to the purpose of this thread, so debunking them is not derailing it. If you can't stand my points, no one is making you read my posts.

This thread does not exist to "debunk common myths". In marketing, perception IS reality. The existence of an obscure mechanic in 3.5 is not part of the perception. It is not likely to matter at all to the company, or do anything to help them.


Quite a lot, I'd say.

There was an insightful article by a 4E developer, that at one point was creating a 3E convention session. It was, basically, a team of characters around level 15, vs a big dragon; the intent was that players could walk in unprepared, play the fight for about an hour, and move on.

The problem he ran into is that casters can prepare way too many spells at that level, and that this (1) requires too much prep time, and (2) results in option paralysis. His reaction was to remove all their lower-level spells, and instead write "spells of this level are too weak to help you against a dragon" (and also, take just a few high-level spells and prep them multiple times each). This is basically why 4E characters are limited to just four encounter powers, and are expected to drop lower level powers when they get to paragon.

Of course, this facilitates one particular style of convention play, which doesn't necessarily match up with people's home campaigns.

I agree heartily with this. I feel like a lot of what people bash about 4e was a direct attempt to fix what people complained about for 3.5. Specifically imbalanced classes and the like. I mean, for all I like 3.5, it got it's share of bashing as well. No edition is entirely free of it.

And while simplified char creation is a fantastic idea for convention, or even one shot play...I don't feel like it's always appropriate for everything. Convention play often differs wildly from persistant group play. It's very easy for designers to draw too general a conclusion from a specific instance. His fix was fantastic for the circumstance he was in, but isn't appropriate for all games everywhere.

Reverent-One
2011-07-19, 06:37 PM
This thread does not exist to "debunk common myths". In marketing, perception IS reality. The existence of an obscure mechanic in 3.5 is not part of the perception. It is not likely to matter at all to the company, or do anything to help them.

I never said the thread was about was about debunking common myths, but if we're going to make predictions based on previous decisions (as nihil8r was doing), understanding those decisions is key.

kyoryu
2011-07-19, 07:16 PM
And while simplified char creation is a fantastic idea for convention, or even one shot play...I don't feel like it's always appropriate for everything. Convention play often differs wildly from persistant group play. It's very easy for designers to draw too general a conclusion from a specific instance. His fix was fantastic for the circumstance he was in, but isn't appropriate for all games everywhere.

And I do think it's accurate to say that 4e is pretty well streamlined for convention-style play. It's not hte only thing you can do with it, of course, but it's kind of the path of least resistance.

Now, from a business perspective, I see D&D having a few issues:

1) Acquisition of new customers
2) Monetization of customers

Monetization is a big issue, as D&D is historically a game that doesn't have a lot of recurring costs. In AD&D, players would need, what, a copy of the PHB? The DM would need a DMG, probably a PHB, a MM, and maybe some campaign settings or adventures? Throw in a couple of dice and minis and you're done, and NO MORE MONEY FOR WOTC/TSR.

Compare this with M:tG where every single player has an incentive to pretty much constantly buy more stuff. Much, much better business model.

The shift away from fluff, campaign settings, and the like is pretty clearly because it's better to make something that everyone at every table can use (extra powers) rather than something that 1 person at 1 table in 5 can use (campaign setting and fluff).

The problem with this (IMHO) is that much of the richness of the game came from that fluff. Even if it's not the biggest seller, it has the effect of drawing the other players into the game and keeping them there, so that they'll keep playing the game - and buying the things that do have widespread appeal. MMOs have figured this out with the free-to-play model - most players play for free, but the *average* income tends to be higher than subscription games.

So, from my perspective, the business of D&D has to start out with a solid analysis of customer acquisition and retention, and work from there. Since DMs provide the richness of the game world, they need to be supported, so that the cash cow players will want to buy supplements.

nihil8r
2011-07-19, 07:25 PM
i agree kyoryu, which is why i think hasbro would prefer a collectible version of 5e :smalleek:

stainboy
2011-07-19, 07:35 PM
There was an insightful article by a 4E developer, that at one point was creating a 3E convention session. It was, basically, a team of characters around level 15, vs a big dragon; the intent was that players could walk in unprepared, play the fight for about an hour, and move on.

The problem he ran into is that casters can prepare way too many spells at that level, and that this (1) requires too much prep time, and (2) results in option paralysis. His reaction was to remove all their lower-level spells, and instead write "spells of this level are too weak to help you against a dragon" (and also, take just a few high-level spells and prep them multiple times each). This is basically why 4E characters are limited to just four encounter powers, and are expected to drop lower level powers when they get to paragon.

Of course, this facilitates one particular style of convention play, which doesn't necessarily match up with people's home campaigns.

This is a good example. The prep time issue is a real problem, but fixing it introduced other problems. The new problems weren't immediately obvious to the designers (who spend more time running oneshots and convention games than the average customer), or to the playtesters (who were playing basically a series of one-shots).

On the other hand, I think a new edition would be improved if designers got hit with a rolled-up newspaper every time they mentioned "option paralysis." If you want to sell splats they're going to have options in them. 4e seemed to start out very concerned about option paralysis (at least I assume that's why PHB1 rogues were only allowed to use light blades) but now 4e has, what, close to 2000 powers? Even if fretting about analysis paralysis weren't insulting, it's not a decision the designer gets to make. The need to sell new products decides that for them.

kyoryu
2011-07-19, 07:45 PM
On the other hand, I think a new edition would be improved if designers got hit with a rolled-up newspaper every time they mentioned "option paralysis." If you want to sell splats they're going to have options in them. 4e seemed to start out very concerned about option paralysis (at least I assume that's why PHB1 rogues were only allowed to use light blades) but now 4e has, what, close to 2000 powers? Even if fretting about analysis paralysis weren't insulting, it's not a decision the designer gets to make. The need to sell new products decides that for them.

The bigger part of the problem of option paralysis is not just the number of options, but the options you have to choose between at one time. While 4e may indeed have 2000 powers, at any given time you only have to choose between 10 or so of them.

Feats are much, much messier, in that at any point you probably have at least a hundred to choose from.

The bigger issue with lots of options is that typically there's a few reasonable ones, and a lot of options that are simply outclassed. Also, you start to get weird synergies that blow other options out of the water - and as the number of choices increases, the harder it gets to cross-check all of the possible options with each other.

Which is great if you get tons of enjoyment out of the character-building subgame, but not as awesome if you're mostly interested in the at-the-table subgame.

stainboy
2011-07-19, 07:58 PM
4e has as much of a character building subgame as 3e does. The goal is different because it's more focused on combat, but there are as many build-advice threads on the 4e board as on the 3e board.

I'm not saying you can't improve a game by organizing information better. That's a presentation issue though. It's a job for an editor, not a designer. (Mearls's blog post about printing a stock fighter build before the real fighter sort of says this too.)

Tyndmyr
2011-07-19, 09:55 PM
4e has as much of a character building subgame as 3e does. The goal is different because it's more focused on combat, but there are as many build-advice threads on the 4e board as on the 3e board.

I'm not saying you can't improve a game by organizing information better. That's a presentation issue though. It's a job for an editor, not a designer. (Mearls's blog post about printing a stock fighter build before the real fighter sort of says this too.)

This is correct, from what I can tell. Yes, the power spectrum is wider in 3.5, and I'm a lot better at the 3.5 metagame than I am the 4e one...but it'd be foolish to deny it exists. I believe TO types had found an infinite combo within a week of publication, actually. While the classes are similar, choices certainly still exist, and despite the efforts at balance, the choices will never all be equal...that's not really a possible thing.

On a side note, 4e IS usually pretty good on presentation. This is a good thing, and one that I wish 3.5 would have had more of. I really wish SpC had an index of it's spells by class list, for example. Option paralysis is not a problem that annoys me...what annoys me is not being able to locate my options.

stainboy
2011-07-19, 10:30 PM
The difference Mearls seems to be talking about is that 4e organizes information at a design level. He wants to organize information at a presentation level. Instead of making two fighters with different levels of complexity, he wants one fighter with an optional pregen build.

I'm a bit leery of the implementation. His stock fighter could easily be a trap (like the sample 1st-level builds in 3e), or the writers could be so invested in it being viable that they make every other choice a trap (like nonstandard races in early 3e). But conceptually I think he's headed in the right direction.

E: There's also the concern that last time Mearls talked about players choosing their own level of system mastery, he meant "players who couldn't figure out how to make a 4ePHB1 fighter." We don't know if he was just constrained by 4e balance or if he actually wasn't interested in anything more complex than the Essentials mage.

kyoryu
2011-07-19, 10:58 PM
This is correct, from what I can tell. Yes, the power spectrum is wider in 3.5, and I'm a lot better at the 3.5 metagame than I am the 4e one...but it'd be foolish to deny it exists.

Of course it exists. I just believe that it's less dominant than it is in 3.x. That's neither a good nor a bad thing.


I believe TO types had found an infinite combo within a week of publication, actually. While the classes are similar, choices certainly still exist, and despite the efforts at balance, the choices will never all be equal...that's not really a possible thing.

Nor is it necessarily a good thing. Not all choices need to be equally optimal, but it should be reasonably clear how to get a viable build, if you don't want to scare off newcomers or those not interested in the character-building subgame.

Reverent-One
2011-07-19, 10:58 PM
Hasn't he already mostly implemented that though, in the Essentials material? All he'd have to do is take the slayer or knight and pre-choose the at-will stances and feats as well, and that would cover the idea of the basic fighter he laid out in legends and lore.

stainboy
2011-07-19, 11:15 PM
Yeah, that's my concern. The fighter with options could be the 4e fighter and the pregen fighter could be the Essentials slayer, which doesn't offer anything to customers who don't like the 4e status quo.

Or the fighter with options could be the Essentials slayer and the pregen fighter could be a straight-up orc from Basic. Mearls talking about different levels of system mastery is all well and good, but it's hard to evaluate without knowing what those levels are.

bloodtide
2011-07-20, 12:58 AM
Careful. That attitude will draw you a lot of ire around here and on other message boards. But it also serves to prove your point to a degree. Vocal minority and all.

That said, I agree for the most part. Our group never experienced the massive balance problems in AD&D that people on message boards insist are so terrible as to demolish *every* game of D&D ever played. I would venture that the majority of groups never had the problem either.

More ire, oh well.....

I played AD&D for years and never had much of a balance problem either. Character death and loss was just an accepted thing, no single character could ever be all powerful, and nothing was overly broken.

But again that's only for say 80% of us gamers, then you have the 20% who have a problem with anything/everything and are never happy. Even worse is when this is looked at through business eyes: they ask person x, 'why don't you play D&D?' and they get told something like ''Fighters are too boring and need spells..er powers''. And then they make the D&D game like that.

Lots of bad stuff could happen to you in AD&D. Take teleport. No matter how well you knew a spot, there was always a chance(roll 100 on 1d100) that you'd miss the target and the character would die. At least 90% of all gamers I've met were fine with this risk, and I've seen dozens of characters die from missed teleports over the years. But there is always one or two players that whine ''I put a lot of time and effort in to creating my character so it's not fair if that character dies from a single random dice roll''.

I can't see D&D ever going back to the 'Hardcore' days. Far too many newer players have been influenced by the video game 'save' idea.

Curious
2011-07-20, 01:15 AM
-Snip-

No, people won't go back to 'hardcore' mode because it's nonsensical. What is the point of always having a 5% chance of dying when teleporting? It adds nothing to the game; either you avoid it, and go on as usual, or you get unlucky and your character dies for no reason. It has no purpose but to show how 'gritty' and 'unfair' your world is. Just pointless.

stainboy
2011-07-20, 01:58 AM
The idea is that it's a last resort. In theory you use Teleport to get away from something more likely to kill you than Teleport, but if you just need to get to the next town you walk there.

I don't have any opinion on whether this works or promotes fun games though.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-20, 05:45 AM
The bigger part of the problem of option paralysis is not just the number of options, but the options you have to choose between at one time. While 4e may indeed have 2000 powers, at any given time you only have to choose between 10 or so of them.
It's still a change, though. Playing from the PHB1, you choose between 3 or 4 powers on one page. Playing now, you choose between 10 powers from 4 different sources.

You know, I'm starting to realize that I liked 4E better when it was just the PHB1. Maybe add the PHB2 to get eight more classes; but I'm starting to feel the game wasn't actually improved, at least to me, by the plentitude of splatbooks, dragon magazine, and HOFL series.


Feats are much, much messier, in that at any point you probably have at least a hundred to choose from.
That's true. I think there's a fanmade addon for the character builder on the web that filters out the majority of feats and some of the more pointless powers.

But it's not just character building: option paralysis also occurs during gameplay. Certain people feel compelled to try and pick the "best" power during any given round, and may spend too much time thinking about small differences.

Crow
2011-07-20, 11:21 AM
No, people won't go back to 'hardcore' mode because it's nonsensical. What is the point of always having a 5% chance of dying when teleporting? It adds nothing to the game; either you avoid it, and go on as usual, or you get unlucky and your character dies for no reason. It has no purpose but to show how 'gritty' and 'unfair' your world is. Just pointless.

You have a small chance of being struck and killed by a drunk driver every time you walk or drive to the grocery store in real life. I guess we should remove that because it's just pointless and nonsensical. <== This is a joke.

But in all seriousness, tell me why there *shouldn't* be risks in dealing with the swirling, primordial, all-powerful forces of magic? You're talking about forces which allow you to break the rules of the universe and alter reality to your whim. Shouldn't there be some risk involved?

flumphy
2011-07-20, 11:35 AM
You have a small chance of being struck and killed by a drunk driver every time you walk or drive to the grocery store in real life. I guess we should remove that because it's just pointless and nonsensical.

But in all seriousness, tell me why there *shouldn't* be risks in dealing with the swirling, primordial, all-powerful forces of magic? You're talking about forces which allow you to break the rules of the universe and alter reality to your whim. Shouldn't there be some risk involved?

Yes, if we could remove the possibility of being struck by drunk drivers in real life, we should. (And kind of tried with Prohibition, but that didn't exactly work...) I don't think many sane people in real life finds the possibility of random, violent death positive or exciting.

In games, where death isn't real, I can kind of see the appeal for a certain subset of gamer, but the fact is that such a random death doing a routine thing isn't very fun for most people. It's anticlimactic. It doesn't further the story. At least in a tough random encounter, the death was caused by some vicious monster, and probably due to lack of skill/experience/preparation rather than pure bad luck. Yes, random death happens in real life, but if you want realism, then why in Kord's name are you playing D&D?


Anyway, on topic, I won't pretend that I have much business sense. I will say that the only thing that would get me buying WotC products again is a new edition that was less of a video game and less of a war game. If I wanted to play either of those, I'd be playing them, not some feeble attempt to compete with them.

kyoryu
2011-07-20, 11:56 AM
I can't see D&D ever going back to the 'Hardcore' days. Far too many newer players have been influenced by the video game 'save' idea.

Unfortunately, neither can I. It's not the game model for all games, but it's a valid one, and, IMHO, a fun one.

Also, a *lot* of baggage is left over from those days in the system as a whole, which caused (again, IMHO) a lot of the balance issues in later editions. It didn't really matter if wizards were godlike at higher levels in AD&D, because it was so amazingly unlikely that they'd ever make it there. But with DMs being unwilling to kill characters, that is no longer a factor.


No, people won't go back to 'hardcore' mode because it's nonsensical. What is the point of always having a 5% chance of dying when teleporting? It adds nothing to the game; either you avoid it, and go on as usual, or you get unlucky and your character dies for no reason. It has no purpose but to show how 'gritty' and 'unfair' your world is. Just pointless.

Congratulations. You have an opinion. Others might say that games with no fear of death ever are pointless, and nonsensical. I'd hope that people could try and see the point of the other side rather than reflexively insulting them.

And, as was said before, it's *not* pointless. It's a calculated risk. Of course, this is also part of a game where things like random encounters *make sense*.



You know, I'm starting to realize that I liked 4E better when it was just the PHB1. Maybe add the PHB2 to get eight more classes; but I'm starting to feel the game wasn't actually improved, at least to me, by the plentitude of splatbooks, dragon magazine, and HOFL series.


I think I agree with this statement. I will say I like the HOFL expertise feats better, as they add more flavor to the weapon types rather than just being a math bonus. I don't like "math bonus" feats that add no flavor.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-20, 12:03 PM
You have a small chance of being struck and killed by a drunk driver every time you walk or drive to the grocery store in real life. I guess we should remove that because it's just pointless and nonsensical.

I am all for the removal of this.

Life is a very poorly designed game in some regards.


But in all seriousness, tell me why there *shouldn't* be risks in dealing with the swirling, primordial, all-powerful forces of magic? You're talking about forces which allow you to break the rules of the universe and alter reality to your whim. Shouldn't there be some risk involved?

It's not just about risk. It's about fun. Look at the 3.5 risk involved in a teleport...you might end up in the wrong place. This is a FUN complication that can also be a risk. It can lead to all sorts of interesting places.

Death tends to be less interesting. A flat chance of death is mostly just a penalty, not an improvement to the game in itself.

eepop
2011-07-20, 12:20 PM
I guess I am in the middle on the teleportation issue.

I do not like when there is no chance of failure when teleporting and people teleport every time they need to move more than a mile.

I do not like the "you're in a solid object, you are dead" style of teleportation failure.

I do like the "you end up somewhere completely not where you expected, and guess what, you have new problems because of it" style of teleportation failure.

Yora
2011-07-20, 12:55 PM
That's what Mouse Guard does. You don't exactly fail at anything. You either succeed at overcomming an obstacle, or you have to face another obstacle as the consequence of your failure. It's only during climactic encounters, when the obstacle is "stay alive", that the characters can actually reach the end of the road.
But that's a completely different concept of an RPG than the "deal damage until one side runs out of hp" approach.

kyoryu
2011-07-20, 01:03 PM
Death tends to be less interesting. A flat chance of death is mostly just a penalty, not an improvement to the game in itself.

Depends on the game. In modern games, sure. In old-school, 1st ed style games? Death of characters was expected, and the game kind of had that as a presumption.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-20, 01:06 PM
Depends on the game. In modern games, sure. In old-school, 1st ed style games? Death of characters was expected, and the game kind of had that as a presumption.

It was common, yes, but it was still just a penalty. The frequency of something does not change what it is.

The size of penalty for a death is not what it was then, too. Character creation is a longer, more involved process now. Most games have the ease of bringing in a new character strongly correlated with the ease of death.

bloodtide
2011-07-20, 01:16 PM
No, people won't go back to 'hardcore' mode because it's nonsensical. What is the point of always having a 5% chance of dying when teleporting? It adds nothing to the game; either you avoid it, and go on as usual, or you get unlucky and your character dies for no reason. It has no purpose but to show how 'gritty' and 'unfair' your world is. Just pointless.

And, unfortunately, WotC thinks this way. And this greatly hurts their business. WotC has tried to make D&D exactly like video games, especially the all important video game idea that your character is an immortal super hero. Take any combat video game: what do you do before a big fight..save your character. Then even if your character dies, you just press a button and it never happened. All video game players agree that it's ''no fun and unfair'' to have a character they spent hours building just be 'gone'. So they don't make video games like that.

After all just apply the 'safety net' to any other game. Would Chess still be fun if you could never loose a piece and just had to 'out maneuver' the other player? How about Risk? Or even chutes and ladders...maybe the worst offender..would have to be made into trips and ladders, as it's very unfair and no fun to fall down a chute(especially that long one right before the end).

And I say death and other bad things add to the game. It's much more fun to risk character death..'for real'..then just pretend it is happening. The same way bowling is more fun then bumper bowling. If your character survives an adventure as the safety rules protected them, it's not much of an accomplishment. A 'hardcore' gamer who has a character survive knows it's a great accomplishment.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-20, 03:47 PM
And, unfortunately, WotC thinks this way. And this greatly hurts their business. WotC has tried to make D&D exactly like video games, especially the all important video game idea that your character is an immortal super hero. Take any combat video game: what do you do before a big fight..save your character. Then even if your character dies, you just press a button and it never happened. All video game players agree that it's ''no fun and unfair'' to have a character they spent hours building just be 'gone'. So they don't make video games like that.

It's the replay issue here. Do you really want to replay the entire first half of the game because you zigged instead of zagged? Is doing so fun? To most people, probably not.


After all just apply the 'safety net' to any other game. Would Chess still be fun if you could never loose a piece and just had to 'out maneuver' the other player?

See, this isn't the same thing at all. Losing a pawn IS playing the game. It doesn't engender character creation at all. It's not a reasonable comparison.


How about Risk? Or even chutes and ladders...maybe the worst offender..would have to be made into trips and ladders, as it's very unfair and no fun to fall down a chute(especially that long one right before the end).

There is no character creation and very little replay associated with such stuff. When replay DOES happen(say, the huge back and forth swings with Risk), players tend to gripe about it.

You're mistaking the nature of why death is considered so undesirable in modern game design. It's considered bad because it's not fun to spend the session rerolling a character and waiting to join the group.


And I say death and other bad things add to the game. It's much more fun to risk character death..'for real'..then just pretend it is happening. The same way bowling is more fun then bumper bowling. If your character survives an adventure as the safety rules protected them, it's not much of an accomplishment. A 'hardcore' gamer who has a character survive knows it's a great accomplishment.

Death and penalties are important. But death is not the only means of penalty, and it certainly isn't always the best one. Consider the misdirected teleport. It's a complication, and a penalty, but not one that makes players stop playing the game. Instead, it leads them to additional challenges to overcome. Sure, failure at enough things will eventually result in death, but that needn't be the first result when things go bad. Especially if it's just based on a random roll. Flubbing a 5% chance of random death resulting in you not playing the game is poor design.

kyoryu
2011-07-20, 05:28 PM
The size of penalty for a death is not what it was then, too. Character creation is a longer, more involved process now. Most games have the ease of bringing in a new character strongly correlated with the ease of death.

Well, yes. Which goes back to my point that it's perfectly reasonable for certain styles of games, but is probably inappropriate for more modern-styled games.

stainboy
2011-07-20, 07:50 PM
And, unfortunately, WotC thinks this way. And this greatly hurts their business. WotC has tried to make D&D exactly like video games, especially the all important video game idea that your character is an immortal super hero. Take any combat video game: what do you do before a big fight..save your character. Then even if your character dies, you just press a button and it never happened. All video game players agree that it's ''no fun and unfair'' to have a character they spent hours building just be 'gone'. So they don't make video games like that.


It seems like the vast majority of D&D customers don't do meatgrinder games. I can't think of a board that regularly asks for advice on how to run them. Maybe wherever Fourthcore discussion happens, I don't know.

I do think D&D should support meatgrinder play, but in a way that doesn't force the issue for people who don't want it. Having rules for player death is good, obviously. Having one-roll SoDs all over the place just forces anyone who doesn't want that to throw out or play around large portions of the rules.

I don't know where teleport falls on this spectrum. Nothing forces the wizard to learn or cast teleport.

Anyway, comparing death in a videogame to death in a TTRPG doesn't work well. The penalty for death in tabletop is that your character's story ends (usually, resurrection complicates things). The penalty for death in a videogame is being forced to repeat content, and save points just tweak how much content. It's the same nominal thing (death) but what it means is completely different.



And I say death and other bad things add to the game. It's much more fun to risk character death..'for real'..then just pretend it is happening. The same way bowling is more fun then bumper bowling. If your character survives an adventure as the safety rules protected them, it's not much of an accomplishment. A 'hardcore' gamer who has a character survive knows it's a great accomplishment.

D&D does have a serious limitation when it comes to failure conditions other than death. 90% of conflicts can only end with everyone on one side dead, so either the PCs die a lot or the PCs almost always win. Is it PC death you want, or PC failure?

bloodtide
2011-07-20, 08:45 PM
It seems like the vast majority of D&D customers don't do meatgrinder games. I can't think of a board that regularly asks for advice on how to run them. Maybe wherever Fourthcore discussion happens, I don't know.

I think most gamers like the hardcore game. Though it's true you don't see posts about it...but that's just as the hardcore gamers don't visit boards and post.



I do think D&D should support meatgrinder play, but in a way that doesn't force the issue for people who don't want it. Having rules for player death is good, obviously. Having one-roll SoDs all over the place just forces anyone who doesn't want that to throw out or play around large portions of the rules.

I don't know where teleport falls on this spectrum. Nothing forces the wizard to learn or cast teleport.


Older D&D, 0-1-2 E had lots of bad hardcore things...not just death. The possible teleport death was great for balance...you could not just 'port around at will...and if you did you rolled the dice every time. Or the way spells like wish or gate left the caster weak and vulnerable for days.



Anyway, comparing death in a videogame to death in a TTRPG doesn't work well. The penalty for death in tabletop is that your character's story ends (usually, resurrection complicates things). The penalty for death in a videogame is being forced to repeat content, and save points just tweak how much content. It's the same nominal thing (death) but what it means is completely different.

But that is exactly the modern D&D idea. If you 'loose' it's just a minor set back. In old E loss was a big thing.




D&D does have a serious limitation when it comes to failure conditions other than death. 90% of conflicts can only end with everyone on one side dead, so either the PCs die a lot or the PCs almost always win. Is it PC death you want, or PC failure?

Neither, and we are not just talking about death or failure. The modern idea is that it's not fun to loose, but that is not true. I can give dozens of game examples where players lost...but still had fun and enjoyed the game. Some players can accept that they don't have to auto win all the time to have fun.

We can just hope that 5E AD&D will have Hardcore Core Rules. With a 'warning for advanced players only' and the normal 'Safety' rules for everyone else. That is the type of thing that would get me, and lots of other players, to buy D&D book again.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-20, 09:38 PM
I think most gamers like the hardcore game. Though it's true you don't see posts about it...but that's just as the hardcore gamers don't visit boards and post.

That's a fairly hard to support statement...do you have any evidence to show this?

Crow
2011-07-20, 10:19 PM
I think the teleport death-chance is a *terrible* example to be using.

Nobody is ramming a teleport spell down the PCs' throats saying "You MUST use this, and you WILL die randomly." If the game designers want to make teleporting so dangerous as to possibly cause death, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, whatsoever, *if* there are other options for travel available in the game.

Going into a fantasy roleplaying game saying it's dumb that I can possibly die while teleporting implies that I feel *entitled* to bug-free teleportation.

Let's face it, in a fantasy game, there needs to be danger, and often that danger comes in the form of possible death. Complaining about possible death while using a completely optional feature of the game is like complaining because I walked into a battle and lost. I knew the chance was there, and I took it anyways, so the orc killed me.

In any case, I got a little side-tracked. Maybe there is some other example we can use that would be better suited to the discussion?

Curious
2011-07-20, 10:57 PM
-Snip-

Teleport is a perfect example. Danger is only fun when you have a chance to overcome it, because you feel challenged. Having a constant chance of critical existence failure isn't fun, it's just imposing an arbitrary penalty.

bloodtide
2011-07-20, 11:04 PM
That's a fairly hard to support statement...do you have any evidence to show this?

Well....for evidence, how about: you don't see many Old School Hardcore gamers posting on general boards like GinP. They only post on dedicated old E forums.


Teleport is a good spell example that was made safe for 3E. Poison could be another example: in old E a lot of poisons killed a character. So a spider in 2E could cause death to any character of any level. Even a mighty 20th level character could be killed by a single bite from a giant spider. So all characters need to be careful around poisonous creatures. 3E makes this just ability damage, and it's not fearful at all.

Curious
2011-07-20, 11:36 PM
Well....for evidence, how about: you don't see many Old School Hardcore gamers posting on general boards like GinP. They only post on dedicated old E forums.

That. . . Isn't evidence. Saying, 'Oh, yeah, the lack of posters who support my theory is evidence that most gamers prefer hardcore d&d,' is not evidence.

Crow
2011-07-20, 11:51 PM
Teleport is a perfect example. Danger is only fun when you have a chance to overcome it, because you feel challenged. Having a constant chance of critical existence failure isn't fun, it's just imposing an arbitrary penalty.

If you only have a 5% chance of critical existance failure, then you have a 95% chance to overcome it. I don't understand what you're saying, are you tired? If you don't like your 95% odds, then you don't cast the spell.

Or we can put it a different way; You're casting teleport to overcome the challenge of getting from one place to another. You could walk, and potentially die to vicious creatures along the way. You could take an airship, and potentially die in a crash on the way there. You could take a ship and potentially get tossed overboard during a storm and drown. Or you can cast teleport, and potentially scramble yourself.

Teleport isn't the adventure or the challenge in and of itself. It's the means to overcome a challenge, and like any other means of overcoming a challenge, it is perfectly reasonable for it to carry risks. I'm sorry, but getting sent to the wrong place and having to wait a whole standard action to just cast another one is not my idea of risk.

The more I hang around here, the more I am convinced that people don't really want danger and risk in their games. They pretty much just want to be the big damn invincible hero, and that's fine for them. Go enjoy some Fable 2/3 while they're at it too. But it's not the type of game I enjoy, and frankly, I find that type of game boring. I am probably in the minority.

So maybe the best idea from a business standpoint *is* to make D&D as softcore as possible.

Curious
2011-07-21, 12:06 AM
-Snip-

No, teleport is not a challenge, because there is nothing you can do to affect the outcome. If there was some way to mitigate the possibility of dying, or if it was a skill roll, or something like that, it might be an acceptable in a 'hardcore game'. But as is, all it is is an annoying possibility of death. And it isn't even the good kind of death, with a chance for character growth or resurrection.

"Oh, you failed your roll? Looks like the entire party just teleported into the wall of the castle. You all die. Good game."

. . .

Oh, yes, that adds a lot to my game. :smallsigh:

turkishproverb
2011-07-21, 12:47 AM
Does that apply to saving throws?

"oh you failed a roll, you die."

Needs to be gotten rid of? Against disintegrate/death effects?

The fact there is an initial roll means that you have an effect. Mind you, I'm of the opinion there's some room for spell failure other than character death...

Curious
2011-07-21, 12:53 AM
Does that apply to saving throws?

"oh you failed a roll, you die."

Needs to be gotten rid of? Against disintegrate/death effects?

The fact there is an initial roll means that you have an effect. Mind you, I'm of the opinion there's some room for spell failure other than character death...

There's a difference between rolling to resist the powerful magics of a foe, and dying because your calculations had a 5% chance of being off. Saves progress, giving you a greater chance to resist enemy effects, and giving you a feel of being involved with your fate. Having a random chance of dying adds nothing but annoyance.

Crow
2011-07-21, 12:55 AM
No, teleport is not a challenge, because there is nothing you can do to affect the outcome. If there was some way to mitigate the possibility of dying, or if it was a skill roll, or something like that, it might be an acceptable in a 'hardcore game'. But as is, all it is is an annoying possibility of death. And it isn't even the good kind of death, with a chance for character growth or resurrection.

"Oh, you failed your roll? Looks like the entire party just teleported into the wall of the castle. You all die. Good game."

. . .

Oh, yes, that adds a lot to my game. :smallsigh:

You've just made my point. You are exactly right, and Teleport is not meant to be a challenge. It is a means to overcome one, with a possible risk. If you don't want to take that risk, then you don't cast the spell. You overcome the challenge (getting from one place to another) some other way.

If there is significant risk involved, maybe you don't rely on that mode of transportation for your daily trip to the restroom.

What it adds to your game is an element of strategy. Do I risk doing this and potentially kill us all, or do I risk finding another way, and maybe showing up too late? Are my companions aware of the risks? Are they onboard with risking everything in case this doesn't work? What if not everybody isn't willing to take that risk? What then?

I remember back in the old days when you declared that you were going to cast Wish the entire group would stop and stare as if you had just stood up and armed a nuclear warhead strapped to your chest. It was the same with teleporting. Do we do this? Do we *need* to do this?

Some of the best moments in gaming there.

We're never going to get anywhere with this. You feel entitled to bug-free teleportation, and I don't. We probably don't like the same types of games, and that is fine.

Fhaolan
2011-07-21, 01:00 AM
"Oh, you failed your roll? Looks like the entire party just teleported into the wall of the castle. You all die. Good game."

. . .

Oh, yes, that adds a lot to my game. :smallsigh:

Old-style games harken back to gambling. If you don't like the odds, don't gamble. You don't like the 5% failure rate? Don't teleport.

It's like playing roulette or craps. There's very little skill involved, it's just rolling die. You crap out, you're done.

Lots of people don't like gambling. So, old-school games aren't for them. If I'm playing an old-school game, I play it the old-school way. Don't get attached to characters, have fun just messing around. It's not like I'm trying to 'win' or anything.

If I'm playing a modern game... well, I have some trouble calling some of them 'games' as such. More like improv acting sessions. There's little 'game' to them anymore.

Curious
2011-07-21, 01:02 AM
You've just made my point. You are exactly right, and Teleport is not meant to be a challenge. It is a means to overcome one, with a possible risk. If you don't want to take that risk, then you don't cast the spell. You overcome the challenge (getting from one place to another) some other way.

If there is significant risk involved, maybe you don't rely on that mode of transportation for your daily trip to the restroom.

What it adds to your game is an element of strategy. Do I risk doing this and potentially kill us all, or do I risk finding another way, and maybe showing up too late? Are my companions aware of the risks? Are they onboard with risking everything in case this doesn't work? What if not everybody is willing to take that risk? What then?

I remember back in the old days when you declared that you were going to cast Wish the entire group would stop and stare as if you had just stood up and armed a nuclear warhead strapped to your chest. It was the same with teleporting. Do we do this? Do we *need* to do this?

Some of the best moments in gaming there.


Your point? That gamers these days don't like a 'challenge'? I love a challenge! That's the reason I play d&d. However, there is a difference between a challenge and an unnecessary risk.

Really, if your party is trying to escape a horde of enemies, and you accidentally teleport into the floor, what are you going to say?
'Whelp, guess the risk just wasn't worth it.'
There isn't any reason to make transportation more dangerous. All it's doing, most of the time, is making your session include a few less random encounters.

Curious
2011-07-21, 01:04 AM
If I'm playing a modern game... well, I have some trouble calling some of them 'games' as such. More like improv acting sessions. There's little 'game' to them anymore.

. . . What? I could understand your post, to a point, up until you said this. There are more rules involved in modern d&d than there were in older editions. Hardly improv acting.

EDIT: Gah, double post.

Crow
2011-07-21, 01:10 AM
Your point? That gamers these days don't like a 'challenge'? I love a challenge! That's the reason I play d&d. However, there is a difference between a challenge and an unnecessary risk.

Really, if your party is trying to escape a horde of enemies, and you accidentally teleport into the floor, what are you going to say?
'Whelp, guess the risk just wasn't worth it.'
There isn't any reason to make transportation more dangerous. All it's doing, most of the time, is making your session include a few less random encounters.

Teleporting isn't a challenge and was never meant to be. It is a means to overcome a challenge.

If the risk of casting teleport to escape the orcs is unnecessary, then you don't cast the spell. But "We're cornered and about to die anyways?" Then hell yeah, it's worth the risk. "We teleported into the floor?" Well we were dead anyways.

flumphy
2011-07-21, 01:13 AM
. . . What? I could understand your post, to a point, up until you said this. There are more rules involved in modern d&d than there were in older editions. Hardly improv acting.

EDIT: Gah, double post.

I imagine he was referring to the many rules-lite games like FATE or Dogs in the Vineyard. That, in my opinion, is what tabletop developers should be focusing on. As I stated earlier in the thread, if you just want an actual game and not an improvised story, a videogame is invariably going to be more entertaining.

Curious
2011-07-21, 01:13 AM
Teleporting isn't a challenge! It is a means to overcome a challenge.

If the risk of casting teleport to escape the orcs is unnecessary, then you don't cast the spell. "We're cornered and about to die anyways?" Then hell yeah, it's worth the risk. "We teleported into the floor?" Well we were dead anyways.

If it isn't a challenge, why is there the opportunity to just die? And my previous point still stands; if there is a risk of failure, why isn't there some way to mitigate it? An arbitrary chance of dying does not add any kind of fun to the game.

turkishproverb
2011-07-21, 01:17 AM
Combat is a way to overcome a challenge (rampaging orcs). Should you not be allowed to die in it because it's not technically the challenge itself?

Curious
2011-07-21, 01:19 AM
Combat is a way to overcome a challenge (rampaging orcs). Should you not be allowed to die in it because it's not technically the challenge itself?

Again, there is a difference. Combat is the main focus of the rules in d&d, with lots of different ways to overcome different challenges. There is no way to improve your ability to avoid teleport-related mishaps.

Crow
2011-07-21, 01:19 AM
If it isn't a challenge, why is there the opportunity to just die? And my previous point still stands; if there is a risk of failure, why isn't there some way to mitigate it? An arbitrary chance of dying does not add any kind of fun to the game.

What I am saying is that your way to mitigate it is to just walk instead. There you go, 100% chance of success. The chance of dying is not arbitrary at all. It is a known quantity, and it is up to you to decide if you want to chance it.

In any case, I'm off to bed. Look forward to continuing this later.

Curious
2011-07-21, 01:21 AM
What I am saying is that your way to mitigate it is to just walk instead. There you go, 100% chance of success. The chance of dying is not arbitrary at all. It is a known quantity, and it is up to you to decide if you want to chance it.

The teleportation failure clause is rather like having your DM create a chart that he rolls on whenever you walk somewhere; on a roll under 5%, your entire party falls into a sinkhole and dies! How exciting! This is something I want in my game!

SlashRunner
2011-07-21, 01:25 AM
Just here to add my 2 cents on the teleportation issue.

I personally like having that element of danger and risk when doing things out of the ordinary. I would say that the 5% miss chance is not really necessary for teleporting, as it just serves to skip the tedium of having to travel somewhere, but that's not the whole point of this discussion.
Personally, I think that the 5% death chance is just fine, but it should SCALE WITH LEVEL. Why is it that every time a 20th level Wizard, who is a god walking among mere mortals, with an intelligence that dwarfs even the most brilliant ordinary humans, has the same chance of screwing up a relatively simple (from their point of view) spell as a Wizard who's casting Teleport for the first time? I personally think that these dangerous, risky aspects should be confined to things that are actually dangerous and risky. Casting some kind of forbidden ubermagic? Sure, throw on a 5% death! You know what? Make it 50%! Because that's the kind of thing that SHOULD be risky. However, when you're casting a spell you learned 10 levels ago, there's no reason for there to even be a chance of you going "HERP DERP I screwed up and now I'm dead. Too bad for me".

Curious
2011-07-21, 01:34 AM
Just here to add my 2 cents on the teleportation issue.

I personally like having that element of danger and risk when doing things out of the ordinary. I would say that the 5% miss chance is not really necessary for teleporting, as it just serves to skip the tedium of having to travel somewhere, but that's not the whole point of this discussion.
Personally, I think that the 5% death chance is just fine, but it should SCALE WITH LEVEL. Why is it that every time a 20th level Wizard, who is a god walking among mere mortals, with an intelligence that dwarfs even the most brilliant ordinary humans, has the same chance of screwing up a relatively simple (from their point of view) spell as a Wizard who's casting Teleport for the first time? I personally think that these dangerous, risky aspects should be confined to things that are actually dangerous and risky. Casting some kind of forbidden ubermagic? Sure, throw on a 5% death! You know what? Make it 50%! Because that's the kind of thing that SHOULD be risky. However, when you're casting a spell you learned 10 levels ago, there's no reason for there to even be a chance of you going "HERP DERP I screwed up and now I'm dead. Too bad for me".

Okay, this is reasonable. If you're going the whole, 'magic is inherently dangerous and if you screw up you die,' route, that's perfect. However, d&d as written does not support that kind of system; magic is tamed, and presents no threat on its own.

SlashRunner
2011-07-21, 01:38 AM
Okay, this is reasonable. If you're going the whole, 'magic is inherently dangerous and if you screw up you die,' route, that's perfect. However, d&d as written does not support that kind of system; magic is tamed, and presents no threat on its own.

I know. I'm just saying that, if you were to try to reinstate the "downsides" of magic from earlier editions, it's more reasonable to do it logically based on the experience of the character rather than to just do a flat rate that has a chance of screwing everyone over.

Curious
2011-07-21, 01:41 AM
I know. I'm just saying that, if you were to try to reinstate the "downsides" of magic from earlier editions, it's more reasonable to do it logically based on the experience of the character rather than to just do a flat rate that has a chance of screwing everyone over.

Perfectly logical. I agree with everything you have said. Good show, sir.

Noctemwolf
2011-07-21, 01:53 AM
Anyone mind if I throw in a comment? :smallcool:

On the whole teleport thing, I want to say that that's beauty of magic. If anything about it is a constant, it's that it's unpredictable. I do agree that being a high level wizard should mitigate the risk: But it shouldn't completely disappear. the entire game is based on random chance, in the end. And even a powerful wizard is still mortal, and we all screw up sometimes!:smallbiggrin:
Although, even then you could split teleport into two spells; maybe they can't screw up the smaller one (One that would be like spinning in your cape and appearing across the room) But the bigger one could have a chance of failure (Like teleporting halfway around the world). Which could still be mitigated but not completely lost.
Randomly want to say I would replace the arbitrary death with a table of misfortunes. The table includes death, but also things like ending up in the wrong place, or a status condition, or some other thing like now you can only speak in Latin or that you leg and arm switched places. Silly little things like that.

In terms of a Business perspective?
From everything I'm seeing, I would say that the rules for another edition of DnD (If something like that happens) Would probably be best suited to be split into two styles of play. The main rulebook should be the 'softcore' game, allowing those new to the game or even those who don't want to play hardcore can play, and there be another part of the rulebook that implements the 'Hardcore' setting.
(OOOooohhh, game terminology! An 'Easy' Mode and a 'Hard mode'!! :smallbiggrin:)
It would appeal to most of the fanbase IMO, including those who want to play with a larger factor of death and those who prefer a less 'wrong choice, you die' Style of game.

Getting something like that would take a lot of work, though. And most people are lazy and just want to make a quick buck. Meh, who knows? :smallsmile:

Kurald Galain
2011-07-21, 04:06 AM
Two important facts about the teleport spell.

(1) The chance of mishap depends on how well you know your destination. If you know it well, there is NO chance of mishap. This means that you do have a challenge: study or scry the place you're going to; or you use the spell to get back.

(2) There's another spell, Teleport Without Error, which is two levels higher but mitigates the risk.


Funny, isn't it? There are many stories about how in 3E teleport is so boring because it makes traveling too easy, and turns out that 2E had a pretty good answer to that but they took it out.

Yora
2011-07-21, 04:09 AM
How about not continuing to talk about teleport? This discussion started to pages ago and is not really the issue here.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-21, 04:35 AM
How about not continuing to talk about teleport? This discussion started to pages ago and is not really the issue here.

Well, it's a symptom of two important points. One, that different editions have had different design goals. And two, that people tend to misremember how editions other than their favorite one actually work.

Regarding continuation of the brand, this means two things. One, that a hypothetical 5E will have one design goal which could but probably won't match that of an earlier edition; it does not strike me as possible to combine their design goals entirely. And two, that when 5E surfaces, WOTC will probably start by loudly and repeatedly pointing out the perceived flaws of 4E, because degrading your previous edition helps you sell the current one. Of course, this is precisely what they did when 4E came out, so no surprises there. If they do it well, people will remember what you said about the flaws, rather than how they actually played.

Fhaolan
2011-07-21, 09:55 AM
. . . What? I could understand your post, to a point, up until you said this. There are more rules involved in modern d&d than there were in older editions. Hardly improv acting.

EDIT: Gah, double post.

It's not the volume of rules that gives me that impression, mainly because to me just having lots of rules for an activity does not make it a 'game'. Driving a car has lots of rules and fiddly bits, but it's not a game.

No, to me a game is something with risk of failure, without any serious consequences to that failure. I admit this is not a common belief anymore. For example: Gambling is a game. I loose money if I fail, which isn't serious as I can make more. Playing 1st edition Traveller, where a character can die during chargen, the chargen itself is a game all on it's own because if I fail, I can start again. If my character dies in a RPG, the consequence is not serious because I can always make another. It's not like the character is an actual living person, or has any value beyond what I invest in it. And my investure is intrinsicly worthless to anyone except myself, and I choose not to take it seriously.

Addendum: I agree that the chance of failure as a set value regardless of skill or knowledge is not the best choice. Failure chances should probably scale with skill or circumstance. Not to remove the failure chance completely, but be able to mitigate it to some extent.

Crow
2011-07-21, 10:00 AM
Well from a game-design perspective, I think there needs to be a chance of failure in pretty much everything a character does, even if it scales and gets less prone to happen as the character increases in experience. Some of the most abused (and complained about) options in D&D these days are based upon abusing situations where you have no chance of failure.

Contact Other Plane
1d2 Crusader
Chain-Gate Solars
Blade Cascade Ranger (before it got changed)

.....and many more!

Quietus
2011-07-21, 10:49 AM
How about not continuing to talk about teleport? This discussion started to pages ago and is not really the issue here.

Teleport specifically is not the issue, correct - people have run with it. But the topic that spawned this situation, the risk/reward model, is an important thing to talk about, and as it's being put forward, Teleport is a good example of it. I don't like the 5% chance to die when doing Action X - but my issue with it has absolutely nothing to do with fairness, or anything else like that.

As a DM, I'm a storyteller. As a storyteller, any time players get access to an ability they want to use, and it has even a small chance of outright killing everyone, I cringe. I do think there should be some potential risk to "big magic" and other such things, to make players consider what they're doing. But if there's a 5% chance of death, as with Teleport, then I'm going to end up with players saying "I teleport the party back to the Dungeon of Ultimate Doom and General Nastiness", then rolling a 1. And all of a sudden, game over. The story I was telling is gone. The characters they'd been playing for the past six months, and were about to reach the climax of the campaign - gone. All of the effort I'd put into designing the most horrific and terrifying things I could think of for the next two or three sittings - gone.

In this case, this "hardcore mode", it may work well for more dungeon crawl, clear-and-loot games. But for someone trying to tell a story, it's supremely anticlimactic to have a player roll random failure and cut the story off like that. And to me, that presents as poor game design, because it defeats what I want out of the game.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-21, 10:57 AM
But if there's a 5% chance of death, as with Teleport,
As has been pointed out, there isn't a 5% chance of death with Teleport.

Erloas
2011-07-21, 11:02 AM
The most obvious thing to keep in mind is that it is simply not possible to make everyone happy. No matter what they do they can't make a "perfect" system because different players want mutually exclusive things.

One thing that could be done is having a base set of rules then a set of optional alternative rules that layer over top the base rules.
Battletech does this, they have piles of optional rules, and they say coming right out that they are optional and only use them if your group wants to. I don't think any are contradictory, its just that there are so many rules that if you used them all the game would bog down to being almost unplayable. They also have a simpler set of rules for large scale conflicts so you can play a game with a lot of units where it would be too much to keep track of for the normal rules.


And in Warhammer magic has a high chance of failure, but it is somewhat under the players control. If you only cast weaker spells there is no chance of failure, the more power you put at a spell the higher the chance of failure. And when there is a failure there are about half a dozen different options, only one of which is outright death. Of course there even having your wizard kill itself is only a part of what a player has and it doesn't guarantee a game over and even if it does you aren't out more then an hour or twos worth of game.


As for teleportation specifically there are a lot of possible changes to the spell that would not make it failure free and would not just be an instant TPK/Game Over. Put a recast time on powerful spells like that*, its too draining to cast twice in succession, so when you fail and are misplaced you can't just cast it again. The misplacement could be almost anywhere, including 30 ft away, just on the other side of the angry orcs and it could cause some sort of nausea or disorientation for some rounds after you materialize on the other side.
*To steal an idea from Warhammer have a sort of winds of magic where each school pulls from a different aspect of magic and casting too many or too powerful of spells from a school will leave that part of the caster/area drained for a while. Its a simple idea that could fix a lot of potential caster problems, including any possible recursive loops.

Frozen_Feet
2011-07-21, 11:10 AM
All video game players agree that it's ''no fun and unfair'' to have a character they spent hours building just be 'gone'. So they don't make video games like that.


Yes, they do make that kinds of videogames. The best known genre is "roguelikes", manye of which incidentally harken back to roleplaying conventions from ages past.

In Angband, you have pretty good chance your character will enter an open room filled with Zephyr Hounds when going down stairs. Taking any step will result in your character nuked to death without any chance of reacting, unless you were crazy prepared and had just the right resistances. (And even then the risk exists.) And that's it for that character. You start again from level 1, no complaints, new dungeon.

A quite considerable number of the player base never manages to get even close to the endgame. (I've beaten one variant of Angband once... out of dozens variants and thousands of games I've played.)

There are even commercial version of the game. Diablo is best known, and in Hardcore mode, becomes exactly the sort of "die, go back to level 1 without crossing through a save point".

Yora
2011-07-21, 11:12 AM
I actually think the rules aren't really that much important. Sure, a bad game won't sell as well as a good game that gets the same marketing, but I think the marketing actually makes a big difference.
I don't actually like the d20 systems. But I really like how many 3.5e and SW Saga books are written and how they look. So I don't play high level games and don't like 3.5e, but damn, I love Elder Evils. I can't use any of the crunch in the 8th level game I run or in a game that is not D&D, but there's a lot more between those covers than stat blocks. I love to read it and it makes me want to use things similar to those presented in the book. Which is the main reason I don't like 4E. The only interesting book I know about is the Manual of the Planes, which I really like a lot. But everything else appears as pushing miniatures on a map, which really doesn't interest me at all.

eepop
2011-07-21, 11:53 AM
It's not like the character [...] has any value beyond what I invest in it.[...] I choose not to take it seriously.


I think this is the actual thing being argued here.

High Lethality gaming encourages you to not invest in your character, but at times the harsher consequences spur interesting choices.

Lower Lethality gaming encourages you to invest in your character more, thus allowing for deeper and complex relationships and interactions between the characters. But there is less room to really get into a bind and have to face those harder choices.


Honestly though, I think its all a false dichotomy that is in our heads because those are the only way editions have done it. I think its entirely possible for a game to exist that has non-instant-death consequences and still pose situations where you have to face hard choices.

The issue really is that any penalty other than death that 3.5 would leverage upon you can be undone in the course of 6 seconds by anyone that could cast Teleport in the first place. If there was a way for a consequence like "You are off target" or "You teleport too high off the ground, your leg is broken" that actually stuck with the character for a significant period of time, I think there is a level of danger that most people could be happy with.

Few people really want things so hardcore that you roll a dice at the beginning of each session to tell if you died in your sleep. And few people want things so softcore that their characters are completely invulnerable. Framing each other as such only serves to breed resentment, and does nothing to actually find where the common ground is that could please both parties.

kyoryu
2011-07-21, 12:02 PM
And few people want things so softcore that their characters are completely invulnerable.

I'm not sure I agree with that. I've seen a lot of posts that say that characters should only permanently die if the player chooses for them to die. As far as not tolerating "loss," I've seen posts that say that characters should get exp even for sessions the player doesn't attend, so that everybody advances at the same rate.

And the "no death" mentality isn't really from video games - it goes back to DragonLance, which had DM asides on how to bring characters back if they "died."

Crow
2011-07-21, 12:26 PM
A lot of the problem with the Teleport example that I seem to be hearing is with players that die while casually using teleport to get somewhere, ala 3.5 style. Which leads more to personal flavor preference than game design preference. Specifically, some people like 'easy magic' or *shudder* 'magitech', while others prefer dangerous, mysterious magic.

If there is a chance to die while doing it, should it maybe not be used so casually? To me, casual use of something that can kill you, and finally does, is mostly the player's own fault.

Knaight
2011-07-21, 12:28 PM
I'm not sure I agree with that. I've seen a lot of posts that say that characters should only permanently die if the player chooses for them to die. As far as not tolerating "loss," I've seen posts that say that characters should get exp even for sessions the player doesn't attend, so that everybody advances at the same rate.

Death and loss are not the same concept. A character who never permanently dies in a story can still permanently fail at their goals, permanently lose people and things important to them, permanently change for the worse, so on and so forth. As for loss toleration as relates to experience, mechanical experience is only relevant if you actually care about levels as something to achieve. I'm of the opinion that characters should be kept near the same level and such, whether by always giving experience or some other matter, simply because levels are only really relevant to me when the characters start drifting apart and the system starts getting irritating. Not getting experience and falling behind in levels isn't a matter of loss, its a matter of nuisance for everyone involved.

Its really a matter of what people care about more than anything else. There's the notion of challenging the player as they use the character as a piece to overcome challenges, which is, more than anything else, the fundamental old school doctrine. Under this, stuff like treasure and experience are earned, important things, and someone getting those without being at the session doesn't make sense. In short, the value of what is gained is based entirely on the difficulty of gaining it.

There is also a notion of playing characters, using them as story devices, so on and so forth, which is more modern. Overcoming challenges is largely irrelevant in this, its more a matter of collaboratively building a story, and enjoying the process of creation. The very concept of rewards for overcoming challenges is an absurd one under this model, and the need for challenges at the player level regarding something like risk of character death is obviated. More than that, a system that actively tries to kill characters by design is a hindrance. If a group of people are working together to construct, for instance, a theatre set, worn down tools that don't always work really don't add anything to the value of the building process. They are a nuisance.

The wall of text aside, everything comes down to what people want out of a game. The views addressed (which are by no means comprehensive), come to:

I want to take something valuable, but only if I am capable enough to get it.
I want to be involved in the process of creating something of value, and that process is its own reward.


Of course, this isn't a binary either or decision. Its a matter of the extent to which both of these are important to the individual.

Erloas
2011-07-21, 12:29 PM
High Lethality gaming encourages you to not invest in your character, but at times the harsher consequences spur interesting choices.

Lower Lethality gaming encourages you to invest in your character more, thus allowing for deeper and complex relationships and interactions between the characters. But there is less room to really get into a bind and have to face those harder choices.

While true, it also seems somewhat ironic to me considering the disdain you hear from a lot of TT RGPers compared to C RPGers, especially the more hard core ones. Because a lot of that has to do with not having any investment into characters in a computer game.
Its also ironic in that the more likely you are to die and the less you invest in the character, the less the death means. When you expect a character to die and it does then you've lost nothing and it really doesn't mean anything. However a character that you've heavily invested in would bring a greater sense of loss at loosing something that is only part of the character, such as a legendary sword or trinket they had to work had to get.

And to reference it back to computer games, its kind of like EVE. Which is a very unforgiving game with a harsh death penalty. The players have adopted the saying of "don't fly what you can't afford to loose" which means they don't actually risk anything of value the majority of the time. Even with a harsh death penalty most players probably don't risk more then 10-20% of their assets at any time, so the only people really at risk are the ones that haven't learned the first lesson of EVE or the ones that don't really care.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-21, 12:39 PM
Lower Lethality gaming encourages you to invest in your character more, thus allowing for deeper and complex relationships and interactions between the characters. But there is less room to really get into a bind and have to face those harder choices.

On the other hand, No Lethality may also discourage you to invest in your character, because it makes many character decisions meaningless. This described in the 2E DMG as "it doesn't matter what I do because I'm going to win anyway", in the list of examples of bad DM'ing.

Knaight
2011-07-21, 12:43 PM
On the other hand, No Lethality may also discourage you to invest in your character, because it makes many character decisions meaningless. This described in the 2E DMG as "it doesn't matter what I do because I'm going to win anyway", in the list of examples of bad DM'ing.

That presupposes that the player's goals are the same as the character's.

The Glyphstone
2011-07-21, 12:44 PM
On the other hand, No Lethality may also discourage you to invest in your character, because it makes many character decisions meaningless. This described in the 2E DMG as "it doesn't matter what I do because I'm going to win anyway", in the list of examples of bad DM'ing.

No lethality doesn't necessarily mean no failures, though. To shift genres, I'm thinking of Toon here - though I've never played it, I understand character death is explicitly forbidden and impossible, no matter how comedically horrific the injuries are. Has anyone played a game of Toon and be able to vouch for/against people becoming invested in their characters?

The D&D analogy might be building potential for plot failure into the campaign - the players don't stop the ritual, or can't save the princess/city/kingdom. It takes a really skilled DM to build a game that in-depth, but if they can, failure isn't necessarily the end of things. I've played in a game much like that quote, and it was indeed awful, because we knew the DM wouldn't let us fail at anything until he reached the end of the module.

Kurald Galain
2011-07-21, 12:46 PM
No lethality doesn't necessarily mean no failures, though.
Correct, which is why I said "may discourage" rather than "will discourage".

On the other hand, I have played Toon, and in my experience it doesn't make people invested in their characters. Arguably, this is not because of the lack-of-death, but because the whole point of Toon is that the entire universe is silly.

The Glyphstone
2011-07-21, 01:27 PM
Correct, which is why I said "may discourage" rather than "will discourage".

On the other hand, I have played Toon, and in my experience it doesn't make people invested in their characters. Arguably, this is not because of the lack-of-death, but because the whole point of Toon is that the entire universe is silly.

True - maybe it was a bad example then.

kyoryu
2011-07-21, 03:09 PM
That presupposes that the player's goals are the same as the character's.

No, it's about removal of player agency.

If the game is going to inexorably move towards its predestined conclusion, then what the players do has little or no impact. If success is guaranteed, then their decisions have no consequence, and at some point this becomes boring for (most) players. At that point, the only decision is in which way, exactly, you want to look awesome.

stainboy
2011-07-21, 03:59 PM
That presupposes that the player's goals are the same as the character's.

D&D does presuppose that the player and the character share similar goals. There are games that don't, but it's such a different mode of play that I don't think D&D could expect players to learn it within one edition. And if they did, lots of people would hate it.

Note goals, not motivations. The player and the character can want the same thing for different reasons. My motivation is "there's a really creepy dude playing a succubus." My paladin's motivation is "uphold the Code at all costs." But the goal - kill the succubus - is the same.

Hoddypeak
2011-07-21, 04:53 PM
First time posting here, but this topic brought up some ideas that I thought I'd share.

I thought it might be useful (much as Mr. Mearls has) to outline some of the elements of RPGs. Specifically, no rule set can fit all styles of play, and different editions of (A)D&D have fit different styles of play. Also, in outlining this, I came to an interesting conclusion in how I think any new edition should be designed (though whether the designers would share those ideas I seriously doubt).

There are several design spaces on which I see most RPG rule sets falling.

First, there's the level of sandbox game versus story game. D&D started as a pure sandbox game, and the idea of story RPGs came later on. But I'd say every version of D&D has moved more towards the story game side than its predecessor. However, other than 4e, I'd say all the editions of D&D have supported the sandbox style, and a sandbox game can usually support a story based style.

Second, I see a space of rules-light to rules-heavy. OD&D was definitely in the rules-light side, and again, each edition up to 3.5 moved towards rules-heavy. I don't know if I'd say 4e moved further along or just stayed still on this axis.

Third is the idea of class based games or skills based games. Here, D&D steadily progressed from a pure class based system to almost a pure, if incredibly complicated, skill based system with 3.5. Since 3e characters can actually take any class at any level, 3e classes are really nothing more than skill bundles. 4e moved back towards a class system.

Fourth, tactical miniatures combat versus quick mentally visualized combat. Each edition of D&D has been different here. I'd say the earlier versions balanced this, providing a system that could be used either way, with a bias away from quick mental combat. The most recent versions biased the other way, with 4e requiring miniatures.

Fifth is the idea of challenging the player versus challenging the character. Most of the above design choices influence this one, as does DMing style to a great degree. This is probably the place the designers need to make the biggest choice. Early D&D was definitely biased towards player challenge, and having no skills really requires that kind of play. Later D&D has had a challenge the character philosophy, where the main player challenge is in building a suitably tough character.

What's not included in any of the above is setting information. And that's what much of the argument here has been about. Because a good system for D&D would probably balance all of the above factors fairly well, and then the rest is in the setting.

So what's in the setting? High-lethality versus low-lethality games; weird, scary magic versus common, easy-to-use magic; and super-hero characters versus common joes. And that's my revelation on how I'd like to see the next edition designed.

With those things in mind, really, most editions of D&D made moderate changes compared to their predecessers in what I term the RPG rules design spaces above. Where TSR and WotC made bigger changes was often in the setting, by changing the danger level of spells, or the power progression of classes.

So, what I'd like to see in a new design, would be a basic rules set absent too much setting information. It would be a class-based system, perhaps again in two variants, a rules-light basic line and a rules-heavy advanced line. Both systems would have enough detail (lots of mundane items, item weights, carrying capacity) to support sandbox play, knowing that they can be dropped for people who don't want to use that. In at least the advanced line, there would be an optional skill system on top of the classes. Also, it would not require miniatures, and combat would return to a system where movement is separate from actions (so I stay between the orc and the mage is a valid tactic for the fighter).

However, my base D&D books would not include spells, or WotC would release different settings with completely different spell lists and descriptions. So in Greyhawk, a teleport spell could have a chance of failure, and lethality can be high, while in Eberon, a teleport spell can be extremely accurate.

my 2 cp

stainboy
2011-07-21, 07:27 PM
Also, it would not require miniatures, and combat would return to a system where movement is separate from actions (so I stay between the orc and the mage is a valid tactic for the fighter).

Minis are another thing the game should support but not require. Minis are a rich man's hobby. There are a lot of college kids who can afford the core books, but if they think they need $200 in peripherals they won't buy anything. They don't need $200 (they can just use pennies for orcs or something) but they still need to buy more stuff from probably two different stores. They may not even own a big enough table. Most people in tiny apartments don't.

It's easy to miss this barrier to entry if you're a middle-class game developer who already has a card table and a drawer full of dice, battle mats, and markers.

Not requiring minis means minimizing small AoEs. Most abilities should hit one target, or hit everything in melee with you, or hit everything in a room. It also means limiting the role of very small movements in combat. (If the new thing has the 5' step it should just be a way to make grid movement less restrictive, not a way to avoid AoOs or fiddle with flanking.)

bloodtide
2011-07-21, 10:07 PM
As has been pointed out, there isn't a 5% chance of death with Teleport.

No. In 2E you had a chance of being too high or low, even if the target location was very familiar to you. If you rolled a 1 or 2 on the 1d100 you were too high and if you rolled 100, you were too low. Always. And yes teleport with no error does not have this(except for plain hopping).

The point is that there was always risk to use teleport, or dozens of other spells.

Most modern DM's hate the random dice rolls...they want to tell a story. In other words, they make the game more like a novel(or a movie). To me this takes away a lot from the game. When you read a novel(watch a movie) you know the main characters can't die. So when they get into fights or even just harmful situations, you can just sit back and know nothing will happen.

Lots of games have 'characters vs nature', you have to cross a bridge over lava, for example. But if your playing with a storytelling DM, you need not even roll or anything. After all if you did roll bad and fell in the lava, you would know the DM would save you as "the DM is telling a story and does not want the story interrupted by random dice roll deaths.

As a hardcore Dm.....I like the surprise of random death, and random events period. I like it when something random happens and the story takes a life of it's own. And it's much more fun. Say the characters must get Prince Xon home to sign a treaty. In a storyteller game Xon is immortal and nothing will happen to him as it will ruin the DM's story. In a hardcore game, Xon is at risk. And it can be great fun for him to randomly die, with in a mile of home and then have the players scramble as what to do.


Back to Business: This was changed in 3e/4e because some of the designers had bad experiences. Bad things happen when you roll dice as dice are random. You just know some of them lost characters or items or plans or such. So when they made the rules, they made it as safe as possible. The typical over reaction. One guy falls onto a MLB field and now all MLB fields must have 6 foot fences.

I do like the idea of an Advanced D&D, hardcore type core rules. They could put it out with the Storytelling D&D rules and make everyone happy.

Knaight
2011-07-21, 11:15 PM
Most modern DM's hate the random dice rolls...they want to tell a story. In other words, they make the game more like a novel(or a movie). To me this takes away a lot from the game. When you read a novel(watch a movie) you know the main characters can't die. So when they get into fights or even just harmful situations, you can just sit back and know nothing will happen.

Lots of games have 'characters vs nature', you have to cross a bridge over lava, for example. But if your playing with a storytelling DM, you need not even roll or anything. After all if you did roll bad and fell in the lava, you would know the DM would save you as "the DM is telling a story and does not want the story interrupted by random dice roll deaths.
Two things:
1) Protagonists die all the time, particularly in books that follow multiple sets, particularly where they have mutually exclusive goals. There are certain subgenres of larger genres where protagonists don't ever die, but they are the exception. Moreover, if fights, harmful situations, whatever exist, stuff that isn't dying can still happen.

2) If it is a matter of "the DM" telling a story, something has probably gone wrong. The pro narrative position isn't about the GM's story. If the GM views the story as "my story" instead of "our story", something has gone horribly wrong. Nobody really knows where the story will go, everyone's character arcs are fluid and change around parts of the story under other people's control. To take your example, it might be that there is a narrative in which one set of characters is trying to get Prince Xon home to sign a treaty. Sure, Prince Xon could make it and sign. Alternately, Prince Xon could die due to the foible of one of the PCs acting as a protector, shifting focus onto that character arc. Or perhaps the focus shifts to a second group of PCs in opposition, and the role of the first group, and the Prince, becomes showcasing the futility of peaceful resolution in the setting and the capability of pro-war factions. There's a lot that could happen, and dice likely do play a huge effect in what that is, directing the story along its possible splits.

However, in most cases, a major character dying to something like a teleportation error is dull, and having rules for that pointless - unless there is the creation of a false hope situation or similar, a venue for characterization based on the failure, whatever. Certainly the "we all die, plot is unresolved, game ends" option fits only a tiny handful of basic premises, and from the storytelling perspective building a theoretically semi-generic game around said tiny handful of premises is a bad move.

stainboy
2011-07-22, 12:11 AM
Lots of games have 'characters vs nature', you have to cross a bridge over lava, for example. But if your playing with a storytelling DM, you need not even roll or anything. After all if you did roll bad and fell in the lava, you would know the DM would save you as "the DM is telling a story and does not want the story interrupted by random dice roll deaths.


I agree with you that "story" DMing has some problems and shouldn't be the only possible mode of play. I just don't like one-roll deaths.

For example, the classic poison needle trap, save vs poison or die. It's a solved problem. The solution is to constantly describe how you never touch anything with your hands, and if you're not playing a deathtrap dungeon that slows down the game needlessly. I've had to tell players more than once "there are no traps in this dungeon" just so they'd open the damn door before one of the other players fell asleep.

Meatgrinder games teach players to play super cautiously. In any other kind of game that's tedious, and it's often hard to unteach. The rules should let meatgrinder work but it shouldn't just be assumed.

About your lava bridge, if one failed roll dumps the party in lava, the solution is not to roll. Fly over it, teleport, stone shape a bridge, find another path, come back next level, whatever. Rolling is a reasonable choice if one bad roll has a character hanging from a ledge by his fingers, then everyone gets one turn worth of actions to try to save him, THEN the character has to roll again or fall in. (The probability of falling in doesn't even have to be lower. Suppose the one roll has a 25% chance of failure, and the two rolls each have 50%.)

Eric Tolle
2011-07-22, 12:37 AM
WotC has tried to make D&D exactly like video games, especially the all important video game idea that your character is an immortal super hero.

I don't think the modern idea of limited death is based so much on video games, as fantasy novels and cinema. Modern players want their characters to be like Conan or Harry Dresdin, Indiana Jones or Luke Skywalkr. And Conan never died because he missed a perceive traps roll. Raiders of the Lost Ark did not go through Indiana, his brother Ohio, cousins Idaho, California, and Nebraska, just to get the gold idol in the beginning. Casino Royal did not involve Bond missing his jump to the crane, and continuing with several other agents who died over the course of the movie.

As the comic writer M'Oak put it when he explained why he doesn't play video games: "So I come up with my guy's history personality and motivations, and then first thing that happens I try to jump a crevasse, fail my roll, and die. That doesn't sound like fun to me.".

The hardcore style of gaming, where characters are short-lived abused puppets desperately trying to avoid the latest killer scenario of the DM, has never been the only style of gaming, and I can't help but think it's a good thing that it's no longer popular.


Would Chess still be fun if you could never loose a piece and just had to 'out maneuver' the other player?

You mean like Go? Is Go a "not fun" game? How about if every move in Chess required you to roll a D20- a "1" means you instantly lose, and have to start the game over from the beginning. Would that make Chess "more fun"?

The thing is, you may well say yes. I'm sure with a little bote of searching I can find fervent fans of "sudden death Chess". That doesn't mean that style of play is inherently superior, or that those who prefer conventional chutes are wrong. Different preferences call for different play styles, and a campaign that uses Runequest style fumble charts isn't inherently more fun than one that doesn't.


And I say death and other bad things add to the game. It's much more fun to risk character death..'for real'..then just pretend it is happening.

Well, it is for you, anyway. And there's players who feel that genital circumference tables and having a female player's character be raped by a hundred orcs "because she failed her Hide in Cover roll" adds a lot to D&D. But I'd say it's a mistake to assume that One's preferred play style is objectively the best for the majority of players.


If your character survives an adventure as the safety rules protected them, it's not much of an accomplishment. A 'hardcore' gamer who has a character survive knows it's a great accomplishment.

You know, this would be far more accurate and useful if you used terms such as "my" and "I" in your statements. Agree all, your fun is not everybody's fun, or really, all that many people's idea of fun.

Crow
2011-07-22, 12:50 AM
I don't feel like responding to all of your post right now, except to say that the things that make Conan, Indiana Jones, and James Bond special in the scenarios you used is that the reader/viewer is led to believe that there actually is a threat of real death to the character. Even if we know in our hearts there isn't, we activate our willing suspension of disbelief to have an enjoyable read.

Fhaolan
2011-07-22, 01:21 AM
Well, it is for you, anyway. And there's players who feel that genital circumference tables and having a female player's character be raped by a hundred orcs "because she failed her Hide in Cover roll" adds a lot to D&D. But I'd say it's a mistake to assume that One's preferred play style is objectively the best for the majority of players.

Please do not conflate old-school gaming with FATAL.

While the point you are trying to make is valid, that specific comparison just isn't cricket and I think it actually hurts the debate as a whole more than it gains for your side of the argument.

Frozen_Feet
2011-07-22, 02:34 AM
Hey, could we perhaps formulate an RPG specific law similar to Godwin's Law? Namely, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving FATAL approaches 1 (100%) :smallbiggrin:

We can also cement "reductio ad fatalis" and "argument ad fatalis" to the list of RPG specific informal fallacies, along with Stormwrack and Oberoni. :smallcool:

Hoddypeak
2011-07-22, 09:13 AM
The more I think about it, the more I'd like to see a 5th edition D&D that's a modular set of rules based around a core mechanic and core classes. Go ahead and give me two combat systems, one that's quick, easy, and doesn't require minis, and one that's got all the tactical options with 5' steps and rules for determining cover and AoOs. Give me two standard sets of spells, one that's nice and has minor consequences, and one that's hardcore and has deadly teleports and haste that ages people.

Heck, they could sell the "add-on rules" as $10, 50-page paperbacks. And the book could just say, "to use these rules, replace chapter X of the PHB with this book." Then they're making something that both players and DMs will buy, and they can make more segments of the market happy.

Sipex
2011-07-22, 09:30 AM
That's a pretty interesting idea.

The Glyphstone
2011-07-22, 10:53 AM
And one Wotc might actually go for, considering it means they basically get to sell us the same game twice.

kyoryu
2011-07-22, 11:38 AM
Hey, could we perhaps formulate an RPG specific law similar to Godwin's Law? Namely, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving FATAL approaches 1 (100%) :smallbiggrin:

And the person making the comparison automatically loses the argument. That's the other half of Godwin.

Of course, to say that there's no roleplaying in old school games is simply not true. It's a strawman. The roleplaying is probably of a different sort than many people are used to, but it's not the same as there being NO roleplaying.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-22, 12:02 PM
Hey, could we perhaps formulate an RPG specific law similar to Godwin's Law? Namely, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving FATAL approaches 1 (100%) :smallbiggrin:

We can also cement "reductio ad fatalis" and "argument ad fatalis" to the list of RPG specific informal fallacies, along with Stormwrack and Oberoni. :smallcool:

It does provide a horrifying example, though, that preferred styles differ wildly. Someone out there apparently did think, "yknow, this roleplaying thing is pretty good, but what it needs is...". If that ain't proof of subjectivity, I don't know what is.

The idea of a hardcore ad-on module is a solid one, though. I'd buy it. I LOVE the idea of D&D catering to different playstyles through addition of extra rules/books. I feel that's an attitude that fits the game very well.

Fhaolan
2011-07-22, 12:22 PM
The idea of a hardcore ad-on module is a solid one, though. I'd buy it. I LOVE the idea of D&D catering to different playstyles through addition of extra rules/books. I feel that's an attitude that fits the game very well.

Agree. Though I do have to caution that too far in this direction leads you right into the world of GURPS and Hero, which while moderately successful in their own rights, are also suffering from the downturn of the RPG market and the economy in general.

Yora
2011-07-22, 04:08 PM
The idea of a hardcore ad-on module is a solid one, though. I'd buy it. I LOVE the idea of D&D catering to different playstyles through addition of extra rules/books. I feel that's an attitude that fits the game very well.

As someone who wouldn't buy it, I still think it'd be a great idea. One thing I really dislike is rules creep and alternate class mechanics. Having a clear speration of the core rules and add-on rules could make life a lot easier.

Hey, could we perhaps formulate an RPG specific law similar to Godwin's Law? Namely, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving FATAL approaches 1 (100%) :smallbiggrin:
From this day on, it shall be known as the Law of Frozen Feet.

bloodtide
2011-07-22, 05:08 PM
The more I think about it, the more I'd like to see a 5th edition D&D that's a modular set of rules based around a core mechanic and core classes. Go ahead and give me two combat systems, one that's quick, easy, and doesn't require minis, and one that's got all the tactical options with 5' steps and rules for determining cover and AoOs. Give me two standard sets of spells, one that's nice and has minor consequences, and one that's hardcore and has deadly teleports and haste that ages people.

Heck, they could sell the "add-on rules" as $10, 50-page paperbacks. And the book could just say, "to use these rules, replace chapter X of the PHB with this book." Then they're making something that both players and DMs will buy, and they can make more segments of the market happy.

I like this idea as well.

Knaight
2011-07-23, 01:50 AM
The more I think about it, the more I'd like to see a 5th edition D&D that's a modular set of rules based around a core mechanic and core classes. Go ahead and give me two combat systems, one that's quick, easy, and doesn't require minis, and one that's got all the tactical options with 5' steps and rules for determining cover and AoOs. Give me two standard sets of spells, one that's nice and has minor consequences, and one that's hardcore and has deadly teleports and haste that ages people.

Heck, they could sell the "add-on rules" as $10, 50-page paperbacks. And the book could just say, "to use these rules, replace chapter X of the PHB with this book." Then they're making something that both players and DMs will buy, and they can make more segments of the market happy.
This sounds really nice. However, I do play Fudge, which does this to an extent that even GURPS and Hero don't approach, and probably like the idea a lot more than most. Also, two sets? I'm thinking variable subsystems that can all interact with each other. Pick one of two in column A, pick one of five in column B, pick one of three in column C, so on and so forth.

Hoddypeak
2011-07-23, 09:31 AM
Also, two sets? I'm thinking variable subsystems that can all interact with each other. Pick one of two in column A, pick one of five in column B, pick one of three in column C, so on and so forth.

I'm not locked in to two sets of rules. You could certainly have more. For instance, in terms of combat rules, I can see three or more sets being reasonable. A quick method that draws on OD&D or AD&D, a more detailed miniatures based set that follows the 3.X or 4e style, and a set for large-scale mass combat. I'm sure other people can think up more ways they'd like to see it go too. But the more sets you have, and the more detailed the rules are in each set, the more room there is for broken combinations to unexpectedly show up.

If I were in charge of designing an edition and went this way, I think I'd lay out the possibilities for these types of things, and then narrow it down to two or three options in a few places to start with, knowing that over time, as 5e runs its 8+ years, more sets can be added in. Then I'd put all the simple versions together into a PHB or a boxed set and call that Basic D&D. That would be the simple combat rules, the simple skill system and no-skill system options, and the kindest magic system. Then, I'd sell books with an AD&D title for the other sets, as they'd be more complex and rules heavy, and thus "Advanced."

Eric Tolle
2011-07-23, 05:28 PM
Please do not conflate old-school gaming with FATAL.

FATAL is it's own strange bird, a grotesque exaggeration of certain extreme elements in roleplaying not specifically D&D oriented.

But on the other hand, I've seen enough sexual harassment, misogyny and enforced gender stereotyping justified either through "That's what the rules say" or "that's how our it was historically" (usually with very little knowledge of history), that I'd say a fair dose of sexism is standard fare in classic games. It's not necessary, but it's common, in part due to the culture of older gamers.

Of course to me classic gaming is also: the guy relating excitedly how his character was slowly dismembered as he fled through his first and last dungeon; The custom random encounter table where there was an equal chance to meet any monster (roll of 186: the first level party on the road encounters a liche- they all die); DMs eagerly installing everything from Grimtooth's Traps in a dungeon; the DM getting annoyed that the players can't figure out the simple riddle solution to the trap, and "no you can't just disarm it, tell me exactly what you're doing"; parties of ten players, 20 characters, and 60 henchmen and hirelings; extensive lists of magic items, and no character backgrounds; writing a BASIC program to print out hundreds of PCs; and the Bard getting mugged by another players demon henchmen, while the paladin is carefully far down the hallway.

Oh yeah, you didn't need the rape scenarios, there were so many other ways classic D&D could suck.



It does provide a horrifying example, though, that preferred styles differ wildly. Someone out there apparently did think, "yknow, this roleplaying thing is pretty good, but what it needs is...". If that ain't proof of subjectivity, I don't know what is.

And the thing is, if someone had asked that DM, he probably would have denied that he was engaging in harassment, or that he was doing anything other than standard D&D.

Of course back in the day, the idea of standard D&D was a lot more flexible than it is today. We grabbed anything that took our fancy, and stirred it into our games. Classic D&D included stuff from Arduin Grimore and Traveller, if someone wanted to take a Jedi Knight through Greyhawk, well that was what the psionics rules were there for, and so on. This is why I don't get a lot of the purist attitude; it's like someone saying beef connsume is the only REAL soup, and adding vegetables to broth renders it not-soup. I really blame Third Edition for that attitude.


The idea of a hardcore ad-on module is a solid one, though. I'd buy it.

By hardcore I take it you mean "3D6 in order, don't bother putting on the character sheet a section for background and personality? Your character is created in front of the dungeon? Because that's what a lot of hardcore games I saw boiled down to.

Crow
2011-07-23, 09:27 PM
By hardcore I take it you mean "3D6 in order, don't bother putting on the character sheet a section for background and personality? Your character is created in front of the dungeon? Because that's what a lot of hardcore games I saw boiled down to.

You say that like there was no way someone could possibly play a character with a personality in those game...

Curious
2011-07-23, 10:29 PM
You say that like there was no way someone could possibly play a character with a personality in those game...

Not impossible, but usually when your characters life-span is measured in rounds, you don't bother.

turkishproverb
2011-07-23, 10:31 PM
Reports of the speed and frequency of old school character deaths have been greatly exaggerated.

Curious
2011-07-23, 10:32 PM
Reports of the speed and frequency of old school character deaths have been greatly exaggerated.

Yes, I know, that's part of the joke. :smalltongue:

Sometimes I wish there was a sarcasm text.

turkishproverb
2011-07-23, 10:37 PM
Yea? Look at the wording of my post. Remind you of anything?

Fhaolan
2011-07-23, 11:00 PM
But on the other hand, I've seen enough sexual harassment, misogyny and enforced gender stereotyping justified either through "That's what the rules say" or "that's how our it was historically" (usually with very little knowledge of history), that I'd say a fair dose of sexism is standard fare in classic games. It's not necessary, but it's common, in part due to the culture of older gamers.

I wouldn't say that it was the culture of older gamers as much as it was the culture of the 70's-80's when most of those games took place. Having lived through that time as an adult, I can attest that the misogyny and enforced gender stereotyping was a common theme outside of games as well.


Of course to me classic gaming is also: the guy relating excitedly how his character was slowly dismembered as he fled through his first and last dungeon; The custom random encounter table where there was an equal chance to meet any monster (roll of 186: the first level party on the road encounters a liche- they all die); DMs eagerly installing everything from Grimtooth's Traps in a dungeon; the DM getting annoyed that the players can't figure out the simple riddle solution to the trap, and "no you can't just disarm it, tell me exactly what you're doing"; parties of ten players, 20 characters, and 60 henchmen and hirelings; extensive lists of magic items, and no character backgrounds; writing a BASIC program to print out hundreds of PCs; and the Bard getting mugged by another players demon henchmen, while the paladin is carefully far down the hallway.

Unluckily, I've seen people do similar stuff to the highlighted with modern games within the last ten years. And these were *not* old-school gamers. Mind you, they were teenagers and possibly testosterone had something to do with it.

And nowadays they just download someone else's program to generate hundreds of PCs. Probably on their 'smart' phone.


Of course back in the day, the idea of standard D&D was a lot more flexible than it is today. We grabbed anything that took our fancy, and stirred it into our games. Classic D&D included stuff from Arduin Grimore and Traveller, if someone wanted to take a Jedi Knight through Greyhawk, well that was what the psionics rules were there for, and so on. This is why I don't get a lot of the purist attitude; it's like someone saying beef connsume is the only REAL soup, and adding vegetables to broth renders it not-soup. I really blame Third Edition for that attitude.

I agree with that, mostly. Though I think it's an attitude that actually started with 1st edition AD&D with some of Gygax's writings. He would occassionally put things in Dragon magazine about how you should only use officially sanctioned AD&D stuff or you weren't playing D&D anymore. Third Edition was really bad for it, I agree.

Lhurgyof
2011-07-24, 12:45 AM
I think They should do a nice 50/50 between fluff and crunch. Really, it's not so hard..for each piece of crunch, make fluff for it.

But I too think WotC made a bad, bad mistake with going for all 'big expensive hard cover books'. I've bought lots of other d20 stuff to fill the void they left. And what gets me is...it's not that hard to put out cheap soft cover books...yet WotC completely dumped the idea.

Good example:

My group was just about to head to a thinly detailed city, where I have nothing planned. I needed a bit on inspiration. So head to the book store where on the self are the five big hard cover WotC books that I already have. But also in the self I find a D20 'Wererats', a nice little paperback 50 pages for $11.00. I've never cared much for wererats, but I buy it anyway. It has lots of fluff about wererats, and then some were feats, classes and such too. Just flipping though it I get the idea of using the 'Rat Lord' wererat druid as an 'urban avenger'. And with the book I'm able to write up a nice adventure for the next game, using all the fluff backed up by the crunch. And the game works out great!

All for $11...not $30 for a hardcover WotC book. Just think, if WotC put out a were book for each one...that's $11 times what? five? ten? I would have bought them all over time.


And why does not WotC put out adventures anymore? That would be a great way to make money...nice, soft cover under $20 adventures.

I'm pretty sure that the large ammount of random softcover books released one after another if what ran TSR out of business.

The Troubadour
2011-12-22, 04:02 PM
Things like healing surges are quite widespread in 4e, and really have no direct correlation in 3.5. Yes, non magical healing options exist, but they're not really anything like a uniform, widespread system for all in the style that healing surges are.

True, but healing surges are a good thing! They encourage the party to continue with the adventure instead of pausing to rest at every fight, don't unduly penalize the PCs if they're on a deadline of some sort (my favourite type of adventure, though sometimes it's hard to balance)... And honestly, Hit Points were NEVER purely physical endurance, except maybe in the earliest editions - even back when I played AD&D 2nd Edition they were described as a combination of vigor, heroic spirit and dodging ability.

Besides, anyone complaining about martial characters being "unrealistic" should try and read some chivalric romances or mythological stories. Rama killed an entire army of demons with his bow, Charlemagne's paladins were notorious giant-slayers, many Arthurian knights fought dragons and fantastical beasts toe-to-toe, Robin Hood's feats of archery are legendary... Really, if anything, 4th Edition is the first edition to do this sort of thing right.

And those who complain about the playstyles being too similar... Well, they're just plain wrong. Sure, most everyone works under the same resource management system, but that's entirely different from playing the same. A Wizard and a Warlock both play very differently from a Fighter and a Rogue, for example.


All of us 'classic' D&D gamers only want to play D&D 0-3E, the modern gamers want the wow of 4E, and all the others don't even want to play a role-playing game. So no classic gamer will pay money for wow D&D and no modern gamer will pay for hard and unfair D&D.

Er... You probably shouldn't generalize. I've played D&D over a lot of editions - specifically original D&D, AD&D 2nd Edition, 3.0/3.5, and now 4th -, and I can honestly say 4th Edition is the first edition I've really liked - warts and all.