Slashdot Mirror
Ask the Designers of D&D Fourth Edition
This past August, big news dropped in the tabletop gaming community: 2008 would see the release of a fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Since then the official D&D Insider site, and communities like the excellent ENWorld, have been doing their best to keep us up to date on the ins and outs of the newest way to dungeon-delve. With the release just five months away, we've been given a chance to put some questions to the team developing the game. One question per post, if you would, and we'll make sure to pass the best questions on to the designers. Don't forget to ask about the online version of the D&D tools as well! We'll get their answers back to you as soon as we get them, so fire away.
Will this be the edition that finally sees the new "Escape Parents Basement" spell?
Which multi sided dice do I have to roll to move out of my parents apartment, get my license to drive, and lose my virginity?
Will your next version support DirectX?
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Will I need to have a paid subscription in order to download the PDFs of the 4th edition books that I buy?
Are there any girls there?
Sorry - this just hits too close to home (self-proclaimed geek).
More
I know at the moment there is only house rules for critical failures (i.e. rolling a 1 on a d20). Will there be set rules for this in 4.0?
Will the 4.0 version of D&D be compatible with the 25 or so 3.5 edition books I currently own? I would hate to think hate eberron would be out of date already.
3.5E had so many non-core sourcebooks that you could have easily respun and/or rebalanced the material into a new set of books if you had any need to sell more material (which you presumably do, as would anyone else in the same business). Based on what has been released and what I've read, 4E will be a radical departure of standards set back in 3E which were, in turn, meant to improve the game drastically.
Don't you think more work could have, and should have, been done to improve 3.5E? It seems like you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Will 4th edition use the same or similar systems for miniatures? Will a medium creature still fit in a 5' x 5' square? A friend of mine has a large collection of minatures and a decent sized third party map, and I am just hoping we do not have to move onto something else in order to satisfy the new rules...
Those who live by the sword, get shot by those who live by the gun...
Will d&d 4th, require a person to confirm critical hits, or will a mace
in the face be a mace in the face? (that is will a 20 be a critical hit)
1. Cannot base characters off the Ash from the Evil Dead movies.
2. A one man band is not an appropriate bard instrument.
3. There is no Dwarven god of heavy artillery.
4. My 7th Sea character Boudreaux is not the 'Southern' Montaigne.
5. Not allowed to blow all my skill points on 1pt professional skills.
6. Synchronized panicking is not a proper battle plan.
7. Nor is "Kill them all and let God sort them out"
8. Not allowed to use psychic powers to do the dishes.
9. How to serve Dragons is not a cookbook.
10. My monk's lips must be in sync.
11. Just because my character and I can speak German, doesn't mean the GM can.
13. Not allowed to berserk for the hell of it, especially during royal masquerades.
13. Must learn at least one offensive or defensive spell if I'm the sorcerer.
14. Must not murder canon NPCs in their sleep, no matter how cliche they are.
15. Ogres are not kosher.
16. Plan B is not automatically twice as much explosives as Plan A.
17. I will not beat Tomb of Horrors in less than 10 minutes from memory.
18. Collateral Damage Man is not an appropriate name for a super hero.
19. When surrendering I am to hand the sword over HILT first.
20. Drow are not good eating.
21. Polka is not appropriate marching music.
22. No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
23. There is no such thing as a Gnomish Pygmy War Rhino.
24. Any character who has a sensitivity training center named after him will be taken away.
25. Even if the rules allow it, I am not allowed to summon 50,000 Blue Whales.
26. The green elf does not need food badly.
27. Valley speak has no place in a fantasy setting. Especially if you're the paladin.
28. I am not to shoot every corpse in the head to make sure they aren't a zombie in Twilight 2000.
29. The Goddess' of Marriage chosen weapon is not the whip.
30. I cannot have any gun that requires me to continue the damage code on back.
31. I am not to kill off all the vampires in the LARP, even if they are terminally stupid.
32. The backup trap handler is not whoever has the most HP at the time.
33. I cannot buy any animal in groups of 100 or over.
34. There is no such skill as 'improvised cooking'
35. I am not allowed to base any Droid off any character played by Joe Pesci.
36. I am not allowed to convince the entire party to play R2 units.
37. I am not allowed to convince the entire party to sit on the same side of the table.
38. They do not make black market illegal cyberweapons for rodents.
39. When investigating evil cultists not allowed to just torch the decrepit mansion from the outside.
40. Dwarves do not have the racial ability 'can lick their eyebrows'
41. Dwarves do not have the racial ability to hold their breath for 10 minutes.
42. Dwarves do not have the racial ability 'impromptu kickstand'
43. Having a big nose adds nothing to my seduction check.
44. No longer allowed to set nazi propaganda music to a snappy disco beat.
45. Not allowed to spend all 100 character points on 100 1pt skills.
46. My character names are not allowed to be double entendres.
47. Sliver rhymes with silver because the computer frelling says so.
48. They do not make Nair in wookie sizes.
49. The elf is restricted to decaf for the rest of the adventure.
50. Not allowed to blow up the Death Star before that snotty farm kid gets his shot.
51. Not allowed to use thermodynamic science to asphyxiate the orcs' cave instead of exploring it first.
52. No longer allowed to use the time machine for booty calls.
53. My bard does not know how to play Inna Godda Davida on marachas.
54. Not allowed to start a drow character weighing more than a quarter ton.
55. Cannot pimp out other party members.
56. Before facing the dragon, not allowed to glaze the elf.
57. No matter how well I roll, a squirrel cannot carry a horse and rider at full sprint.
58. In the middle of a black op I cannot ask a guard to validate parking.
59. Expended ammun
First off, thank you for no more Gnomes as a basic race (or so is the rumor)
What exactly is happening to the wizard class? It sounds like it's becoming more like the Warlock and gaining spell casting like the CHA based casters or spell like abilities based on memorized spells? Are you able to expand on this or give us more information yet?
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
It appears (to me, at least), that many of the new rules-changes mirror popular MMO's like WOW. How much influence do the designers derive from video games; and, to the extent that D&D 4th resembles WOW, is this a conscious effort to reach the MMO-generation of gamers with table-top role-play?
To a certain extent, it sounds as if D&D4e is mimicking a lot of the standards that World of Warcraft and other MMOs have laid down. To whit: The foursome of the Tank, DPS, Healer and Blaster as roles within a party, Feat Trees, etc. Are you consciously and intentionally making D&D4e more like online MMOs to try and recapture some of that lost audience?
How do you feel you've struck a balance between a desire to simplify/streamline rules to speed play and make the game more accessible, and a desire to preserve the strategy and general goodness of the game as it exists today? Details about proposed changes that were a tough call either way would be interesting.
Why is there a need for a 4th edition? 3.5 wasn't released all that long ago (and the books were just as expensive as the 3.0 versions), so why do we need a 4.0? Is there a compelling reason or is this just a symptom of Hasbro casting "Animate Dead" on TSR's corpse?
Regards, Ian
It seems to me that the fun of table-top Role Playing Games is the storytelling. It's the plots, and the character development, and the mythical settings that make RPGs so exciting. Do we really need to further refine the game rules, or is this a simple cash grab for the publisher, when all the gamers out there update to the new rules?
I know that some of the old settings (Ravenloft, Spelljammers, Dark Sun, Planescape) have been transitioned to other companies or have been quietly kept alive by their fans with knowledge bases and efforts at rules translations between old rulesets and 3.5. Will any of these old, orphaned settings being making a comeback in 4.0? (Planescape. Please, Planescape!) If not, are the 4.0 rules being written to make these on-going translation efforts easier?
Short intro, I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi. Play a lot of computer games. Enjoy reading up on lore and the like.
... well, the general populace. What are you doing to break free of this? Or do you embrace it? What are your thoughts & opinions on this strange negative publicity that popular movies push onto D&D players? Do you ever try to break free of that?
But I never got into D&D. I had friends that played it but I was never into it. I tried playing it a few times and had some fun experiences. But there's always been a sort of negative stigma associated with it among
My work here is dung.
This might also be a good question for fellow readers here.
Having never played D&D, What is the appeal of this game?
It sort of looks like it's mostly about mathematics, not trying to be flamebait here, I'm genuinely curious.
If I should start playing, where to start and with which version of the rules?
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Have you fixed Evasion so that a character must have a place to evade too? It is odd that a character can Evade Fireball in a 10 foot wide tunnel. Further I would suggest that rules be put forth about movement availability in that scenario. If I just ran (4x move) on my turn, I find it unlikely I could then evade 40 yards.
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
How much of the damage that you did in 3.0 are you going to undo in 4.0? Are you going to fix the errors like wizards being able to use swords, magic using dwarves, and fixing the part where you left out the good alignment restrictions on rangers?
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
It sounds like, in an effort to balance classes better, they've all become a lot more alike. That is, a wizard and a warrior will have a very different list of abilities, but they'll all have X abilities to use at will, X abilities to use once an encounter, and so on. Do you feel this is a fair assessment? If so, is there any concern that in making the classes more alike you'll have essentially created one well-balanced class that no one wants to play? In 3E, a lot of the classes require very different kinds of strategy and in my experience all players have different favorites for reasons that seem to be going away.
If a player makes a 4th edition fighter will it automatically be able to fill the role of defender and no other role, or will that depend on the feats and talent choices made for that particular fighter?
"Sometimes it's hard to tell the dancer from the dance." --Corwin Of Amber in CoC
It upset quite a few folks when D&D 3.0E transitioned to 3.5E relatively soon after release, and made some people's investments in D&D become basically worthless overnight. While I appreciate that it's sometimes time to spawn a new edition that's incompatible with the old, it felt like 3.5E should have been an errata to 3.0E, rather than a totally new set of books.
I understand that WotC can't commit itself to any firm "we will not release another edition for X years" guarantee, but it would be nice to hear some sort of assurance that we won't see a repeat of the 3.0E->3.5E debacle. What's the plan? What lessons have you learned?
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
This is the one question that came leaping to mind at GenCon this past year which really hasn't been answered to my personal satisfaction. I really want to move away from the cynical thoughts and hope that this more than just a video-game like (multi-)year cycle but the fact that they are selling preview modules (selling me an advertisement?) for the next edition does not leave me much hope.
With D&D 3rd Edition, we were introduced to the D20 System and the Open Gaming License, which allowed third party publishers to produce supplements for the game. Will there be something akin to this for 4th Edition? What form will it take, and will it be more or less restrictive?
Has there been any thoughts or discussions on reducing the amount of books needed to play? Donating a bookshelf to every new edition is getting a little ridiculous for the casual gamer. I have 40+ books from first and second edition. I bought the Player's Handbook from the third edition, read the first thirty pages and went "bleh".
To reference another gaming system, I can generate a character in GURPS (Steve Jackson Games) in under an hour, have a little better feel for advantages and disadvantages, arm and clothe the character, and do it all from one book. Now there are other books available, but not necessary. Also, their magic system seems a lot more reasonable than memorizing spells. I always thought of spells more like skills than chunks of memory.
I know it goes against the business model, but can you actually make a game that can be played with less than four books?
Fast, cheap, correct. You get to pick two.
I haven't gone through the changes to 4e yet but I found that in 3.5 we were spending a lot of time searching for modifiers for our rolls. Is there a shift from this to where the role playing will start making a more concrete difference in survival and the adventures or is it still up to the DM to make sure this happens? My last 2 DMs were excellent in this aspect but with more definitive rules and information about this it would make ALL the players role play more.
does vin diesel role play as half-drow or half-orc?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Will you consider adding more traditional D&D races such as gnomes and orcs? Why did you feel the need to add another elf variant as part of the core rules? Do we really need another one?
Why are you stiffing us? Again?
We dont' have a lot of time to play and will choose another game system if yours requires us to spend an inordinate amount of time flipping through a stack of "core PHBs and DMGs" to find the specs on some feat or talent tree ability. What are you doing to reduce time spent looking stuff up?
this is the `we're not making enough money' edition, right?
Seriously. 3rd, and then 3.5, and now 4th edition, all within what, six years?? and how long did 2nd last?
there's nothing wrong with the game as it plays, now, that a couple of house rules cant fix.
another `lets make everything from the last version completely obsolete' version is NOT going to sit well with a lot of players.
I paid all that money for 2nd edition books, and actually got my moneys worth. I had them for more than 10 years.
I held off on buying 3rd edition, because I was still happy with 2nd, and by the time I was ready to buy, 3.5 had been released, so that's what I bought.
considering how much I paid for all of these books, and how many 3.5 books I've purchased, I wont consider myself to have gotten my moneys worth from them until at LEAST 2012. So as far as I can tell, 4th edition is at LEAST 4 years too early. so I doubt that I'll be buying or playing 4th edition for a while.
So, really, My question is: Did you actually come up with something so completely new that it makes a new edition essential, or is this just a move by WOC to squeeze as much money out of the AD&D franchise as possible?
Is 4th edition really just a segue to a final all-electronic product filled with subscriptions/micropayments?
You are posting on Slashdot.
Pot calling the kettle black?
Go ahead, mod me flamebait....
No pussyfooting around the question: ugly nerd kids these days would rather get their Warcrack online, where they can grind to risk-free heroism while pretending to be hot girls to get attention. What's the incentive to stare at a bunch of greasy acne ridden faces and listen to squeaky voices arguing over rules for hours on end while the DM acts out his god complex by killing their character investments in a fit of displaced revenge because Chuck McRibsteak stuffed him in a locker again?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I was happy with the Basic and Advanced D&D box sets. You don't need to carry a huge backpack in order to tote around a dozen or so of D&D books.
Currently, at higher levels, a fight between the party and a group of enemies can easily last a couple of hours.
How has combat been streamlined?
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
This sort of question / rant comes up from time to time on enworld and every other D&D site. There are a few simple responses to your statements.
1) New edition does not mean you are any more obligated to buy it and play it than you are obligated to trade in WinXP for WinVista, (or your System 5 Unix for Linux).
2) Most rule changes are generally applied to elements of the game that nearly no one pays attention to anyway. Demi-human level limits were dropped because no one used them.
3) Nitpicking about flavor elements (dwarven wizards) is generally stupid. Flavor issues are the easiest thing to customize / change. The core of the game is not a pseudo tolkein world. The core of the game is "roll 1d20 to kill monsters and take their stuff".
4) People who are satisfied with the current version of any consumer project that choose not to upgrade are not the sort of customers that sustain a company. New material will be published whether you like it or not.
5) Despite the sneak peeks to the new rules being given, it is still way too early to know what it will be like to play the new edition. If your not a play tester or designer of the new edition, than your opinion is not based on all the facts.
From what I have read on Enworld, there are alot of players who tend to stick to earlier editions. You are one of the few that seems to like 2nd edition more than 1st or 3rd.
END COMMUNICATION
...with the First Edition?
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
One of the things I dislike about 3rd edition is that at medium and high levels magic items are such a big part of a character's power. A PC has to be decorated like a Christmas tree with various magical doodads in order to be effective. Running a campaign in a world where magic items are rare or nonexistant required a lot of house rules and adjustment on the part of the DM. Will it be easier to run a low or no magic item campaign in 4e?
will the online tools work? Will it be all on the site or will I have to download a utility? Will I be able to view them on my Linux system?
Is 4th edition going to be compatible with 3.5, or are you going to break backwards compatibility like you did with 3.0?
Do you have any idea what the monthly subscription rate for D&D Insider will be?
Will you be publishing compatibility guides for your campaign worlds, and when? What campaigns will be supported in 4.0?
What do you think, based on playtesting, the learning curve is like?
I know, more than one question, but so many of the rest of the comments are the same tired old gamer-bashing that I think I'm entitled.
Oh, and my six year old daughter wants an easy-reader version.
No Longer a Menace to Society.
Alexandria Morrigan born 2/22/01 l. 20.5in wt. 7 lbs. 5 oz.
Pardom me if this mini-rant-around-a-question goes long. I started playing D&D (the basic boxed set) and AD&D ages ago--first on 1st Ed. rules and eventually ponying up for 2nd Ed. My friends and I liked the game because it was easy and simple (regarding game mechanics) in the first edition, and we did enjoy some of the changes going into 2nd E. (though we did opt to keep the original Ranger class, as our gaming world was very Norse and giant-heavy). For those of us who wanted games with more realistic (if you can use that term for a Fantasy RPG) combat mechanics, different skill allocation methods, and other detailed tables, we had RuneQuest, Palladium, and dozens of other options. The game was well-established, and players could be found anywhere.
With the arrival of the 3rd Ed. rules, you lost me as a regular player, along with many of my peers (we may be a bit older now, but we are the ones with regular salaries and a desire to continue the delusion of ongoing youth by purchasing simple amusements like games). I had no desire to relearn a gaming system that, for the most part, had its rules embedded in my head. The 3.5 Ed.? Didn't even pay attention. Fourth edition? Sorry, but not interested.
My own sons are old enough to play now. I've been shopping around for some of the early 1st and 2nd Ed. books so my kids and I may try out the game together, but until that happens, we bide our time playing Guild Wars (online) and Magic: The Gathering (offline).
My question is this: who are you trying to please? Do you have a core group of early gamers who will buy anything AD&D just because you print it? Are you attracting any younger gamers to the fold? If not, what's the point in publishing release after release after release? It's as bad as auto makers manufacturing '08 vehicles that are effectively the same as the '07s (Oh!, but the door for the gas cap is now square!).
The question I'm asking beneath the surface is, "Why should I care at all?" Unless the rules are relatively simple--something that won't require me to buy an entire library of books--you won't win me back. Once upon a time, only three books were needed for hours (months, and years) of fun: the DM handbook, the Player's handbook, and a Monster Manual (and the creative DM could get by without the MM). In all honesty, it looks like you are using the glorious history of (perhaps) the most storied RPG franchise of our time and using only as a perpetual money maker for your company. The more I hear about subsequent editions, the more I get the impression that you don't give a crap about the players out there (the people who made the game great in the first place), and that you simply wonder how much more you can squeeze the golden goose before it dies.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
When is 4.5 coming out?
For DND Insider, you have confirmed that you are only supporting all of your tools on Windows and that several of them are designed using Direct X. Knowing that your audiences are generally those more adept and familiar with computing technology, why did you choose to design tools in such a way that they will never be able to be used beyond the Windows Platform? Are there any plans currently in the works to extend these opportunities to those of us who use other operating systems such as OS X? If we don't run a Windows platform what is the point of paying for the access to the D&D Insider Online Tools?
Have you ever played Burning Wheel, or other indy RPGs? What do you say to people who complain that D+D is taking all the RP out of the RPG?
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Gandalf.
We know there will be at least 25th level spells... does that mean we'll have more individual spells to choose from, or are the spells going to scale in level? Also, will you be selecting spells as your talents or do you automatically get access to them as you level up?
The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
My group has been playing for the past 25 years or so and comfortably settled into 2nd edition AD&D. My futile attempts to move them into the present so I can finally play that dwarf monk have all failed. How do you suggest that I get my group to even try moving to 4th edition, let alone 3.5?
I wish that the 4th Edition would allow players to play modules online together and in live groups around a table.
Why the big changes with D&D history?
I contribute to the Named Demon Project. Since the Abyss is the major change in the planes, are all the humanoid demon's going to become unique devils? What can we salvage from the Abyss?
I know I can add pieces back into the system for my home brew games, but paraphrasing a samurai quote 'treat little things with great importance'...I know the designer knows his stuff when he tosses in little details referencing the history of the game, eg easter eggs. Erik Mona and James Jacobs did a great job with "Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss". They combed the entire history of D&D and fixed the inconsistencies for the Abyss. I think their work has been tossed out the window for these new 4e changes.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
When GURPS did their 4th edition, one of the things that they took great pains at was to maintain a strong degree of backward compatibility (given a free PDF of conversion notes) so that the stacks of GURPS 3e books out there would not become useless. Hero System did much the same with 5th edition. When 3rd edition of D&D came out, none of the books really fit into the new game except for purposes of back-story, but 3.5 did work fairly well with 3.0 with some work.
Is Wizards of the Coast planning on maintaining enough backwards compatibility so that all of the dozens of 3.0 and 3.5 books out there can be used with 4e, or will we be faced with the daunting expenditure of re-buying our entire libraries?
Make it fun...
I don't care what version it is. I've been playing D&D on and off since it was D&D, not 2.0, not 1.0, since elves were classes and honestly the rules mean jack if it's not fun.
Make it paranoia level fun.
Oh, and make sure Bards are still in it, because I still want to see a D&D game where you use the guitar hero controller to cast bard spells.
Gandalf used a sword. Tolkien trumps Gygax.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Actually, I have a formal question for the developers: Have you ever read Monte Cook's Iron Heroes supplement and are there any similarities?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I am slightly concerned by the rendering of monsters into simply combat stats. Please take this opportunity to allay my fears, as much of what I hear, I approve of. Will there be more to monsters than combat? Obviously, that's their most important role, but an understanding of their capabilities outside of combat (rituals they can cast, things they know - stuff that they WON'T use in a fight against PCs) is important to give a monster an ecology, purpose, traction - to use a popular word. Please explain to me how 4e takes account of this, or if it doesn't, explain why you have designed it thusly. (Oh, and thanks for your time and effort. It can't be easy redesigning D&D, what with the internet and all.)
Will the changes make it easier to implement in a potential MMORPG?
The point is having fun, right? Who cares if you break rule #435B to make your gaming experience more enjoyable?
I. How long until 5th edition, and the need to replace all of our $60 4th edition books?
II. When will D&D be digitized?
***
Frankly, D20 is my least favorite RPG system to use. Sadly, it's killed 90% of the limited amount of shelf space RPGs receive in book stores.
The D20 system is really more akin to a pyramid marketing scheme. Where in order to have all the rules, etc. You are forced to spend $20-$90 on numerous supplements. Of course, it's impossible for any average Joe to own every supplement. And rest assured the guy with book A that has the rules for your special character class wont show up and you'll have no copy of the rules you need. (Unless of course you made unauthorized & illegal copies subject to $150,000 fines per violation. Which probably equates to per page in copyright lawyer terms.)
This doesn't even address numerous aspect of the D20 system itself I dislike:
(This is one of the rare cases in life where I'd prefer a subscription model.)
Why the hate toward Gnomes, out of all the base races why get rid of them and add Tiefling? Gnomes were a fun race and had their own little niche and added alot of flavor. Is the fact they weren't a race for min maxing make them so unpopular they are being removed?
Who and at what address do I get send the bag of flaming dog poop for deciding to kill Dragon and Dungeon and resurrect them into the shambling undead thing that they are now?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
We know that you are providing a tool for editing character sheets on your computer, although you have not specified anything else. An editable PDF sheet seems likely. However, there have been many popular tools (e.g. PCGen) that can update many aspects of data automatically based on game events, rather than numbers. Example: You are the target of eagle's grace (assuming it still exists and has the same function). You have a +2 cloak of Charisma (once again making assumptions). You simply enter the fact that you are affected by that spell and tool automatically increases your Charisma score by 2, and also makes all relevant modifications elsewhere (save DCs, skill modifiers, etc.) Will the suite of digital tools released with 4th Edition include a tool that can maintain a character sheet that can be updated based on effects and modifications, rather than simple numeric input? If so, will it be extensible with published supplements/user-provided data?
In 3.5 and even basic 3d ed, Priests were far and away more useful than wizards and sorcers. They had damage spells, could use better weapons out of the box and had a serious of buffs, combined with their armor, that made them powerful and extremely difficult to kill. At very high levels, a powerful wizard can deal great damage with delayed blast fireball and whatnot, but at that point a good cleric can throw down greater aspect of the diety, divine power and a load of other spells and turn themselves into a combat machine, plus the ability to heal and a few good damage spells.
How are you going to balance the two main spellcasting types in 4th ed? Or are you going to leave things generally as they are?
One of the things that always seemed out of place for me was the use of Hit Points. As any humanoid became higher level (i.e.: gained power) somehow they received a commensurate increase in physical ability to withstand a blow from something like a longsword. This issue was resolved in Green Ronin's Mutants & Masterminds where the whole idea of HP was replaced with a saving throw against damage. Did the D&D4 designers consider this as an option to replace the age-old (and some say broken) mechanic that is HP? And if so, why did they choose to remain with HP over the M&M mechanic?
My gaming group played AD&D until 3rd edition came out (and skipped 2nd edition)... we plan on playing 3.X until 5th edition is available.
Considering the investment we've put into books over the past 8 years - we're not just dropping those books to buy into a new version. So, should we plan on another 8 years? (Ye gods, I'll be in my mid-40s then and my son who's in kindergarten will be in High-school...)
BlackNova Traders
before Eberron gets converted. My warlock is going to love this.
Well, let's hope the DM doesn't fall in love with 4th. Ed that quickly, or is willing to put in a crapload of work if he does.
No Longer a Menace to Society.
Alexandria Morrigan born 2/22/01 l. 20.5in wt. 7 lbs. 5 oz.
What do you feel was wrong about the previous version(s) which you felt justified the need for a new one? And how are you correcting those problems?
And then had someone get between you and the fire - You don't feeel the heat immediately. Same kind of concept I suppose. Or maybe the jet of flame just passes over you, since you're lying in a small depression in the floor, and you don't become toast.
I guess you can evade the flame in the same way that someone can shoot a fireball out of their hand - it's fantasy.
..........FULL STOP.
Being in the tech industry, I'm pretty used to the pace of change in regards to hardware and software. Every month, every year something new comes out that makes the old look like a toy. In terms of gadgetry, the new stuff is always so much cooler than the old stuff. There always seem to be one more feature the new things have over the old, that pretty much necessitate continual upgrade after a while (you may skip an upgrade or two, but eventually your old POS will be upgraded).
New games come with new ideas, and the really good ideas eventually make their way into games with a long history. One game will change the notion of "hit points" and that idea will filter through other games. Yet another will change the notion of "difficulty" and that idea will filter through other games. That said, as game designers, how do you view the need for change in terms of underlying game mechanics and rules like the 4.0 release is bound to do, especially considering the long history and vast amount of source material that has, over time, become obsolete against current rule systems?
-- What did Spock find in Kirk's toilet? The captain's log.
In a related vein, I'm still not sure who the target audience may be.
I'm haven't been a regular D&D player for a few decades but I am involved in a RPG community which is largely centered around 3.5 and DDM. The response there has been almost unilaterally one of revulsion.
After much discussion, most reasonable theory that we have come up with is that the current target market is new players - the ever-popular WoW crowd - for whom the purchase of new books is an addition, rather than a replacement with the assumption that a significant percentage of regulars will fall in line, despite their grumbling, out of a desire to stay "official." The video ad campaigns seem to reinforce this belief with the persistent, nagging mockery of the existing player base. The developer's comments are consistently spun to point out the many failings of 3rd Edition as well.
So, with that being said, are you relying primarily upon the 3E crowd to swallow their pride and accept that you've convinced them to pay for and playtest your inferior system in order to pave the way for your new, vastly superior revision again? What, if any, steps are being taken to address isolation and resentment amongst the current customers or is the primary focus entirely upon attracting new players and recreating the same level of devotion from scratch?
I actually went out and bought Races and Classes, and the explanation for why they weren't including gnomes in the initial PHB is that they couldn't find an iconic fantasy archetype for them. This struck me as a serious failure of imagination. Gnomes do have an archetypal quality, because whether we're talking about Tinker Gnomes or the more garden variety (ha ha), the attribute that defines them is that they are inquisitive and interested in aspects of the mind. That's why they worked so well as illusionists, and why they would interested in adventuring despite their small size and physical vulnerability.
This is also what made them so interesting to roleplay. That's what it used to be about. You wouldn't just select powers, feats, and the like, you'd come up with a clever backstory. This is an aspect to the game about which I've so far seen no emphasis whatsoever in what commentary we've seen from Wizards' people about the upcoming edition.
I do appreciate the effort you all are doing to balance things in terms of combat ability, and I realize that this is an important part of the game even for those of us more into storytelling than hack 'n' slash. I'm perfectly okay with the demise of the Vancian spell system and in the work you're doing to give fighters more choices in combat. But I'm concerned that so far everything I've seen is designed to equalize characters from a combat perspective, even if it means watering down those aspects that made them unique and interesting. I mean, dwarves don't live in underground halls? Halflings cruise around on riverboats? You found room for two kinds of elves, tieflings, and the Dragonboring, but not gnomes? Because they're not iconic enough?
I have no reason to doubt that math behind the system will be better than it was in 3e. But Dungeons & Dragons is more than science, it's also art. Please don't leave storytelling behind.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
I have two questions:
1) I played and ran second edition about 10 years ago with a bunch of high school friends. I started to play third edition but school took over and I gradually loss interest. My friends however did not. They started to become more involved with the D&D community via live-action, joining several official player organizations, playing in sanctioned games, cross-country adventures to the mecca that is GENCON, as well as buying a plethora of 3rd edition material. Given the complexities (depth) of 3rd edition (as noted by several posts), I feel a little overwhelmed and that I don't have the "background" to really engage with them when 4th edition comes out. I was wondering how will you make 4th edition more accessible to casual and/or new gamers? Will I be able to pick up just the core books and generate a player-character that is on the level with experienced 3rd edition players? Will I need to go back and read 3rd edition supplements to better understand the world of 4th edition?
2) I was wondering if the D&D Tools leverage social networking platforms like Facebook and MySpace (OpenSocial)? I have always thought that the real popularity behind D&D (maybe all classical RPGs) is that a game session becomes a loosely structured social event for friends to communicate, share ideas, and just well, catch up (with a wee bit of hacking and slashing). More to the point, the number of online gamers and D&D fans probably constitutes a gigantic social network in itself. Do you guys intend to create some of the social networking dynamics of online sites like Facebook or something entirely different?
My first module as a player, and then as a DM, was Monte Cook's excellent Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. The thing is huge and complicated, with an enormous volcanic crater mapped out and populated by lots of NPC's who are -- sort of -- cooperating. Rather than giving detailed descriptions of what these NPC's will do, whether out of combat or in, the module simply gives their statistics and explains their personalities, and lets the DM figure out what they do. There were very few notes about combat tactics other than those that relate to personality ("Imix enjoys whacking things with his greatsword and makes little use of his spell-like abilities"), since it's assumed that the DM is smart enough to come up with tactics on his own.
... almost pre-scripted. There's a separate section of the book for encounters, in which separate maps are given just of the "encounter area", with all the NPC's placed on it and combat tactics given for them. So you get "Encounter K42: Wight ambush", with a separate map with a bunch of wights on it. I've not run this module, but it seems like DM'ing it is more of an exercise in executing a pre-written script rather than being creative. There's not much room in there for flexibility, either -- it'd require a bunch of rewriting just to get the NPC information in a format conducive to being flexible with it.
While NPC's are given locations, there's a note: "The placement of NPC's in, and the description of, the mines is just a snapshot at one point in time. They move around, do stuff, raid each other, etc., as time passes, and it's important to keep the place dynamic." The module encourages a huge amount of flexibility.
This was wonderful to DM, and the players enjoyed the feeling of being in such an active environment.
Now, look at a more recent module, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. The setting is wonderful, the maps are wonderful, but all the encounters are
In short: Wonderful setting (not written anew, swiped from 1e), uninspired writing. Writing is targeted to the lowest common denominator of DM's who can't figure out how to run NPC's/set up encounters on their own.
I hear Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is supposed to be pretty good, but haven't heard anything good about any of the other modern writing.
My question is this: Are the modules written for 4e, and the overall design generally, going to lean more on the side of accessibility to less creative players/DM's or the side of giving more experienced players/DM's more flexibility?
I cant help but feel that this is Wizards of the Coast milking players for another purchase of a set of books. I used my same AD&D rule book from middle school through high school, college and most of my adult life. WotC purchased the AD&D guys (getting old and can't remember the company name) and now we see edition after edition coming out 2-3 years apart. This just feels like the latest booster pack for my beloved AD&D.
The entire tabletop gaming industry is still almost exclusively oriented around individual purchases of rulebooks. These buying habits do not seem to provide a consistent or long term revenue stream. Quite reasonably, a gaming group can share a set of rule books and therefore spend no more than $200 every 5 years or so.
However, unlike other board games, tabletop gaming requires an active community and therefore active interest from the developer of the games.
How can Hasbro maintain active development and interest in it's tabletop games indefinitely, when the revenue stream is not consistent over time? MMOs, and to a lesser extent, CCGs, demand a subscription model and thereby provide the resources for continual development. Is the best answer for tabletop economics to require a rules refresh every 5 years?
--
$tar -xvf
Can you publish an edition that likens back to 1st Edition AD&D where four books and a module pretty much could sum up a session? How about putting more energy into fleshing out a world instead of bloating the ruleset or creating more classes? Well designed modules/worldbooks will still generate the revenue that you are trying to force out of your clients with more core books.
The magic of AD&D (whether it be high, dark, monty haul, hack-n-slash, dungeoncrawling, or comic) is in the minds of the players....the world they mold around their characters. Then again....most gaming companies today don't really care about this. WotC, Whizkids, Games Workshop....they're all about the $$ and number of units sold.
From flipping through the preview I've noticed a distinct change in the way D&D feels. Before we always felt that we had this fun game rich with the possibilities of role playing and rules encouraged that. In the new edition it feels as if the rules are moving more towards a simplified dungeon slogging view and there seems to be a lot of power creep. It seems as if the rules have been simplified specifically for computer/console type playing environments. By doing that, it feels as if 4th edition wasn't made for the existing fans and long time players but for a younger crowd. What kind of considerations went into pleasing the existing base of roleplayers who are looking for rules that enhance their roleplaying over ease of use? Will there be optional rules in the final products for those of us who prefer a more traditional story-based gaming experience(more granuality on skills being one of my top concerns) as opposed to the dungeon slog of 1st edition and console gaming?
D&D Insider's current idea of access control is to include the full content of "premium" articles inside of a hidden div. The upshot is that any idiot can see the content without a login using only a single line of javascript; are you guys going to do anything about this before you start charging a monthly fee for that access? Not that I won't enjoy having what amounts to a free subscription to the stripped down versions of Dungeon and Dragon magazines, but an oversight like this doesn't really bode well for your plans to spearhead 4th edition with premium online content.
I always wanted to play games that were heroic. We've always had a standing rule in our campaigns of no evil characters. So I have to wonder, what's with all of the devil and demon based races and power sources and where are all of the good angelic based power sources? It seems as if the 4th edition rules have been swallowed by the "Evil is Cool" paradigm, which I have to say is incredibly sad to me(this was a big pet peeve of mine in Unearthed Arcana where there was a Tiefling but no Aasimar paragon class). In 3.5 all of the base classes and races were relatively neutral with a bit of a flavor for good. Why suddenly move to the "Evil is Cool" route in a game that historically and for the most part has been about epic struggles of good and neutral against an encompassing evil?
I never totally understood D&D and have several of the books... Kevin Sembiedia and co. at Palladium did a lot to expand role playing, but they stupidly left it un-open.... Hasbro fought back with d20... except D20, just like D&D has a lot of stupid rules that don't make much sense... what the heck is a thac0??? Makes more sense to just have an armor rating that you have to roll higher than.... Maybe someday Sembidia will come to his senses and open source his main game rules, but I doubt it.
If you dig lore, White Wolf is way deeper than any other rpg games... since they base their characters and settings, at least somewhat, on real history and use real world lingo and obscure words that actually exist in literature and history. Problem is the Storyteller system sucks.
I used to play with combining all the systems in to one... Who says that the White Wolf Vampires, Wraiths, Mummy's etc. are not just another Dimensional Being (DB) race from a rift? White Wolf and palladium combine very easy... 1 dot = 20% skill or 1 dot health = roughly 5 sdc. 1 dot aggravated damage = 5 hit points.
ne of the key issues I have had with previous editions of D&D is that even with all the customizing options, all the magic using characters are still very defined by the list of spells in the player's handbook. Since magic is such a defining part of a world, that means that the PHB spellbook is often a very intrusive influence on the character of the world.
Will 4th edition have a good system for customizing magic to the DM's world, or will DMs still essentially have to adapt their world to the magic system?
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
What are the current plans for campaign settings in 4.0? Will there be new ones? Will there be a new and open call for a campaign setting as there was a few years ago?
Actually, just re release the 1st edition rulebooks so these youngsters know what real men used to play.
Many of the details I've read suggest that this new version is, shall we say, "inspired" by popular MMOs such as World of Warcraft, especially in regard to the use of talent trees. Is there any truth to this perception, and if so was this a conscious decision on the part of the designers?
During the 3.x timeframe, you introduced OGL, the Open Gaming License, a reasonably good share-alike compromise for the game system.
Alongside that, you published the System Reference Document (SRD) which contained most of the monsters and equipment from the core books and almost all of the rules. It made an excellent standard for spinning off games and creating publishable material based on a canon.
And yet, at the same that Creative Commons license gaining ground, and YouTube and other crowd-publishing sites (like Gleemax?) are looming massively over the entertainment playground, I hear the rumour that OGL and the SRD are going away!
What is Wizards really going to do to promote community publishing? Those of us creating content for the game, content that promotes the game, are waiting to hear that we'll have a green light, that we can publish our material freely for all to use without fear of The Lawyers, and that we can incorporate Wizards' canon material in those publications in a non-competitive way. Will we be given that license? Or will there be, as the rumor told it, licensing fees to keep out content creators?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
With 3rd Editions it felt like the designers really expanded on the Skills and Powers concept from 2nd Edition. Which was good and bad. Characters felt very customizable, but it was tempting and almost encouraged to Min/Max. Further the experience gains and challenges on monsters made every encounter either epic in nature or too simple depending on the choice. And leveling seemed very fast as well. In 2nd edition a level 18 wizard took effort, and was respectable. Meteor Swarm was an epic spell. In 3rd it felt almost like an MMO. Everyone can get level 20. To misquote the Incredibles "When everybody is a hero, nobody is." With 3rd edition that's really how it felt. It was common to get to a high level and DMs had to start thinking about encounters with planar demons. In 2nd edition a planar fight was a long way off from level 1. And when it did happen it was special. Is there any chance that we will see a return to the 2nd edition skills and powers days where it was an option and leveling was slower? (And please don't mess with wizards anymore. I might be the last person who likes the old memorizing spells thing but I feel like it had class.)
when WOTC created 3rd edition, they killed a number of sacred cows--and that's a great thing, if you ask me.
as a fan of the star wars saga game, i certainly see much there that very clearly looks like it's gonna be part of D&D4, such as the second wind mechanic, the d20 modern-inspired alternating feat/talent slots at each level. but what i found most mechanically intriguing in the saga game was the usage of the use the force skill. as an amateur rules tinkerer myself, i was actually working on a variant of the first d20 SW game that would have done the same, but upon learning that you were going in this direction, figured there was no point on continuing.
so the question i have: does the force mechanic as presented in SW saga relate in any meaningful way to the way magic will work in D&D4? there's been what looks like signs of dissatisfaction with the vancian model that arneson & gygax first introduced in comments i've seen here or there for a while.
ed
I have seen a lot of questions being posted here that have either been answered and archived at ENWorld.com or are not relevant to 4e as the system is getting a major overhaul, this is not a 2e shift to 3e, its far more radical than that... Link:
http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e
The WotC website has some info as well (will require a Digital Initiative free sign-up to view) here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome
If you want to hazard the nascent WotC forums and blogs @ Gleemax.com there are blogs by developers and they occasionally reply to 4e threads there. Link (uses same DI login from main site above):
http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Login/Default/default.aspx
Warning: WotC is trying to reinvent the wheel and this site is "Alpha," so be prepared for some frustration navigating around it.
For a consolidated list of developer blogs, link here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/community
And for the proto-blogs on the old forum system they used during and after GenCon before the Gleemax blog system:
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=684
In Service,
~~Saracenus
Real Daleks do not climb stairs, they level the building instead.
I honestly never saw a need for anything past 2nd Edition.
I still have most every book from D&D (colored boxes with thin books) to AD&D 2nd Edition. I looked at the books for 3rd when it first came out and left the gaming store never to return.
I haven't played in years because it's hard to find people that actually understand 2nd Edition (let alone have the books).
All I saw 3rd edition (and later revisions) as, was an answer to a question no one asked or wanted.
So, no-thank-you to 4th edition. You can polish crap all day and it still smells like crap...just shinier.
oh yea...OT: I have no question relevant to 4th Edition.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I'd really like to see a better spell system, which allows much more flexibility, within certain rules.
I mean, the current magic system in most table-top RPGs is basically a set of pre-set actions: "lightning ball, 30' radius", "light candle without taking match from pocket". Might as well have a DM's story telling system that has options like "tell your players they've entered a "big room'" "tell your player to stop bitchslapping the orc".
What we really need is a system more like "you have 30 mana points" You know how to: "commanding stone; requires 5 points per kilogram per second" "apply the move command: takes 15 points per second" "apply the levitation command: 40 points per second" "apply dazzling special effects to your spell: 10 points per second, per cubic metre".
Then, you could be creative and say, "OK, then I'm going to dazzle this crowd by moving that ancient statue through the air to here..."
Of course, the DM would then reply "with no, sorry, you're not powerful enough", whereupon you'd get your ass kicked by the crowd.
as noted by doug, the four classic roles in WOW are actually influenced by the original D&D in all likelihood far more than the other way around.
ed
Two questions addressing the same shortcoming:
Will it still be possible for a kitten to kill a commoner?
Will it still be possible for a horde of bare-handed (or, more generously, rock-wielding) moron-IQ'd three-foot-tall humanoids to kill (often within five minutes) a paladin who has been riveted into his titanium-equivalent plate mail and chain mail? With their bare hands / rocks?
No recursing.
The new tools that they're developing are Windows-only, and yes, they use DirectX.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Holy shit, what a bunch of goddamn mother fukkin NERDS up in dis bitch. HOLLA AT ME BOYZ!!! YAAAA BUDDAY, FO SHO
While the auto-fail is still there, there aren't any fixed rules as to what exactly happens. There's a major change to the other end, though -- every 20 is a critical, not just an auto-success. No more confirmation rolls. However, it doesn't double your dice, just maximizing them.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
The main thing that interests me in 4E is a wholescale removal of the major design problems of 3.5E. These include the basic game-breakers, usually involving power imbalance and rules quagmire. While in multiple dozen splatbooks it must be impossible to avoid the occasional unbalanced item slipping through, I wonder if the core books have been tested hard by optimisers.
There are many well-documented things that need fixing that I assume you have under control (polymorph, antimagic, persistent spell, various high level spells, druids, clerics, etc.)
I think the thing that gets the least attention is the timing system. On many occasions my characters have a spare move action and a handful of swift actions that they want to do. House ruling that shorter actions can fit into larger ones (swiftmovestandard) causes all sorts of balance problems. (e.g. that would allow 3 spells per round) Are there any plans to revamp this?
Have you looked at the Hero System? It is basically what you want. The main rule book contains a list of abilities and their associated costs. From these ingredients you create your own recipes whose costs you can calculate to keep things balanced. The genre books then offer a series of templates.
While there are some things about the system that bother me, and which I prefer in the d20 system, its a really interesting system none-the-less. In fact, it is probably the best system that no one has played a game in, which is a shame
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
My question is: "How do sleep at night?"
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Ladies and gentlemen, I (according to the moderators) may have just become the first man to successfully troll himself.
Whenever I hear anything about the upcoming 4th edition, the only comparisons I ever hear are comparisons to previous editions of Dungeons and Dragons.
There are a lot of other roleplaying games in the market these days: the availability of print-on-demand has given rise to a new generation of "indy" games like Spirit of the Century, Reign, Primetime Adventures, and so forth. Even ignoring these, there are all kinds of other competitors in the marketplace: Exalted, World of Darkness, GURPS, etc.
For someone who moved away from D&D to other game systems, I can't help but feel that discussion and marketing of 4th edition is curiously blind to the existence and advances made by all these other systems.
Why should I choose to play D&D 4th edition instead of one of the other games? What, in short, are your relative competitive advantages when I am deciding what system to use for a new campaign?
How will conversions from earlier editions of D&D be handled? The initial conversion from 2nd to 3rd Edition was sloppy at best for those of us playing non-traditional races (kender, in my case) or classes (sha-ir, in my husband's case).
I followed the development of D&D 3.0 and there was a very extensive playtest process that involved many groups all over the country (perhaps the world) over a period of many months. The list of playtester credits in the back of the 3.0 Players' Handbook is huge (and I have friends whose names appear there).
Is the playtesting for 4E being done on a comparable scale and if not, how can we as players be confident the new edition will have the same or better quality?
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
For those hearkening for the good old days of first edition AD&D, check out OSRIC, a free PDF that uses the same rules as 1e but puts them into new words. (Evidently, you can copyright words but not the math behind a gaming system.) They did a good job.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Luckily, WotC were nice enough to license 1E rules to Kenzerco, who amped up that 1E spirit in their outstanding game system Hackmaster. It's what I play now. Hackmaster even preserves the 1E aesthetics, instead of making everything look awesome-to-12-year-olds. (Interestingly, I've found that players who didn't play 1E and went straight to Hackmaster tend to undervalue the roleplaying and overdo the "hack" stuff - but for you, it might be just the right thing.)
I like the idea of the Virtual Game Table as an option in playing. I recognize that it's not an MMOification, it's just cashing in on a niche that's currently filled with third parties. My main concern is with the accessibility of it, which will heavily influence my decision to subscribe to D&D Insider.
Will you require every player accessing the VGT to have a full subscription? I would prefer if a DM subscribes, that DM can invite a limited number of players who don't have a subscription to play in it, even if it's just a "lite" version that is limited to what the DM wants to show as well as a chatroom. I could understand if VoIP, dice rolling, and the ability to move a PC virtual mini were restricted to paid users; those can be gotten around. Any further information you could give regarding this would be helpful.
As a DM, I find myself constantly limiting my modules (self created) so to make sure the players will not run out of spells or run so low on hit points that they decide to camp for the night (and thus end the adventure early). This puts a burden on a lot of DM's, where we have to carefully watch our CR and maybe even fib (I admit to it) on the hit points remaining on some monsters (or remove the monsters entirely) because we see that we have either overwhelmed the players or they are saving their "good" spells for the boss at the end or just in case. I would love to be able to let them fight their way to the boss only to discover that after they defeat the boss, they have to now fight their way back out, or maybe the boss runs when low on health and the players must then fight their way to another location to face him again. Currently the only way to do this is to camp "real quick like", but that destroys the reality of the world as whole would actually camp in the middle of a haunted gnoll cave, when gnolls are just behind the next door? Plus, no real time passes, so the overall reality is lost even more!
How about allowing players to either have a recast timer or I might even suggest to get as drastic as giving them a "mana pool" to cast from which can regenerate over time while resting or some other way. I would love my players to have animate rope handy ready when we happen to be using rope, but nobody brings it to the adventures because the other spells are just too valuable. In reality, limiting spell selection does add strategy, but at the cost of adventure and paths that will not be taken because they do not have that "worthless" spell ready to go (yes, my players call many spells worthless because they never know whether to bring them, so they all load up on healing and damage spells because they know they will need them. In addition, all my players save up their spells, sometimes not even using them because of the one and done reality of the game. If they knew they could get it back and maybe cast it again, they might be a bit more willing to let the magic fly when based with a smaller foe. Sure, make it a penalty, either in a device which costs gold or with having to wait X about of minutes in real time. You could even only allow some spells to be recast, but not all (two classes of spells, reusable and rest based) Yes, it will unbalance the classes, but a fighter can keep swinging until he has no more hit points left; a mage may be done after 6 spell casts. I doubt any melee class will complain about extra heals and more adventure.
Something similar was tried in DnD Online, but who is going to put rest stones in the middle of a dungeon? You have this nice little opportunity to make the adventures epic and furious with an increased pace and lets face it, but we are growing impatient these days...we want to get to the good part.
Keep the action going I say, we all crave more adventure.....give it to us. Which brings me to my question: Will any of the above be solved in the 4th Edition and if not, why not?
Will 4th Ed finally have an integral mass combat system for wars? If so, could you tell us a little bit about it?
--Somebody infect me with a
Many people are acting as if a new edition will not only obsolete their old books, it will actually prevent them from accessing the ruleset at all. Level-headed people of course regard that as silly, nobody's going to sneak into your house and burn your old books!
However, with more and more importance being placed on digital content (not specifically Wizards of the Coast, but in general), if the wrong decision is made regarding DRM, that nightmare scenario may actually take place if WotC stops supporting this edition.
Will WotC spend a lot of time and money in vain in adding restrictions that will only serve to frustrate legitimate customers, restrictions that pirates will figure out how to bypass within a week of release, if not sooner?
Is the issue of whether to DRM or not, and why and how being treated very seriously within the company?
how is damage reduction being handled in the new system?
Existing 3e rules make you automatically fail on a 1. You want something worse than that to happen?
Also, the rules create a paradoxical situation: High level melee classes roll 4 attacks per round, compared to low level characters which only get 1. A 1st level Fighter has a 5% chance of rolling a 1 in a round. A 20th level Fighter has a 18.5% chance of rolling a 1 in a round. Thus, the better a swordsman you are, the more likely you are to butter-finger an attack.
Plus, who actually finds catastrophic failure fun when you're playing a hero?
if you're interested in planescape, there's a site that's adapting it to D&D3.
ed
According to EN World the basic classes in the PHB will be:
Defender: fighter & paladin classes
Leader: cleric & warlord classes
Controller: wizard class
Striker: rogue, ranger, & warlock classes
These seem somewhat analogous to the MMO roles of Tank, Healer, Crowd Control and DPS. There's a few thinsg that seem odd about that list. The first is there's only 1 controller, and 3 strikers. Does that mean every group is going to need a wizard until you get around to releasing the other controller classes at some point in the future? The warlord title seems, well, off. Intuitively it should be a defender, and no amount of explanation is going to stop people from thinking that. Even your "iconic" art for the class makes it look like a knock-off warrior. Also as far as I can tell you have 2 leather wearing classes, 2 cloth wearing classes and 4 plate wearing classes. Where are the inbetween classes that would actually want to use chain armor, or banded mail for reasons other than they can't afford better armor yet? Essentially, I'm already getting turned off by some of the changes made to the game that I don't like that much. Getting rid of wizard schools seems like an even bigger mistake than getting rid of spell spheres (Here's a hint: keep them for categorization purposes, if even if you don't actually use them). Sure, people who didn't care about spheres didn't like them, but it made all clerics into tasteless powergaming mush and made it all but impossible to replicate the specialty priests that everyone, I ever played with loved from Second Edition.
My question is simple: Are you sure you want to publish the game with those 8 classes?
I mean what's the real difference between a warlord and a paladin? Because they look exactly the same from over here.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I got into the game only at 2nd edition around 1993, but I am hardly a 12 year old munchkin.
I am sure that 1E is a great game, and worth playing, but I am often amused by people who seem to think that new editions are all crap.
The simple fact is that the state of gaming has advanced considerably since the mid / late 1970's. Aside from competing game systems like GURPS, many electronic games have come out. You may find World Of Warcraft inferior to tabletop gaming. I myself have never gotten into any of the MMO's. But discarding everything done in those games as a bad idea is a mistake.
Simply put, alot of new fantasy fiction has come out, and people who grew up with that fiction and who would like to play a D&D type game are going to want to see the stylistic touches that they like. Making the game awesome to 12 year olds is not a bad thing at all.
The stereotype of a teenage geek with no girlfriend in a basement playing D&D is a pathetic one. But without new gamers, the stereotype will be of a 62 year old virgin playing pen and paper games will be much worse.
Appealing to new gamers who grew up on World of Warcraft is a good thing.
END COMMUNICATION
1. Will they not suck under 4th Ed?
2. Will Bards continue to be allowed to choose the Evil alignment?
3. Will an all-Bard party be feasible under 4th Ed?
4. If YES to (2) and (3), can I choose 'The dark-haired moody one in the boy band' for my Perform skill?
What exactly is your target audience, if there is one? Some of the previews are confusing me about this.
My friends and I had been playing AD&D for over 20 years. We started with chainmail. Went through basic, not the red and blue books, 1st editon and into 2nd. Frist edition was a mess. Inconsistan rules, typos, and shitty book construction but we had a fucking ball with it. 2nd edition was better, less rule problems and some needed rule changes.
3rd edition is crap. Most of the soul of the game is gone. The books look nice but it's not D&D. It's a bad imitation with D&D on the cover. Come on, magic using dwarves, evil rangers, and wizards carrying swords. That goes against the very core of the game.
Your style of play sounds rigid and unimaginative, defined entirely by the borders of old school D&D. I mean, you can't imagine a wizard carrying a sword? Have you never once tried out another role-playing game in 20 years of play? Do you not read fantasy books or watch fantasy movies or anime or comics or anything by Howard or Lieber (or Tolkien) or anything other than D&D novels?
You belong to a subset of fossilized gamers that aren't worth supporting for a company. You have what you like, you don't need anything else, and frankly you don't sound like you'd even look at another game unless it had the D&D brandname on it. Why should WotC spend ANY time looking to support you and your outdated notions of gaming.
Gaming has evolved significantly since the 70s & 80s when old D&D was made. Old D&D is like COBOL -- it gets the job done for the people who are still using it decades after it was last relevant, but there's no reason to design new products in emulation of it. We've moved on to better, more expressive, and more coherent tools. New gamers expect more of games than the byzantine rules (like the convoluted initiative system) and arbitrary restrictions (like racial level caps) of 2e. Play should be fast, fun, and should enable people to create the characters and stories they find most fascinating. 4e is moving in that direction and leaving 2e in the dust where it belongs, with all the rest of the gaming dinosaurs.
And frankly, if you haven't bought a new gaming product in 20 years, then why should WotC give a damn about what you want instead of what young people want? You aren't their customer, and they're a business. Go play OSRIC if your old books are starting to fall apart.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Speaking as someone who was there at the beginning and who still has his original 3 paper books, D&D ceased to be when TSR went away. Wizards of the Coast have turned it into something entirely different. That doesn't make it bad, but it isn't D&D anymore and hasn't been in a long time.
Here is my question then: How long do you expect to be able to milk wallets by coming out with new Editions of a game that needs no revision? I certainly started voting with my wallet when the 3rd edition came out and destroyed the game. Are your sales in steady decline?
Will the digital tools be available for Linux / Mac users?
My biggest concern is the availability of the digital tools in non-Windows environments. That's about the only thing that could sour the whole deal for me. I'm hoping they're web-based or Java-based so they can run on any operating system.
Certainly, 2ed had THACO. What it did not have was touch AC, flatfooted AC, flatfooted touch AC, ethereal touch AC, flatfooted ethereal touch AC, Dodge AC, Dodge touch AC, ethereal Dodge touch AC, combat expertise +7 fighting defensively with tumbling ethereal Dodge touch AC with cover against giants while Enlarged,
All of those are potentially different, and that's not even taking into account the bonus to attack with power attack / combat expertise / flanking / favoured enemy / bane / holy / haste / fatigue / charge / Deft Opportunist / iterative attacks / whatever affecting it. That's literally thousands of possible different bonuses to attack for a single character being applied on his roll against dozens of possible AC values for a single target.
And that's simpler than "roll your dice, look up the result on a one-line table"??
D&D3e is many things, but "simpler" is not one of them.
Simpler saves? Quick, how did the saving throw for a 1st-level spell in 2ed compare to a 4th-level spell? Or 6th-level? Or 2nd-level?
All the same. All that matters is the one number written on the character sheet.
Compare that to 3ed, where you need to know the caster's Intelligence (unless it's Wisdom or Charisma or...) plus the level of the spell plus whether he has Spell Focus in that school plus whether the spell is Heightened plus whether he has Red Wizard levels plus
It's not "simplification" to cut from 5 down to 3xbillion...
(Not to mention that the whole save mechanism in 3ed is terribly broken, since high-level characters are frequently subject to nearly impossible saves to avoid death. Mr. Badass High-Level-Fighter is no fun to play if the first Wizard to come along has a 90% chance per spell to take take control of Badass's mind for weeks at a stretch, with little or nothing he can do about it.)
Please do explain how attacks of opportunity - a mechanism so famously convoluted that it's frequently played for humour - is simpler than 2ed's mechanism, which was...nothing at all.
You may like how D&D3ed does things more than you liked 2ed, but don't for a moment delude yourself into thinking it's "simpler".
In 3rd edition i felt there was to much attention put on stats and combat abilities and very little on roleplay aids. If you compare the 2nd edition paladins handbook to its 3rd ed equivalent you can see the difference right away. Does the design team intend on trying to bring back some of the lore and roleplay that made the game so great in 1st and 2nd ed.?
I can't use my 25th level hamster mage. (For those interested, dragon eyes have limited shielding between the lids and the brain, and afterwards you get 1XP per GP stolen. It just takes a while to carry off enough to get the spells to nick the rest.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I found 3rd edition to be harder to learn and slower to play than 2nd edition despite better consistency in the rules; this I attribute to the layout of the core rule books. The text was too small, the background made the text hard to read. The game rule information was hard to distinguish from the background information and the examples. Headings didn't stand out enough, and were frequently not at the tops of pages.
How much emphasis has been given to streamlining the core rule books for usefulness as references during play in 4th Edition? Have the problems that I and many others encountered in this regard been rectified?
Conservation of angular momentum makes the world go round.
Has there been any discussion about moving from the D20 system and the inherent flat probability distribution of rolls to a multi die system? This aspect of the D20 system has led me to avoid playing D&D after having played in systems (White wolf, ShadowRun, EarthDawn and GURPS) where character capabilities are somewhat more predictable; and bonuses are more effective at the margin than for unlikely rolls.
Spyder
[quote]Seriously. 3rd, and then 3.5, and now 4th edition, all within what, six years?? and how long did 2nd last?[/quote]
:)
Six years? Way more than that, buddy. When 4th edition is actually released, it'll have been about decade since 3rd edition first hit store shelves.
3.5 came out four years after 3rd edition. 3rd edition was some 8-10 years after 2nd edition. The game, and yourself I imagine, are a lot older than you realize.
Forgive me for not reading through the 4 pages of comments to see if anyone else mentioned this. Oh, and by the way, the spirit of ANY role playing game should be the story you create together. The rules just help settle disputes, the essence should always be the adventure. That being said: My question is, will alignment restrictions be lifted in 4th ed? Kinda a personal pet peeve of mine, but I always felt that if you played the character right there was no need of those types of restrictions. Good players just don't need them and bad players will work around them anyways. Besides, why CAN'T you have a CN assassin? :)
"Does bouncing count?" - Silk, Magician's Gambit by David Eddings
Evil is cool. That is the problem. In fiction, lore, and history this is generally true. For any description of nifty paladins or angels, I can find piles of information on vile dragons, demons, and beasties. There just aren't as many interesting fictional depictions of good unless they are shown in contrast to evil, and evil usually steals the show. If there was more source material about Good being cool and really awesome good things, then it would be easier to fill the ranks of the armies of light, alas. If you can think of specific untapped source material for good, write it up and submit it, or post it to web forums.
I stated that hit points were how much luck you had. When you were out of hit points, you were out of luck. The next hit would kill or incapacitate you (depending on the damage and situation). However, evil creatures (including evil PCs) don't get this, as soon as their luck is gone, they are dead. The loan called in. Soul taken and vacant posession now possible.
It allowed PCs to generally live longer at lower levels which stopped them being evil just so they could use poison. Characters at later levels weren't so fragile, but I just had frequent checks done for "visible" people (like adventurers, town leaders, etc). It wasn't illegal to be evil, it just lost you a lot of contracts and cramped your style. It also explained why evil NPC's lived out in the bondooks rather than safe and happy living as the mayor: life got too complicated so they moved out to make a place where they could be all they wanted to be.
And evil PC's generally did the same too. "Retired".
Read "Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords." Most of the new directions that they're taking the Fighter and Paladin can be traced to the Warblade and Crusader classes from this book.
In essence, the martial maneuvers in Bo9S don't take away choice from the enemies and force the DM to make them behave like robots. They just make the choice of attacking another enemy harder to do. Take the martial stance "Thicket of Blades." What it does is make 5 ft steps provoke Attacks of Oppotunity, making it hard to get away from the user without taking some free damage. A monster can always opt to just take an AoO, but the Defender classes will make them pay for it.
At no point is the PC getting to mind control enemies -- he's just making the decision to ignore the PC fraught with consequences.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Yes, I know there are races which are inherently better at jumping than swimming and so on. However, if you merge Spot/Listen and Hide/Move Silently but not Jump/Swim/Balance, you create two new uber-skills (Perception and Stealth) and leave three shitty skills no one will ever pick. Please, whatever you do, try to make all skills somewhat comparable in power. If you're getting rid of Appraise and Profession, get rid of a distinct Jump, Swim, and Balance, and create Agility (or Acrobatics, or something).
1. In today's world, how does WOTC plan to handle piracy of material?
It seems to me the real way to make money in this day in age isn't about protecting your content, but instead giving the consumer a reason to purchase materials not able to be pirated.
2. Alongside of each book publication would it be possible to get a digital standardized format for rules to be used for character management software?
The biggest hindrance for people to start out playing the game with our group is char sheet management. Like a freebie base client with the SRD and the ability to add each books rules you buy. That way I can let new people just fill in a bunch of dropdown boxes or search fields as well as save prebuilt NPC's for future use.
If 4e was returning to roots, they'd have four classes and that's it. Instead, they're giving us four roles that are MMO-inspired and layering lots more than four classes atop those roles. That's not anything like D&D used to be.
...so I am going to guess, yes, WoTC is trying to be more like WoW. As close as they can without getting sued.
Lets see....Blizzard claims to have ~ 8 million subscribers, at about $15 per month. That works out to about 120 million per month net. Of course, regional pricing and exchange rates will throw this off a bit, but thats a whole lotta moolah any way you stack it.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Hi, I started playing D&D in 1st edition, and I have seen the game grow over the years to what it is today. I have have thousands of dollars of books from 1st - 3rd edition, and now you are comming out with yet another edition. I can see that some overhauls were needed, since the game has come quite a distance from the old 'blue book' rules that came out in the 70's. However, there are some publishers in the industry, that are little more than money grubbing whores (*cough* Games Workshop *cough*) who come out with a new version of a game system almost anually in an attempt to re-sell their customers the same product with new formatting. Why should I invest in 4th edition at this point, and how do I know you arent going to just start publishing 5th edition two years from now?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
D&D is a social game. You get together with a bunch of friends once a week and explore your imagination. There are rules, but the game is played differently by everyone, depending on what aspects of the game they enjoy.
The current version of the rules version 3/3.5, but don't worry about the version so much. Go find a bunch of people playing it, and join their group. Play whatever rules they are playing. Really, the version doesn't matter that much, its still basically the same game.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
you take the Vow of Poverty (in the Book of Exalted Deeds)
"Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
A fair amount has been released about the differences in combat between 3.5 and 4, but I haven't read much about how skills will work. What kinds of changes will be made in the way skills work? Will there be grades of success? Will skills be folded into the talent trees for the classes, or still their own beast?
People keep asking if it is possible to publish an edition where only three or four books of "crunchy" information, like new rules, monsters, etc. are needed to play. Technically, I only need the PH to do anything in D&D since it has combat and environmental rules, and I just need some imagination to decide what statistics would look like for a Orc Fighter. In my personal campaign, I would just use statistics that "made sense" to represent monsters. I also know that this is not typical.
I understand the main source of revenue would be the books, and the future online offerings, such as setting up online "tables" to play on, more interactive character creation programs, etc, are only going to be secondary revenue sources initially. I, personally, look forward to an online source of connectivity with old group members or being able to play if someone is on a business trip, or in my case, a deployment to Iraq.
With the new edition being streamlined for ease and customizability, are the primary sources of new material and revenue going to be less "crunchy" and more creative, as in modules, campaign settings, campaigns, etc? I picked up the Eberron Campaign Setting just to read the lore, as I did the Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Dragonlance, and Ravenloft settings, back in 2nd and 1st Edition. Rules supplements hold little appeal to me, and 3rd edition sourcebooks seemed to be more rules driven than creative.
There were many guides during the switch between 2nd edition and 3rd edition on how to translate statistics for monsters, encounters, classes, etc., before all the source material got reprinted out. Will conversion between 3.X to 4.0 be easier and allow me to derive more lasting worth from the 3.X books with information that will not be republished any time soon?
I know a decision of where to base the campaign setting has been made, but could you please describe that decision making process, and why one setting over another? Why not one of the other previous established campaign settings, or a completely generic, no references "Fantasy world?"
Will this edition be less roleplay-oriented and more battle-oriented?
In the basic manuals, there is some underlining (in brown) to make the pages look like scrolls.
Will you get rid of it (it's ugly and makes the text difficult to read).
In the same direction, can you see to it that there is no longer text on image background that make it impossible to read? Thanks. That's REALLY annoying.
Monte Cook's famous review of 3.5e revealed that Wizards was planning on making the new "revision" as soon as sales dropped off. And sure enough, the changes shook up just enough things to make it nigh impossible to use 3.0 books in a 3.5 campaign, but included just enough goodies to make people want to argue for making the switch (e.g. the complete overhaul of the Ranger class to make it actually interesting). These types of changes may be good for the publisher, but they're a pain in the tail for the people on the ground with a campaign already in progress. Especially with the plan to charge a recurring fee, I think it's very reasonable to expect Wizards to comment on how long this edition will actually be around (and very unlikely that they will actually do so, because the answer will most likely be incriminating).
I'll second Ars Magica. I think it would make a great Harry Potter game and I constantly wish I could run D&D with Ars Magica's magic system:
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I think one of the major issues about D&D [in my opinion of course] is how stacking is handled. It's a telling sign that there is something amiss with a system when the developers post numerous articles on how to handle stacking [especially at higher levels] of enchantments, stat bonuses, and everything under the sun. Is the whole process going to be streamlined to reduce book thumbing during a secession? Or the inevitable arguments that might come around due to this? http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040120a http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040127a http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040203a http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040210a
and communities like the excellent ENWorld
Any plans for Gleemax to have threading/scoring similar to Slashdot? I really would like to find the 'gem' posts in the message boards without having to wade through 10 pages of posts.
I haven't been banned from enworld ever...but I hate how Politically Correct Enworld has become since 4e was announced.
There are times I really love Slashdot. For all it's faults on moderating comments, slashdot code is the most fair that I've seen.
Enworld has a policy of discussing only things that "Morrus' grandmother" would want to hear. In other words if his grandmother (who is now dead) was nearby, you would watch your tongue. It does keep things civil on the site for the most part unlike the old WotC message boards and the Gleemax today.
However in the end it is a Communist message board. It is an oligarchy....a politically correct police state. Anyone can run to a moderator and bring down 'justice.' Justice being either a ban from the board and/or removal of comments. The comments on the site in theory are all treated the same because everyone is equal....except the moderators.
I prefer Slashdot, where those that participate become our moderating peers...a participatory democracy. Your peers get to decide the merits of the post. Content isn't deleted. One is not baned for posting an inappropriate remark. And most importantly, those that moderate can't post. *added plus is the scoring...I like viewing at +3
Digg is a bit to much a direct democracy for me.
So want about it WotC, will you try slashcode with this Online Initiative?
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I actually liked Attacks of Opportunity. However, I do agree that 3rd edition did end up being more complicated to run at times than it should have been. There are three particular problem areas.
1) Too many AoO rules. If there had been either fewer triggers, or fewer exceptions, it would not have been so bad. The AoO's themselves were fine. They add an interesting tactical element to the game, and they give a much better way for fighter types to interrupt spells. But arguements about what does and does not trigger an AoO are a problem.
2) Grapple: Way too many steps and way too many modifiers. If grapple was reduced to requiring a single roll to resolve, it would have been fine. But you have a potential AoO (good, since every similar action also provoked them), then a touch attack (not so good), than the opposed grapple check (bad, since it requires very specific modifiers for size). Then you have to make yet another grapple check to do anything with the grapple (very bad). A better system would be to just have an opposed grapple check followed by the attacker declaring what he would do to the opponent in the round he had him grappled.
3) Too many Variables: Many people on En-World will complain about 3rd edition math getting too difficult. This is not a case of the addition / subtraction being too hard. This is a case of having to juggle and track way too many variables, and having to recalculate multiple things if a single value was changed.
Unlike Lord Argents complaints about 3rd edition, I can empathize with your reasons for being dissatisfied. They are all flaws in the mechanical / crunchy aspects in the game.
Having said that, I do suggest you at least take a good look at the rules for 4th edition when it comes out. Based on what I have read, I think that most of your complaints about 3rd edition will be addressed. It seems a great deal of effort has been put into trying to simply the overcomplicated parts of the game.
END COMMUNICATION
It was actually Eric Noah's grandmother, not Morrus's. Morrus took over running the site a few years ago when Eric decided to step down.
My understanding was that the moderators on EnWorld starting wielding the BanHammer Of Doom because many of the discussions were getting derailed into personal attacks. A related problem is that normally, EnWorld gets frequent visits / comments from active Wizards of the Coast designers. Since 4th edition was announced, there has been a non trivial amount of hostility from some very vocal posters. That hostility was causing the Wizards people to stay away. Why bother to explain your thinking when all your going to get for it is personal attacks?
Slashdots moderation system would fix that particular sort of problem.
END COMMUNICATION
the evident similarities to a group I gamed with back in '02 are disturbing. This phenomena is more wide spread than I thought.
Every revision of Dungeons and Dragons, from the Blue Book basic game, through AD&D, 2nd edition, 3e, and 3.5, has introduced massive revision but still managed to maintain some degree of consistency and backward compatibility with what came before it.
My question is this: Even acknowledging that 3.5 had a lot of room for improvement and a number of issues that deserved to be fixed in a revision, how do you justify creating a revision that breaks so completely from what came before it -- core classes abandoned, new races arbitrarily dropped in, and (from the sound of it) entirely new mechanics for spellcasting and combat?
3.5 clearly wasn't broken enough to prevent you from releasing nearly two year's worth of new books after design of 4e was already underway, so what prevented you from creating a revised version of the existing game, rather than something that breaks all connection to what came before it?