D&D Next (DDN) has one overall design goal, bring the D&D community back together by making an edition that builds upon the best of all editions and can accommodate the myriad play styles and preferences that are out there. A tall order.
So, how do they get there? WotC's solution is build a rules light core that will support gridless play (which they call theater of the mind) that will provide the foundation for more complex rules and mechanics that can be layered on to add more complexity as desired.
The current public playtest (there were two rounds of private playtests prior) is just a small slice of the core mechanics (think modernized 1e and 2e AD&D updated for the modern game environment). Its going to change in the face of playtest reports. Once the core mechanics are solid work will begin on other layers that will add in gridded, tactical combat, a feat and skill system, alternate magic systems, etc. This will bring the game up to 3e (and Pathfinder) and 4e levels of complexity.
The crucial thing is, if DDN works (not a guarantee) DMs and players should be able to mix and match to play the version of D&D they want to play all under the rubric of a single system.
As I have said, this is the goal. Playtester input will have significant impact upon the end product (I can attest that many things changed after the private playtests). It is my hope that DDN will provide a common basis for folks to play again.
I for one am sick of the edition wars and edition warriors. I play D&D and I want to sit down with my friends and have fun kicking down doors, killing the monsters and taking their treasure, not arguing the merits and flaws of this system or that.
I am not a math major but my chosen field requires some understanding of math (go accountants!). My solution for complex graphs, math equations, and symbolic images was simple. I took a digital camera to class, asked permission to shoot digital photos with the flash turned off, and then transcribed the material from my digital images after class.
If I am taking text notes I would make a notation when I took a picture so I would insert it later. Otherwise, I would just listen and every once in a while shoot a shot of the dry erase/chalkboard.
I have set my technology challenged mom's system up on a 500 GB USB external drive and have NTI Shadow running in the background. Shadow copies whatever file you are working on to the external drive in realtime. If you accidentally delete a file, it keeps the last copy you have for a restore left on the disk. For mission critical files (family business) I copy a set to my laptop 1/week.
I really should ghost her machine if I need to rebuild after a crash.
1) The name was a Magic the Gathering in joke, inside baseball references do not meet the goal of one stop gamer social networking.
2) The neon puke green color scheme was barftastick...
3) Failed to deliver a functional, easy to use blog app. Its really a bad sign when your own employees were mirroring their Gleemax content on their personal blogs. What really blows my mind they could have purchased a blog program off the shelf that would have been working from day one, ugh.
4) Over promised, under delivered.
5) Unrealistic deadlines.
6) Database problems. They have been combining multiple databases with mixed results.
7) Brain dead support for the site. I used the combine accounts feature and it killed both of my accounts. When I asked what was going on and please fix it, I was told it was a know issue and to create a brand new account. When I countered that they should disable the feature they told me that would be a good idea. The feature still exists to chew up other peoples accounts.
8) DDI is behind schedule and needs the bodies being sucked up in the Gleemax sea of failure.
Good Luck WotC... you are going to need it to deliver digital content.
I suspect that you have not taken Micro and Macro Economics courses (something I think every voter should be required to do) because you would see just how painfully uninformed your opinion is.
Had Google not bid up the price, Verizon, or some other company, would have potentially won with a bid under the reserve price. If that had happened then the winner would not have to open this new spectrum to open source handsets and headsets.
Not only would Verizon own the whole C Block, but they could bar anyone else from brining competing hardware and software as well. That would have meant higher prices, less available goods & services, and less incentive to innovate & maintain quality.
Market forces (i.e. other carriers on other bands of the spectrum) will cap the amount of money Verizon can charge for their service. The regulatory rules imposed by the government will force them to allow competition for hardware and software connecting to said service, spurring innovation and keeping prices lower.
In all, I am super happy with Google's actions. I want choices on the kind of hardware and software I use on their network.
Right now I have a Verizon phone with all sorts of bells and whistles (camera, internet access, etc.) that I don't use because everything is proprietary and if I want to use them I get dinged on high incremental pricing. For example, if I want to use the camera on my phone and download the photos to my computer I have to send the photos through their network, I cannot directly connect my phone to do it. If I use their network to download I either pay a premium for it or I have to change my service plan and take a 2 year extension on my contract. I have no choice otherwise. Well, I can choose to not use my camera.
Competition (hopefully) will force Verizon to provide competitive services so I will buy their hardware and software as opposed to someone else's products. I will have choice within the Verizon network. A side effect of this competition will be innovation, which in turn will force other carriers to get off the dime with their services or risk people deffecting to Verizons new network because there will be more choice.
In my opinion, Google just did me a solid. They will benefit from this as well, as they are positioning themselve to be a software provider on this newly and more open telco spectrum. I hardly see this as evil.
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
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.
Ryan Dancey, the father of the OGL/D20 license has some interesting thoughts on the direction where tabletop gaming should be heading vs. computer hack and slash games like WoW. His arguments are far more cogent than I can do justice, so here is the link to his blog and his 5 part series (with a 6th installment about segmentation is the role-playing player base...
Ryan hasn't worked for WotC for years and this was written before the 4e announcement on Thursday. It does not reflect where WotC is headed directly but may give you some insight why they are moving to a new edition right now...
While it is true you cannot copyright game mechanics, you can trademark terminology
(DM for example) and if written correctly you an interweave your IP (Greyhawk,
the iconic characters, etc.) into the examples of the rules thus making it
difficult for people to disentangle them.
Add into
the
mix the
hungry sharks that is the Hasbro legal department (the parent company of WotC)
not may people are willing to put up the money it would take to win the inevitable
lawsuit.
Lets face it, if you are small company trying to make it on the thin margins
of the table top gaming industry you don't want to spend your profits and then
some tied up in court. Better to make your own system or use the terms of the
OGL.
The System Reference Document has all the WotC IP taken out of it and has
cleared their legal department. Using this document as springboard you can
create your own IP (a game world for example) and add or changes the rules
at your leisure. There is a mechanism in the OGL/D20 license to use other OGL/D20
materials in your own, but not the closed materials from WotC.
So, while you are technically correct, in the real world it is not so cut
and dried.
I am surprise someone from this list hasn't talked about the possible forking between the 3.0/3.5 Open Gaming License (OLG) and the proposed new 4e OGL.
Unlike a new version of Linux, the new D&D rules do not have to be under the old OGL, they are in effect a completely new operating system for D&D. It has been confirmed there will be a version of the OGL/D20 license, but with some added restrictions:
1) Professional game companies will need to pay a license.
2) Fan/Non-Pro offerings will have to be through their site www.gleemax.com (unconfirmed).
Here is a list of known stuff about the new edition on the ENWorld forums:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204119
Gleemax.com has stirred some controversy already because of the Terms of Service. The most blatant is that anything you post their grants Wizard's of the Coast limited rights to republish your material and limits your ability to publish anything that uses their IP, e.g. Greyhawk, Planscape, Forgotten Realms, etc.
So, what does this all mean? Well, if the use restrictions on the 4e OGL/D20 license are, well too restrictive (and kinda takes the O out of OGL) that will mean a fork in the D&D development path. Some publishers will want the latest and greatest and put up with it, others will not and use the 3e OGL which has no licensing fees and cannot be terminated.
There are already some development forks in 3e, Green Ronin's True 20 and Mutants and Masterminds rules, Iron Heroes and Arcana Evolved from Malhavoc Press (Monte Cooke) which take the core mechanics in new and different directions.
Anyway, my two coppers on the subject,
Saracenus
Slashdot Mirror
D&D Next (DDN) has one overall design goal, bring the D&D community back together by making an edition that builds upon the best of all editions and can accommodate the myriad play styles and preferences that are out there. A tall order.
So, how do they get there? WotC's solution is build a rules light core that will support gridless play (which they call theater of the mind) that will provide the foundation for more complex rules and mechanics that can be layered on to add more complexity as desired.
The current public playtest (there were two rounds of private playtests prior) is just a small slice of the core mechanics (think modernized 1e and 2e AD&D updated for the modern game environment). Its going to change in the face of playtest reports. Once the core mechanics are solid work will begin on other layers that will add in gridded, tactical combat, a feat and skill system, alternate magic systems, etc. This will bring the game up to 3e (and Pathfinder) and 4e levels of complexity.
The crucial thing is, if DDN works (not a guarantee) DMs and players should be able to mix and match to play the version of D&D they want to play all under the rubric of a single system.
As I have said, this is the goal. Playtester input will have significant impact upon the end product (I can attest that many things changed after the private playtests). It is my hope that DDN will provide a common basis for folks to play again.
I for one am sick of the edition wars and edition warriors. I play D&D and I want to sit down with my friends and have fun kicking down doors, killing the monsters and taking their treasure, not arguing the merits and flaws of this system or that.
I am not a math major but my chosen field requires some understanding of math (go accountants!). My solution for complex graphs, math equations, and symbolic images was simple. I took a digital camera to class, asked permission to shoot digital photos with the flash turned off, and then transcribed the material from my digital images after class.
If I am taking text notes I would make a notation when I took a picture so I would insert it later. Otherwise, I would just listen and every once in a while shoot a shot of the dry erase/chalkboard.
I have set my technology challenged mom's system up on a 500 GB USB external drive and have NTI Shadow running in the background. Shadow copies whatever file you are working on to the external drive in realtime. If you accidentally delete a file, it keeps the last copy you have for a restore left on the disk. For mission critical files (family business) I copy a set to my laptop 1/week.
I really should ghost her machine if I need to rebuild after a crash.
1) The name was a Magic the Gathering in joke, inside baseball references do not meet the goal of one stop gamer social networking.
2) The neon puke green color scheme was barftastick...
3) Failed to deliver a functional, easy to use blog app. Its really a bad sign when your own employees were mirroring their Gleemax content on their personal blogs. What really blows my mind they could have purchased a blog program off the shelf that would have been working from day one, ugh.
4) Over promised, under delivered.
5) Unrealistic deadlines.
6) Database problems. They have been combining multiple databases with mixed results.
7) Brain dead support for the site. I used the combine accounts feature and it killed both of my accounts. When I asked what was going on and please fix it, I was told it was a know issue and to create a brand new account. When I countered that they should disable the feature they told me that would be a good idea. The feature still exists to chew up other peoples accounts.
8) DDI is behind schedule and needs the bodies being sucked up in the Gleemax sea of failure.
Good Luck WotC... you are going to need it to deliver digital content.
Good to have them back. Looking forward to using them again.
Um, no they didn't just do evil.
I suspect that you have not taken Micro and Macro Economics courses (something I think every voter should be required to do) because you would see just how painfully uninformed your opinion is.
Had Google not bid up the price, Verizon, or some other company, would have potentially won with a bid under the reserve price. If that had happened then the winner would not have to open this new spectrum to open source handsets and headsets.
Not only would Verizon own the whole C Block, but they could bar anyone else from brining competing hardware and software as well. That would have meant higher prices, less available goods & services, and less incentive to innovate & maintain quality.
Market forces (i.e. other carriers on other bands of the spectrum) will cap the amount of money Verizon can charge for their service. The regulatory rules imposed by the government will force them to allow competition for hardware and software connecting to said service, spurring innovation and keeping prices lower.
In all, I am super happy with Google's actions. I want choices on the kind of hardware and software I use on their network.
Right now I have a Verizon phone with all sorts of bells and whistles (camera, internet access, etc.) that I don't use because everything is proprietary and if I want to use them I get dinged on high incremental pricing. For example, if I want to use the camera on my phone and download the photos to my computer I have to send the photos through their network, I cannot directly connect my phone to do it. If I use their network to download I either pay a premium for it or I have to change my service plan and take a 2 year extension on my contract. I have no choice otherwise. Well, I can choose to not use my camera.
Competition (hopefully) will force Verizon to provide competitive services so I will buy their hardware and software as opposed to someone else's products. I will have choice within the Verizon network. A side effect of this competition will be innovation, which in turn will force other carriers to get off the dime with their services or risk people deffecting to Verizons new network because there will be more choice.
In my opinion, Google just did me a solid. They will benefit from this as well, as they are positioning themselve to be a software provider on this newly and more open telco spectrum. I hardly see this as evil.
Welcome to the world of a mixed economy,
Saracenus
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.
But us not forget the movie Total Recall, they are ripping that off too...
Saracenus runs for cover...
Ryan Dancey, the father of the OGL/D20 license has some interesting thoughts on the direction where tabletop gaming should be heading vs. computer hack and slash games like WoW. His arguments are far more cogent than I can do justice, so here is the link to his blog and his 5 part series (with a 6th installment about segmentation is the role-playing player base...
g /Archive.html
http://web.mac.com/rsdancey/iWeb/RSDanceyBlog/Blo
Ryan hasn't worked for WotC for years and this was written before the 4e announcement on Thursday. It does not reflect where WotC is headed directly but may give you some insight why they are moving to a new edition right now...
Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus
While it is true you cannot copyright game mechanics, you can trademark terminology (DM for example) and if written correctly you an interweave your IP (Greyhawk, the iconic characters, etc.) into the examples of the rules thus making it difficult for people to disentangle them. Add into the mix the hungry sharks that is the Hasbro legal department (the parent company of WotC) not may people are willing to put up the money it would take to win the inevitable lawsuit.
Lets face it, if you are small company trying to make it on the thin margins of the table top gaming industry you don't want to spend your profits and then some tied up in court. Better to make your own system or use the terms of the OGL.
The System Reference Document has all the WotC IP taken out of it and has cleared their legal department. Using this document as springboard you can create your own IP (a game world for example) and add or changes the rules at your leisure. There is a mechanism in the OGL/D20 license to use other OGL/D20 materials in your own, but not the closed materials from WotC.
So, while you are technically correct, in the real world it is not so cut and dried.
Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus
I am surprise someone from this list hasn't talked about the possible forking between the 3.0/3.5 Open Gaming License (OLG) and the proposed new 4e OGL. Unlike a new version of Linux, the new D&D rules do not have to be under the old OGL, they are in effect a completely new operating system for D&D. It has been confirmed there will be a version of the OGL/D20 license, but with some added restrictions: 1) Professional game companies will need to pay a license. 2) Fan/Non-Pro offerings will have to be through their site www.gleemax.com (unconfirmed). Here is a list of known stuff about the new edition on the ENWorld forums: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204119 Gleemax.com has stirred some controversy already because of the Terms of Service. The most blatant is that anything you post their grants Wizard's of the Coast limited rights to republish your material and limits your ability to publish anything that uses their IP, e.g. Greyhawk, Planscape, Forgotten Realms, etc. So, what does this all mean? Well, if the use restrictions on the 4e OGL/D20 license are, well too restrictive (and kinda takes the O out of OGL) that will mean a fork in the D&D development path. Some publishers will want the latest and greatest and put up with it, others will not and use the 3e OGL which has no licensing fees and cannot be terminated. There are already some development forks in 3e, Green Ronin's True 20 and Mutants and Masterminds rules, Iron Heroes and Arcana Evolved from Malhavoc Press (Monte Cooke) which take the core mechanics in new and different directions. Anyway, my two coppers on the subject, Saracenus