gamegrene.com

I'm not buying any more books.

I'll admit, I'm intrigued by some of the proposed changes, but I still haven't gotten my money's worth out of the 3.0 -> 3.5 debacle. They suckered me on buying the PHB twice, but not again.

I think I'll trying to get a group into Castles & Crusades. It's the goodness of the streamlines combat resolution in 3.x without all the extra Feats, Skills, and BS-unbalanced "specialist" classes, just like the old Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

Sometimes D&D (or C&C) just needs to be about a Fighter, Cleric, Thief and Mage heading out on an adventure together.

I don't want D&D classes with super-powers anymore. Time to kick it old school.

Some thoughts on this from the Gherkin perspective:

First - no big surprise. Wizards are doing what seems only natural to them from a business perspective.

Are they wrong to want to bring out a 4th edition? In principle, not at all. 3.5e isn't perfect by any means, and there is certainly room for improvement. It has its broken bits, like all its predecessors, though to be fair, there are fewer system flaws. Most of the problems with 3/3.5e are in some of the character classes to be found in the non-core supplements (check out the Warshaper in Complete Adventurer if you don't believe me), and these can easily be fixed or excluded. And the broken classes do seem to be very much in the minority, to my eye. Ones that slipped past the game balance police.

The comments about wanting to make turns run more smoothly are fair ones. The problem 3/3.5e tends to suffer from is the double-edged sword of having a fairly detailed, wargame-like, position-critical combat system. This tends to lead certain players into try to 'game the system' to squeeze every last possible drop of advantage from their character's actions rather than just decide their character's actions based on what seems intuitively natural. This can slow things down. (The suggestion that these players can simply be excluded is a naiive one when you're talking about people you've known for 20+ years).

So, something that addresses these issues might be welcome.

What won't be welcome is changes to the rules that make all my existing supplements obsolete. The fact that a 4th edition Monster Manual and 4th edition player handbook supplements are planned doesn't bode well.

What also won't be welcome are attempts to pander to the 'youth market' by trying to make the setting 'cooler'. For 'cooler' read 'more childish, cartoonish'. Now it's tempting to put this kind of sentiment down to grumpy-old-man syndrome, but I happen to think RPGs should be challenging pastimes that kids aspire to play and that give them an alternative set of cultural references to the heavily marketed clichés that fill their world.

Of course, what I want and what Wizards want are different things. Their evident liking for the material in the Book of Nine Swords indicates the way they see things going - spells for fighters to make them 'cooler'. (The BoNS actually contains a bunch of character classes that I looked at and found to be unbalanced in the context of the other 3/3.5e classes, and I decided that, were I to introduce them, I'd need to tone them down a little, but that's by-the-by).

Will 4th edition fly off the shelves? I don't believe so. Truth is that I believe 3/3.5e has sold primarily to greying gamers like myself. If 4th edition bends over to the shallow popular youth market in an unseemly fashion it won't appeal to the biggest pen'n'paper gaming demographic, i.e. Boomers and Generation X. Who are also the biggest young-gamer-coaching demographic as well.

I definitely won't be buying into 4th edition big-time. I've invested too heavily in 3/3.5e material already. The present edition has largely fixed the problems 1/2e had with higher-level play, which is why I bothered at all with the painful migration from those older systems.

So Wizards think I should throw my campaign away and start over? Sorry, but I value my campaign far more highly than a mere rules iteration. What remains to be fixed with 3/3.5e can be fixed in-house without major effort. I don't need another edition. I'll be interested to see what their new ideas are with respect to speeding up combat turns. The on-line playing environment looks interesting, and is probably the biggest hook for the new edition, but if it doesn't work for 3/3.5e I won't use it, and furthermore I predict that similar open-source facilities will be developed for 3/3.5e by the fanbase of that edition (if they haven't already).

So, did I say all this about 3rd edition before it came out? No, actually. At the time I was running a 1e campaign with fairly low level characters, and 1e works OK for that. I didn't say 'Oh, I bet 3e will be a load of rubbish'. I said 'I don't see the necessity for us to use 3e'. At the time, I didn't even think that campaign would last anyhow - it was started as a lark-about game.

As time wore on, the campaign started to take on more of a life of its own and it became evident that it was going to be a keeper. I started to see problems with higher-level 1e play that 3e would resolve, so we made the jump. I can't really see that we will run into similar difficulties in the foreseeable future. (Then again, that's why they call it the 'foreseeable' future, I suppose).

I won't say 'never', but at this point my feeling is that it will be a good while before Wizards persuade me to part with money for 4th edition, if at all. Maybe the online thing will hook me in after all. We'll see. (3d character modelling engines will only impress me if they are uber-flexible and uber-lifelike - I mean WAY better than what you see in World of Warcraft.)

As a final note, when they decided to end Paizo's license to produce 'Dragon' magazine a few months back, I made the prediction that Wizards would discontinue the OGL with any future iteration of the game. I note that they haven't mentioned the OGL in this article at all. I suspect this is the death knell for OGL and d20 licensing - I predict they will try to keep 4th edition entirely in-house.

They could go all the way with the classes reinventing and license material from Monte's Arcana Evolved. I mean, I never liked the idea that the Paladin was a completely good, perfect being. I like the concept of the Oathsworn more, it allows room for character defects, obsession and general depth.

Similar no-backward-compatibility approaches have worked for Microsoft with Windows and XBox, so it is hard to blame the Wizos for following along. But I'm disappointed they didn't try something more original.

The answer is Yes. And, apparently, FR is replacing GH as the core setting. Also, it appears that the D&D Game Table application (online roleplaying) will be Windows only at launch. Of course!

I agree that the core 3rd ed rules do carry a GH implied setting. But the odd thing is that beyond being implied, it isn't really supported (to my knowledge) to anything like the extent of support for, say FR or Eberron.

Certainly, they've re-developed some of the classic Greyhawk adventures (eg Castle Greyhawk, Temple of Elemental Evil and Demonweb Pits), and Deities and Demigods details the Greyhawk pantheon. But there seems to be a dearth of sourcebooks for 3rd ed GH. By contrast there are zillions of sourcebooks and supplements for FR and Eberron.

(I noticed this, of course, as I am running a GH campaign myself!)

I guess with an online gaming table the RP is down to the players, just as it is with a conventional one. Rules facilitate character development, which is fuel for the RP fire but it needs the oxygen of the player's imaginative input to keep it burning.

If players are all chatting on headsets, either using the gaming table software or skype, will this somehow kill the fragile magic of having a get-together around a physical table?

I think small, close-knit groups help with RP because players feel less self-conscious than in an MMO environment and this lets them get into their character in more depth without feeling silly. The online gaming table might tend to encourage more player traffic between adventuring groups, which is not a bad thing in some ways, but may lead to groups losing the 'cosy' feeling that real-world gaming enforces.

At a real-world (I hate the phrase as online is real-world too, but I can't think of a better description right now) gaming table, players are forced to cooperate and play together as a team because good gaming groups are hard to come by. It encourages people to be less selfish and immature. Conversely, in an online environment, where you can easily leave one group and go find another, there is less incentive to grow the heck up. Perhaps. Only a viewpoint.

Returning to topic - anyone want to bet on a name change?

I can't help noticing this comment from a reviewer's pad on the Secrets of D&D seminar, held Friday at GenCon:

Alignment will not be as it is now. Andy Collins doesn't want it as a mechancial element, Bill backs him, so Andy's getting his way.

Mwah. Mwaha. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Oh, sorry.

Many things about 4ed sound great in a vacuum: toning down the role of magic items; using a setting where civilization is surrounded by wilderness (been reading Cthulhu Dark Ages, have we, or did someone actually pop into a library?); diminishing the importance of prestige classes; and so on.

However, my esteemed colleague lurkinggherkin points out the serious flaw in the marketing here - we've been spending an awful lot of money on D&D rulebooks. How many of us will keep forking over our hard-earned dollars, euros, and krugerrands for more?

I've been trying to get away from D&D for years now. 3d Ed lured me back in, and Eberron, I confess, lured me back yet again. Despite the relative excellence of these systems and settings, I am now more determined than ever to step away from d20 for good.

DWHoward, with whom I've never had the privilege of debating "in person" (i.e., on Gamegrene), posted a remark in these forums some years ago about "defining a fantasy world from first principles." I am picking up the gauntlet. Don't get me wrong -- Tolkien, Norse Myth, and our other Fantasy-genre standbys have permanent addresses in my heart -- but I think it's time more of us greybeards* gave serious consideration to that which we've taken for granted for far too long. My current project is an attempt to re-define what Fantasy means to me; I think the time is right, and I encourage others to do the same.

Finally, I would like to put in a plug for my system of choice, now in a stable fourth edition (all of you posting here, I believe, know what it is)...as well as giving a Texas-volume shout out to the revolutionary ideas being tested by our own Gilgamesh. Live free or die, my friends.

*gherkin, you wound me, sir: "Mr. [Gherkin], dear Mr. [Gherkin] / I'm only thirty-six, I still have my virility / And I can romp through Cupid's grove with great agility / But life is more than sexual combustibility"

The more I read of 4th ed. the less I like it, not that I can think of how else they could have crawled out of the 3.0 to 3.5 to Minis vector. The Windows-only offering was a real kick to the crotch though.

I'd love to contribute to a real alternative ... but after I get some schedule relief. I haven't even posted to 60BWC yet. *sigh*

Much of the direction I've been going in the last few years with the campaigns I've run in my campaign setting has been inspired by real life events. What we do today will be the myth of the future, so I've hinged some plot lines etc. on that theory.

I've alway sort of "got my hate on" when it comes to elves and orcs and all that goes along with it. My setting started out in that vein, but that was almost 20 years ago. I've pushed forward in the settings timeline in order to start running more "human" campaigns. Not just in a race sense, but in a philosophical/sociological sense. Gone are the days of castles and dungeons...replacing them instead are interactions and relationships that influence and drive forward the settings collective mythos.

Wow...physical boundaries are a bitch. I suddenly have the urge to knock off work early and share pints and ideas at the pub with the rest of Gamegrene.

(on an only semi-related note...who stumbled across Alpha Omega while watching the videos on www.ethanhaaswasright.com back when we all thought it had to do with Cloverfield? Talk about reinventing the wheel...we'll have to read it to know for sure, but it seems that we're not the only ones that are tired of getting jam in our peanut butter and so have opted for a totally different sandwich all together)

Hey zip! There ain't nuthin like a new edition to get the old timers to come out and take a stand, eh? LOL.

I respect where you're coming from on your rebuttals. You make good points, as always. As for your last notes at the bottom...all good things in my mind. Just not enough to reinvest in all the same stuff over again. I guess I'm just more interested to see what others are doing outside the WotC/WoD ghetto these days.

I did read in one article or interview where Slaviseck came right out and said that the new edition just wouldn't be compatible enough (due to race and class overhauls) to bother converting your old campaign to the new rules...and that his advice was to just start a new one. It's this disposable attitude that makes me cringe from these guys these days. With each edition they move more and more away from what we (or at least *I*) think of as a "campaign". I've crossed my current world and campaigns through four different rules systems (only 2 of them being editions of D&D) and it has never once occured to me to "just start over".

What it comes down to, I suppose, is that this product simply isn't being marketed to *me*. There's a whole different demographic of gamer out there that wants this or they wouldn't be doing it. One could go so far as to say that they probably don't *want* me buying it if I'm happy with what I already have. To some extent I guess this makes me a cranky old man that feels shafted by something that's been a part of his life forever. Looking at it from a different perspective though; I (and others like me) must sound like the ranchers did when the settlers started putting up fences, or like those same ranchers when the first horseless carriage boomed and clanked and steamed past them on the road in town.

Come to think of it, all my analogies point to me being a conservative old crank. Cool! Mission accomplished! My grandpa would be proud if he could see this...he said it would happen one day, that I'd turn out just like him.

Now...who's up for that pint? I got the horses hitched and ready.

Heya, zip!

I am trying - very slowly - to learn Hebrew, but it's not so easy for a middle-aged gentile (the right-to-left thing in particular is kicking my butt). When I master enough Hebrew to recognize more than the three or four words I've learned from squinting at ancient texts, I will be happy to give your podcast a listen. To be sure, I could stand to learn a thing or two.

As for being right, well, I'd rather be happy. Some of my friends think I am in love with my own opinion... *sob* so misunderstood...

More seriously, I am happy to see a thing that will cut down on the disputes (I hope). Every time I went after alignment, some people seemed to think I was attacking D&D. That was depressing. The Eberron setting's take on the matter encouraged me greatly (as a player; I've stopped GMing d20 for many months now). I still think Eberron is a thumping good setting, and I notice that several of my geezer friends are extremely excited about 4ed. I can see why; on the other hand, this is Gamegrene, and we (as a general rule) are sick of the typical. I wish WotC/Hasbro well, but in some ways it seems as though these designers are just starting to catch up with the old-timers.

Good luck with the Hebrew, man.
עברית שפה קשה

Can you read that (assuming you have Hebrew fonts)?

As you know (I think you do, anyway), I also really like Eberron. Maybe I'll get back to GMing there some day...although I fear what a move to 4th Ed. will cause to all the premade stuff I've got.

Have the font, can't read it...yet. I will wail for help if I get stuck.

As usual I am late to the party, but what the heck . . .

I find the idea of 4E vaguely interesting. But I am not invested in 3.x, my last experience was with AD&D 1e in the early to mid nineties.

But as Cocytus pointd out, physical boundaries are a b!tch. My 4+ yr old TFT game has only met about 20 times, because half the players travel 4 hrs to get there. So the virtual tabletop idea sort of appeals to me - especially if I can use the maps and minis and roll 3d6 with the die roller, then I'll gladly pay up to run my TFT game online, if WOTC makes it work well. And if my old DM wants to run a game of 4E online, I may just have to learn the new system enough to play. I do not see me being willing to learn a new (likely large) ruleset well enough to run a game. Too time consuming for a tired old man like me.

On the topic of new myths, in particular Firefly, I got a copy of "Serenity" as a bribe from a buddy to run a game. The rules are lite enough that I think I've picked them up enough to give it a go - so within the next month the subset of our group who are local will experiment with new rules, and try exploring a new mythology- the firefly verse.

Finally, once that horse-drawn teleporter is up and running, count me in for a pint or two with the greatly gregarious gang gamegreen.

I think alot of that impression comes from interview statements that they want to "raise the cool factor" or some such thing. Likely most of it is based on assumption. I'm sure 4e won't be awful...the question each individual purchaser has to ask themselves (as was the case with 3.5e) is "do *I NEED* this new rules expansion/revision?"

My answer is unequivocably "no".

Well, I'm late, but I can't help but say something, being all opinionated and loud like I am.

First: my thoughts on 3.5. I'm actually pretty new at this (I've been gaming for about 4-5 years, now), so I guess I can bring something of a fresh perspective. I'll agree that a big part of 3.5 was the marketing of the minis. I've recently finished downloading all the 3rd ed dragon mag issues and have been mining through them to delete all the adds and possibly organize them so that they're usable. When 3.5 came out, I can't tell you how many times I deleted mini adds for their line, with a big picture of the minis, and the subscript (in deep red) "Easier." It seems easy to see that Wizards is about business, with gaming as a close second. I wouldn't blame this on WotC, though. We all know Hasbro serves the devil (I collect toys, and I like toys that move, and Hasbro toys don't move; therefore, they suck), so that probably explains a lot of the crap that comes out. Wizards is under a tremendous amount of pressure from Hasbro because out of all their branches, they bring in the least money. Perhaps if we bombed Hasbro we could save wizards and they'd join us in our quest.

Back to the point. I actually really like the minis, because I just can't spend money on the really nice ones and paint them. I devote so much time to my characters and campaigns that it's ridiculous enough as it is. If I were to paint minis...there would be nothing left. I agree with zip that the randomness sucks, though. I really hate the minis game and what's it's done to getting cool minis by choice. Arrgh! I just want that ONE mini because it looks like my character, but nooo, I have to shell out 15 bucks for a small hunk of plastic because it's "rare". *series of cusswords edited for those who don't want to read them* On that note, does anyone know of a website that makes plastic minis like these that you can custom order, like by sending in your characters description. That'd be so cool!

Now, the rules. I actually like 3.5 rules much more than 3. They cleaned up the ranger, who is possible the coolest class there, as well as the paladin and a few other things. They basically took the good stuff from 3 and added to it, while getting rid of most of the crap. I say most of because the Sorcerer still sucks, as does the wizard and the cleric (what the heck is up with those stupid rules for getting new spells in your spellbook - 100 g for one stupid page! oh, yes, we need a special quill, which apparently breaks after every page because wizards don't know how to hold it right!). And the magic system is really stupid. But it's an improvement, and I like most of the supplements, so I won't whine about what I don't like too loudly.

Now, here comes 4th edition. When I first heard about it, I reacted like most of you have. Something kinda like delirium and tremors with a dash of faintness. But I've heard more about it, and now I have a middle position. Perks - no alignment! Yay! Cocytus, will you dance with me on the grave of stupid rules? The magic system's getting revamped, too. That had to be the most idiotic system I've ever seen (keep in mind I haven't seen incredibly much). Slots, when you can cast spells because of internal power? Tell me where this makes sense? Also, monsters are getting more character - they will no longer be a collection of stats. Goblins will be sneaky bastards, gnolls pack animals, and orcs crazy berserkers. That I really like - adds flavor to each encounter and lessens the GM burden somewhat. Also, character and campaign creation (as far as rules) will be faster. Can't tell you how many DMs are crying tears of joy at that news.

Cons-certain favorities are gone forever. No gnomes, no sorcerers. I love sorcerers! Gnomes are pretty cool, too, but sorcerers! Isn't that, like, one of the main themes of fantasy, the idea of magic in the blood? Or have I just read the wrong books? But the biggest con is this - anime. I actually have a pdf of the Book of Nine Swords, but have yet to touch it out of fear of disappointment (not to mention there's a lot cooler stuff to look at first). However, we've all heard it. The idea behind it is to make things more like anime. Well, when it comes to anime, there's 3 groups - those who love and swear by it, those who get the torches and pitchforks at its very mention, and those who bear through all the silliness and ridiculousness to get at the gem that's in a few of the shows (this can only be done in small doses - to do more will damage your psyche forever). I personally am dreading anime style combat. The whole thing about anime is that the combat doesn't make sense. Characters that can't fly can just jump so high that they'll still bring down the giant bad guy (which doesn't make sense by itself). Only a few animes, like Rurouni Kenshin and Gundam Wing, have even attempted at realism in the realm of combat, but even they can't resist the inexorable push toward it at times.

Basically, my gripe here comes down to this: When I roleplay, it's not to make myself king of all creation. It's to explore interesting ideas, problems, issues, etc., through a relatively safe venue, that we all know will have no untoward negative consequences (excepting in a few cases, such as rape, which I will never do). I make characters not to be gods, but to be human, to have human problems, and to tell a story. Anime style gaming tells the story, but the human part is all too easy to miss. I'm afraid if we all play super heroes, we'll all be Supermans, without a single Batman. Anotherwords, we'll get all the cool stuff with lame drawbacks like being weak to a green rock. There will be no humanity, no complex and tense exploration of the themes of justice and mercy, and peace and violence. There will be no CHARACTER, the most important thing in any story. And there will be no tense situations, because, after all, nothing can kill me but a green rock.

That's my worry.

Well said, Lorthyne. You've got some strong points, and are far more knowledgable concerning the subject than I am. I especially liked what you said last. Heck, if I hate 4th, I can just play 3.5 until I get sick of dnd. I'm just a little worried, that's all. Even though it's not my favorite game, it was my first, so I got the nostalgia and all, you know. I wanna see it succeed. Of course, my definition of a success and someone else's are entirely different so...we'll see what happens.

I'd actually forgotten to mention a pro in my last post, and that concerns one of my big pet peeves in 3.5. It seems in 3.5 at higher levels at least, that all the cool stuff you can do comes because you found a magic staff, a magic sword, or some other magic item. I hate this! I've always wanted the PCs to be able to do cool stuff because they could, not because of some item they found. To explain, I'll revert to the coolest superhero of all - Batman. I know this seems a strange position to take, but bear with me. Batman's a frigging genius. Yeah, he's got all kinds of gadgets, which is cool, but he made everyone of those. Also, his gadgets won't solve the crime for him. They just can't. When it comes down to it, each and everyone of them can and will fail at some point. They just can't replace good detective work and forensic brilliance. They help a lot, but they don't replace. That's the thing about dnd. The magic items get so ridiculous to the point that they just replace instead of helping. I really, really, really hate that. A character should succeed because he's got skills, not because he has a magic item. So, apparently, 4th will be much more about skills, which makes me happy.

As for the sorcerer, well, we'll see. I just love the concept, and now I'm feeling it die. Just pisses me off, you know?

Ok, about anime. There's a big difference between Eastern and anime. I generally like good anime. I love eastern culture. There's a huge difference between the two. For one thing, a lot of anime tries to represent western culture and people. Also, a lot of it is for kids. Every anime has a very specific group that they're being marketed to. So which group is the dnd anime going to? Are we gonna get Fruits Basket (the name says it all), or maybe Rurouni Kenshin? Or perhaps angsty Gundam Wing? Or maybe we'll get Naruto, cute and sometimes interesting but ultimately annoying and stupid? So what's it gonna be? Is it gonna be eastern or anime, because there's a huge difference, just like you can't use Hollywood to tell everything about American culture (not all of us are homicidal sex addicts). So I'm curious about the vagueness here. I understand trying to integrate different stuff here, but how much before it loses what it started with? That's my worry. How much anime? How much eastern? What's changing here? Besides, we've already seen attempts to easternize (forgive the word) dnd, and some have worked but others really sucked. I liked Oriental Adventures, but the Samurai class in complete warrior sucks balls. Not to mention, it completely ignores thousands of years of japanese history that says most samurai only fought with one sword. And that brings up another concern - here's a bunch of western guys trying to bring in eastern culture. Some attempts have worked, according to my western eyes, but others really, really sucked. Which will it be this time?

So, I'm curious, but not yet optimistic.