|
Post by ayslyn on Apr 5, 2012 5:02:48 GMT -8
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2012 5:46:26 GMT -8
I'd love to go to PaxEast, but it's in Boston and I have a strict rule of being no closer to my ex-wife than a 3 hour drive!!!
IF I were any closer and her new house burned to the ground I might have trouble coming up with an aliby!
|
|
|
Post by ayslyn on Apr 6, 2012 10:21:55 GMT -8
|
|
|
Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 6, 2012 13:03:44 GMT -8
So, essentially, it's 3rd edition with a new name and bundled or kit options. Sounds to me like "Chris" the "casual" is not going to enjoy the railroad job if he intends to actually play more than angry birds at the tabletop.
And "Laura".... character generation to actual role-playing is like masterbation to sex. It may feel the same or result in orgasm (as in player story) but the two should not be confused. If this hypothetical Laura's idea of RPG stops at character generation and an internal creative process rather than a shared fantasy, if it ia about tabletop monologue rather than player interaction for definition then she should write some fan fiction.
I see nothing in any thing I have read so far from Mearls & co, to suggest this will be OSR friendly or, even compatible.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2012 19:31:01 GMT -8
I have similar concerns....
I loved Moldvay Basic and the seperation of class and race in AD&D was a good change.
4e has it's moments, but it's too close to being WoW on paper...
I just can't see how I can have someone running a generic fighter with little to no customization at the same table as someone with a super tweaked out power slinging time sink that is essentially a high level multi-classed min/max'd power gamer in sheeps clothing! <- I'm sure there should be some commas in there somewhere...
How can I put out baseline monsters that "Chris" will be able to handle with some effort and "Laura" will demolish? Or do I drop tweaked monsters that will pummle the crap out of "Chris", but are more on par with "Laura"??
How do I balance the fun for both players? Do I keep tweakers on the right and baselines on the left and put a a fence down the middle?
|
|
|
Post by ayslyn on Apr 6, 2012 19:46:35 GMT -8
Wow... those are some massive, not to mention baseless, assumptions you two are throwing out there,
|
|
|
Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 6, 2012 23:17:17 GMT -8
Wow... those are some massive, not to mention baseless, assumptions you two are throwing out there, Well, in my humble opinion, the massive-ness will be in creating a game a player like me (6D6 stat, choose a class, equip weapon, torch, rope, pole and PLAY!) can play alongside a person who writes marvelous stories for their 1st level PC backstory but whose only interaction at the table requires a DC to play and a published setting. IMO, the other person wants the fan fiction website not the tabletop. That attitude may make me a douche but what I see based upon what I read and I have experienced boils down into my interpretation, which is far from baseless or unfounded. While I am glad you have your own strong opinions on our hobby, please don't be yelling me down. I think the massive assumption rests firmly with WotC & co. This corporate Sauron, after a practice of brand extension that has led to cannibalism called "edition wars," now assumes to make One Game To Rule Them All when the game I play and the game (now I assume) you play are not the same. Nothing wrong (for you) to play your D&D or (for me) to play my AD&D but, as evidenced by a lack of a shared gaming language, we're not playing the same game. From all what I have read so far from Mearles, Cook & co: WotC's 5e is meant to attack Pathfinder's market. Pathfinder is not AD&D however pretty to think so. AD&D is Dungeons and Dragons – for me.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2012 9:41:35 GMT -8
Yeah, what HE said!!! :-)
I think we all understand that every thing is pure speculation for everyone except the rare few who have signed non-disclosure agreements and actually seen and maybe play-tested the new system.
What I am reading on the D&D Next community at WOtC (which I try to limit to the designers blogs and polls) SOUNDS great, but seems impractical to impossible to play at the table. I'm trying to be realistic in my hopes and expectations and I have serious concerns on how I will be able to run games for my players.
They SAY it's going to work fines, but how do you balance an AD&D fighter next to a 3e or 4e fighter in a combat? An AD&D fighter at first level with a longsword did maybe d10 or d12 damage with maybe a +3 if his Str was an 18, a 4e fighter at first level could be doing 2d10 with a longsword with like a +5 depending on bonuses... My numbers might be a little off, I don't have my books out right now... That same AD&D fighter at 3rd level is still doing d10+3 while the 4e fighter is doing a solid 2d10+5 and auto wounding adjacent enemies and the potential of minor action attacks and has 5 times the base hit points with that many HP again in healing surges...
I have to wonder how that will balance at the table.
The way it sounds as of the most recent posts, the guy that wants a straight forward AD&D fighter is really just getting railroaded into a lack of backstory in comparison to the guy who wants a 4e style fighter who is being given an encyclopedia of backstory that will make zero sense for a first level character..
Try to look at it like this: - AD&D first level characters are the proverbial farm boys on their first adventures - 4e first level characters are practically equivalent to 5th level AD&D characetrs, guys that have spent a year or so out fightng and learning to make more potent attacks and defend themselves
With the new system of backgrounds and themes the player can choose the prepackaged generic fighter (which should be a farm boy on his first adventure) or the player can choose various backgrounds and themes to justify a collection of skills, abilities and powers that really don't make sense for a first level character. - In my OPINION.
From the D&D site: Our current plan is to condense skill and feat choices into two choices: background and theme. Background tells you where you came from, who you were, and what you are trained to do. Your background gives you a set of skills, specific tasks, areas of knowledge, or assets a character of that background ought to have. The thief background gives you Pick Pockets, Stealth, Streetwise, and Thieves’ Cant. The soldier background gives you Endurance, Intimidate, Survival, and an extra language. We want your abilities to carry the weight of basic task resolution, so these skills improve your chances when you perform tasks related to them or just let you do something, such as cook a meal, speak Goblin, or run for twice as long as the next person. Where background speaks to the skills you possess, your theme describes how you do the things you do. All fighters, for example, kick ass in combat because they are fighters. A sharpshooter fighter is awesome with ranged weapons while a slayer fighter dominates in hand-to-hand combat. Your theme helps you realize a certain style, technique, or flavor through the feats it offers. Each theme gives you several feats, starting with the first one right out of the gate. As you gain levels, your theme gives you additional feats that reflect the theme’s overall character.
<snippage>Rather than being a human fighter with Intimidate and Power Attack, I’m playing a human fighter who’s a soldier (background) that slays monsters (Slayer theme). Or I could be a thief (thief) who strikes from hidden positions (lurker theme). Or, I might be a mystical warrior who came from a wealthy family and can detect magic at will and might even one day get a familiar (without ever having to leave the fighter class).
My OPINION: No FIRST LEVEL character should be "kick ass" at ANYTHING!! They have zero life experience, they've done NOTHING, they are in way over their heads and could die at any moment... If a PC has learned enough to be "kick ass" in smething they must have spent years honing those skills and shouldn't be considered first level.
A "soldier background" sounds to me like several years of military services, which sounds to me like a TRAINED warrior, NOT a first level fighter. Modern basic training might not make you "kick ass", but it gives you several steps up from the regular man on the street who has no formal training and that goes back to the point that FIRST level characters shouldn't be "kick ass" at ANYTHING.
On the other hand, I almost like how backgrounds and themes could be used to EXPLAIN skills. It can make sense that with X assortment of skills a character probably has "these" life experiences... But I have to wonder how applicable any of this really is for first level characters, it sounds far more applicable to fleshing out the creation of higher level characters - "want to make a 5th level fighter, use backgrounds and themes..."
Like I started out with - this is all speculation until the beta is made public!! And then it's honestly too late! They might make minor tweaks based on play test comments, but once they are at "beta" most of the system is written in stone - they aren't going to rewrite and delay the release another year.
Personally, I LIKE they way they are presenting things and polling people's opinions.
|
|
|
Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 9, 2012 13:45:19 GMT -8
www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd%2F4ll%2F20120409"Let's say you're playing in a strictly by-the-book D&D campaign. You play for two hours each week. How long should it take to reach level 10?" TIME......VOTES ..... PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL... Hours of Play/level 4 to 6 months........ 1038 ...... 25.5% ......... 32 - 48 (3-5 hrs avg) 10 to 12 months...... 1132 ......27.8% ......... 80 - 104 (8-10 hrs) WoW. I mean WoW. " Game DesignThe new system must create a mechanical and mathematical framework that the play experience of all editions of D&D can rest within." Not Gonna happen.
|
|
|
Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 16, 2012 7:24:50 GMT -8
I only got to this today because of my crap Internet with its use limitations. I turned this off at 11:22 The young guy with the analyst's glasses given to either hyperboyle (3:34 - I played all iterations of D&D "when they came out...." ) or disappointingly demeaning sarcasm towards those of us who did actually play this game, when it came out in the days of RPG purity/naivety, omits the importance of the players interaction (7:15 - "In … 1st edition all of the customization was pretty much embedded in your class or in your magic items.") Or am I wrong and is this customization today? www.dressupgirl.net/dressup/3483/Teacher-Dress-Up.htmlActually, in my games customization happened as a result of role-playing with emphasis on alignment (values, attitudes and roles I wanted to adopt) and imagination (I charge the orc, throwing all my weight at him..). The very idea of quarrelling with a RAW DM about a missing feat did not exist when I could do what I imagined. It does say imagination and limited choices almost in the same breath. I got news for you, /kid/, we need less and less options if we're talking about a game using imagination. (Players will get better from playing with a group of their friends not from reading how-to rule books.) But I only speak for those who share my opinion, and I accept that mine is only one voice of the teeming millions - being that is part of the problem with this game is its lack of a shared fantasy. This problem did not exist when the game came out "yuk-yuk-yuk." [And this lack of relevance from my D&D to your AD&D gets glossed over in the first 11:22 of this 60 minutes circle jerk. Yes, kid, Mike Approves of you so stop looking at him. It creeps me out.] Mike Mearls: "at its essence the game hasn't changed much in its 38 years." I was worried there for a minute. I thought 5e. The (new) Edition Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken it sounds was going to be a difficult job rather than an extended PR stunt.) But I could have turned the video off there (4:30) I guess. I gave it 7 more minutes out of accumulated goodwill. Am I too hard on on these guys? No. I think their words, when we give them the courtesy to listen to them, state the truth clearly. My analysis of communication and my feeling that words matter, when I was watching/listening to the first 11 minutes, is not only a by-product of my career but also a result of many an AD&D 1e game where vocabulary often DID matter. ALLOT. Like life & death matter. I intend to ignore further commercials for 5e/TnEWNSNBS. I will have to check out Dragonsfoot and other OSR hangouts to see if, indeed, I am the only person so affected by the PAX East news conference. One thing I think is a great shame. TnEWNSNBS lacks the moral fiber to develop/define its own market and, rather, wants to steal the video game market offering something different to them. TnEWNSNBS' promise is along the lines of taking the traditional male "pubescent" RPGer into an all girls convent populated by transvestites. Yes, it's certainly inclusive. No, it won't go over well. And without a WotC/Pathfinder focusing its marketing mu$cle on people who are not video gamers as potential first time players, perhaps because I am middle-aged, I feel the RPG hobby market will continue to stagnate down a slope not best described using the model train hobby but through a dearth of players who will ultimately discover that tabletop RPGs do not perform better that WoW on the computer; and transvestites are not school girls no matter what their "customization."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2012 7:53:02 GMT -8
I don't see a difference between background/theme and background/theme/feats. Is the idea that you have a default option for a starting character? If so, then all WotC needs to do is include a Rogues Gallery section with 20ish 1st level characters for people to choose from (or get inspiration from).
Am I missing something?
|
|
|
Post by ayslyn on Apr 16, 2012 9:54:26 GMT -8
I don't see a difference between background/theme and background/theme/feats. Is the idea that you have a default option for a starting character? If so, then all WotC needs to do is include a Rogues Gallery section with 20ish 1st level characters for people to choose from (or get inspiration from). Am I missing something? The idea would be that you have three tiers of customization to suit your personal tastes. You can take the default suggestion of a Background and a Theme (let's say Dalelands Pickpocket) and that should get you core functionality as a rogue. Some classic skills, some stock feats. You can pick your own Background and Theme (Calimshite Knife Fighter) and that gets you a different set of skills, possibly with different focuses, and a different batch of feats (again, with a different focus). Last, you can toss the Background and Theme all together and pick all your skills and feats to create something truly unique. Second Edition came out in 1989. It's entirely possible that he played 1st edition at its tail end, and kept playing from there. I suspect that he wasn't claiming to have been playing them all the day they were published. ^.^
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2012 10:48:19 GMT -8
I get the feeling that you don't like the more modern editions of DnD, I haven't played DnD 1e but even 2e had TONs of customization (I used to play a wizard with some cleric necromancy spells), not to sound like: "If ye don't like DnD, you can git out!" but DnD is all about customization and if 1st ed or its clones are the ideal systems for you, why would you care about 5e anyway? Obviously the system is not marketed towards you, since, from all the bile of your post, it is clear that it is not your cup of tea.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2012 16:30:04 GMT -8
I don't see a difference between background/theme and background/theme/feats. Is the idea that you have a default option for a starting character? If so, then all WotC needs to do is include a Rogues Gallery section with 20ish 1st level characters for people to choose from (or get inspiration from). Am I missing something? The idea would be that you have three tiers of customization to suit your personal tastes. You can take the default suggestion of a Background and a Theme (let's say Dalelands Pickpocket) and that should get you core functionality as a rogue. Some classic skills, some stock feats. You can pick your own Background and Theme (Calimshite Knife Fighter) and that gets you a different set of skills, possibly with different focuses, and a different batch of feats (again, with a different focus). Last, you can toss the Background and Theme all together and pick all your skills and feats to create something truly unique. I understand this. Currently in 4e, you have a Race, Class, Theme, and Background. I am playing a Dragonborn Warlord who grew up in the East Rift (Background) and spent time as an Explorer (Theme). I have a backstory, skill bonuses, feats, a class, and a race. The only difference I see between what 4e offers now and this 5e option is that the feats are pre-bundled on the characters. That is what we currently do with Race Abilities and Class Features. Is the point of 5e to simply reduce the choices available to a player or is there no real change and they are just re-skinning the books? WotC already dumbed DnD down a bit when it released Essentials. Is 5e just the next level of dumbening? -dls
|
|
|
Post by ayslyn on Apr 16, 2012 21:40:27 GMT -8
In 4e your background and theme do very different things than giving you skills and feats.
It's not about restricting choices, but catering to different desires for complexity. One guy just wants to roll 6 ability scores, pick a race and class, and go. Another wants to pick a few small options, and another wants to micromanage their entire character.
You can construct a system that can work with/for all three desires.
|
|