Everyone wants a different game, and so wizards should be working on a sidebar that explains what happens if you choose certain options. For instance: 1). No ressurection: pro: death is very serious - gives the opportunity for heroic sacrifices. Con: can make players feel a beloved character died before the story is complete. Best used: when creating characters is fast, and when shorter campaigns mean less time for complex stories. 2). Gold only, or temporary setbacks. Pro: players can choose when their characters story ends. Con: some people find death is too temporary, leading to reduced interest/engagement. 3) permanent drawbacks: pro: Keeps death a disincentive, increasing "edge of seat feeling". Con: Permanent drawbacks can feel like the player is being permanently punished for bad rolls or bad decisions previously. IMHO, permanent drawbacks seem the worst of all worlds - cheapening death compared To "no resurrection" and punishing players. But, as long as the dm who is makin the permanent drawback understands the players who like that kind of thing, I'm happy.
People's characters may die 50+ time in a session in World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft has over time lessened penalties on death. World of Warcraft has 8-10 million paid subscriptions which approximates $90,000,000+/month revenue from subscriptions. D&D may want to take notes. These forums and surveys are such a small, self-selected sample that I think it's counter productive to listen to 90% of them, if WotC wants to increase market share.
World of Warcraft is a VIDEO GAME. D&D is an RPG. They are very, very different types of games.
World of Warcraft is a MMORPG, and Dungeons and Dragons is a TTRPG. Both are RPGs.
Agreed. Each group should decide how each campaign will be -- death is final, death is fixable with a LOT of effort and expenditure, death is fixable, death is merely a speed bump in the campaign road. Wizads can provide dials for different options.
Each player will have opinions on how his characters are handled. I have one I'd rather see keep campaigning forever. I had another that (story wise) it made sense that she would decide "no more resurrections or raises -- if Sif wants me that badly, I'd better listen." and then she went out in a glorious battle with a demon a few months later. She's now becoming the focus of a "personality cult," much like veneration of a saint.
Unlike in computer and video games, each group is able to bend or change the rules to suit the world, the campaign, and the people around the table. It's not revenue-related; it's gameplay- and group preference-related.
There is one advantage in class design that it’s not mentioned very often. The short version is: being a Wizard actually means something. I will try to explain this. A class is formed by several parts: It has the mechanics, which is obvious. But it also has fluff, flavor, description and legacy. Basically there are the stories about characters of that class, the class’s identity and all of such. To better represent my opinion, I shall bring to the discussion another commercial franchise: Final Fantasy. In many FFs there exists the Job system, which is really just a class system. Many times the Final Fantasy’s games uses a system different from that, but usually it’s a system unique to the game, and even so references to the Job system exist, so the Job system wins as most common system used by FF. Thing is, many people recognize FF Jobs, from classical Jobs such as Black Mage, White Mage, Warrior, Ninja, Paladin, Dragoon to less iconic Jobs such as, I don’t know, Jobs that only appeared in one to three games. Thing is, with considered time, these Jobs have all sort of Fluff and Legacy with then. Many characters not only use one Job, but also marked the series. When people talk about the Black Mage, for instance, not only they will remember the concept itself, but they will also remember all the appearances made in Job based games (which, in that specific case, are many) and also many characters like Palom from FFIV or Vivi from FFIX or Lulu from FFX. Things is, these Jobs marked the series and being one of them actually has meaning, because this Jobs have strong identities attached to them. The problem with classless systems is that, they are classless. What is a Wizard in a classless system? This really matter? In a classless system, is there some meaning in being a Wizard? The problem with classless systems is that these identities are kinda of lost, because being a Wizard is not so important, because being a Wizard does not have any mechanical marks and basically in a classless system, there is no Wizard by default, this doesn’t have meaning in a practical way. With class bases D&D, however, that is different. Being a Wizard in D&D has meaning, an when people talk about Wizards in D&D they will not only remember the current version of the Wizard, they will also remember all versions of the Wizard, and all characters and NPCs that are Wizards, and now, they will also remember the mechanical difference and the flavor, identity difference between the Wizard and the other spellcasting classes. This is something really hard to put in words, there is my best shot.
Right now, I would make Vancian the standard magic system for most classes in D&D (including Wizard and Cleric). What people complained is the fact that the Wizard was Vancian-Only. If it was Vancian-Default, that would be different. I've long advocated supporting both the Points of Light setting and settings full of magic items. I had some thought on one spellcasting system. Spoiler:Show
It is basically composed of three parts: 1. The Standard System: The standard system would be classic Vancian. Wizard: classic Vancian, have to learn spells first, and then prepare them. All the 9 spells levels. Cleric: It would be Vancian, but with some differences, The Cleric would carry on the tradition of choosing spells directly from the class’s spell list, but it would have some old school disadvantages to compensate, such as 7 spell-levels for Clerics and Druids (and even less for Paladins and Rangers), and most divine’s spells would be about healing and support (the Druid and the Ranger can have more offensive spells), and, in general, they would have less spells, perhaps even having divine spells (Cleric, Druid, Paladin and Ranger) be worse than arcane spells, as I’ve told that it was like this in pre-3rd Edition. 2. The Flagships The Flagships are classes that represent one alternative magic system in the standard system. They, by default, are not Vancian, they use another system (with the possibility of using Vancian or other systems). Sorcerer: This Sorcerer would be a little different than the other casters. They would have the same spell list as the Wizard (a la 3.X) and they will use, by default, flexible spell-slots spellcasting (the current system. Very like 3.X Sorcerer, but with class benefits that make then different, a la 4th Edition. With regards to other classes, I would make Bards Vancian, but the Warlock is also a good candidate to some different spellcasting mechanics. Possibly the Witch (4e post-Essentials subclass) somewhere? 3. Modular Magic Systems And there would be a module that changes the way that the spellcasting works. This would be a module that has guidelines about altering the default spellcasting mechanics. The guidelines would consist of how the quantity of spells cast can be ported over, and from which spells they prepare, etc... Let’s give a proper example: The Wizard would be classic Vancian. Thing is, for alternative casting systems, the Wizard would have guidelines that would be something on these lines: “They always prepare spells from the list of know spells. In alternative spellcasting modules, he can prepare a number of spells equal to 1+ Wizard’s level, and the number of spells slots or equivalent is equal to the number of spells per level per day.” This is not something that will have problems of text space. All that you need is some short guidelines about which spells they can chose to cast and how much spells they cast. The rest of these mechanics would be stated only once, in the module of alternative magic system. The good points: • Not only every Vancian class would have an option to be non-Vancian, but also the non-Vancian classes would have the options to be Vancian. Why some classes in default would be Vancian while others not? Add some variety for the new players and players of things like RPGA and Encounter. That and many of the editions of D&D had it like that. • It manages to both being classic with classic Vancian and satisfy the non-Vancian fans with flagships and modules. The bad points: • Using alternative magic systems do not raise your raw power but make casters more flexible. The classes that are already flexible (such as Sorcerer) would need some more flexibility to keep up. No idea how to handle martial characters, although.
We should get rid of at-will cantrips. Spoiler:Show
Okay, now that you’ve got the first panic reaction, let me explain it. Yes, many people like at-will cantrips and they are popular. They have everything that it takes to be popular. However, I think we should remove them from the game, at least as an assumption to all caster classes. First: At-will cantrips blur up the distinction between casters and martial characters, and makes being a gish useless. Basically in non at-will cantrips systems there is an advantage in martial characters: the fact that they have abilities that they can always use. But if we give every caster at-will cantrips this blurs up the difference between classes, take out a huge advantage of martial classes. There is also the gish issue. Basically in non at-will cantrips systems, there is a huge advantage of being a gish over being a full caster. The advantage of have some reliable action when out of spells. At-will cantrips weakens that advantage. Just for you to have some idea I was talking previously about the possibility of the Wizard being weaker than the Cleric (some time ago), and when I quoted the fact that the Cleric is a gish, people talked that this is not important, that it doesn’t have such impact because it will use its at-will cantrips. Being a gish should matter. Of course when being a gish actually matters, we can rebalance the classes but it should matter.
Second: At-will cantrips go into the opposite direction of trying to balance casters. Really when we are trying to balance classic or neo Vancian casters, why give to all of them at-will cantrips? Why we cannot use the absence of at-will cantrips to provide a drawback to balance casters? Third: At-will cantrips weaken the challenge of resource management. Really when you always have magic a great part of the challenge goes away. The possibility in being out of magic is not a bug, it is a feature It is part of the system, and this challenge don’t have to go away because it is fun. The challenge of running out of magic is part of the system, and fun. Fourth: At-will cantrips do not fit properly under every system. Really is not that I don’t like at-will magic, but I don’t think we should bake in every spellcasting system. In 4e it worked because it was part of AEDU, but now, they don’t feel part of anything. They seem to be an arbitrary addition to the game. The 3.5 Warlock was special because it was a class with at-will magic in a game where it doesn’t exist, otherwise, at-will magic. We can have at-will cantrips but it should be done it right, and not being a default assumption for every caster class. I’m worried if they are going to launch a mana spell-point based magic system for spellcasters. This system should not have at-will, no mana cost magic as default for every caster class, because running out of mana is part of the mana system. In Final Fantasy they even have no MP cost magic, but they do it right, and when they use no MP cost magic, it is special because it is in a game that is otherwise MP based.
I totally disagree that in D&D the assumption is that death is always meaningful. That's not how AD&D played out at all.
In my campaigns, I really want spells like raise dead, remove paralysis, cure disease, stone to flesh etc to be combat enabled. IMO, there is nothing wrong with casting raise dead or even animate dead during combat. In fact, animating dead players is a favorite tactic of mine when I'm running demons.
I think we need spells in the game that take a few rounds to cast and rules for interrupting such spells. Perhaps a good optional rule would be one round per level casting time.
I also see no reason why raise dead must be a ritual either. If I'm playing a dungeon crawl that is basically a death trap then death is common.
In fact, my players love character death and we don't need it to always be meaningful either. The more ridiculous the death the more we laugh. After all, we are not trying to write an epic story all the time, we are just playing D&D.
"Remember the time the druid turned into a snake and went down that hole in the ground.. moments later he was eaten alive by a few badgers. lol... stupid druid. "
Lastly, I think death should have a punishment. IMO, losing a Con point works well.
One makes damn near $100,000,000 a month... The other probably hasn't made that in it's existence. I think Hasbro cares about the $$$$'s. And I hate to say it but D&D is a game created to make a profit. If it isn't profitable there is no moving forward with the brand. You don't think Habro would like some of that market share for a new version of D&D Online? Their eye is not just on the book a month to be published.
Point being, the niche that think throwing away months of progress on a character because it got critted by a swarm of rats is much smaller then the group that does not like harsh penalties for playing a game. The people on this forum, the 10-20 that post for harsh death penalties are in such an outlier minority that the default Raise Dead will always be generous and folks who want harsh penalties or no Raise Dead will have to houserule that.
If Blizzard were to release a TTRPG tomorrow that played exactly the same as World of Warcraft, do you think their profit from said venture would come anywhere near to approaching WoW's? 4e's? 3e's? (The answer in all cases will be 'no,' I promise you)
One makes damn near $100,000,000 a month... The other probably hasn't made that in it's existence. I think Hasbro cares about the $$$$'s. And I hate to say it but D&D is a game created to make a profit. If it isn't profitable there is no moving forward with the brand. You don't think Habro would like some of that market share for a new version of D&D Online? Their eye is not just on the book a month to be published.
Point being, the niche that think throwing away months of progress on a character because it got critted by a swarm of rats is much smaller then the group that does not like harsh penalties for playing a game. The people on this forum, the 10-20 that post for harsh death penalties are in such an outlier minority that the default Raise Dead will always be generous and folks who want harsh penalties or no Raise Dead will have to houserule that.
If Blizzard were to release a TTRPG tomorrow that played exactly the same as World of Warcraft, do you think their profit from said venture would come anywhere near to approaching WoW's? 4e's? 3e's? (The answer in all cases will be 'no,' I promise you)
That's correct. A WoW TTRPG game for 3.5e already exists and it was a failure.
One makes damn near $100,000,000 a month... The other probably hasn't made that in it's existence. I think Hasbro cares about the $$$$'s. And I hate to say it but D&D is a game created to make a profit. If it isn't profitable there is no moving forward with the brand. You don't think Habro would like some of that market share for a new version of D&D Online? Their eye is not just on the book a month to be published.
Point being, the niche that think throwing away months of progress on a character because it got critted by a swarm of rats is much smaller then the group that does not like harsh penalties for playing a game. The people on this forum, the 10-20 that post for harsh death penalties are in such an outlier minority that the default Raise Dead will always be generous and folks who want harsh penalties or no Raise Dead will have to houserule that.
If Blizzard were to release a TTRPG tomorrow that played exactly the same as World of Warcraft, do you think their profit from said venture would come anywhere near to approaching WoW's? 4e's? 3e's? (The answer in all cases will be 'no,' I promise you)
You are correct. My point isn't necessarily what is profitable for the sake of profit, but profit as an indicator of what player preference is. These forums are so small but they are loud and I think that some otherwise unpopular and archaic ideas get adopted. EQ was the harder core MMO when WoW came out and we all know who won that fight. And for a lot of reasons it was because of accessability and non-punitiveness.
That's what I am advocating for the default D&D recommendations. Combat ought to be fast, flexible, and deadly. The consequences are lost time basically. Grittiness can be modular for things like stat loss, lingering injury, low magic, higher death penalty etc.
Cliff notes for the TLDR crowd:
1. You don't just have to look at the older version of the game for inspiration. 2. You don't just have to look at other forms of PnP. 3. Game should strive for fun and excitement over realism.
