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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 10:14AM
#71
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2001
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See now I just read the To Live Defeated article and LOVED it!
Are you kidding me? This article was pure crap and should never have been published in the first place.
What on earth happened to Totems of the Far Realm?
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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 10:15AM
#72
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Awesome! And they are now in the character builder then? They've all been tested and approved for balance? They're all well written and easy to use?
Sorry, you can't have both unless you house them into a 3rd party character builder (i.e. Hero Forge), which is completely within your power to do.
That's the beauty of D&D. It's ultimately up to you. You don't need anyone to tell you how to play your game!
Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
Default module =/= Core mechanic.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 10:20AM
#73
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2009
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Awesome! And they are now in the character builder then? They've all been tested and approved for balance? They're all well written and easy to use?
Sorry, you can't have both unless you house them into a 3rd party character builder (i.e. Hero Forge), which is completely within your power to do.
That's the beauty of D&D. It's ultimately up to you. You don't need anyone to tell you how to play your game!
Fantastic! It's a shame that it is so impossible to write fluff articles, and that there aren't already a million sites where you can get other people's fluff... thank the gods Wizards has decided to focus on the fluff, which is impossible to write ourselves, and to completely ignore crunch!
"What is the sort of thing that I do care about is a failure to seriously evaluate what does and doesn't work in favor of a sort of cargo cult posturing. And yes, it's painful to read design notes columns that are all just "So D&D 3.5 sort of had these problems. We know people have some issues with them. What a puzzler! But we think we have a solution in the form of X", where X is sort of a half-baked version of an idea that 4e executed perfectly well and which worked fine." - Lesp
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - Thecasualoblivion
"When I DM Next I feel that I might as well be running a game based off of notes scribbled on a paper napkin." -Reinhart
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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 10:25AM
#74
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Fantastic! It's a shame that it is so impossible to write fluff articles, and that there aren't already a million sites where you can get other people's fluff... thank the gods Wizards has decided to focus on the fluff, which is impossible to write ourselves, and to completely ignore crunch!
Of course, you are more than welcome to be completely sarcastic when someone is trying to actually help you find solutions. That tells me that you really aren't interested in anything but griefing. Sorry for trying to help.
Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
Default module =/= Core mechanic.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 10:32AM
#75
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2009
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Fantastic! It's a shame that it is so impossible to write fluff articles, and that there aren't already a million sites where you can get other people's fluff... thank the gods Wizards has decided to focus on the fluff, which is impossible to write ourselves, and to completely ignore crunch!
Of course, you are more than welcome to be completely sarcastic when someone is trying to actually help you find solutions. That tells me that you really aren't interested in anything but griefing. Sorry for trying to help.
I appreciate the attempt to help. But every time those of us who disagree with the new direction (tm) try to make our voices heard, we inevitably get the 'If you don't like it, write your own!!!' response. I was just trying to point out that homebrew sites can produce both, so simply directing us to them doesn't really address the central question. Moreover, it is actually harder to incorporate homebrew crunch into our games than it is to incorporate homebrew fluff because crunch has to be in the character builder for some of my players to even consider using it, whereas crunch can be added anytime, anywhere. Some people just don't seem to appreciate this.
Sorry if you got caught in the crossfire, and thanks for your help.
"What is the sort of thing that I do care about is a failure to seriously evaluate what does and doesn't work in favor of a sort of cargo cult posturing. And yes, it's painful to read design notes columns that are all just "So D&D 3.5 sort of had these problems. We know people have some issues with them. What a puzzler! But we think we have a solution in the form of X", where X is sort of a half-baked version of an idea that 4e executed perfectly well and which worked fine." - Lesp
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - Thecasualoblivion
"When I DM Next I feel that I might as well be running a game based off of notes scribbled on a paper napkin." -Reinhart
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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 10:52AM
#76
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My point is that there is no guarantee that Wizards is going to produce anything of quality in their articles. There is no guarantee that any of it is balanced, tested, etc. It's simply considered "official" because they produced it. That's not good enough for me or my campaigns.
There are a dozen people that contribute to these forums that I would entrust generating consistent content to potentially add to a campaign. I also entrust myself to do the same. I don't need it to be official, and stamping Wizards of the Coast on it certainly doesn't mean that it's worthwhile, as is obvious by this thread.
For instance, in the campaign I am running now, it is more attuned to high adventure and magic is considered evil. Magic-related classes are not allowed in the campaign. But in order to give the players some more options, monks have been converted from the psionic class, barbarians have been converted from the primal class, and bards have been converted from the arcane class. Maybe they are considered different classes altogether now, maybe not. But you get the idea. If there is a need for you, it's ultimately up to you to fill that need. You can even make your players responsible for fleshing out their classes a bit more if the material is limited. And there is a lot of material out there to get ideas from, including the homebrew section. It doesn't even have to be exactly what you are looking for, just something that gives you ideas.
As it stands, I don't think that I have ever run a campaign that was verbatim to the core material. There has always been custom content, whether it was provided by myself or someone else. That's one of the things that makes D&D outstanding.
On a side note, this is entirely why I was never threatened by Essentials, although now that it has been released, I do like some of what it does offer.
Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
Default module =/= Core mechanic.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 10:54AM
#77
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See now I just read the To Live Defeated article and LOVED it! I like backstory and campaign world fluff, and articles like this one that take a view of a common game mechanic from a different perspective. This is the kind of thing we need more of, not more powers, feats, magic items, and backgrounds. There is more than enough of that stuff, and quite frankly the math behind them is fairly transparent. Not enough Runepriest powers for your liking. Write some! Should take you all of about 10 minutes to come up with a dozen or so.
I could not disagree more. The article was totally useless to me, and the example of precisely the sort of thing neither I nor my players need.
And as several posters have already noted, the 'If you don't like their articles, write some!' argument fails to understand that even if we wrote them (and in fact some posters actually have written and submitted crunch articles) they won't get published, because WOTC won't accept them due to their new 'direction'.
I didn't say write some and try to get published. I just said write some. The game is already bloated with far too many powers, feats, magic items, and backgrounds. We absolutely do not need more. There are 7476 powers, 3031 feats, 8837 items, and 714 backgrounds. It is a fairly simple thing to take existing material and re-task it.
[EDIT] I just noticed that you also made a comment about it being in the Character Builder. I do understand that issue, and I hope that one day custom content is fully supported by the character builder, but I still stand by my "opinion" that the game has already become far too bloated with mechanical character options. While you tout the "balanced," and "play-tested" aspect of "official" rules content what you fail to recognize I believe is that WotC can't even keep all their crunch straight. It is virtually impossible to create powers and feats that don't duplicate or stack in crazy, unforeseen ways with what already exists, and that doesn't even address the fact of power creep which is another problem I have with all the crunch. It seems like the designers try to out do each other, by creating ever more unbalanced and overly powerful powers and feats. Enough already. Give us a monthly article on the Nentir Vale (since a campaign book doesn't seem to be forthcoming) like the ones Ed Greenwood used to write about the Forgotten Realms before it saw publication.
Kalex the Omen Dungeonmaster Extraordinaire Concerning Player Rules Bias
Show
Gaining victory through rules bias is a hollow victory and they know it.
The argument goes, that some idiot at the table might claim that because there is a "default" that is the only true way to play D&D. An idiotic misconception that should be quite easy to disprove just by reading the rules, coming to these forums, or sending a quick note off to Customer Support and sharing the inevitable response with the group. BTW, I'm not just talking about Next when I say this. Of course, D&D has always been this way since at least the late 70's when I began playing.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 11:13AM
#78
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Date Joined:
Jan 29, 2008
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The main issue I have with content this month is that there's significantly less of it- and what has been released has mostly been rare items.
While items have traditionally, for 4E, been presented as a player resource, rare items are not.
They are entirely dependent on the DM, and nothing said will change that.
In addition, there has been no content that interests me as a player.
Now, before Dane and friends all jump on the endlessly rehashed bandwagon, why don't you ask this question?
"What interests you as a player?"
What would you do if I told you 'everything'?
Based on your current history of posting, I'm led to believe that your heads would explode from the illogic- surely, a player can't possibly be interested in 'everything'- he must have a pet class that he wants specific crunch for, and thus be disappointed when WotC publishes material for stuff he isn't using- but the truth is I don't have a specific pet class.
I've played leaders, strikers, defenders, and controllers from across every power source on the board. I've played characters of every race, class, tier, and item availability, and I love them all.
When WotC publishes material that any of these permutations can use, I am happy.
When WotC publishes material that none of these permutations can use, like they have this month, I am considerably less happy.
So get off your high horse about people being angry because their 'pet class/race' isn't being supported- because it's complete and utter horseshite.
We, the customers, are angry because there's been virtually zero support for anything that is available as a player option.
Oh Content, where art thou?
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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 11:16AM
#79
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Date Joined:
Nov 17, 2009
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My point is that there is no guarantee that Wizards is going to produce anything of quality in their articles. There is no guarantee that any of it is balanced, tested, etc. It's simply considered "official" because they produced it. That's not good enough for me or my campaigns.
The content from Wizards should be quality and balanced. It should be implied that the makers of a game are going to produce quality game mechanics. I wish I could wave a magic wand and be able to make new powers and feats and rituals for my characters. But every DM I've had has been hesitant to add in new content, even if they're willing to houserule in many other things. I'm not willing to submit anything to Wizards because it's likely they're just going to rip apart anything that I like and completely destroy my work.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2010 - 11:17AM
#80
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Date Joined:
Jun 11, 2010
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What happened to Totems of the Far Realm? As the player of a shaman I was really looking forward to it. In fact it was pretty much the only thing I was looking forward to since there wasn't anything going on Dark Sun wise.
Totems are not well supported at all, and honestly I do we'll ever get an essentials style "totem expertise" feat like wizards get for their implements.
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