however its the monsters powers that truely recall an mmo's power system. they are simple, no more then a few lines telling what effect they cause and useally no more then one condition like dazing or imoblizing per power.
That's the point. Because the Monsters are going to be dead rather shortly, and the PCs are the stars of the show, not the soon-to-be-dead things. Additionally, they realized that monsters may have a bevy of cool abilities (and by cool abilities, I mean "spell-like abilities"), but they're only going to use a handful before they drop. What's the point in spending the space to lay out what 1st level spells, 2nd level spells, 3rd level spells, 4th level spells, and 5th level spells a demon/devil has if its really only going to be bothering to use the 4th and 5th level spells, and only like 2-3 times before it bites the dust?
Gold is for the mistress, silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade." "Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall, "But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all." -Kipling
Defenders: We ARE the wall!
I've replaced the previous Edition Warring line in my sig with this one, because honestly, everybody needs to work together to make the D&D they like without trampling on somebody else's D&D.
Miss d20 Modern? Take a look at Dias Ex Machina Game's UltraModern 4e!
Cause I love D&D...the things that I love about 4, 3, AD&D, don't really change to much from book to book. Will I play 5th? Probably. Will I buy it? If I like it. WotC knows we vote with our wallets, there is no shame in hiding it.
Also, contrary (at least the ones i play with) to what 3ed players say, materials from different systems are compatible with others. It just takes a little care and a little work to maintain suspension of disbelief. My D&D games are rarely straight laced, but that doen't mean the players and myself don't care about what we are doing.
Who says I can't use lore from one system into the another? Who says I can't have the Io/Bahamut/Tiamat trifecta in my D&DNext? Maybe we will keep playing Points of Light even into D&D 5, and if we do so what? Maybe how we see the next game setting is different from what the designer sees (as I do with PoL). Reguardless of the rule set D&D is our game, our imaginations, our dice, that we play on our time, in our homes, and with our friends. If a player at the table has an issue, we talk it out and come to a consensus. If a player not in the group, a game designer, or an executive doesn't like that, they may come to us and express their displeasure. D&D 5 wont change that.
One thing I see a lot of, people will just drop their characters when an adventure ends, or when a new game comes out. Why? Why not bring "Itchy the Goblin" back to life? Why not reinvent a hero you know and love? One is always free to make a brand new persona, or to return to an old friend. Its tempting to say "It seems like a waste of time, because a new system is coming out soon" but if your having fun its never a waste of time! Its easy to say "Why buy this product, if its going to be obsolete?" if your going to buy something, its going to be because you like it. We vote with our wallets.
Remember, it's only obsolete if you leave it behind. Now if you excuse me, I need to wash all this sentimentality off me
Actually in the last week, I have discovered savage worlds and I have to say that it might give 4e a run for its money as my primary game. For me what sets it apart is its embrace of everything abstract, the whole game is built to be refluffed. With chases and dramatic tasks for me being far advanced skill challenges I think that if I run skill challenges in 4e it's going to be modeled after those items.
but I think 4e will be my choice for fantasy, but Savage worlds will fill the game for everything else.
Never Point a loaded party at a plot you are not willing to shoot.
Are they going to incinerate the books magically and wipe the memory of it from our minds? There will be players, online if not in person.
Effectively they can pretty much do so. 4e is quite complex and we really need that character builder, etc. So they can shut us down pretty well with the flick of the switch. Now since they seem to be making good money off 4e subscribers, they really shouldn't flick that switch, but that they won't... Well, we will see. The big danger remains the herd effect. We could lose a lot of players because we fear the results of losing a lot of players. Still, so far, it doesn't look too lethal. 4e was so different from 3.5 that 3.5 survived as Pathfinder. And 5e is looking very different from 4e, meaning that we may be able to survive as well.
Are they going to incinerate the books magically and wipe the memory of it from our minds? There will be players, online if not in person.
Effectively they can pretty much do so. 4e is quite complex and we really need that character builder, etc. So they can shut us down pretty well with the flick of the switch. Now since they seem to be making good money off 4e subscribers, they really shouldn't flick that switch, but that they won't... Well, we will see. The big danger remains the herd effect. We could lose a lot of players because we fear the results of losing a lot of players. Still, so far, it doesn't look too lethal. 4e was so different from 3.5 that 3.5 survived as Pathfinder. And 5e is looking very different from 4e, meaning that we may be able to survive as well.
*emphasis mine
I played 4e for about a year and a half before joining DDI. The character builder is nice and saves time, but it's hardly mandatory.
As for 5e, I've already tried more than I care to in the playtest. It looks like so many steps backwards, I'll NEVER buy it or play it.
As someone who barely touches Dragon magazine content and primarily uses the books, the CB feels pretty unnecessary. Once you figure out your species & class, it's pretty easy to determine what sourcebooks will have relevant material for your character. (A far cry from 3e, where really good material would often be hidden in random splat books.)
4e D&D is not a "Tabletop MMO." It is not Massively Multiplayer, and is usually not played Online. Come up with better descriptions of your complaints, cuz this one means jack ****.
I've been playing 4e in a play by post(online) format for about two years now. It's still very worth playing, and the experience is not at all like WoW.
4e is still pretty fun for me too. I just can't stand it when the combat drags and players start to argue about what to do. And as long as I'm not killing 5 dire rats for 100 XP, 4e is not WoW. Though 4e does have resemblances to MMOs, like powers and streamlined characters, not to mention the magic system (I hate 4e magic, sorry guys). But even though it has those few things in common it isn't WoW.
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.” - H. P. Lovecraft
Games I Play: - D&D 4e - D&D 3.5 - AD&D 2e - Pathfinder - Call of Cthulhu
As someone who barely touches Dragon magazine content and primarily uses the books, the CB feels pretty unnecessary. Once you figure out your species & class, it's pretty easy to determine what sourcebooks will have relevant material for your character. (A far cry from 3e, where really good material would often be hidden in random splat books.)
I really only have used magazines with Crunch, I don't find much use for fluff. Though some Dungeon adventures are pretty good.
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.” - H. P. Lovecraft
Games I Play: - D&D 4e - D&D 3.5 - AD&D 2e - Pathfinder - Call of Cthulhu
I don't have to worry about the "nothing" for the foreseeable future. I've got all the books and downloaded content plus eight close friends who universally despise Next and enjoy 4E.
The guy who taught us to play D&D 4e loves it. In fact, it is the only system he'll run, even though he's willing to play whatever system the group is playing that week (unlike the rest of us, who despise D&D 3.x and refuse to play it). He's also not fond of anything he's seen in DDN so far. I am, for the most part, but have invested a lot in 4e (though not nearly as much as GURPS 3e and 4e (most 3e books still work in 4e) and HackMaster 4e, for which we own nearly every book).
So I expect we'll be playing D&D 4e for years to come.
How, exactly, does 4e resemble an MMO? I've always been curious on this point.
I've done a lot of playtesting of free-to-play MMORPGs, but the only big one I've ever played is Guild Wars. But from what I've seen of WoW, D&D4 is rather obviously designed to appeal to its playerbase. I constantly hear players at Encounters discussing classes, roles, and characters in MMO terms – half of which I don't understand.
Also, contrary (at least the ones I play with) to what 3ed players say, materials from different systems are compatible with others. It just takes a little care and a little work to maintain suspension of disbelief. My D&D games are rarely straight-laced, but that doesn't mean the players and myself don't care about what we are doing.
Do you mean systems or editions? Your supposition holds true in either case; I'm just curious about which you actually mean.
Our first trpg purchase was GURPS Basic Set 3e, but we couldn't figure out how to make a game out of it so we just used it to help flush out characters for our books. Shortly after that we opened our own FLGS, focusing on CCGs (especially Pokémon) and CMGs (WizKids games, mostly HeroClix and Mage Knight). In our second year a local player hosted a HackMaster 4e tournament in our store and we immediately fell in love with the hobby. By then we had picked up new GURPS 4e books, and that edition change is why I mentioned any of this at all.
GURPS 4e is to 3e more like I expect D&D 3.5 was to 3.0, or 2e was to 1e, and less like 3e to 2e or 4e to 3e. In other words, it fixed the problems with game, refined some bits (especially by simplifying some needlessly complicated mechanics), and generally made the game better, but so little changed overall that most 3e books still work in 4e, with few if any changes needed.
But adapting any of that another system takes quite a bit more work.* Even so, I've found the 4e Dungeon Master's Guide to be immensely useful for my other campaigns (mostly GURPS, sometimes HackMaster or OVA (mostly one-shots or mini-campaigns)). The general GMing advice is pretty universal and the lack of such has been my major complaint about nearly ever trpg I've ever read or tried (and is largely to blame for my dislike of GM-determined target numbers).
* NOTE: I should point out that many of the GURPS setting books are adored even by people who despise the system. That is partly because those books tend to be mostly fluff, and fluff, as you say below, can always be moved between systems, and partly because they tend to be very well researched and written, almost to the point of being text books. Thus many of the setting books are actually veryeasy to adapt to other systems, while GURPS' other books are not.
Sometimes we do actually adapt crunch to other systems. HackMaster 5e uses opposed rolls almost exclusively (except damage, obviously), and OVA uses opposed rolls exclusively in combat. We have found that to be so much fun that I use it in every other system as much as I can. GURPS already uses psuedo-opposed rolls for combat (to attack you roll against your weapon skill, if successful then your target rolls a defense skill to avoid the hit), has has Quick Contests for things like grappling and tugs of war, so it doesn't really need them, but I thought they'd be fun for D&D 4e. The problem is that I only ever run D&D at Encounters so I have never actually had a chance to try it out. In short, instead of Taking 10 on your defenses, roll them. Simple, yet should be astoundingly fun.
There are two things that appeal to me most about opposed rolls: 1) Even bad attack rolls can hit and people with poor defenses can dodge. 2) It forces everyone to pay attention and thus solves the problem of people leaving the table after their turns and needing several minutes per turn since they have to be caught up on what they missed.
I have likewise adapted Fate Points into all of my games (players earn them by impressing me, and can spend them to do feats of awesomeness, even if the rules wouldn't allow it).
Currently I'm trying to figure out how to adapt HM5e's Count Up system to other games. Instead of boring old combat rounds (which also lead to people wandering off mid-game, either physically or mentally), combat takes place second-by-second and everyone can act on every second. Combat becomes incredibly intense and engrossing and fights generally end in no more than a few minutes instead of the 15-30 minutes of the previous edition (which was basically D&D 2.5). I'm starting with GURPS since it already uses 1 second rounds.
And now I've wandered rather far off topic so I'll speak no more about any of that here.
Who says I can't use lore from one system into the another? Who says I can't have the Io/Bahamut/Tiamat trifecta in my D&DNext? Maybe we will keep playing Points of Light even into D&D 5, and if we do so what? Maybe how we see the next game setting is different from what the designer sees (as I do with PoL). Regardless of the rule set, D&D is our game, our imaginations, our dice, that we play on our time, in our homes, and with our friends. If a player at the table has an issue, we talk it out and come to a consensus. If a player not in the group, a game designer, or an executive doesn't like that, they may come to us and express their displeasure. D&D 5 won't change that.
As I said a moment ago, I agree completely. But then again, I generally ignore 99% of built-in fluff anyway, so it makes no real difference to me. Other than Encounters and demos of HM and D&D, I don't run games in other people's worlds – I've got far too many of my own I'd rather explore. The only exception was an OVA game we ran years ago in which we changed GMs every half-hour. That one was a blast since the world changed flavors frequently, but at its core was still the world devised by the guy who set up the game.
That said, like most GMs, I take ideas from everywhere and incorporate them into my games. The game most liked by my players is inspired by Warehouse 13 and Warehouse 23 (the series of GURPS 3e books I'm pretty sure the creators of Warehouse 13 read repeatedly). It's set in the late 19th century and, like the show, is set up so that the general populace has no idea what's going on. That's why the history books don't record the events of the campaign. It had magic and psionics to start with (but both are suppressed by the governments of the world through use of a alchemical substance added to the world's municipal water supplies; Warehouse Agents are given monthly doses of the antidote), but now it's starting to diverge from semi-plausible Earth history as I slowly add steampunk elements.
Because the game is specifically designed so that it all could have happened but wasn't recorded by history, that's the closest I've ever come to running a home campaign in a setting not of my own devising since it was actual historical Earth.
One thing I see a lot of, people will just drop their characters when an adventure ends, or when a new game comes out. Why? Why not bring "Itchy the Goblin" back to life? Why not reinvent a hero you know and love? One is always free to make a brand new persona, or to return to an old friend. It's tempting to say "It seems like a waste of time, because a new system is coming out soon" but if you're having fun it's never a waste of time! It's easy to say "Why buy this product, if it's going to be obsolete?" If you're going to buy something, it's going to be because you like it. We vote with our wallets.
Remember, it's only obsolete if you leave it behind.
I am of two minds on this. I frequently do remake old characters, especially the protagonists of the series of short stories I'm writing (the world of which is my favorite for GMing). In fact, I recently blogged about my attempt to make one of them in DDN. I generally try to make the two main characters whenever I learn a new system. Alden excels as a human knight, but I have thus far been unable to make Brianna in any class-based game. DDN let me get very close, so I'm hoping they'll eventually overcome my standing issues and finally allow me to make her in a class-based game.
On the other hand, I also have dozens and dozens of characters I want to play eventually, and that keeps me from playing the same characters over and over. The major exception is the eladrin knight I nearly always play in Encounters (she turned into a male drow this season), but I GM way more often I get to play so I don't actually play her all that often in the grand scheme of things.
Also, while we've never had a campaign for on for years and years and years, I'd imagine that by the end of that time you would have pretty thoroughly told that character's story and would be more than ready to step into the shoes of someone new.
Actually in the last week, I have discovered savage worlds and I have to say that it might give 4e a run for its money as my primary game. For me what sets it apart is its embrace of everything abstract, the whole game is built to be refluffed. With chases and dramatic tasks for me being far advanced skill challenges I think that if I run skill challenges in 4e it's going to be modeled after those items.
But I think 4e will be my choice for fantasy, but Savage worlds will fill the game for everything else.
We are much the same. We tend use either D&D 4e or HackMaster 5e for combat-heavy fantasy games, and GURPS for everything else. It's really nice having one or a couple of systems that handle everything so you don't have to try and stumble your way through a bunch of different ones. This way we get to really master those three systems and we're covered.
In case anyone's interested in the specifics: one guy runs DD4 exclusively; one DD4 or HM5, whichever fits his mood when he's setting up the campaign; my wife and I run GURPS mostly, HackMaster sometimes; and everyone else runs GURPS exclusively, including the most gifted GM I've ever met.
At the age of 12 he started a fully sandboxed and improvised zombie apocalypse game, with my wife and on hand to offer him any advice or rules help he might need. After one session we were all stunned to realize that he had more raw GMing talent than the rest of the group combined. He lacks our years of experience, naturally, but given a year or two he could easily be the best GM in the group.
My wife is the same way with cooking. I've got nearly three decades of cooking experience, whereas she didn't start learning to cook until after we got together nearly 13 years ago. I began teaching her as I cooked for her on dates, but once we got married and set up housekeeping (10 years next month!) we quickly discovered that all she needed from me were the techniques. She innately knows what flavors go well together – so much so that I tend to get her to double-check my seasoning choices except on recipes I've been making forever.
Pardon my tangent – I just find talents intriguing. 8o)
Are they going to incinerate the books magically and wipe the memory of it from our minds? There will be players, online if not in person.
Effectively they can pretty much do so. 4e is quite complex and we really need that character builder, etc. So they can shut us down pretty well with the flick of the switch. Now since they seem to be making good money off 4e subscribers, they really shouldn't flick that switch, but that they won't... Well, we will see.
I beg to differ. The only thing I've ever needed any kind of character builder for was making sure I had the math right on my point-buys. I have a series of spreadsheets that sum up all of the races (has everything but powers, actually), feats (ignoring any that are obsolete), and weapons and armor. Thus making a character is as simple as picking a race and class and grabbing one or two books to get the race power (unless I know it) and class features and powers.
Feats are actually far easier to get from my spreadsheet since they are sorted by function and I can see the effects of a screen full of feats at a time instead of having to click on them one at a time. The latter part is also the main advantage of the race sheet. I can see the size, speed, vision, stat mods, and skill bonuses of every race at the same time, even sorting them by stat mod for my LA characters since I actually make an effort to optimize them, and see all of their race features at a glance on the next sheet.
So for me the only thing a character builder would really useful for is gearing out my Lair Assault characters. With three big books of magic items plus the others scattered everywhere, a CB would make it much easier to figure out which ones I want. I had planned to make an magic item index, sorted like my feat list, but then HackMaster 5e released and I started designing my own system so my D&D spreadsheets hit the back burner. Thankfully, I now have a list of items that pretty generally useful in LA and my favorites for particular characters (I tend to just change the levels of my stack of six or so characters), so that particular sheet is far less useful to me now.
Of course, you could argue that I'm using OpenOffice as a character builder, and I'd agree, but the fact remains that I don't need Wizard's character builder – especially since mine is offline so I can use it anywhere.
