It still means that basically, 4e failed by reasons others than the rules. Really, there is a lot of mistakes that it was made with 4e. If you talk about the 4e "failure", I think you should address these mistakes.
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.
Zard, I agree with a some of the stuff you say, and you tend to be an intelligent guy. But you gotta stop haphazardly throwing BS statistics in your posts man :P
Something like 70% of the D&D subscribers chose to g with Paizo.
My real question is why aren't they making use of that massive glut of material they have sitting in the cellars. Seriously, who wouldn't love to have POD access to the WotC archives? It'd be like printing money for WotC, but man would it tick off the collectors...
Ah well!
They are, aren't they? Isn't that the root of this thread, that they're offering up their pre-4e material for sale as PDFs?
That's kind of like saying the first Harry Potter book failed because J.K. Rowling had to write a sequel.
I feel like the edition cycle is actually rather healthy for the hobby: a new edition comes out with some new mechanics and simplified systems at its core, it gradually gets more content (spells, classes, feats, monsters, etc.) added to it, along with new rules and errata. After a while, some flaws in the core design become apparent, and it's better to start with a clean slate than to keep patching the old version.
4th ed is more comparable to Batman and Robin movie in the Batman franchise. The Dark Knight was a reboot of the franchise and it seems to be what D&DN is doing. 4th ed did have some great things in it which have een kicked to the curb because WoTC is more or less dumping the good bits of 4th ed.
So then, AEDU must be Arnold Schwarzeneggar's terrible one-liners, and martial healing is Jim Carrey?
Zard, I agree with a some of the stuff you say, and you tend to be an intelligent guy. But you gotta stop haphazardly throwing BS statistics in your posts man :P
Something like 70% of the D&D subscribers chose to g with Paizo.
This doesn't help your argument ><
That figure came from Paizo themselves in one of their articles. If enough people wanted refunds from Dragon and Dungeon magazines in 2007 Paizo was done as they did not have enough money to do that. Its aso why I said something like 70% as I can't remember the exact figure but it was something like 2/3rds chose to stay with Paizo. From memory they needed around 40% of the Dragon and Dungeon magazine subscribers to transer the subscriptions to Pathfinder Chronicles which was 3.5 in order to stay in business.
Paizo wanted to do 4th ed, WoTC more or less would not let them as they wanted monopoly at launch. Pathfinder RPG grew out of Pathfinder Chronicles and both happened because Paizo had a publish something or perish problem. Paizo could not affod to refund all of the subscribers to Dragon and Dungeon and they could not afford to sit on their hands for a year with 4th ed.
Another company could have cloned 3.5 but they would not have had the reputation and a built in subscriber list to go with it.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
Paizo wanted to do 4th ed, WoTC more or less would not let them as they wanted monopoly at launch. Pathfinder RPG grew out of Pathfinder Chronicles and both happened because Paizo had a publish something or perish problem. Paizo could not affod to refund all of the subscribers to Dragon and Dungeon and they could not afford to sit on their hands for a year with 4th ed.
From that description, it sounds like the OGL (which was too open to prtoect WotC IP, as proven by the existence of PF as its own rpg) and the GSL (which was so restrictive it stifled most 3rd party support) were responsible for the split. Which is what I've suspected for quite a while now.
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin." NPC: "Really?" Fighter: "Yes." NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?" Fighter: "I do." NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?" Fighter: "What?" NPC: "I don't know what it means either." Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do." NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics." Fighter: "These what?" NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
If you want to talk about sales, I think you should consider Essentials. No, it was not just splatbooks. And it was that big. Among with other mistakes.
But really, people don't know how Essentials was. It was big. For many 4e fans, 4e died, not with Pathfinder being number one (actually, that, according to the rumors, happened with Essentials) or the announcement of D&D Next, but it was dead at the release of either the first Essential product or the release of Heroes of Shadow.
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.
Paizo wanted to do 4th ed, WoTC more or less would not let them as they wanted monopoly at launch. Pathfinder RPG grew out of Pathfinder Chronicles and both happened because Paizo had a publish something or perish problem. Paizo could not affod to refund all of the subscribers to Dragon and Dungeon and they could not afford to sit on their hands for a year with 4th ed.
From that description, it sounds like the OGL (which was too open to prtoect WotC IP, as proven by the existence of PF as its own rpg) and the GSL (which was so restrictive it stifled most 3rd party support) were responsible for the split. Which is what I've suspected for quite a while now.
The OGL enabled PF to exist, the backlash against 4th ed provided the customers. I'm trying to find the one about the Dragon/Dunegon mailing list.
PF Number 1. paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5le0w?Paizo...
ANyway if you read through those blogs it gives you a decent enough idea of what was going on behind the scenes.
Found it. 2007 paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5ldp4?Paizo...
Ok I lied from memory it was 70% but it was only 66% that took them up on the offer to transfer.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
Same guy I responded to your PM btw but IDK if you got the reply. I kept my 2nd ed books and started DMing it again to see what my current players thought about it as only one of them was a 2nd ed player. They all liked it.
A lot of my arguments are based around the commercial reality of D&D. I don't think an outright reprint of any of the ediitons would sell very well at least to a 30 million dollar year business which is what they had.
4th ed tried and failed to bring in new players but I odn't think any other edtion would have done any better in that regard. The height of D&Ds commercial popularity seemed to be early 1980s and 2001 or so. I like Spelljammer but I don't think I will be seeing it reprinted anytime soon because its just not that popular.
The main point is you do not trash your customers which is what WoTC seems to do with every new edition cycle. Alot of the problems 3.0 had was because it was new (unbalanced etc), 4th ed had the same problem and I think D&DN might have the same ones although maybe that will be mitigated. Totally new is bad IMHO, evolved a bit yeah sure. 3.0 was different from 2nd ed but most of the clsses at least resembled the 2nd ed classes, the cosmology was the same, and every 2nd ed core class and race made it to the 3.0 PHB. Not all of the 2nd ed players came along but d20 was very popular and still is via PF.
No I never got a reply from you but I'd be willing to chat with you about AD&D when you feel like it. Just send me a message here, retry that reply to my p.m. too, and I'll respond to you. P.S. Happy gaming bro, glad to see your group loves the TSR era D&D game. Mine also prefers it above all the Wotc versions. 25 years and counting with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. just so all are aware: in print from 1979 -1989. Or if you count the revision, 2nd edition as AD&D: in print from 1979 to 2000. What does this mean? Absolutely nothing at all.
Same guy I responded to your PM btw but IDK if you got the reply. I kept my 2nd ed books and started DMing it again to see what my current players thought about it as only one of them was a 2nd ed player. They all liked it.
A lot of my arguments are based around the commercial reality of D&D. I don't think an outright reprint of any of the ediitons would sell very well at least to a 30 million dollar year business which is what they had.
4th ed tried and failed to bring in new players but I odn't think any other edtion would have done any better in that regard. The height of D&Ds commercial popularity seemed to be early 1980s and 2001 or so. I like Spelljammer but I don't think I will be seeing it reprinted anytime soon because its just not that popular.
The main point is you do not trash your customers which is what WoTC seems to do with every new edition cycle. Alot of the problems 3.0 had was because it was new (unbalanced etc), 4th ed had the same problem and I think D&DN might have the same ones although maybe that will be mitigated. Totally new is bad IMHO, evolved a bit yeah sure. 3.0 was different from 2nd ed but most of the clsses at least resembled the 2nd ed classes, the cosmology was the same, and every 2nd ed core class and race made it to the 3.0 PHB. Not all of the 2nd ed players came along but d20 was very popular and still is via PF.
No I never got a reply from you but I'd be willing to chat with you about AD&D when you feel like it. Just send me a message here, retry that reply to my p.m. too, and I'll respond to you. P.S. Happy gaming bro, glad to see your group loves the TSR era D&D game. Mine also prefers it above all the Wotc versions. 25 years and counting with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. just so all are aware: in print from 1979 -1989. Or if you count the revision, 2nd edition as AD&D: in print from 1979 to 2000. What does this mean? Absolutely nothing at all.
I switched to 3.0 but never stopped liking 2nd ed Everyone was playing 3rd ed and I liked alot of what I read in Dragon and Dungeon leading up to the 3.0 launch.
To be fair to 4th ed I did like DMing it and it was great in that regard. I never got to play 4th ed though for the simple reaosn there was no other 4th ed DMs that I knew of. Except for one and his group was full and then he left for Australia.
Reducing a character to a list of dice rolls and modifiers is not role playing*
Everyone was playing 3rd ed and I liked alot of what I read in Dragon and Dungeon leading up to the 3.0 launch.