# Defining its own Mythology



## Remathilis (Nov 26, 2007)

Pardon me if this is old news.

It appears, for the first real time D&D's history, the designers are designing a uniquely D&D mythology for its game rather than the hodge-podge kitchen sink version that has been around for years.

Its been said that D&D doesn't simulate any other sword-n-sorcery work BUT D&D. However, the best of D&D's "mythology" (and by that term, I mean the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters) has always been shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources. Tolkien's races. Vance's Magic. Moorcock's Alignment. Merlinesque wizards next to Leiberian thieves, next to Howardesque barbarians facing monsters from Greek myth, Norse epics, and Lovecraftian nightmares. 

At the end of the day, it created a world without a cohesive theme, a kitchen sink of every sci-fi and fantasy trope in that was hot during the late-70's and early 80's. While specific campaign settings and individual DMs often attempted to strike a cohesive narrative between these widely varying elements, the game itself (especially in the OD&D, 1e, and 2e eras) read closer to a collection of fantasy cliche's included because DM X liked this thing and PC Y wanted to play that. 

Third edition, for all its glory in fixing and modernizing the ruleset, decided to keep the spirit of this mixed bag of fantasy elements. In some areas, they began to modernize, update, and set apart a "D&D brand" of some of these elements (Halfings going from Frodo-like reluctant heroes to a race of traveling almost-gypsy like nomads) but in others they held stubborn to the "old way" of doing things (the alignment-based/pseudo-religious Great Ring of Planes). As 3e progressed into 3.5, more and more of the mythic hodge-podge was jettisoned for a unique, D&D-only approach at things. The growing pains can be seen in these later products (Warblades, Dragon Shaman, Spellscales, Incarnum) which, often (on these very boards) lead to arguements about thier inclusion into the D&D pantheon (old ways vs. new ideas, or established mythical elements (knights) vs. new, D&D-specific creations (beguilers)). 

Now, with fourth edition, it appears the creators have two goals in mind.
1.) Make playing D&D its own unique experience and
2.) Don't let nostalgia hold you back.

The first is D&D's way of competing with a world dominated by all manner of new fantasy creations. If I say "Tauren" you know I'm talking WoW. If I say "Galka" you know I'm talking Final Fantasy. If I say "Gnome" you don't think D&D. (You probably think Lawn, or at least Travelocity) However, if I say "Eladrin" you know I'm talking D&D. Similarly, a dryad is no longer a "ripped straight from Greek Myth" monster, but D&D's own take on the creature. (Akin to what D&D has done with medusa's for years). I don't know what the MM write-up on this new dryad will be, but I'm sure it won't sound like the same write-up found in a Mythology textbook. 

This is also most likely the reason for the "Compound Word Monster" syndrome. Icefire Griffons aren't in WoW, FF, or Myth, its uniquely D&D. So if you are fighting Icefire Griffons, you're having a uniquely D&D experience. This leads to a world that is unique against other models of fantasy and creates a "common D&D experience" that all people who play the game have, just like those who play WoW of FF or EQ or WoD have.

To do that, they need to scale back, rethink, or toss out elements that are purely "someone-elses creation with the serial numbers filed off". Goodbye Vancian magic. Adios Moorcock's alignment. We'll use elements of both (since they are ingrained in the common D&D experience we're shooting for) but no longer will D&D magic system be "Vancian" it will be "D&D". It will create a version of the game where its mythology, its underlining principal, is unique only to D&D and no longer be a whole equal to the sum of its parts. 

I think this element, more than any rule change or artistic reinterpretation, is what is fueling a lot of the negativity. Its the opposite of where much of the rest of the gaming community was heading: mainly generic fantasy rule-sets. One need only look how popular Trued20, Grim Tales, and other "generic" style rule-sets were to see the older crowd sought a D&D more open, more toolkit, more customizable. However, while that might be more appeasing to older, established DMs and players (who like the idea of one rule-set mimicking Howard's Hyboria, Greenwood's Realms, or any mix they want to homebrew) its a poor decision on the part of Wizards, who found the d20 Market was glut with rulebooks that turned its flagship into exactly all that and more (and competed with D&D's own generic rulebooks, Fur and Frost vs. Frostburn, for example). 

So Wizards went the other way: Here is D&D. Here is the common D&D experience. You are more than welcome to change it as needed, but we want a common ground that all players can see and know they are playing *D&D*(TM) and not some homebrew, some OGL, or some other competing fantasy media.

So as 4e comes closer and we see more re-imaginging of classic monsters, more unique creations, and more sacred cows (Bytopia) sacrificed to make room for new things (feywild), remember that D&D has to do this to stay viable vs. other newer forms of fantasy and to keep it unique vs. the generic d20 RPG systems now and to come. By making D&D its own unique experience (rather than a holding pen for all manner of fantasy trope) its insuring its own survival and growth and strengthening its own product identity for generations to come. 

~ I.F.


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## Cadfan (Nov 26, 2007)

I mostly agree with your post.

I'm not sure that your explanation is why vancian magic is dying.  I think that has more to do with vancian magic creating more problems than its worth, plus the vancian system of magic no longer being something fantasy readers know and relate to.  When was the last time a book was written using vancian magic?  The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett?

Same with alignment.

I also don't know if that's the reason for the compound word monsters.  

I do agree with the general idea that D&D is attempting to create a brand image.  I think all the dragon products have been a big part of that.  D&D style dragons are relatively unique, and they're built right into the game's name.


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## Cadfan (Nov 26, 2007)

*duplicate post during forum weirdness, please delete*


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## TerraDave (Nov 26, 2007)

The ability of D&D to have D&Disms more flavourfull and distinctive then any Gurpism, while still allowing great freedom in terms of world and player flavour, is one of its great triumphs. 

There is nothing wrong with reimaganing some things, but they loose that unique balance, and they will break the game.


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## Badkarmaboy (Nov 26, 2007)

Very well put, I can see how you earned your endorsement.


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## Philotomy Jurament (Nov 26, 2007)

I think you're right.  Despite the faux-French guy's exclamations, the game isn't remaining the same.  I think it's definitely breaking with many past traditions and concepts, becoming a different game with the same name.  I'm sure it will redefine what "D&D" means to gamers, given time (and success), and perhaps establish a unique "D&D" identity largely separate from outside sources (or from what has come before -- the Gygaxian hodgepodge that defined D&D's unique identity until recently).  However, I think "it's still D&D to me" will simply not be true for some of us.  That was already true for some gamers with 3.X; I imagine 4E will add a few more to that number.

That's no big deal, IMO (and nothing new -- it's not a great tragedy).  I already know what D&D is, to me, and that's what I play.


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## Remathilis (Nov 27, 2007)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> I mostly agree with your post.
> 
> I'm not sure that your explanation is why vancian magic is dying.  I think that has more to do with vancian magic creating more problems than its worth, plus the vancian system of magic no longer being something fantasy readers know and relate to.  When was the last time a book was written using vancian magic?  The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett?
> 
> ...




There are two dynamics to consider: mechanical improvement and thematic improvement. Vancian magic is a double-edge sword: its difficult to explain thematically, and its mechanically wonky. Rather than fix it for either reason, its easier to chuck for whatever new system that is coming (which is still going to retain Vancian elements, but you will not be able to point to Dying Earth as the prime example of D&D spells in action...)

Alignment is going from something tangible (Detect Evil, Smite Evil, DR X/Good) to something purely descriptive. This is a real turn from Moorcock's "strict cosmic alignment" system that D&D has had (and caused headaches) for years. 

So while it has mechanical rationale to fix and repair, it also serves to further make D&D a unique entity.


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## Elphilm (Nov 27, 2007)

Although I agree with the main idea of your post, I don't think that D&D has been moving away from being a mishmash of ripoffs only recently.

The D&D magic system, for instance, hasn't resembled Dying Earth magic in a long time (if it ever did). For example, Vance's magic is extremely limited per day; a master magician might be able to memorize about six spells in total. This is a far cry from the dozens and dozens of spells D&D wizards fit into their heads every day. You could refute this by saying that the amount of combat in a typical D&D session necessitates the huge number of spells, but it is nevertheless a major step away from the flavor and careful resource management of Dying Earth magicians. Furthermore, Vancian magic is more unreliable than D&D magic, especially if one tries to cast a spell that is too strong for the magician's skill level, and D&D has never modeled this in any way. D&D magic has always been inspired by Dying Earth rather than directly cribbed from the books. A more faithful (and interesting!) conversion can be found, curiously enough, in the Dying Earth RPG.

I also think that D&D's alignments took a major step away from Moorcock's (and Poul Anderson's) writings when 1E expanded the alignment field from three to nine. Moreover, Moorcock's alignments are _allegiances_ rather than the descriptors of a person's psychology that the D&D alignments have become. I really don't see how the infamous D&D alignment debates have anything to do with Moorcock's writings. D&D's problem has always been that it tries to fit together the amoral concepts of order and chaos and the moral judgements of good and evil. Nowhere in Moorcock do you find such a pairing.

Nevertheless, like I said, I mostly agree with your post. I have few problems with Feywild and Dragonborn and whatnot, and I think I understand what the 4E design team is aiming for with the new flavor. That being said, I will doubtlessly homebrew some of that flavor out simply because I like the merry hodge-podge style of D&D the most.


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## neceros (Nov 27, 2007)

Well put.

I don't mind the new route D&D is going. I think it's going to be different, and it may lose some flavor, however. One of the main reasons I like D&D so much (And D20 Modern for that matter) is because of it's vanilla-esk flavor.

Now, so long as they don't turn Arcana Evolved on us and implement everything into everything I think we'll be alright. People that want to can change it and people that like it don't have to worry.


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## Mathew_Freeman (Nov 27, 2007)

An interesting and well-thought-through article, thanks.

I tend to agree - I don't fear change, I'm prepared to see if the game is still what I want when I have the books in my hand and I can read them through. Right now, I'm still very enthusiastic.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 27, 2007)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> There is nothing wrong with reimaganing some things, but they loose that unique balance, and they will break the game.




If simply re-imagining looks and names breaks the game, then it deserves to be broken.


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## glass (Nov 27, 2007)

I pretty much agree with you (I think; it was a long post ), but I just wanted to comment on this:


			
				Remathilis said:
			
		

> The first is D&D's way of competing with a world dominated by all manner of new fantasy creations. If I say "Tauren" you know I'm talking WoW. If I say "Galka" you know I'm talking Final Fantasy. If I say "Gnome" you don't think D&D. (You probably think Lawn, or at least Travelocity)



I only know a Tauren come from WoW because of one of the earlier 4e threads that mentioned it. I wouldn't know a Galka if one got up and slapped me. And I have no clue what Lawn or Travelocity are.

Of course, I could just be a special snowflake... 

glass.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 27, 2007)

glass said:
			
		

> I pretty much agree with you (I think; it was a long post ), but I just wanted to comment on this:
> I only know a Tauren come from WoW because of one of the earlier 4e threads that mentioned it. I wouldn't know a Galka if one got up and slapped me. And I have no clue what Lawn or Travelocity are.
> 
> Of course, I could just be a special snowflake...
> ...



You're not.  Or we are at least two snow flakes, drifting lonely through the air ...

Damn, I really hope we get some decent snow here this winter...


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 27, 2007)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> If simply re-imagining looks and names breaks the game, then it deserves to be broken.




So, if you don't think adding "dung" as a prefix to every name is a good idea, or recasting everything to look like it should be sculpted from dung, the game deserves to be broken?       Sorry, but this is a non-argument to me.  The only way it is true is if "all things are equal", and that premise is clearly false (at least, I imagine, to most of us, or else we'd all be happy with one race, one monster, one class, and one treasure).

Remathilis:

Interesting and thought-provoking OP.  However, I always thought that

the best of D&D's "mythology" (and by that term, I mean the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters) has always been shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources. Tolkien's races. Vance's Magic. Moorcock's Alignment. Merlinesque wizards next to Leiberian thieves, next to Howardesque barbarians facing monsters from Greek myth, Norse epics, and Lovecraftian nightmares.​
was the game's greatest strength.  Even you say it is the "best" of D&D's "mythology".

I understand the desire to brand things, and I agree with you that this is probably what WotC is doing with 4e.  But branding things isn't always in the best interest of the thing itself, nor does throwing out the "best" of what has come before make something stronger.

From its roots, D&D was a game where you could read any novel, watch any movie, see any television show, and translate parts of it into your game.  Everything was grist for the mill.  It was easy to stat up new monsters, easy to stat up new spells and magic.  That was an incredible strength.  It meant that the DM could be inspired by just about anything.  The game was invigorating to play, to run, even to prep.

I sort-of agree that D&D needs a new edition, and I sort-of agree with some of the changes that WotC is making.  The idea of faster prep time & faster combat, for instance, is a good one.  But, when in my quest for the perfect game, as I homebrewed 3.x, I discovered that there was a lot of good in the earlier editions that has been lost in the game's current incarnation.  And hodge-podging the strength of 3.X rules with the ideas of those earlier editions -- and especially 1e -- creates a great game.  Frankly, from what I've seen from the Design & Development columns (and I admit that is scanty evidence indeed), I believe it makes a much, much better game than ditching the past.

It should also be remembered that some of the alternative fantasy games out there have "instantly recognizable content" because, in the days of T$R, people who produced content too similar to that of D&D were liable to get a notice from T$R's lawyers.  

You are probably right that this is all about devising unique elements that can be "branded" and trademarked.

But, while branding may be good for WotC, and branding may be good for cattle, I am not at all convinced that branding makes a stronger game.

RC


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## DreamChaser (Nov 27, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> But, while branding may be good for WotC, and branding may be good for cattle, I am not at all convinced that branding makes a stronger game.





No does WotC believe that...if they did, they would not release the SRD and they would not allow 3rd party publications.

Heck, even within the company, the core mythology, cosmology, and even race structure is not going to be universal. Eberron will remain Eberron even as it shifts to 4e (I've lost the link that someone sent me...any help?) which means that gnomes will stay in as a core Eberron race and Dragonborn will not be developing dragonmarks. The orbiting plains will remain instead of the feywild, shadowfell, etc.

BUT

The core of the OPs message seems to be that for the first time, D&D will actually have its OWN core mythology. Not random stuff thrown together, not watered down Greyhawk (so that those who love it can finally have it for real...and the rest of us can enjoy the game without it).

If you pick up only the 3 core books and do not create your own setting, you will be playing in this new cosmology.

Otherwise, you will be changing stuff anyway, be it to match Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, Planescape, or Dragonlance or to match your homebrew. In either case, THE CORE COSMOLOGY IS IRRELEVANT.

Honestly, I am glad to see (many of) the sacred cows go and I'm also glad to see that WotC is doing things for the game that don't necessarily cowtow to the most conservative among us. Heck, there are still people playing 1e and 2e. They never switched because the didn't like anything WotC (or late TSR) did. 4e will be the same way I suppose. Game designers can't design around that set.

They can, IMO, keep doing what they're doing.

DC


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## Aaron2 (Nov 27, 2007)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> So Wizards went the other way: Here is D&D. Here is the common D&D experience. You are more than welcome to change it as needed, but we want a common ground that all players can see and know they are playing *D&D*(TM) and not some homebrew, some OGL, or some other competing fantasy media.



The problem I see is that there already is a "common D&D experience", and it's exactly the hodgepodge you describe. Up until now, my kids can play a D&D that is remarkably similar to the one I played when I was 12. With 4e they will learn an entire new set of assumptions with a new convoluted vocabulary to go with it. What WotC has accomplished is to replace the common D&D experience with a "new D&D" experience.

Whether this is good for the game I can't say but I suspect that a pure "old school D&D" version of 4e will be released a few years from now. If not then there are plenty of 3rd party companies ready to step up and create one.


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## llashismll (Nov 27, 2007)

I gotta agree with pretty much everything you said in your post OP. I love the idea that WotC is finally going out on a limb and hacking away at the old and tired elements of the D&D experience. I always hated that nostalgia had such a BIG role in every edition of D&D, even 3.5 is disapointing in that sense. There are elements and a _feeling_ that comes with D&D that really work, and then there are elements that are only there because _thats how its always been_. yuck. 

I'm so happy that the weakest element of D&D in any form, the magic system is getting a revamp, its about time. It's really about time to move away from Vancian and Gygazian principles and forge ahead into a new future for the game. I'm glad that D&D is looking around at more modern gaming experiences (like WoW and White Wolf) and seeing what went right with those games and applying a certain element of that into D&D while keeping D&D very unique and most definately giving it its own identity.


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## Doug McCrae (Nov 27, 2007)

D&D has always taken ideas from whatever was current in gaming, fantasy and pop culture. Monks come from the TV show Kung Fu which ran from 72-75. Shambling Mounds are from 70s monster comics. The Soulknife in the XPH is derived from Psylocke of the X-Men. Tome of Battle was inspired by OTT wuxia and anime (and most probably the Streetfighter video game). Dragon Shaman and Knights were inspired by the shaman and warrior classes in WoW.

It's never an exact copy though. D&D added its own elements such as multicoloured dragons and beholders. And the precise combination of stolen material combines to make something new.

Just as Star Wars ripped off Jacky Kirby's Fourth World, Dambusters, republic serials and golden age sci-fi to create something original. Light saber style weapons existed in sci-fi pre-Star Wars. The most likely source seems to be an Asimov series of books from the 50s. And yet Star Wars made the light saber its own. No one would associate the concept with Asimov now. D&D has almost managed to do the same thing with Vancian magic.

To some degree, 4e seems to be moving back to traditional mythological and folkloric concepts with its devils as fallen angels and the Feywild (though you could argue that Birthright's Shadow World is the initial source) but there will be a lot of late 3e elements too - fighters who can do more than just hit things, monsters that change halfway through the encounter.

All in all I'd say its business as usual for D&D as far as inspiration is concerned.


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## TerraDave (Nov 27, 2007)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> If simply re-imagining looks and names breaks the game, then it deserves to be broken.




First, names and looks are both important, and they seem to be having some problems here.

But they seem to be doing more then just that.


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## Voadam (Nov 27, 2007)

D&D cosmology is adding in Thor and other real world gods as core deities instead of just a selection of Greyhawk ones as in the 3e PH. Changing Baatezu to fallen angels.

I think there are counterindications to 4e D&D establishing its own mythology and not adopting/borrowing a mishmash of existing stuff.


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## Hussar (Nov 27, 2007)

Well said Rem.

Another point, that I saw in another thread, is the idea that WOTC might be fiddling with the names in order to be able to better protect their IP.  I can really see that.  Depending on what goes into the SRD, you would still be much better able to protect "Feywild" than "Arborea" as IP.  

Not a bad business decision IMO.


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## Remathilis (Nov 28, 2007)

Voadam said:
			
		

> D&D cosmology is adding in Thor and other real world gods as core deities instead of just a selection of Greyhawk ones as in the 3e PH. Changing Baatezu to fallen angels.
> 
> I think there are counterindications to 4e D&D establishing its own mythology and not adopting/borrowing a mishmash of existing stuff.




That is an interesting point. They are also "borrowing" Bane from the Realms to put to the core...

However, like other mythic creatures and elements, I bet they will have a unique D&D spin that will make them very different their mythic counterparts...


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## Connorsrpg (Nov 28, 2007)

Love what you wrote.

I have been plaing since mid 80's.  Kind of skipped the whole early literature of the game, but loved it all the same.  I find it odd for those that loved the game as a throw-together of all the old, b/c that is what a good hodge-podge fantasy game should be, but dislike if the games evolves to include a hodge-podge of modern fantasy...hmmm.

Oh, and I HATE computer games, dislike anime, and though Harry Potter was OK.  I am not abig fan of all them, but understand why some of these should be integrated...just like Vance and all other known fantasy writers were in the game's earlist conception.

C


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## Clavis (Nov 28, 2007)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> Its been said that D&D doesn't simulate any other sword-n-sorcery work BUT D&D. However, the best of D&D's "mythology" (and by that term, I mean the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters) has always been shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources. Tolkien's races. Vance's Magic. Moorcock's Alignment. Merlinesque wizards next to Leiberian thieves, next to Howardesque barbarians facing monsters from Greek myth, Norse epics, and Lovecraftian nightmares.




Thing is, nobody on the WOTC design staff is a Tolkien, Vance, Moorcock, Malory, Leiber, Howard, Homer, Snorri Sturluson, or Lovecraft. The ideas D&D appropriated were stolen from masters. They were taken because they were good ideas. Unlike say, "Emerald Frost".


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## broghammerj (Nov 28, 2007)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> So as 4e comes closer and we see more re-imaginging of classic monsters, more unique creations, and more sacred cows (Bytopia) sacrificed to make room for new things (feywild), remember that D&D has to do this to stay viable vs. other newer forms of fantasy and to keep it unique vs. the generic d20 RPG systems now and to come. By making D&D its own unique experience (rather than a holding pen for all manner of fantasy trope) its insuring its own survival and growth and strengthening its own product identity for generations to come.
> 
> ~ I.F.




Rem I agree with most of your post and thought it was quite eloquent.  I'll throw in a couple of comments.

I happen to like the hodge podge of what created DnD.  It's what attracted to the game and kept me with it for 20+ years.  Can it evolve?....Sure it already has.  There is one thing I have to say about changing tradition and altering what I already consider a strong brand:

http://graphics.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Third_Party_Photo/2007/08/03/1186152604_6394.jpg

Too much tampering can be a bad thing


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## Hussar (Nov 28, 2007)

Clavis said:
			
		

> Thing is, nobody on the WOTC design staff is a Tolkien, Vance, Moorcock, Malory, Leiber, Howard, Homer, Snorri Sturluson, or Lovecraft. The ideas D&D appropriated were stolen from masters. They were taken because they were good ideas. Unlike say, "Emerald Frost".




But, using say, Zagig is a good thing?  Or Iuz?  Yeah, there's an evocative name.  Or a bazillion unpronounceable names?  How, exactly, does one say Iggwilv?  Or, hey, how about II Nedraw?  Yeah, there's a gem.

Come on.  D&D has always had corny names.  At least Emerald Frost isn't just an anagram.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 28, 2007)

> Interesting and thought-provoking OP. However, I always thought that
> 
> the best of D&D's "mythology" (and by that term, I mean the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters) has always been shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources. Tolkien's races. Vance's Magic. Moorcock's Alignment. Merlinesque wizards next to Leiberian thieves, next to Howardesque barbarians facing monsters from Greek myth, Norse epics, and Lovecraftian nightmares.
> 
> ...




I'm with RC on this one. D&D is at it's greatest when it can ride the coattails of a million and one other motifs, throw them together, stir them up, and see what comes out. To take the dryad from Greek myth and make it useful in a game with medieval knights and cthonian monsters and pokemon trainers (for instance) would be a WONDERFUL use of the D&D game, and comes to reflect most astutely the reason I grew to love the game in the first place. With this game and my friends, I could tell ANY story.

Getting rid of those things means that D&D has to stand on it's own creative legs.

And if those creative legs are compound words and twig-monsters, they are weak, fragile little things that will quickly break under the stress of the burdens it tries to bear.

That could be okay -- WotC might be interested in giving us a different style of crutch every year. But I'd like a game that can stand on it's own, first.

Or, to phrase it in slightly more acute terms, defining it's own mythology gets in the way of me, as a DM, defining *my* mythology. If the rules' goal is to serve the DM, but they're in there telling me that they're only going to help me play their way, not mine, that's seriously not cool. That's 2e "dwarves cannot be paladins because IT IS BAD" kind of material. 

D&D should stop trying to be overwhelmingly flavorful in the core. It's rice. It's bread. It should let me top it however I want. Not that it should be flavorless itself, but it should take other flavors very well, and serve as a very delicious base.


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## Sonny (Nov 28, 2007)

Voadam said:
			
		

> D&D cosmology is adding in Thor and other real world gods as core deities instead of just a selection of Greyhawk ones as in the 3e PH. Changing Baatezu to fallen angels.
> 
> I think there are counterindications to 4e D&D establishing its own mythology and not adopting/borrowing a mishmash of existing stuff.



Are they still gonna use Thor? I thought there was an article where they said they dropped the idea of using real world gods as sample deities in the PHB.


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## resistor (Nov 28, 2007)

For me, the key PRO of the old hodge-podge approach is its flexibility: I can run a very wide range of games in a very wide range of styles from the core rules.  Sure, there are suggestions (like the core pantheon), but they are simply that: examples.  We don't have "Pelor's Fist" as a core feat, or anything.  The core rules, while they provide some examples, are fundamentally setting- and style-independent.

The main reason I am not planning to buy 4e is that it seems to moving towards a more "uniform" D&D experience, for lack of a better word.  All of what I have read seems to suggest a much stronger assumed setting and playstyle, which seems even to have crept into the edges of the mechanics.

I understand why they would want to do that for marketing reasons.  I also understand that I won't buy 4e because of it.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 28, 2007)

> The main reason I am not planning to buy 4e is that it seems to moving towards a more "uniform" D&D experience, for lack of a better word. All of what I have read seems to suggest a much stronger assumed setting and playstyle, which seems even to have crept into the edges of the mechanics.
> 
> I understand why they would want to do that for marketing reasons. I also understand that I won't buy 4e because of it.




Personally, if they are going for more uniformity, hegemony, etc., I think it's a MASSIVE, MASSIVE mistake that I wouldn't have thought they would be able to commit. Still don't believe they're actually going for that, though now I am entertaining the thought...

Basically, one of D&D's most amazing and special things is that every group owns the game in their own way, plays it differently, and loves playing it their way. It's very independent, flexible, and customizable, and that's a HUGE benefit for it. That makes it do what no other game or fantasy pastime can really do: adapt itself to however people want to play, indefinitely. D&D is the great chameleon, it's everything to everyone, it behaves as the groups tell it to, and it does so ASTONISHINGLY well for such an idiosyncratic system. The strength of this is almost entirely at the feat of Gygax: he made sure to give those first DM's authority over their games, and we haven't looked back. 

It will always do that, if not because it tries to than because we, as DM's, MAKE IT. A smart core system will realize that and make it easy to do so. A lousy core system will try to re-shape your home game out of the box to it's own whims, rather than indulging yours.


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## resistor (Nov 28, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> A lousy core system will try to re-shape your home game out of the box to it's own whims, rather than indulging yours.




That's exactly what I feel is happening, from the information so-far released about 4e.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

Huh. I thought flexibility and hodgepodge, simulating anything, was the thing of *GURPS*.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 28, 2007)

> I thought flexibility and hodgepodge, simulating anything, was the thing of GURPS.




Well, it can be D&D's thing, too.

And with stronger reliance on archetype and more smoothness than GURPS is really generally capable of.


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## resistor (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Huh. I thought flexibility and hodgepodge, simulating anything, was the thing of *GURPS*.




D&D is to other fantasy RPGs as GURPS is to all other RPGs. ;-)

More seriously though, I don't think my setting and playstyle is particularly abnormal.  I generally play in settings that are or were at some time officially supported, and my adventures are usually fairly straight-up fantasy.  No genre-bending or anything.

And yet I feel like the games that I want to play are being squeezed out by the "new, unified D&D experience."


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

resistor said:
			
		

> D&D is to other fantasy RPGs as GURPS is to all other RPGs. ;-)



Bland and atrocious?





> More seriously though, I don't think my setting and playstyle is particularly abnormal.  I generally play in settings that are or were at some time officially supported, and my adventures are usually fairly straight-up fantasy.  No genre-bending or anything.
> 
> And yet I feel like the games that I want to play are being squeezed out by the "new, unified D&D experience."



I fail to see how. Did Planescape have half-orcs and monks? 

The 3.5 DMG had the Red Wizard of Thay. Where was the shrieks of horror that FR was being pushed into your game? 

You either put the stuff in the books in your campaign, or you don't.


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## HeavenShallBurn (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Huh. I thought flexibility and hodgepodge, simulating anything, was the thing of *GURPS*.



GURPS isn't really any more flexible or adaptable than D&D, and they both have their particular core assumptions flavoring the mechanics that get hard to reconcile as you reach the outer limits of what's possible under the system.  Quite a few people myself included like the core assumptions of D&D such as the power-curve and leveling scheme but also like the ease with which we can use that basic framework to do game styles and campaigns as we feel like without being hindered by flavor inseparably welded to all the mechanics.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

HeavenShallBurn said:
			
		

> GURPS isn't really any more flexible or adaptable than D&D, and they both have their particular core assumptions flavoring the mechanics that get hard to reconcile as you reach the outer limits of what's possible under the system.



Well, I was more just making the comment given that GURPS has a book for basically every genre imaginable. So it can _do_ them. Just... not well.




> Quite a few people myself included like the core assumptions of D&D such as the power-curve and leveling scheme but also like the ease with which we can use that basic framework to do game styles and campaigns as we feel like without being hindered by flavor inseparably welded to all the mechanics.



And quite a few people, myself included, care jack about the flavor and play D&D because it's the easiest game to get players for since everyone knows it.


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## resistor (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> I fail to see how. Did Planescape have half-orcs and monks?
> 
> The 3.5 DMG had the Red Wizard of Thay. Where was the shrieks of horror that FR was being pushed into your game?
> 
> You either put the stuff in the books in your campaign, or you don't.




Planescape has the nice trait of being able to absorb lots of new additions. 

I don't particularly like the Red Wizards being in the 3.5e DMG.  If I had my way, they wouldn't be.  However, what has really pushed me over the edge from "discontent but still holding out hope that it'll be better than it seems" to "almost certainly not buying it" was when the redefined flavor started to spill over from "examples" (like, say, a Red Wizard) to more central mechanics.

I think the Golden Wyvern Adept feat (discussed in other threads) is a good example of this phenomenon.  Yes, I could rename it.  But do you know how hard it is to get players who aren't as invested as me to remember the names of their abilities?  Even when the names MEAN SOMETHING?  How much harder do you think it will be when the name on the sheet doesn't match the name in the book?

With something like that, it's not just a matter of saying "I'm not using that" (like I could with the Red Wizards).  I actually have to hand all my players a list a "table errata," and train them all to use different names for things.

That's is the designers _actively_ getting in the way of me running a non-unified experience game (i.e. one that has no place for Golden Wyverns).


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

So, Planescape can absorb things, but you can't? 

Have you guys completely ignored Paizo? Necromancer games? They, it seems, _hate_ the fluff decisions. And will be re-designing the fluff asap. 

Seriously, just wait a month or two and you'll have all your 'generic and bland abilities' and 3e Wheel Cosmology and the Blood War right back where it was, like they promised. 

I just don't see it. I mean, in my games _I don't use alignment_. And yet I manage. Despite how everything depends on alignment, from spells to asking you straight up, I just _don't bother with it_. I *hate* the core races with the intensity of a thousand suns. And I manage.  I _hate_ playing in generic pre-disposed core games where alignment and all the core races are present. I have no empathy for "Well it's just being pushed on me". 

So, sorry you don't like it. Welcome to the party.


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## resistor (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> So, Planescape can absorb things, but you can't?
> 
> Have you guys completely ignored Paizo? Necromancer games? They, it seems, _hate_ the fluff decisions. And will be re-designing the fluff asap.
> 
> ...




Did I ever say Planescape is all I play?  I happen to like it, but I've played in Eberron and in homebrews in the recent past.  And no, they don't all absorb things as well as Planescape does.

---

So your argument boils down to "I'm not happy with the status quo, so other people are wrong for being happy with it?"

I'm sorry, but I don't think I can have a productive discussion with that sentiment in play.  G'day.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

resistor said:
			
		

> So your argument boils down to "I don't like it, so nobody else should get to like it?"



No. My argument boils down to "I don't like it, but I manage _just fine_, I fail to see why you can't." 

I don't expect the PHB to give me everything I want. I expect there to be things that I'm going to roll my eyes at, or sigh and say "I'm going to have to put up with that when I sit at someone else's table." I _accept_ that.


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## pawsplay (Nov 28, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Well, it can be D&D's thing, too.
> 
> And with stronger reliance on archetype and more smoothness than GURPS is really generally capable of.




Oh? Not familiar with the 3e-4e explosion of premade templates?


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## resistor (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> No. My argument boils down to "I don't like it, but I manage _just fine_, I fail to see why you can't."




For many reasons: I don't have the time to rewrite large chunks of the core books.  I don't have players whose lives revolve around D&D: teaching them the new edition will be MUCH harder if I have to teach them "errata" at the same time.

It sounds like your desires for a fantasy RPG are poorly suited to D&D.  I don't believe my games are.  They're definitely runnable in 3.5e without any major rewriting of the core.

In short, I feel that my games are pretty solidly within the realm of the "normal 3.5e D&D experience," but they won't be within the realm of a "normal 4e D&D experience."  And, honestly, it's just not worth the effort to retrofit 4e to it, when I can just save the time (and the money) by continuing to use 3.5e.


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## rounser (Nov 28, 2007)

> Huh. I thought flexibility and hodgepodge, simulating anything, was the thing of GURPS.



Like politics between left wing and right wing, there's a middle ground between "not enough implied setting" and "too specific an implied setting" where everyone's sorta happy.  D&D is currently moving away from being somewhere around this sweet spot by the look of it.


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## jasin (Nov 28, 2007)

rounser said:
			
		

> Like politics between left wing and right wing, there's a middle ground between "not enough implied setting" and "too specific an implied setting" where everyone's sorta happy.  D&D is currently moving away from being somewhere around this sweet spot by the look of it.



Like politics, I'm not sure that many people agree where this sweet spot is.


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## Lurks-no-More (Nov 28, 2007)

jasin said:
			
		

> Like politics, I'm not sure that many people agree where this sweet spot is.



Agreed. 

Despite being a fan of Tolkien's work, I'm happy to see new races - tieflings and dragonborn - in the PHB which _aren't_ Middle-Earth-compatible. There is nothing setting neutral about the old array of races and classes; it's just that we are all so familiar with the implied setting that we no longer pay any attention to it.


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## jasin (Nov 28, 2007)

Lurks-no-More said:
			
		

> Despite being a fan of Tolkien's work, I'm happy to see new races - tieflings and dragonborn - in the PHB which _aren't_ Middle-Earth-compatible. There is nothing setting neutral about the old array of races and classes; it's just that we are all so familiar with the implied setting that we no longer pay any attention to it.



Right. For someone who grew up reading Leiber, Vance, Moorcock, Howard (which I'd consider central inspirations for D&D, just like Tolkien), woody elves and stoneworker dwarves are about as foreign as dragonmen and probably more foreign than demon-blooded people.


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## Hussar (Nov 28, 2007)

The problem is, and this has been discussed at length as well, is that D&D doesn't do Howard, Vance, et al very well at all.  It's never done genre emulation worth a damn.  

It's far and away too high magic to do Conan.  It's far and away too grim and gritty to do Tolkien.  Think about it, trying to recreate either books in D&D core rules is pretty much impossible.  There's a very good reason why we have a separate Conan d20 set of rules that's pretty far removed from D&D.  That's because D&D doesn't do it very well out of the box.

And, IMO, it never, ever did.  You had to do massive arm twisting to do low magic in D&D.  The standard party alone contained at least two spell casters, meaning that just about every encounter featured magic (and that's true in any edition).

I've learned over the years that letting D&D just be itself works the best.  If you want D&D to do anything specific, you need to pretty much rewrite a good chunk of the PHB and DMG.  Tolkien doesn't work because of spell casting wizard PC's.  ((We need to get this ring to Mount Doom.  Teleport, plink!  End of story))  

If D&D is going to be its own thing, then why not actually start from that point of view?  Instead of a half assed system that doesn't really emulate anything, why not go whole assed and create something new?

Yes, that means that Dryads get yoinked out of their mythological roots.  Now they are capable of several roles instead of wasting page count in the Monster Manual.  You can plunk one into multiple adventures, in a multiple of roles, because she's no longer just the sort of helpful, can't move too far, fairy wench.  Yay!  Screw mythology.  Gimme something I can use in the game, or cut it out completely.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 28, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I'm with RC on this one. D&D is at it's greatest when it can ride the coattails of a million and one other motifs, throw them together, stir them up, and see what comes out. To take the dryad from Greek myth and make it useful in a game with medieval knights and cthonian monsters and pokemon trainers (for instance) would be a WONDERFUL use of the D&D game, and comes to reflect most astutely the reason I grew to love the game in the first place. With this game and my friends, I could tell ANY story.
> 
> Getting rid of those things means that D&D has to stand on it's own creative legs.
> 
> ...





The End Is Near.

KM & I agree fully on something.











Run.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> No. My argument boils down to "I don't like it, but I manage _just fine_, I fail to see why you can't."




Because I _do_ like D&D.

RC


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## Drammattex (Nov 28, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> The problem is, and this has been discussed at length as well, is that D&D doesn't do Howard, Vance, et al very well at all.  It's never done genre emulation worth a damn.
> 
> It's far and away too high magic to do Conan.  It's far and away too grim and gritty to do Tolkien.  Think about it, trying to recreate either books in D&D core rules is pretty much impossible.  There's a very good reason why we have a separate Conan d20 set of rules that's pretty far removed from D&D.  That's because D&D doesn't do it very well out of the box.
> 
> ...





QFT.

I'm lucky. I got tired of the hodgepodge a long time ago, and have homebrewed the living hit points out of my D&D game to shape it into something that makes sense as a story outside of other popular genre fantasy stories. I'm fortunate because the direction I chose to go in was the direction that the 4e world is going. Week after week, I'm watching their D&D content follow the path I slashed through 2e, 2.5 (i.e. Skills & Powers), 3e, 3.5. It's not precise, but a lot of it is very close. This makes me happy because I don't have to spend as much time homebrewing to (as Hussar puts it) rewrite the PHB & DMG. 

I realize the "new way" is not everybody's bliss, but I can't help loving it. I never dreamed I'd see the day when I thought basic D&D was cool "as written."


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## Odhanan (Nov 28, 2007)

> D&D should stop trying to be overwhelmingly flavorful in the core. It's rice. It's bread. It should let me top it however I want. Not that it should be flavorless itself, but it should take other flavors very well, and serve as a very delicious base.




Add me to your list, RC and KM. 100% agreement here.

Seems to me that 4E is marketed to people who actually don't like D&D. This is just wrong.


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## Clavis (Nov 28, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Seems to me that 4E is marketed to people who actually don't like D&D. This is just wrong.




AMEN!


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## Simon Marks (Nov 28, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Seems to me that 4E is marketed to people who actually don't like D&D. This is just wrong.




Define D&D.

Because OD&D isn't the same D&D as BECMI D&D, which was different to AD&D, which is different to 3.5 D&D and won't be the same as 4e D&D.

In other words, no I don't think so. You don't like it, that's fine. But don't assume that people who the marketing for 4e does appeal to (like me), don't like D&D (because I do like D&D).


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## Elphilm (Nov 28, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Seems to me that 4E is marketed to people who actually don't like D&D. This is just wrong.



As much as I agree with Midget and Raven on this issue, I'm always wary when some party tries to claim a product as their own. I bet 4E is marketed to people who do like D&D, but their D&D might be vastly different from the D&D you (and I) like.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Nov 28, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Seems to me that 4E is marketed to people who actually don't like D&D. This is just wrong.




I don't necessarily agree with either point - that that is what they're doing, or that it's wrong.  The concern is that tabletop RPG's and D&D are a shrinking market.  Marketing to your old customers may sell a certain amount of product, but it plays into the shrinking market; it will be tough to draw in new customers.

They need to market to people who are likely to like 4E D&D.  I'm liking what I've heard, though I've heard a lot of the complaints and understand them - I hate "compound word monster" syndrome with a red-hot passion, and don't care for feats with names that don't tell me anything about what they do.  I'm a D&D player from way back ('79) so its not because I'm a new kid, or disdain the classic fantasy, most of which I found and read due the bibliography in the 1E books.

They need to find a balance between something that can appeal to new folks, and that can draw in the old folks, too.  Time will tell if they walk that fine line or fall screaming off of it into the abyss.

I don't mind getting rid of some of the old sacred cows.  From my perspective, a lot of those things are the result of 30 years of mostly random decisions that people have started to try and build logic out of where none existed to begin with.  They create a barrier to entry for new folks, whereas the 4E stuff I'm reading actually reminds me of the way I felt about gaming in those first few years 1979-1981 before the detritus of randomness and bad-business-decisions-disguised-as-plot came into being (or at least before I became aware of it).

All of that said, I expect that I will be making some personal house rules and flavor changes right out of the box.  That's something I didn't really do with 3E.


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## Cadfan (Nov 28, 2007)

While I generally agree that D&D should be as all encompassing as possible, I do not think that means that the default assumptions of D&D should be flavorless.  There is a HUGE gap between "has default flavor" and "doesn't encompass certain myths, legends, and story-types."  Take the aforementioned changes to dryads, for example.  How does this mess up my ability to tell a story involving a beautiful dryad?  I look at the monster manual, the game's dryad doesn't match what I want, so I almost reflexively fix the problem.  

1) Hmm, over here is a nymph that does exactly what I want except it lives in the water.  Ok, BAM!  Now it lives in a tree.
2) Hmm, ok, now the dryad is just the same except pretty.
3) What I really want is a magical girl who lives in a tree and is hot.  Why do I even need to stat that up?  She's noncombat, but has a plot relevant special ability, so I'll do what I do with barkeeps and other npcs- wing it if she gets in a fight.

I'm usually the first person leading the charge to make D&D more encompassing of hero archetypes not historically found in D&D.  And I'd be the first to lead the charge to make D&D more encompassing of monster archetypes not historically found in D&D, if it came up.  But that doesn't mean that I resent the inclusion of [adjective][monster], because that really doesn't get in my way.

In short,

IF the default flavor got in my way,
THEN I would resent it.
BUT its never got in my way before,
AND I can't see any reason why it would in the future,
NOR has anyone given an actual reason why it might,
SO bring on the default flavor,
BECAUSE more inspiration is better than less.


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## TerraDave (Nov 28, 2007)

*D&D as bread*

Just to reword what I said before: no. I mean, I agree with the general point, but D&D, unlike say GURPS, actually has a lot of flavour. Its loaded with it. 

Instead I would say:

*D&D is a smorgasboard*

That you can make a lot of different meals from.


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## Elphilm (Nov 28, 2007)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> 1) Hmm, over here is a nymph that does exactly what I want except it lives in the water.  Ok, BAM!  Now it lives in a tree.



I don't think dryads should even have a separate creature entry from nymphs. Nymphs in mythology don't live in water alone; they live all over the place, and a dryad is simply a nymph tied to a particular tree. Just as there are no separate entries for alseids, auloniads, hesperides, leimakids, napaeaes, oreads, heleads, naiads, nereids, and oceanids, there is no need to have a separate entry for dryads either.

Unless you want to make dryads mini-treants.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

resistor said:
			
		

> In short, I feel that my games are pretty solidly within the realm of the "normal 3.5e D&D experience," but they won't be within the realm of a "normal 4e D&D experience."  And, honestly, it's just not worth the effort to retrofit 4e to it, when I can just save the time (and the money) by continuing to use 3.5e.



See you for 5e then.


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## pawsplay (Nov 28, 2007)

Elphilm said:
			
		

> I don't think dryads should even have a separate creature entry from nymphs. Nymphs in mythology don't live in water alone; they live all over the place, and a dryad is simply a nymph tied to a particular tree. Just as there are no separate entries for alseids, auloniads, hesperides, leimakids, napaeaes, oreads, heleads, naiads, nereids, and oceanids, there is no need to have a separate entry for dryads either.
> 
> Unless you want to make dryads mini-treants.




Oreads, naiads, and nereids have all received D&D stats in the past, IIRC.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Because I _do_ like D&D.
> 
> RC



And Golden Wyvern is going to utterly ruin your like of D&D? Please.


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## Elphilm (Nov 28, 2007)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Oreads, naiads, and nereids have all received D&D stats in the past, IIRC.



Yeah, I guessed that some of them would have been statted up at some point - after all, there have been a billion elven subraces as well. Just as I don't see the need for valley elves and snow elves, I don't see a reason for breaking the nymph into a dozen different creature entries either.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Nov 28, 2007)

Elphilm said:
			
		

> I don't see a reason for breaking the nymph into a dozen different creature entries either.




Well, if you had to fill out eight monster manuals, your tune would change right quick!


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## Odhanan (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> And Golden Wyvern is going to utterly ruin your like of D&D? Please.



No, but Golden Wyvern + Eladrin + Tiefling + Dragonborn + Warlord + non-compatibility with 3E + Changes in the cosmology + porte-manteaux + DDI + + + + adds up in this regards for many fans of the game. That is certain.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> No, but Golden Wyvern + Eladrin + Tiefling + Dragonborn + Warlord + non-compatibility with 3E + Changes in the cosmology + porte-manteaux + DDI + + + + adds up in this regards for many fans of the game. That is certain.



Then good riddance.

There are many people who still play OD&D, 1e, and 2e and still like D&D. Those folks didn't like what they saw with the Next edition, and they stayed put.


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## Odhanan (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Then good riddance.




Thank you so much for your kindness and understanding.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Thank you so much for your kindness and understanding.



You're welcome.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> And Golden Wyvern is going to utterly ruin your like of D&D? Please.




Of course not, and thank you for the straw man.    

I don't think that many (I almost typed "anyone", but the last few months have proven that false enough   ) would say that _a single thing_ would turn them off from an edition change.  Rather, it is the _cumulative effect_ of changes that seem to be aimed at removing, to my mind, what is both D&D's greatest strength and its core identity.

When one says, "I like D&D" they generally mean, IMHO, that they like the _core identity_ of D&D.  And that core identity is a wonderful hodgepodge of influences put through the Gygaxian strainer.  

Now, folks (such as yourself) come along and say that they only play D&D because of its branding (i.e., because it is well known, and hence easier to find players for).  You'd like to change the game, removing the features that cause those who like the game to like it, under the (IMHO) mistaken impression that the name "Dungeons & Dragons" will make it easier to find players for the game you wished to play (which is clearly something else).

I, OTOH, think that the reason that the game you wished to play is not as popular as D&D is _because_ it fails the "Gygaxian hodgepodge" test, and that changing D&D to make the core game play as you would have it do so will not ultimately make your game of choice more popular, but make 4e less popular than its predecessors.....just as there are still more people playing 1e today than 3.x.



RC


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## pawsplay (Nov 28, 2007)

"just as there are still more people playing 1e today than 3.x."

I don't know numbers, but it's always worth remembering that White Christmas is still a best-selling tune.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> "just as there are still more people playing 1e today than 3.x."



Woah. Who said that?

I'd really like to see the numbers for that statement.


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## Doug McCrae (Nov 28, 2007)

D&D's own mythology is not that wonderful. Kender, hawt drow chixxorz, giant space hamsters, Drizzt, Elminster. The creative work of people like REHoward and Tolkien is probably superior in every respect. D&D's great strength is its rules, not its mythology. So it should be game first, then create a background which supports the game. Which is what they seem to be doing in 4e.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Now, folks (such as yourself) come along and say that they only play D&D because of its branding (i.e., because it is well known, and hence easier to find players for).  You'd like to change the game, removing the features that cause those who like the game to like it, under the (IMHO) mistaken impression that the name "Dungeons & Dragons" will make it easier to find players for the game you wished to play (which is clearly something else).



No. I also like the changes in 4e. I think the dragonborn and tieflings are a breath of fresh air compared to the Tolkien _worship_. And yet somehow this insults Your D&D.



> I, OTOH, think that the reason that the game you wished to play is not as popular as D&D is _because_ it fails the "Gygaxian hodgepodge" test, and that changing D&D to make the core game play as you would have it do so will not ultimately make your game of choice more popular, but make 4e less popular than its predecessors.....just as there are still more people playing 1e today than 3.x.



You would be wrong. Living in the Bible Belt of the US means few gamers, _period_. It has nothing to do with *fantasy* gaming at all. Hodgepodge D&D, superheros or Serenity RPG, _there's barely any gamers at all_ to play them in the first place.


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## Voadam (Nov 28, 2007)

Sonny said:
			
		

> Are they still gonna use Thor? I thought there was an article where they said they dropped the idea of using real world gods as sample deities in the PHB.




I haven't seen one saying such. Most of my 4e info though comes from the ENWorld collected blurbs though.

If you find that quote I'd like to see a link to it.


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## Doug McCrae (Nov 28, 2007)

D&D is not really generic fantasy. Okay, there are rules for knights, wizards (with weird spellcasting) and dragons (so long as you like a spectrum of them). But there's really weird D&Disms too like the arcane/divine divide. And the way the game works - four person party, no clear hero, lots of fights, lots of healing, flash-bang magic, spellcasters common, magic items common, a plethora of monsters - doesn't look like any work of fiction.


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## Odhanan (Nov 28, 2007)

*Rechan:* Could you please try to be less offensive towards people's feelings and opinions?

I'm starting to really feel offended by what you write and how you write it.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 28, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> *Rechan:* Could you please try to be less offensive towards people's feelings and opinions?
> 
> I'm starting to really feel offended by what you write and how you write it.





That goes for me as well.


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## resistor (Nov 28, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> That goes for me as well.




Thirded.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> *Rechan:* Could you please try to be less offensive towards people's feelings and opinions?
> 
> I'm starting to really feel offended by what you write and how you write it.



Move your mouse over to my name on the left side, and left click. At the very bottom of the little window that pops up, there will be the text "Add Rechan to your ignore list". Click on that.

Seriously, if what I've said _offends_ you, then there's little I can do except stop posting. I'm being _tame_ compared to message boards, compared to the arguments _here_. A few weeks ago someone on Enworld said that they wanted the fun/style of a certain type of gaming to be put into a sack and thrown into a river until it drowns, never to be found again. I've not broken any message board rules (unless a mod would like to correct me there).


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## pawsplay (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Seriously, if what I've said _offends_ you, then there's little I can do except stop posting.




Or, you know, trying to be nicer when you do post.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> No. I also like the changes in 4e. I think the dragonborn and tieflings are a breath of fresh air compared to the Tolkien fellating. And yet somehow this insults Your D&D.




I think that removing the hodgepodge nature of literary influences from the core is a mistake.  That is not the same thing as an insult.  Your comment about "Tolkien fellating", for example, is an obviously intentional insult, although the statement it is contained in is not mistaken (assuming, of course, that you really feel that way).



> You would be wrong. Living in the Bible Belt of the US means few gamers, _period_. It has nothing to do with *fantasy* gaming at all. Hodgepodge D&D, superheros or Serenity RPG, _there's barely any gamers at all_ to play them in the first place.




Really?  I was born in the United States, and I've lived in the Bible Belt.  I never had a problem finding gamers even in Louisiana, where they still call the counties "parishes".  Of course, this was back in the days of 1e D&D, when the game was at its height of popularity.  Perhaps things have changed.

One has to wonder, though, why (if it has nothing to do with *fantasy* gaming at all) you suggested earlier that changing D&D would make it easier to find players interested in the games that you are interested in.  One also has to wonder why, if you can find players for hodgepodge D&D (assuming you are playing at all), you can't convince those players to try the games you prefer.

In any event, I feel for your pain.  

RC


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Or, you know, trying to be nicer when you do post.



Again, there's nothing I can do.


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## mhensley (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> You would be wrong. Living in the Bible Belt of the US means few gamers, _period_. It has nothing to do with *fantasy* gaming at all. Hodgepodge D&D, superheros or Serenity RPG, _there's barely any gamers at all_ to play them in the first place.




Strange.  I live in nearby Knoxville and there's tons of gamers here.  Even though there's a church on every corner.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

[







> Really?  I was born in the United States, and I've lived in the Bible Belt.  I never had a problem finding gamers even in Louisiana, where they still call the counties "parishes".  Of course, this was back in the days of 1e D&D, when the game was at its height of popularity.  Perhaps things have changed.



That was pre-Jack Chick and pre-2e mass hysteria, I imagine. But outside of say, Atlanta or some other metropolis, it's quite challenging.



> One has to wonder, though, why (if it has nothing to do with *fantasy* gaming at all) you suggested earlier that changing D&D would make it easier to find players interesting in the games that you are interested in.  One also has to wonder why, if you can find players for hodgepodge D&D (assuming you are playing at all), you can't convince those players to try the games you prefer.



I never suggested that changing D&D makes it easier to find players. It's all ready the most widely played game. The trend in changes may attract _new_ players, which the hobby needs, but I don't think the changes will make it easier to find people.

I said I play D&D because there are just more people that play it, therefore making it easier to find likeminded players.


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## pawsplay (Nov 28, 2007)

mhensley said:
			
		

> Strange.  I live in nearby Knoxville and there's tons of gamers here.  Even though there's a church on every corner.




I started gaming in Broken Arrow, OK, and every boy on the block over the age of 8 played.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

mhensley said:
			
		

> Strange.  I live in nearby Knoxville and there's tons of gamers here.  Even though there's a church on every corner.



Huh. That is odd. Maybe it's just my city. The comic book/gaming stores die like flies here, and the only thing that seems to garner any attention is either WH40K or Magic/Pokemon.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

> I think that removing the hodgepodge nature of literary influences from the core is a mistake. That is not the same thing as an insult. Your comment about "Tolkien fellating", for example, is an obviously intentional insult, although the statement it is contained in is not mistaken (assuming, of course, that you really feel that way).



And yet despite its hodgepodge nature, the move to add modern fantasy elements to D&D has met with such resistance.


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## resistor (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Seriously, if what I've said _offends_ you, then there's little I can do except stop posting. I'm being _tame_ compared to message boards, compared to the arguments _here_. A few weeks ago someone on Enworld said that they wanted the fun/style of a certain type of gaming to be put into a sack and thrown into a river until it drowns, never to be found again. I've not broken any message board rules (unless a mod would like to correct me there).




The difference is between saying something negative about the topic (which, while potentially not popular, is a valid contribution to a discussion) and saying something negative about the speakers.

Telling those of us who are discouraged about 4e's flavor that we're a "good riddance" is a personal insult aimed at us, the posters, not a meaningful contribution to the discussion.  In debate, they call it "ad hominem."


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2007)

resistor said:
			
		

> Telling those of us who are discouraged about 4e's flavor that we're a "good riddance" is a personal insult aimed at us, the posters, not a meaningful contribution to the discussion.  In debate, they call it "ad hominem."



I disagree. I don't see it as an insult at all.


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## pawsplay (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> I disagree. I don't see it as an insult at all.




You're telling people that their opinion makes them unwelcome. "Good riddance" means, in case you were unaware, "I'm glad they're gone."


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## Umbran (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Again, there's nothing I can do.





Nothing?  Honestly, nothing?  I think you are very wrong here.  If I may be blunt - you seem to be lacking in... tact.  That rubs people the wrong way, and in the long run could be a problem.

If you are seriously interested in improving how you interact with your fellow posters, please e-mail the moderator of your choosing, and one of us can probably help you out.


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## Piratecat (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Then good riddance.



Okay.

In addition to the Grandma rule we have here, please allow me to enumerate another rule which we don't usually have to spell out so clearly. It's called the "don't be a dick" rule. When you consistently act like a rude jerk despite numerous warnings, and consistently go out of your way _not_ to be nice to other people, we don't feel any regret at all for asking you not to come back. It doesn't matter if you're smart, or clever, or are convinced that you're right. 

We're all here because this site is fun, and angry snipes make it not-fun.  Rechan, I'll see you when your suspension is up. I hope by then you'll have figured out how to be nice to people, even when you don't agree with them. 

Problems? Questions? Comments? Send me an email. And be nice to one another, folks. Remember, we're here because we love gaming -- so don't paint one another as the enemy.

 - Kevin


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## resistor (Nov 28, 2007)

EDIT: Post removed.  Mods beat me to it.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> That was pre-Jack Chick and pre-2e mass hysteria, I imagine. But outside of say, Atlanta or some other metropolis, it's quite challenging.




Nope.  That was post-Chick (Chick was chic, you might say), after Mazes & Monsters, and during the height of the "OMG demons in the PHB" that led to the fiends in 2e.



> I never suggested that changing D&D makes it easier to find players. It's all ready the most widely played game.




Please go back & look at what I wrote.  You claim that you "play D&D because it's the easiest game to get players for since everyone knows it" and "care jack about the flavor".  So, if the flavour of D&D changes to something you _do_ like, and it retains its popularity, that increases the number of players who are playing something you "care jack about".

However, if you are playing D&D "because there are just more people that play it" but you do not like it, then I suggest that you are not finding "likeminded players" -- you are adapting your behaviour to that of others.  Now you wish/hope those others will adapt their likes to yours.  

And it may happen.  Certainly there will be cases where it _does_ happen.  But, overall, I think that it will weaken the game, and erode its popularity.  YYMV, and obviously does.

RC


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 28, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> And yet despite its hodgepodge nature, the move to add modern fantasy elements to D&D has met with such resistance.





My concern is not with adding modern fantasy elements....I think 3.x was fantastic for this, being the first edition of the game that could really support a Victorian fantasy, for instance.  It is what is being removed that concerns me.

RC


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## Sonny (Nov 28, 2007)

Voadam said:
			
		

> I haven't seen one saying such. Most of my 4e info though comes from the ENWorld collected blurbs though.
> 
> If you find that quote I'd like to see a link to it.



Ah, found it. To me it sounds like they've dropped the real world stuff. Maybe I'm assuming too much, wouldn't be the first time. It's from Design and Development: Pantheon 



> There was a time when the team working on "the world" of D&D thought we could get away with creating general rules useful to clerics regardless of which pantheon existed in the campaign, and then presenting a variety of fictional and historical pantheons for DMs to adopt or adapt as they saw fit. I believe it was Stacy Longstreet, the senior D&D art director, who pointed out that this solution would leave us in a bit of a bind.


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## Voadam (Nov 28, 2007)

Sonny said:
			
		

> Ah, found it. To me it sounds like they've dropped the real world stuff. Maybe I'm assuming too much, wouldn't be the first time. It's from Design and Development: Pantheon




Ah, I had read that entry this morning but did not think that was actually saying no historical gods. I took it as them deciding they had to come up with specific sample gods and make them part of the core pantheon regardless of where they originated. So Set could be one of them the way he is in both real world Egypt and in Conan stories. Bane is there even though FR is not the core default setting.

You may be right though that this is an oblique indication that they are not including real world ones. We'll have to wait and see though.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Nov 29, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> just as there are still more people playing 1e today than 3.x.



Huh?  You either mispoke, or you need to back that up with some citations and facts...


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## Hussar (Nov 29, 2007)

resistor said:
			
		

> The difference is between saying something negative about the topic (which, while potentially not popular, is a valid contribution to a discussion) and saying something negative about the speakers.
> 
> Telling those of us who are discouraged about 4e's flavor that we're a "good riddance" is a personal insult aimed at us, the posters, not a meaningful contribution to the discussion.  In debate, they call it "ad hominem."




((Not picking on resistor here, just using it as an example.))

It's okay for some people to say that people who like 4e don't like D&D (and are obviously flawed and inferior) but it's not okay to tell you goodbye?

Come on, dogpiling on Rechan is one thing, but, let's be fair here.  Oldahan flat out stated that anyone who likes 4e hates D&D.  That's utterly ridiculous.  Yet, I don't see any criticisms for him.

BTW, speaking of ridiculous, 



> just as there are still more people playing 1e today than 3.x.




I'd LOVE to see any sort of numbers that support this idea.  Considering the number of 1e players was CUT IN HALF by 2e, and 15 years or so after that there's STILL more people playing 1e than 3e?  Not bloody likely.


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## Hussar (Nov 29, 2007)

Y'know, while Rechan may be tact challenged, his point is still valid.  RC and others are saying that D&D's strength is in its hodgepodge nature.  I agree with this point.  But, it appears to me that their idea of hodgepodge is limited to a small list of dead authors.  Anything that comes afterward should be ignored in order to preserve the purity of the game.

After all, if D&D is truly a hodgepodge of fantasy, then why not use recent fantasy in basic design?  Why should we be limited to Tolkien races for example?  After all, there's LOADS of fantasy out there that has moved away from the traditional Tolkien races.  Why should we be stuck with the idea of the fighter as stodgy, traditional (and probably not historical since historical knights trained in martial arts just as much as Eastern ones did) knights who only swing swords.

Fantasy has its roots in Tolkien and others, but, those roots have grown pretty bloody far from the source.  Why shouldn't D&D reflect that?


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## Kevin Brennan (Nov 29, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Y'know, while Rechan may be tact challenged, his point is still valid.  RC and others are saying that D&D's strength is in its hodgepodge nature.  I agree with this point.  But, it appears to me that their idea of hodgepodge is limited to a small list of dead authors.  Anything that comes afterward should be ignored in order to preserve the purity of the game.




I can't speak for anyone else, but for me at least it's not adding influences that are the problem. Additional options are fine. The problem is that they're changing the game in ways that will make it significantly more difficult, if not impossible, to play a game in the style that all previous editions have supported. It just feels like a new game to me. If that game appeals to you, great, I'm not looking to spoil your fun. And hey, nobody's taking away my game books, so I can continue to play a game that supports what I want to do. I just would have liked 4e to be that game, is all.


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## neceros (Nov 29, 2007)

Kevin Brennan said:
			
		

> I can't speak for anyone else, but for me at least it's not adding influences that are the problem. Additional options are fine. The problem is that they're changing the game in ways that will make it significantly more difficult, if not impossible, to play a game in the style that all previous editions have supported. It just feels like a new game to me. If that game appeals to you, great, I'm not looking to spoil your fun. And hey, nobody's taking away my game books, so I can continue to play a game that supports what I want to do. I just would have liked 4e to be that game, is all.




Give it time. If they mess up D&D that badly do you think most of us will still play? I don't.


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## Doug McCrae (Nov 29, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> After all, if D&D is truly a hodgepodge of fantasy, then why not use recent fantasy in basic design?



Using whatever is current in fantasy would be very much following in the proud traditions of D&D. Over its 30+ year history it's never stopped doing this. LotR had only recently become popular on US college campuses when OD&D debuted.

Though admittedly most of the pulp fiction Gary ripped off was of an earlier period - 1930s-50s.


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## Keldryn (Nov 29, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> It's okay for some people to say that people who like 4e don't like D&D (and are obviously flawed and inferior) but it's not okay to tell you goodbye?
> 
> Come on, dogpiling on Rechan is one thing, but, let's be fair here.  Oldahan flat out stated that anyone who likes 4e hates D&D.  That's utterly ridiculous.  Yet, I don't see any criticisms for him.




I'm in agreement.  Rechan might not have expressed his opinion with the utmost tact, but I find the implied "my vision of D&D is more pure and correct than yours because I still play it the same way after 30 years" subtext in a lot of posts far more offensive than anything that he wrote.


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## resistor (Nov 29, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Come on, dogpiling on Rechan is one thing, but, let's be fair here.  Oldahan flat out stated that anyone who likes 4e hates D&D.  That's utterly ridiculous.  Yet, I don't see any criticisms for him.




I just went back and re-read the entire thread, to make sure I hadn't missed something.  I assume you mean when he said: "Seems to me that 4E is marketed to people who actually don't like D&D.  This is just wrong."

While I certainly think it could be better phrased to be less incendiary, I don't think it says that "anyone who likes 4e hates D&D."  There is no other possible reading of what Rechan wrote than as a direct insult.

That said, I extend a preemptive apology to anyone that might have read such a sentiment in my posts.  I don't think my games are better than anyone else's.  I just feel that the games I play (which I don't think are anything incredibly abnormal) are not included in the redefined D&D experience for 4e, and thus I won't be buying it.

I sincerely hope that everyone who likes 4e has a great time playing it.  I also hope that they'll accept that some of us _don't_ like it, and just telling us to "rename/rewrite it to your taste" isn't an acceptable solution.


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## resistor (Nov 29, 2007)

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I'm in agreement.  Rechan might not have expressed his opinion with the utmost tact, but I find the implied "my vision of D&D is more pure and correct than yours because I still play it the same way after 30 years" subtext in a lot of posts far more offensive than anything that he wrote.




I have more than one point of contention with this, but I'm only going to address the one that's truly on-topic:

If you think I have been implying that I've been playing the game the same way for the last 30 years, well, you're wrong.   

I actually didn't start playing until 3e, as did all of my players.  I think to some extent that's _why_ I feel left out by the changes: I'm not bringing lots of baggage from every previous edition, but my game style still seems to be excluded.  If I truly were a 30-year-long grognard, I think it would be easier to accept being left behind.


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## resistor (Nov 29, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Y'know, while Rechan may be tact challenged, his point is still valid.  RC and others are saying that D&D's strength is in its hodgepodge nature.  I agree with this point.  But, it appears to me that their idea of hodgepodge is limited to a small list of dead authors.  Anything that comes afterward should be ignored in order to preserve the purity of the game.




That's definitely _not_ what I'm trying to say.  I haven't even read a lot of the authors point at as the inspiration of D&D.

The only thing I'm saying is that the kind of game I play right now in 3.5e (BTW, I only started playing with 3e, so it's nothing ultra-grognard-y) seems to be excluded from 4e, without significant renaming/rewriting.

If I were still playing OD&D style, I could understand this.  Letting go of REALLY old stuff is understandable.

If I were playing corner-cases, I could understand this.  The edge-cases of what D&D can support are always changing, so I wouldn't be surprised for them to move with an edition change.

However, I'm not doing either.  I play in both supported and previously-supported settings.  I use prewritten modules with some regularity.  I buy and use WotC books with decent frequency.

I am surprised and disappointed because, despite being (in my own perception) in the "well-supported" region of 3.5e, I'm apparently not supported at all in 4e.

I have no problem with supporting more new playstyles.  I do have a problem with excluding old ones, particularly ones that were well-supported in the previous edition.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 29, 2007)

> But, it appears to me that their idea of hodgepodge is limited to a small list of dead authors. Anything that comes afterward should be ignored in order to preserve the purity of the game.




Boo hiss for this idea. I believe that the hodgepodge is strong enough to contain pokemon trainers and giant sword-wielders and, yes, even emo drow children. To include some other modern fantasy, let's say armored bears, daemons, and Dust (I'm stoked for the Golden Compass movie, I CAN'T HELP IT!).

Of course, that doesn't mean D&D should get rid of what has come before -- the wizards and the barbarians and the assasins need to be in the same bucket.

Honestly, it would have excited me more to see a Monster Trainer class in the 4e core than it does to see the Great Wheel eradicated in the 4e core. 



> Fantasy has its roots in Tolkien and others, but, those roots have grown pretty bloody far from the source. Why shouldn't D&D reflect that?




IMO, it should.

But, also, 4e doesn't seem to be interested in doing that, from some of the tidbits. If the OP is right and D&D is trying to define itself as apart from the fantasy that influences, it will be WEAK SAUCE. I don't want Dave Noonan's homebrew. I want the game to be MY setting for MY group, or my friend Eddie's setting for our group. 

Rather, in defining itself as apart from those influences, D&D is trying to be it's own setting for all groups. IMO, that's a project destined for failure, because it flies in the face of something D&D has always done very well.

And I definately appreciate the "buffet style" analogy better than the bread analogy. Pick and choose your favorite foods, pile them on a plate, and call it delicious. 4e seems to be intentionally limiting it's buffet for the core.


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## Hussar (Nov 29, 2007)

A further thought occurs.

3e hardwired its implied setting far more tightly than any edition previously.  With the wealth/level guidelines, demographic guidelines and,  being able to purchase magic items, if you depart from those three basic concepts, you need to do lots and lots of tapdancing with the rules.  The implied setting is pretty solidly embedded in 3e mechanics.

The thing is, the implied setting has very little flavour.  They give you all the mechanics of the setting and then assume that the DM will provide the flavour to fit those mechanics.  Thus we see post after post about how 3e can't do this or that kind of campaign, primarily campaigns with a lower magic base, but, also other campaigns as well.  That's because the implied campaign is hardwired.  3e can't do low magic settings (without lots of tap dancing) because it's not set up that way.  It doesn't do a whole lot of settings very well, other than the baseline one.  There's a reason that we see all sorts of mechanical changes with other settings.  You pretty much have to because of the basic assumptions of 3e.

From what I see, 4e is going to keep the same level of hard wiring in the rules.  They aren't going to back off of that because so many people like the idea of baselines to work from.  It allows development to be much more cohesive than without a baseline.  However, what I think is happening is they are actually going to provide flavour with that baseline as well, which is a change from 3e.

That flavour is going to be based on the core assumptions of the books.  3e could easily have the same thing, but, they shied away from it.  They didn't provide much, if any, flavour for the baseline assumptions.  

That goes against the stated goals of 4e though, one of which is to provide faster play.  If the DM has to start out by detailing out all the whosits in his campaign setting, that's a huge barrier to entry to play.  However, if the core 3 manuals contain an entire campaign setting, complete with flavour (we know the DMG will include at least one settlement fully detailed), then the new DM can read the book and start play.

This worked very, very well for Basic and Expert D&D remember.  What would later become known as Mystara was plunked right down in the rulebooks.  The entire game was wired for play in the Known World.  They made no secret of that fact.  The campaign outlines are right there in the books and in the modules that were included with the books.

It's not like this idea is totally new.  It is actually, IMO, pretty tried and true.  Most RPG's have a hard coded setting right in the core books.  Thinking about it, other than GURPS, what RPG doesn't have a detailed setting in the core books?


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## Simia Saturnalia (Nov 29, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> It's not like this idea is totally new.  It is actually, IMO, pretty tried and true.  Most RPG's have a hard coded setting right in the core books.  Thinking about it, other than GURPS, what RPG doesn't have a detailed setting in the core books?



HERO is another obvious one. Tri-Stat dX (which is cheating kinda, it's a distillation of the rules) and the cyberpunk book Ex Machina (containing four micro-settings). Burning Wheel likes to say it doesn't, but it's the most LotR game I've ever seen without the word 'Gandalf' in the book, so it's 50/50.

Arguably, Palladium's Heroes Unlimited and Ninjas & Superspies have no setting, taking the "Modern-day Earth but with more (x)" approach (that x might be superheroes or ninjas, respectively) - by lacking canon characters/world explanations, they seem pretty general. You could make the argument for the nWoD core book too, though it's tenuous IMO.

The Silhouette system comes in a single setting-less book, as did (does?) the BRP system (these might, again, be cheating - but they cost money where Tri-Stat dX is free).

It's rather telling four of them are generic point buy and the rest could be argued to have setting flavor included.

EDIT: And would you look at how timely my .sig is.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 29, 2007)

Kevin Brennan said:
			
		

> I can't speak for anyone else, but for me at least it's not adding influences that are the problem. Additional options are fine. The problem is that they're changing the game in ways that will make it significantly more difficult, if not impossible, to play a game in the style that all previous editions have supported.




You know, I said something like that earlier.

"My concern is not with adding modern fantasy elements....I think 3.x was fantastic for this, being the first edition of the game that could really support a Victorian fantasy, for instance. It is what is being removed that concerns me."

However, it is always easier for some to answer a strawman than the actual point being made, even when they claim to agree with the point they are substituting the strawman for:  "RC and others are saying that D&D's strength is in its hodgepodge nature. I agree with this point."


RC


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## Simon Marks (Nov 29, 2007)

Ok RC, let's try to get to the nub of the issue.

What is the thing that is being removed by 4e that was supported by all the other editions?

Or is it something that is being removed by 4e that was supported by 3.5 only that is the problem.


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## Lurks-no-More (Nov 29, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> You know, I said something like that earlier.
> 
> "My concern is not with adding modern fantasy elements....I think 3.x was fantastic for this, being the first edition of the game that could really support a Victorian fantasy, for instance. It is what is being removed that concerns me."



I admit to not having followed this thread particularly closely, so I hope you don't mind me asking what things that we know are being removed concern you the most?


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 29, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Boo hiss for this idea. I believe that the hodgepodge is strong enough to contain pokemon trainers and giant sword-wielders and, yes, even emo drow children. To include some other modern fantasy, let's say armored bears, daemons, and Dust (I'm stoked for the Golden Compass movie, I CAN'T HELP IT!).




Don't worry.  So far as I know, *Hussar* decided that this is what was meant or implied, regardless of what was said.  As I said earlier (and, oddly enough, in several conversations with Hussar, so he should, theoretically, know my stand on this), one of 3.X's greatest strengths is that it widens the range of what can be done in D&D.

1e suggested rules for side-trips to Gamma World or Boot Hill, and Ed Greenwood did a wonderful Dragon article on adventurers in a modern setting, but 1e didn't do this particularly well.  Nor could it handle the common trope of "modern humans transported to fantasy world" with any grace.  3.X does all of these things, and more.  In 3.X, I could easily see a Western D&D, where elves and Native Americans resist settlers, the dwarves come from the Appalachians to help with the railroad, and the Grand Canyon is riddled with caves ala The Keep on the Borderland writ large.  In 3.X I could easily see a Victorian D&D, with bicycles, and things like the Wheelers from _Return to Oz_.  I could easily see, as you say, armoured bears, daemons, and Dust.

IMHO, increased options = good.

That is not what I am seeing from the blogs, columns, etc, for 4e.  I truly hope that I am wrong about this, and that the OP is wrong.  Because, as you say, what the OP suggests WotC is doing would brew a weak sauce indeed.


RC


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 29, 2007)

Simon Marks said:
			
		

> Ok RC, let's try to get to the nub of the issue.
> 
> What is the thing that is being removed by 4e that was supported by all the other editions?
> 
> Or is it something that is being removed by 4e that was supported by 3.5 only that is the problem.





Before I answer that question (and that of Lurks-n-More), can I ask when you started playing D&D?  I ask only because I want to use 2nd Ed as an analogy.

RC


----------



## Lurks-no-More (Nov 29, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Before I answer that question (and that of Lurks-n-More), can I ask when you started playing D&D?  I ask only because I want to use 2nd Ed as an analogy.



With the red/blue/green/black boxed D&D sets (the ones w. Elmore dragon art), shifting later to AD&D 2e (and from there, to 3e and 3.5).


----------



## Hussar (Nov 29, 2007)

> Don't worry. So far as I know, Hussar decided that this is what was meant or implied, regardless of what was said. As I said earlier (and, oddly enough, in several conversations with Hussar, so he should, theoretically, know my stand on this), one of 3.X's greatest strengths is that it widens the range of what can be done in D&D.




Actually, you usually argue the exact opposite of this, so, I'm left wondering when you changed your tune.  You've frequently argued that 3e's implied setting and core assumptions make moving in any direction very, very difficult.  Whether it's the inclusion of "magic marts" or "high magic settings", you've repeatedly taken the stand that 3e actually is much more limiting than earlier editions since you cannot do what you want without several hundred pages of rewriting the system.

In fact, for a system you are so ardently defending here as being broad enough to encapsulate many different concepts, why would you then feel the need to almost entirely rewrite the system to fit your own concept?  

But, I, like others here, would be interested in knowing what you see as being removed that would make things so much more difficult to do in 4e.


----------



## Simon Marks (Nov 29, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Before I answer that question (and that of Lurks-n-More), can I ask when you started playing D&D?  I ask only because I want to use 2nd Ed as an analogy.
> 
> RC




1981 with Red Box D&D (the one before BECMI D&D). Palace of the Silver Princess was my first adventure. I ran it too.

I'm familiar with 2e AD&D.


----------



## AWizardInDallas (Nov 29, 2007)

*Dumbing Down D&D*

I believe that Wizards of the Coast will continue to hack and hack and hack at D&D until it is no longer recognizable as D&D.  No matter the prose, I have absolutely no desire to use any system mutated by the genetic drift of popularity contests and polls, marketing strategies, and general hype.

I have always used my own settings and mythology and don't want one built into the game rules anyway.  What many people seem to have lost sight of is that D&D is what you make of it.  I don't need anyone legislating setting, mythology or even the difference between moral right and wrong in the rules themselves.

There were a multitude of great ideas that went into building D&D, over twenty-five years worth of ideas as a matter of fact, the very ideas that the gaming community is now turning on and complaining about as tired, old and boring.  It's real easy to look back and spit on what came before.  Please don't allow the short attention span to win out over imagination.

There are great ideas now being cut from the game in the name of "streamlining" by a small number of "designers."  D&D is headed for a huge, severe dumbing down, not streamlining. D&D will never be fast enough, not until it stops being a vehicle for interactive story-telling and becomes the card game, the video game or the miniatures combat game, all of which it is becoming.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Nov 29, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> I have absolutely no desire to use any system mutated by the genetic drift of popularity contests




When have they done this?



			
				AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> polls




Or this?



			
				AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> marketing strategies




So you're not a 3E fan?


----------



## AWizardInDallas (Nov 29, 2007)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> When have they done this?
> Or this?
> So you're not a 3E fan?




First, thanks for being polite.   

There are polls on EN World.  Do you think that WOTC looks at those? or the polls on other sites? or that they don't listen to all the siloed play testers they're using? or that they don't read their own forums? I do.  They're listening.

On Marketing: I'm not the only one that thinks so.  Have a look at this: The Practice of Marketing

I'm a fan of 2E/3E.  I really loved 2E (and came from 1E) so the switch was really very hard for me.  The flavor of 2E is superior, because TSR didn't hack the crap out of it, while the rules for 3E are definately improved.  I have already decided to use 3.5 and house rule my likes from the 4.0 SRD.  4E already holds no interest for me.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Nov 29, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> I believe that Wizards of the Coast will continue to hack and hack and hack at D&D until it is no longer recognizable as D&D.



You say that like it's a bad thing.


----------



## Odhanan (Nov 29, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> You say that like it's a bad thing.




It is for some people. People, you know... who actually like D&D. Like me.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Nov 29, 2007)

D&D has always had a setting tied to the rules - a really, really weird one with alignment as an objective reality, Vancian magic and the arcane/divine split.

This is being changed a bit, but not that much. Alignment stays but is weakened in importance. Maybe it will go altogether in 5e? Vancian magic remains to some extent - per day resources. Clerics are still the best healers. This is evolution, not revolution.

The more major changes are to areas that didn't impact on the rules so much (ie affect PCs as they go about their monster killing) - the Great Wheel, points of light. It seems a lot of games weren't using the Great Wheel anyway and everyone seems to be claiming they used PoL too, and even that Forgotten Realms always was PoL. This ease of interpretation points to these being low impact changes.

So if what impacts actual play isn't being changed that much, and the big changes are to areas that have little impact on play what's the big deal?


----------



## Doug McCrae (Nov 29, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> It is for some people. People, you know... who actually like D&D. Like me.



I do like D&D. I think 3e is the best rpg ever created. That doesn't mean it can't evolve into something even better.

I'm not one of those guys, and there do seem to be a few on ENWorld, who only play D&D on sufferance because they can't find players for their preferred system.


----------



## Odhanan (Nov 29, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> I do like D&D. I think 3e is the best rpg ever created. That doesn't mean it can't evolve it something even better.




Maybe your statement wasn't clear enough, then, Doug. What you said was that it's a good thing to hack and hack and hack at D&D *until it is no longer recognizable as D&D*. Emphasis mine. What you now precise doesn't exactly mean the same thing. See what I mean?


----------



## Raven Crowking (Nov 29, 2007)

Lurks-no-More said:
			
		

> With the red/blue/green/black boxed D&D sets (the ones w. Elmore dragon art), shifting later to AD&D 2e (and from there, to 3e and 3.5).





OK, then.

There are several avenues where I have problems with the 4e releases thus far, but only two are relevant here.  I will describe them under the headers "Basic Experience" and "Diversity of Experience".  Although they are linked, I feel that doing so will make my position clearer.  Please note also that this is a first real attempt to do this, so there will be a lot of rough edges.

*Basic Experience*

At its core, the basic experience of D&D has always been "an assemblage of characters go to mysterious places, encounter mysterious creatures, and seek treasure".  This statement certainly isn't changing with 4e.  Indeed, in some ways the 4e designers seem to be hearkening back to earlier editions, by making exploration a viable playstyle using the core rules.

And, if your understanding of the touchstones of the game is nothing more than this statement, then certainly 4e hasn't changed it.  But the same statement could hold true for dozens of other games that are _not_ included in the basic experience of D&D.  The basic experience of D&D -- the core experience, if you will, or the game's core identity -- has always been related to what those elements are and how those elements interact.

In this sense, D&D's "mythology" (as used earlier, as the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources and filtered through the Gygaxian lens) is part of its core identity.  The inclusion of new elements to that core identity can expand and strengthen it.  The loss of the strongest elements of that core identity can only weaken it.  

Here's an easy example:  Alignment.  One of the primary tenets of fantasy, going back before the term "fantasy" was used, is that moral choices have consequence in the real world.  This is as true for _The Golden Compass_ as it is for _The Lord of the Rings_ as it is for King Arthur, as it is for Beowulf, as it is for Gilgamesh.  Alignment in D&D has always been used as a tool to bring this into the game.

There has also been a nice side benefit to this method of growing the core identity:  As players/DMs read more, they encountered echoes of the game they were playing.  One could pick up almost any fantasy novel (and still can to this day, including modern fantasy) and discover things that D&D reflects, or that reflect D&D.  In this way, the simple act of reading or seeing a movie recharges creative batteries and increases both the range and the depth of what might occur in the game.

This is not just a "good" basis for the game, it is a bloody brilliant one, and one whose like has never been matched.

If, on the other hand, "an assemblage of characters go to mysterious places, encounter mysterious creatures, and seek treasure", is all there is to D&D's core identity, then "an assemblage of scarab beetles go to mysterious dungheaps, encounter mysterious bugs, and seek dung" would be as appealing as any other set-up.

It is not.

*Diversity of Experience*

Of course, not every DM/player likes alignment, or elves, or race restrictions on class.  Each group playing the game alters things to make it more of what they want, and to make the game more rewarding for them.  I am no exception to this rule.  When playing 2e, my house rule document was 60+ pages (many relating to deities and specialty priests), and my 3e house rule document tops 600 pages.

However, I don't think that a DM should have to write that much simply to create diversity from the core.  Which means that the names, concepts, and fluff text in the core should be as generic as possible, with expansions that broaden the horizon as much as possible.  This is the 2e, and later the 3e, model.

And it is a good model.

It allows for an immersion in that brilliant core experience of the game without modification, and equally allows for modification to take the game away from that core experience into newer, less charted (or even uncharted) territories.

Some folks have claimed that making changes to 3e is difficult; i.e., that it is hard to run a low-magic game using the 3e core books.  I don't believe this to be true.  3e is a wonderfully open system, as is best demonstrated by examining many of the 3rd-party offerings.  It can support an astonishing array of worlds, from the "basic" Gygaxian D&D world to Victorian fantasy, to a Modern setting based of a Gygaxian world.  If I wanted to run, say, a game based off of any novel's world, I would find it easier to do so using the basic 3e ruleset than any previous ruleset.  Far from "not doing Conan well" (for example), D&D can do Conan by simply placing restrictions on what material is used.

But what is best is that it can do Conan in one scenario, and _Pirates of the Carribean_ in another, and _King Kong_ in yet a third, all within the same campaign world, and using the same characters at various levels/points in their adventuring career.

*Why I Quit D&D*

I have a ton of 2nd Edition materials, and I think TSR did some good work with that ruleset overall.  But it's also the first (and thus far, only) edition of D&D that made me quit the game.

2e was produced at a time when (you guessed it) TSR was concerned about branding their product.  Even though 2e is still fairly generic, TSR made a point that, while your work may include brownies, the TSR brownies were _a unique and special case of intellectual property owned by TSR_.  

Now, this was all ultra-light-touch branding, but it was much more pervasive than one might think at first brush.  Where 1e had said, "here's a griffon," 2e said "here's a griffon, and here's what it eats, and here's how it acts."  Similarly, 2e was not concerned with merely giving you elves, it was concerned with the particulars of elven society in a way that, in the end, made D&D less diverse the more materials you used.

More materials = more diversity is good.

More materials = less diversity is bad.

And it was the constant effort of battling the game's conception of what these things were that drove me away from D&D for a bit.  Specifically, I found that when I was working on non-D&D fiction, the D&Disms kept trying to creep in.  And, a lot of what TSR offered was really cool stuff, but it weighed me down.  It quietly, and gently, restricted the way I viewed the game world.

So I quit.  3.0 brought me back.

*4th Edition*

I've run _Keep on the Borderlands_ using BD&D, 1e, 2e, and 3e.  Doing so, in each case, required only minimal modification.  I suspect that I will not be able to run _Keep on the Borderlands_ without heavy modification in 4e.  In fact, I suspect that _Keep on the Shadowfell_ is supposed to be 4e's _Keep on the Borderlands_.  I begin to suspect that the delay in getting an SRD to third-party developers is to ensure that KotS becomes a shared experience.  After all, you'll have nothing else to try.

I once participated in a thread about the rust monster, and the Mearls redesign of the same.  In my view, coming from earlier versions of the game, the rust monster is a wonderfully adaptable creature that can be used in the game in several ways:  used to detect seams of metal by the miner's guild, used to indicate old dwarf works (where it still seeks out mined and unmined ore), and explanation for why dwarfholds use stone doors with recessed hinges, even an intelligent genius of its kind that can be bargained with.  Contrasting to this was the view that the rust monster could only be used as a "gotcha" monster that should really be statted as a hazard.

A lot of what I am reading about 4e strikes me as "rust monster is only a gotcha monster".  Very little strikes me as "rust monster is a concept that can be used in many ways."

"Branding" is all about restricting options to a common denominator.  As I said earlier, this is generally a bad thing for D&D.  Fluff names like "Golden Wyvern Style" require more work to remove from the game than it seems on the surface, as Dr. Awkward pointed out so well.  Indeed, it might be easier to stat up gnome PCs for yourself than to extract the common denominator fluff being built into the game's terminology.

Say what you like, but the concept of "lizard guys" _as a protagonist species_ is far, far less common as elves or dwarves in the same role.  Offspring of devils/demons?  Sure, that's fairly common (Merlin was one, according to some sources), but that could have been covered by a feat or a background "racial talent tree" available to any race.  And "tiefling" is a (IMHO) stupid name that doesn't have the same instinctive meaning as even "tainted" would have (i.e., Merlin, tainted human wizard 16).

Ditching the Great Wheel?  Meh.  The Great Wheel only existed as an example of how to create your own cosmology, anyway.  Trying to force your cosmology down my throat by tying the "new core" PC races into it?  No bloody thank you.

D&D at its best is a toolbox of archetypes and options.  The core ruleset should contain the means to deal with the most common archetypes/tropes.  These are, IMHO, not being spread out because it is better for the game, but because it will induce you to buy later books in order to get, say, druids, or a widely beloved race/monster/whatever that just didn't make it into the "big three" books.

(The big three are the PHB, MM, and DMG, in case you are wondering....the only things you should have to buy to experience D&D's core identity, and the only things you _did_ have to buy before now.)

More materials = more diversity from core experience is good.

More materials = required for core experience is bad.

So to answer your question, the thing that is being removed by 4e that was supported by all the other editions, to varying degrees, and with varying degrees of emphasis, is the core identity of D&D itself:  the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources and filtered through the Gygaxian lens.

Add to it by all means.  Take it away, though, and you deliver a weak sauce indeed.  (Thanks, KM, for that phrase.)


RC


----------



## Doug McCrae (Nov 29, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Maybe your statement wasn't clear enough, then, Doug.



The perils of hongism.


----------



## Odhanan (Nov 29, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> The perils of hongism.




LOL I guess.


----------



## AWizardInDallas (Nov 29, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> So if what impacts actual play isn't being changed that much, and the big changes are to areas that have little impact on play what's the big deal?




It does impact play when they decide what races and classes to cut from the core game and to slice alignments up that are used to determine whether the casting of a particular spell is an evil act or not, etc.


----------



## neceros (Nov 29, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> It does impact play when they decide what races and classes to cut from the core game and to slice alignments up that are used to determine whether the casting of a particular spell is an evil act or not, etc.



They are trying to free up roleplaying.

For isntance, casting an "evil" spell will give you "evil" points in 3e. Instead of forcing it now, they will just allow the players to decide who's evil.

If random peasant saw Good Sorcerer cast "Summon Demon" it won't go over easy, regardless if it's mechanically evil or not. The universe should not push an alignment unto anyone, it should be self derived. Karma is one thing, but Restricted actions due to personal views is entirely against what makes us human: the need for adaptation and redemption.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Nov 29, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> It does impact play when they decide what races and classes to cut from the core game



Do many people play core only games?

The way to see 4e is as an evolutionary change from *late* 3e. Just as late 3e is an evolutionary change from early 3e.

If you're already playing with Tome of Battle (per encounter abilities, kung fu names, melee guys can do magic), Complete Arcane/Mage (wizards have at will abilities), Monster Manual 5 (monster powers change on half hit points), Races of the Dragon (dragonmen) and Magic Item Compendium (magic items with cool powers are viable, not just big six), 4e is going to seem like no big deal. Almost no change at all.

To people who use 3e core only, house rule the heck out of it to make it more like 1e and only use modules from Goodman Games and Necromancer, 4e is going to seem like a massive change.


----------



## Wormwood (Nov 29, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> The way to see 4e is as an evolutionary change from *late* 3e. Just as late 3e is an evolutionary change from early 3e.




I really, _really _ think you are on to something here.


----------



## Brentos (Nov 29, 2007)

*Wow!*

Wow!  Great response.  I will debate a few points, though...




			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> There are several avenues where I have problems with the 4e releases thus far...At its core, the basic experience of D&D has always been "an assemblage of characters go to mysterious places, encounter mysterious creatures, and seek treasure".  This statement certainly isn't changing with 4e.  Indeed, in some ways the 4e designers seem to be hearkening back to earlier editions, by making exploration a viable playstyle using the core rules.




Score 1 for 4e



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> In this sense, D&D's "mythology" (as used earlier, as the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources and filtered through the Gygaxian lens) is part of its core identity.  The inclusion of new elements to that core identity can expand and strengthen it.  The loss of the strongest elements of that core identity can only weaken it.




This mythology has radically changed and altered since the 70's...this is no different.  In fact, the Gygaxian lens has lost focus the farther we go along...evolution.  Also, I'm a big Planescape fan, and the changed cosmology sounds really cool! 



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Here's an easy example:  Alignment.  One of the primary tenets of fantasy, going back before the term "fantasy" was used, is that moral choices have consequence in the real world.  This is as true for _The Golden Compass_ as it is for _The Lord of the Rings_ as it is for King Arthur, as it is for Beowulf, as it is for Gilgamesh.  Alignment in D&D has always been used as a tool to bring this into the game.




Yet, this is (arguably) the biggest piece of the game that is ignored, hated, house-ruled away.  You can still have evil acts have natural (or supernatural) consequences, that is whay DM fiat is for...its just no longer badwrongfun to ignore it as a game mechanic.  



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> There has also been a nice side benefit to this method of growing the core identity:  As players/DMs read more, they encountered echoes of the game they were playing.  One could pick up almost any fantasy novel (and still can to this day, including modern fantasy) and discover things that D&D reflects, or that reflect D&D.  In this way, the simple act of reading or seeing a movie recharges creative batteries and increases both the range and the depth of what might occur in the game.




I don't see this changing.  In fact, 4th edition sounds like it could do a brilliant Harry Potter type adventure!




			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> If, on the other hand, "an assemblage of characters go to mysterious places, encounter mysterious creatures, and seek treasure", is all there is to D&D's core identity, then "an assemblage of scarab beetles go to mysterious dungheaps, encounter mysterious bugs, and seek dung" would be as appealing as any other set-up.




Heh.  Sh** the role-playing game!  Defend your Sh** from invading beetles!  Sounds cool!    




			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Of course, not every DM/player likes alignment, or elves, or race restrictions on class.  Each group playing the game alters things to make it more of what they want, and to make the game more rewarding for them.  I am no exception to this rule.  When playing 2e, my house rule document was 60+ pages (many relating to deities and specialty priests), and my 3e house rule document tops 600 pages.




This is my biggest point to this.  600 pages!  I imagine that a DM who has 100's of pages of houserules will not be happy with any addition.  What kinds of house-rules are they?  Fluff?  Crunch?  Restriction?  New options?  I would love to put them through the same lens as 4e is  being put through to see if it is "real" D&D... (Not disparaging, just curious...600 pages!  Based on reading your postings and such, I imagine it is actually quite good stuff.)



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> However, I don't think that a DM should have to write that much simply to create diversity from the core.  Which means that the names, concepts, and fluff text in the core should be as generic as possible, with expansions that broaden the horizon as much as possible.  This is the 2e, and later the 3e, model.
> 
> And it is a good model.




I disagree, but I do agree that some of the new names are...too much.  In fact, I was sorry to see the names Bigby, Mord-y, etc. dropped, because I found the fluff names to be exciting (even though I didn't have any idea who they were).



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Some folks have claimed that making changes to 3e is difficult; i.e., that it is hard to run a low-magic game using the 3e core books.  I don't believe this to be true...  3e is a wonderfully open system, as is best demonstrated by examining many of the 3rd-party offerings.  It can support an astonishing array of worlds, from the "basic" Gygaxian D&D world to Victorian fantasy, to a Modern setting based of a Gygaxian world.  If I wanted to run, say, a game based off of any novel's world, I would find it easier to do so using the basic 3e ruleset than any previous ruleset.  Far from "not doing Conan well" (for example), D&D can do Conan by simply placing restrictions on what material is used.




I don't think D&D can model any book very well without massive modification.  Plus, making changes can be difficult...600 pages of difficult!    

You can definitely make the fluff for any book, but to make the action match what characters can do in a movie or book, and make it internally consistent and fun for all players at the table...very difficult.

But what is best is that it can do Conan in one scenario, and _Pirates of the Carribean_ in another, and _King Kong_ in yet a third, all within the same campaign world, and using the same characters at various levels/points in their adventuring career.



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I once participated in a thread about the rust monster, and the Mearls redesign of the same.  In my view, coming from earlier versions of the game, the rust monster is a wonderfully adaptable creature that can be used in the game in several ways:  used to detect seams of metal by the miner's guild, used to indicate old dwarf works (where it still seeks out mined and unmined ore), and explanation for why dwarfholds use stone doors with recessed hinges, even an intelligent genius of its kind that can be bargained with.  Contrasting to this was the view that the rust monster could only be used as a "gotcha" monster that should really be statted as a hazard.




Great thoughts here! I love your thoughts on rust monster uses! I like the redesign, though, and its fluffiness could still do most of that, I think.  Outside of combat, the rust monster, if given 30 minutes, maybe can still chew through a metal door.




			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> "Branding" is all about restricting options to a common denominator.  As I said earlier, this is generally a bad thing for D&D.  Fluff names like "Golden Wyvern Style" require more work to remove from the game than it seems on the surface, as Dr. Awkward pointed out so well.  Indeed, it might be easier to stat up gnome PCs for yourself than to extract the common denominator fluff being built into the game's terminology.




I don't buy that argument.  Who cares what the feat/PrC, etc is, as long as the player and DM know what mechanics can occur.  I imagine you've made up feats, etc., and the name probably isn't very important anyhoo.  Note, though, I'm not a fan of the Jungle Tiger Crouch Snap Whip variety name, and I hope they get Dodo'd.



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> And "tiefling" is a (IMHO) stupid name that doesn't have the same instinctive meaning as even "tainted" would have (i.e., Merlin, tainted human wizard 16).




Weren't we just discussing how ditching the old stuff was bad, so wouldn't have ditching the old-name "tiefling" been bad?  I like the name, myself.



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Ditching the Great Wheel?  Meh.  The Great Wheel only existed as an example of how to create your own cosmology, anyway.  Trying to force your cosmology down my throat by tying the "new core" PC races into it?  No bloody thank you.




It's not forcing the cosmology down your throat at all.  They have a sample cosmology in the core books, just like 3e.  Change a name, etc., and it is all yours again.  The Realms, and other setting won't be tied to the sample "core" cosmology.



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> D&D at its best is a toolbox of archetypes and options.  The core ruleset should contain the means to deal with the most common archetypes/tropes.  These are, IMHO, not being spread out because it is better for the game, but because it will induce you to buy later books in order to get, say, druids, or a widely beloved race/monster/whatever that just didn't make it into the "big three" books.




What races/monsters/classes should be in the core books, and why?  That, too, has changed over the years.  New stuff gets added, old stuff removed, and usually added later.  No difference here.



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> (The big three are the PHB, MM, and DMG, in case you are wondering....the only things you should have to buy to experience D&D's core identity, and the only things you _did_ have to buy before now.)




Same now.  The core, though, is slightly different then the prior one, which was slightly different then the prior one...etc.



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> So to answer your question, the thing that is being removed by 4e that was supported by all the other editions, to varying degrees, and with varying degrees of emphasis, is the core identity of D&D itself:  the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources and filtered through the Gygaxian lens.




Drow, Mind Flayers, Tieflings, gods, magic, clerics, fighters, dwarves, gnomes, halfling, the Forgotten Realms, Eberron...the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods, etc. are in the new edition.  Although, I'm somewhat confused since you didn't seem to want trappings, society, etc., in the core...just a name of a monster and its abilities, or the name of a race and its abilities, which trappings, societies, do you want vs. those you don't?


Thanks for the awesome response, this is a great debate topic and I am not trying to snark, just have some friendly debate from someone who thinks 4e sounds like the bees knees (and I've played since Keep on the Borderlands, in case you are curious).


-Brent


----------



## Odhanan (Nov 29, 2007)

Well, RC, you summarized some of my concerns pretty well in your brilliant post. Thank you.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Nov 29, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> On Marketing: I'm not the only one that thinks so.  .




The thing is, 3rd edition was expressly designed after the largest marketing and customer research effort in D&D history (probably including 4E, is my personal guess).  My point is that all of the things you're saying you dislike about 4E, were all done extensively for 3E.  You say "polls and popularity contests", but I could just as easily come back with "listening to customer feedback and to customer needs."

I think the designers are actually going much more off of what they think will make a good game - I'd actually rather have them listening to us more.  And when it boils down to it, aren't you really here because you want WoTC to listen to what you have to say, and hopefully address those issues?


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 29, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Well, RC, you summarized some of my concerns pretty well in your brilliant post. Thank you.




Pleased to be of service.


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## Simon Marks (Nov 29, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> D&D at its best is a toolbox of archetypes and options.





RC, may I take _this line_ as the core of your complaint about the proposed D&D 4e?

Because I can simply reverse the line to;

"D&D at it's *worst* is a toolbox of archetypes and options"

and state my feelings about D&D.

I don't want a generic D&D, I want D&D as it's own game.

I've got Hero for Generic (the only Generic system I've liked). I want D&D to be D&D.

Let's take Al-Qadim as an example. I'm on record for stating that I've played AD&D about 3 times. That doesn't include abortive games that lasted a session - including playing Al-Qadim.

Here's the thing. Although it was a great setting, the mechanics where... well, they didn't fit. 

For me, I don't agree that D&D was a good generic fantasy system. I think it's had specific assumptions built right into the system - always has. And these explicit assumptions render it less good at certain things than others.
Like playing pirates. Or Mythic Europe of the Order of Hermes. Or investigating dark cults. D&D is simply less good at dealing with these sort of games than other systems.
Diluting D&D to be able to deal with these type of games makes D&D harder to run at it's core system.

I can play these games with D&D, but it won't be as good as if I use Blue Rose, or Ars Magica or Call of Cthulhu.

I don't agree that 3e strength was it's flexibility - it was it's robustness and consistency. It's weakness was that it took too long to prep and design for.

If they sacrifice Flexibility for ease of Prep, that's fine by me. Because I don't come to D&D for flexibility. 

If I want to run a game that doesn't play to D&D's strengths, I won't run D&D. I'll run something better suited to the game.

So, we have a basic difference of concept about what is good in D&D.


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## AWizardInDallas (Nov 29, 2007)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> And when it boils down to it, aren't you really here because you want WoTC to listen to what you have to say, and hopefully address those issues?




Excellent question.  I'm here to keep my finger on the pulse of my much beloved pastime and maybe find a few like-minded individuals along the way.  I'm fairly certain I fall way outside Wizard's target demographic so I have no hope of any issues being addressed.  I'll peek at the new SRD, house rule what I like and hang onto the giant wad of cash it would take to "upgrade" to a new edition.


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## Lurks-no-More (Nov 29, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> I have always used my own settings and mythology and don't want one built into the game rules anyway.  What many people seem to have lost sight of is that D&D is what you make of it.  I don't need anyone legislating setting, mythology or even the difference between moral right and wrong in the rules themselves.



But if you use your own settings, mythology, and other fluff anyway, why should you begrudge an implied setting for the beginning (or busy) DMs and players to grasp and build upon? Sure, it's something you will find no use for... but others certainly will.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 29, 2007)

Brentos said:
			
		

> Wow!  Great response.




Thank you.



> I will debate a few points, though...




Would this be the InterWeb if you didn't?    



> Score 1 for 4e




Contrary to popular opinion, I prefer to give credit where I see credit to be due.  Returning to supporting exploration is a tremendous improvement over 3e.  Points-of-Light is another very good, old school concept that I am glad to see returning.  If 4e manages to speed combat and make prep easier, for example, that is a good thing.  Of course, the benefits must outweight the costs for the _edition itself_ to be a good thing, IMHO.



> This mythology has radically changed and altered since the 70's...this is no different.  In fact, the Gygaxian lens has lost focus the farther we go along...evolution.  Also, I'm a big Planescape fan, and the changed cosmology sounds really cool!




Planescape, DarkSun, Ghostwalk....all of these things are good examples of building off the existing mythology to create a new version.  However, none of these products unravelled the core rules.  In 2e, no one was forced to play using Spelljammer, Planescape, or DarkSun as the baseline.  In 3e, Oriental Adventures, Ravenloft, and Ghostwalk were not the baseline.

There is a difference between _additive material_ and _changing the baseline_.  Certainly, in some cases, additive material is so good that it becomes part of the baseline through almost a form of osmosis....no one is complaining about that.  The specific complaint is that of attempting to force the fluff of a particular game world (that of the designers) into the pre-existing conceptive framework of those who have played the game through several editions.

When Gygax included names like Bigby and Mordy, he used them to name specific items and spells, adding to the mythology of the game.  Of course, this was built upon his own framework, and didn't contradict pre-existent worlds.  How would you have felt, for example, if every feat in 3rd ed was named after a Greyhawk character, and had a name which gave no clue as to its purpose?  In many ways, the Eye and Hand of Vecna are part of a shared mythology that has instant meaning among D&D players from 1e on.  "Tiefling" is not.  And, honestly, not everything from the 1e books really hit the zeitgeist either.  Queen E's Marvellous Nightingale?  I'm sure someone used it, but it never caught on like Vecna.



> Heh.  Sh** the role-playing game!  Defend your Sh** from invading beetles!  Sounds cool!




Well, send me $40 each for three core books, $10 a month for my digitial initiative, and keep buying three more books each year, and I'll ship that right out to you.......   



> This is my biggest point to this.  600 pages!  I imagine that a DM who has 100's of pages of houserules will not be happy with any addition.  What kinds of house-rules are they?  Fluff?  Crunch?  Restriction?  New options?  I would love to put them through the same lens as 4e is  being put through to see if it is "real" D&D... (Not disparaging, just curious...600 pages!  Based on reading your postings and such, I imagine it is actually quite good stuff.)




Some of this is simply putting everything into one spot (3rd party sources, or _Unearthed Arcana_ for example).  Some of this is massive reworking.  Some of this is awfully similar to what WotC seems to be doing with 4e (and posted here on EN World, and/or distributed to some EN World members first!).  Some of this is very different.  Some of this, I think, would be very good for the core game, and some of it only works in a very specific niche campaign setting.

"Some of this, I think, would be very good for the core game, and some of it only works in a very specific niche campaign setting." is the part that, it seems to me, WotC is overlooking in their own work.

Also, keep in mind that I've done racial levels for all races...including human subraces....in my world.  I included options like "humanoid animal" and "talking animal" to the PC roster.  I made elves and gnomes fey.  I made dwarves (small) giants, and included giants in the PC roster (_Arcana Evolved_, thank you).  If my world was, say, Conan's Hyboria, it would have taken far, far less work!  

I am certainly not against additions...._*how many times must I say that before it sinks in?*_....incorporating additions is one of the real joys of D&D.  New monsters, new foes, new peoples, new places, new spells, new feats, new magic items........putting all the feats in one place is part of how my house rules grew so large!

But "additions" =/= "replacements".

Diversity is good.  Additions are good.  

More materials = more diversity is good.

More materials = less diversity is bad.

More materials = more diversity from core experience is good.

More materials = required for core experience is bad.

RC


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## resistor (Nov 29, 2007)

Lurks-no-More said:
			
		

> But if you use your own settings, mythology, and other fluff anyway, why should you begrudge an implied setting for the beginning (or busy) DMs and players to grasp and build upon? Sure, it's something you will find no use for... but others certainly will.




I don't, except when they make the implied setting so integral that I have to work to remove it, rather than just ignoring it as I could in 3.5e.


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## AWizardInDallas (Nov 29, 2007)

Lurks-no-More said:
			
		

> But if you use your own settings, mythology, and other fluff anyway, why should you begrudge an implied setting for the beginning (or busy) DMs and players to grasp and build upon? Sure, it's something you will find no use for... but others certainly will.




I'm objecting to the slash and burn method of revision, particularly with regard to races and classes which are key to starting a party.  You're right.  I need no implied setting but it's a lot of work to remove it, believe me.  Besides, there are also plenty of commercially available settings without implying one in the rules anyway and most here don't seem to object to parting with large sums of cash for a new edition so probably wouldn't object that much to picking up a game world.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 29, 2007)

Simon Marks said:
			
		

> RC, may I take _this line_ as the core of your complaint about the proposed D&D 4e?
> 
> Because I can simply reverse the line to;
> 
> "D&D at it's *worst* is a toolbox of archetypes and options"




Well, obviously.  Otherwise we'd all be agreeing, happy little campers in InterWebLand.    

And there is nothing wrong with that disagreement, either.  In the end, I suspect that WotC will know exactly how successful 4e is, and that concrete information (in terms of sales) will render moot your or my opinion from their perspective.

That said, I fully understand why some people are jazzed about the new edition.  And, if you are one of them, that's a good thing for you.  But please do not tell me that my concerns are any less valid than your jazzedness, thank you kindly.    

RC


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## Simon Marks (Nov 29, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> But please do not tell me that my concerns are any less valid than your jazzedness, thank you kindly.




I do hope that I have never said that your concerns weren't valid.

These posts have been made on the 'reasonable and polite' party.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 29, 2007)

Simon Marks said:
			
		

> I do hope that I have never said that your concerns weren't valid.
> 
> These posts have been made on the 'reasonable and polite' party.




General statement, not meant to imply anything about you.

"Reasonable and polite" is a good description for your posts, Sir.


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## Lurks-no-More (Nov 29, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> OK, then.
> 
> There are several avenues where I have problems with the 4e releases thus far, but only two are relevant here.  I will describe them under the headers "Basic Experience" and "Diversity of Experience".  Although they are linked, I feel that doing so will make my position clearer.  Please note also that this is a first real attempt to do this, so there will be a lot of rough edges.



First of all, thank you for taking the time to write such an extensive answer! Reading it through, I agree with you on many points.

If you don't mind, I'll respond, below, only to those parts where I disagree with you.



> Here's an easy example:  Alignment.  One of the primary tenets of fantasy, going back before the term "fantasy" was used, is that moral choices have consequence in the real world.  This is as true for _The Golden Compass_ as it is for _The Lord of the Rings_ as it is for King Arthur, as it is for Beowulf, as it is for Gilgamesh.  Alignment in D&D has always been used as a tool to bring this into the game.
> 
> There has also been a nice side benefit to this method of growing the core identity:  As players/DMs read more, they encountered echoes of the game they were playing.  One could pick up almost any fantasy novel (and still can to this day, including modern fantasy) and discover things that D&D reflects, or that reflect D&D.  In this way, the simple act of reading or seeing a movie recharges creative batteries and increases both the range and the depth of what might occur in the game.
> 
> This is not just a "good" basis for the game, it is a bloody brilliant one, and one whose like has never been matched.



I do like alignment, for the most part, but I must point out that it is one of the most contentious, disliked and frequently excised or house-ruled parts of (A)D&D. Much of that dislike probably dates from the earlier editions, where alignment sometimes was used as the straitjacket its opponents claim it is. (IIRC, 2e had the character stop gaining experience or even losing it if they changed their alignment!)

That said, I think, based on the designer comments, that 4e will still have alignment, but not all creatures will be aligned. It seems to me that they're reserving aligned status to beings who, under the current 3.5 rules would have auras stronger than _faint_: undead, fiends, celestials, clerics, and high-level characters who've taken an active role in the world, either for good or evil.

If this turns out to be the way they handle alignment in 4e, I'll be satisfied.



> If, on the other hand, "an assemblage of characters go to mysterious places, encounter mysterious creatures, and seek treasure", is all there is to D&D's core identity, then "an assemblage of scarab beetles go to mysterious dungheaps, encounter mysterious bugs, and seek dung" would be as appealing as any other set-up.



That sounds like it would be appealing to dung beetles.  

Anyway, I think I think you're exaggerating a bit here. I think that character classes, levels, abstracted HP, six ability scores and such are more important parts of D&D's core identity than alignment, and WotC is retaining all those concepts.



> However, I don't think that a DM should have to write that much simply to create diversity from the core.  Which means that the names, concepts, and fluff text in the core should be as generic as possible, with expansions that broaden the horizon as much as possible.  This is the 2e, and later the 3e, model.
> 
> And it is a good model.
> 
> It allows for an immersion in that brilliant core experience of the game without modification, and equally allows for modification to take the game away from that core experience into newer, less charted (or even uncharted) territories.



I agree with you. The thing is, I don't think the implied setting we're seen is going to cause any problems. The information about races sounds very similar to what we've seen in earlier editions; tieflings and dragonborn are new to PHB, but IMO they broaden the possibilities for campaigns with tone differing from Tolkien, medieval romances etc.




> Now, this was all ultra-light-touch branding, but it was much more pervasive than one might think at first brush.  Where 1e had said, "here's a griffon," 2e said "here's a griffon, and here's what it eats, and here's how it acts."  Similarly, 2e was not concerned with merely giving you elves, it was concerned with the particulars of elven society in a way that, in the end, made D&D less diverse the more materials you used.
> 
> More materials = more diversity is good.
> 
> More materials = less diversity is bad.



I can see your point about the implied setting becoming more extensive and pervasive, but I have to disagree about it limiting your options or reducing diversity. In my gaming experience, what the Monstrous Manual or the PHB said about elven culture, or the feeding and care of griffons, never came in the way of either the players or the DM. When problems arose, they were because the DM and the players had differing ideas about elves or whatnot, but not because one or another of them diverged from the books. 



> I've run _Keep on the Borderlands_ using BD&D, 1e, 2e, and 3e.  Doing so, in each case, required only minimal modification.  I suspect that I will not be able to run _Keep on the Borderlands_ without heavy modification in 4e.  In fact, I suspect that _Keep on the Shadowfell_ is supposed to be 4e's _Keep on the Borderlands_.  I begin to suspect that the delay in getting an SRD to third-party developers is to ensure that KotS becomes a shared experience.  After all, you'll have nothing else to try.



I don't see anything bad about there being a 4e shared experience, or that it is not the same shared experience as in the earlier editions. As for being able (or not) to run KotB in 4e, I think we do not have enough information about the new rules to come to definite conclusions yet.

Now, I've never played KotB (not a part of my shared experiences, unlike, say, _The Isle of Dread_), but from what I've seen online, it is a fairly basic adventure scenario with the keep, and nearby caves, with some monsters in them, and the "meat" of the thing comes from the DM building upon this basic structure as the PCs explore the place. For low-level 4e characters, what sort of extensive modification do you think would be necessary?



> I once participated in a thread about the rust monster, and the Mearls redesign of the same.  In my view, coming from earlier versions of the game, the rust monster is a wonderfully adaptable creature that can be used in the game in several ways:  used to detect seams of metal by the miner's guild, used to indicate old dwarf works (where it still seeks out mined and unmined ore), and explanation for why dwarfholds use stone doors with recessed hinges, even an intelligent genius of its kind that can be bargained with.  Contrasting to this was the view that the rust monster could only be used as a "gotcha" monster that should really be statted as a hazard.



To be honest, rust monster seems to be designed as a "gotcha" monster, much like the gelatinous cube. The adaptability and multiple uses you indicate are not something inherent in the critter itself.



> "Branding" is all about restricting options to a common denominator.  As I said earlier, this is generally a bad thing for D&D.  Fluff names like "Golden Wyvern Style" require more work to remove from the game than it seems on the surface, as Dr. Awkward pointed out so well.  Indeed, it might be easier to stat up gnome PCs for yourself than to extract the common denominator fluff being built into the game's terminology.



Again, in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, we've changed the fluff - names and implied setting connections - of prestige classes, spells and magic items without much difficulty. I don't think it is going to be as big an issue as you believe.



> Say what you like, but the concept of "lizard guys" _as a protagonist species_ is far, far less common as elves or dwarves in the same role.  Offspring of devils/demons?  Sure, that's fairly common (Merlin was one, according to some sources), but that could have been covered by a feat or a background "racial talent tree" available to any race.  And "tiefling" is a (IMHO) stupid name that doesn't have the same instinctive meaning as even "tainted" would have (i.e., Merlin, tainted human wizard 16).



Well, by now the name "tiefling" has been around for thirteen years (_Planescape_ was released in 1994); I'd think it has become very much a part of the D&D shared experience. 

As for the rarity of lizard people as protagonists, you have a point. But then again, in the sword & sorcery fiction where the reptilian peoples are fairly common, wizards are rarely the protagonists, either. (Besides of which, there is something very appealing with lizardfolk; a lot of people have mentioned having a soft spot for them.)



> Ditching the Great Wheel?  Meh.  The Great Wheel only existed as an example of how to create your own cosmology, anyway.  Trying to force your cosmology down my throat by tying the "new core" PC races into it?  No bloody thank you.



I don't quite see how the presence of tieflings forces the new example cosmology down your throat. As you said, humans with demonic or devilish taint are a common theme in both myth and in fiction!



> So to answer your question, the thing that is being removed by 4e that was supported by all the other editions, to varying degrees, and with varying degrees of emphasis, is the core identity of D&D itself:  the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources and filtered through the Gygaxian lens.
> 
> Add to it by all means.  Take it away, though, and you deliver a weak sauce indeed.  (Thanks, KM, for that phrase.)



Again, I agree. But I don't see them taking away all that much. Gnomes and (I believe) half-orcs will get treatment in the MM, but neither of them were very popular (vocal gnome fans on these boards notwithstanding  ) races, I think. (Half-orcs were missing entirely from the 2e, and neither existed in the D&D boxed sets as PC races.)

With classes, you have a better point, since apparently monk, bard and druid will appear in later books. However, monks and bards are probably the two least used and most disliked classes in the PHB. 

Druids are much more popular, and I understand people wishing to see them in the first book. However, classically druids have been basically a cleric variant, and as such it makes IMO sense for WotC to put, say, warlords in their place in the PHB.

In the end, I think we agree in many ways about what D&D is, and should be, but disagree in how much and in which ways WotC's stated design changes will affect this. This is, for the most part, obviously up to personal preference, and neither of us can be said to be "right" or "wrong" about these issues.

Again, thanks for taking the time to make your case! Now, we'll have to wait for the 4e (or at least more preview stuff) to see what the final game will look like, and how it will feel; who knows, maybe you'll end up loving 4e, while I will drop it!


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## Doug McCrae (Nov 29, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> I'm objecting to the slash and burn method of revision, particularly with regard to races and classes which are key to starting a party.



Gnomes, druids and bards aren't key to anything. If they were how could people have managed to play 1974 OD&D?

Part of this is an essential feature of new editions. 3.0 reduced options compared to the many Complete X and Players Options books available at the tail end of 2e. Eventually you'll have your complete gnome writeup in 4e PHB2 or whatever and the game will once more be playable for you.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 29, 2007)

Lurks-no-More said:
			
		

> First of all, thank you for taking the time to write such an extensive answer!




You're welcome.  No time for an essay right now, though, so my responses will be (relatively) brief.



> I do like alignment, for the most part, but I must point out that it is one of the most contentious, disliked and frequently excised or house-ruled parts of (A)D&D. Much of that dislike probably dates from the earlier editions, where alignment sometimes was used as the straitjacket its opponents claim it is. (IIRC, 2e had the character stop gaining experience or even losing it if they changed their alignment!)




Anyone interested in Alignment as a topic would be well advised to check out Dragon Roots #0 (http://www.dragonroots.net/).  I understand they have a very comprehensive look at alignment planned for their first (#0) issue.    



> Anyway, I think I think you're exaggerating a bit here. I think that character classes, levels, abstracted HP, six ability scores and such are more important parts of D&D's core identity than alignment, and WotC is retaining all those concepts.




I'm not sure about class.  From what glimpses I am getting, there is one progression, and "classes" are effectively talent trees.  Of course, with any luck I am wrong.



> tieflings and dragonborn are new to PHB, but IMO they broaden the possibilities for campaigns with tone differing from Tolkien, medieval romances etc.






> I can see your point about the implied setting becoming more extensive and pervasive, but I have to disagree about it limiting your options or reducing diversity.




Again, were it simply tieflings or dragonborn (or both), I would shrug and say "meh".  It is, instead, the cumulative effect of multiple things, including the wacky new naming conventions that will have to be excised in order to run almost any non-standard campaign.

Or, in other words, I'd have to copy the SRD, Search & Replace names, print copies for all my players, and call it the new rules.....before I did Houserule 1 I'd have a 600-page document.



> When problems arose, they were because the DM and the players had differing ideas about elves or whatnot, but not because one or another of them diverged from the books.




Both players and DM didn't diverge from the books, but had differing ideas about elves and whatnot from what appeared in the books?  



> I don't see anything bad about there being a 4e shared experience, or that it is not the same shared experience as in the earlier editions.




I've got no problem with shared experiences, either, but I do have a problem with "We've got enough done to make KotS, but we can't get that to third party publishers....because....ah....not enough done yet?"  If you aren't going to release the info because you want KotS to be a shared experience, man up and say so.

Way too much of what I'm hearing from WotC these days re: 4e sounds to me like "Our audience is stupid; they'll accept whatever we tell 'em to accept.  Look!  Shiny!  New!  Cool!"

(Of course, this is a seperate topic from D&D eliminating past mythology.)



> Now, I've never played KotB (not a part of my shared experiences, unlike, say, _The Isle of Dread_), but from what I've seen online, it is a fairly basic adventure scenario with the keep, and nearby caves, with some monsters in them, and the "meat" of the thing comes from the DM building upon this basic structure as the PCs explore the place. For low-level 4e characters, what sort of extensive modification do you think would be necessary?




The combat assumptions seem to be drastically changed, for starters.  KotB works (in part) because of the attrition model; I'm all for changes in this regard that are well thought-out, but I haven't seen any evidence yet that these changes _are_ well thought-out.

(Again, another topic.)

Will any of the creatures in KotB be in "New Coke" D&D?  Will I have to wait until MMIII to get the owlbear, or are their only barnhoot owlbears and greenswallow owlbears now?  Or will this require purchasing the digital initiative?



> To be honest, rust monster seems to be designed as a "gotcha" monster, much like the gelatinous cube. The adaptability and multiple uses you indicate are not something inherent in the critter itself.




Yet both have been highly adaptable and used in different ways since the game began.  How can "a creature that smells metal and eats rust" not inherently be "an organic metal detector"?  Especially if it is the 1e model (harmless if you have no metal on you)?  I am surprised that more PCs didn't harness them and use them to sniff out gold & hidden treasures than has actually occurred.



> Again, in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, we've changed the fluff - names and implied setting connections - of prestige classes, spells and magic items without much difficulty. I don't think it is going to be as big an issue as you believe.




Class names are easier to change and deal with than feat names, IMHO.  Hence, you don't hear me complaining about "warlord".



> As for the rarity of lizard people as protagonists, you have a point. But then again, in the sword & sorcery fiction where the reptilian peoples are fairly common, wizards are rarely the protagonists, either. (Besides of which, there is something very appealing with lizardfolk; a lot of people have mentioned having a soft spot for them.)




Ah, but there is fantasy fiction with spellcasting protagonists....quite a lot of it.  Lizardmen still not so much.



> In the end, I think we agree in many ways about what D&D is, and should be, but disagree in how much and in which ways WotC's stated design changes will affect this. This is, for the most part, obviously up to personal preference, and neither of us can be said to be "right" or "wrong" about these issues.




Agreed.



> Again, thanks for taking the time to make your case! Now, we'll have to wait for the 4e (or at least more preview stuff) to see what the final game will look like, and how it will feel; who knows, maybe you'll end up loving 4e, while I will drop it!




You're welcome & I hope I do end up loving it.

RC


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## The Little Raven (Nov 29, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Planescape, DarkSun, Ghostwalk....all of these things are good examples of building off the existing mythology to create a new version.  However, none of these products unravelled the core rules.  In 2e, no one was forced to play using Spelljammer, Planescape, or DarkSun as the baseline.  In 3e, Oriental Adventures, Ravenloft, and Ghostwalk were not the baseline.
> 
> There is a difference between _additive material_ and _changing the baseline_.  Certainly, in some cases, additive material is so good that it becomes part of the baseline through almost a form of osmosis....no one is complaining about that.  The specific complaint is that of attempting to force the fluff of a particular game world (that of the designers) into the pre-existing conceptive framework of those who have played the game through several editions.
> 
> When Gygax included names like Bigby and Mordy, he used them to name specific items and spells, adding to the mythology of the game.  Of course, this was built upon his own framework, and didn't contradict pre-existent worlds.  How would you have felt, for example, if every feat in 3rd ed was named after a Greyhawk character, and had a name which gave no clue as to its purpose?  In many ways, the Eye and Hand of Vecna are part of a shared mythology that has instant meaning among D&D players from 1e on.  "Tiefling" is not.  And, honestly, not everything from the 1e books really hit the zeitgeist either.  Queen E's Marvellous Nightingale?  I'm sure someone used it, but it never caught on like Vecna.




Very well put... to which I respond: some of us want the baseline changed because we don't want Greyhawk. It bores me to tears, personally, so I was definitely unhappy to see it presented as the baseline in 3e (because it certainly wasn't the baseline in 2e's core books). Things that would make me happy might make you unhappy, so it's a no-win situation since you can't please everyone.


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## AWizardInDallas (Nov 30, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> Gnomes, druids and bards aren't key to anything. If they were how could people have managed to play 1974 OD&D?
> 
> Part of this is an essential feature of new editions. 3.0 reduced options compared to the many Complete X and Players Options books available at the tail end of 2e. Eventually you'll have your complete gnome writeup in 4e PHB2 or whatever and the game will once more be playable for you.




The ability to select from a decent range of diverse races and classes is.  No thanks.  Why wait?  It's quite playable now without waiting for the folks with the machetes to stop their hacking and without spending another dime.


----------



## Hussar (Nov 30, 2007)

Again though, Basic/Expert D&D had their setting hard coded into the rules.  Yet, those rules were very, very successful, to the point where people sometimes trumpet them as being the best rules for D&D.  

If coding the setting into the rules is bad, why would B/E/etc have been so successful?


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## MerricB (Nov 30, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> The ability to select from a decent range of diverse races and classes is.  No thanks.  Why wait?  It's quite playable now without waiting for the folks with the machetes to stop their hacking and without spending another dime.




If you think 3e is perfect for you (or any other form of D&D), there is no need to go to 4e.

However, if you feel as I do: that 4e D&D will fix a bunch of problems you were having with the structure of 3e, then it's worth getting 4e!

This isn't a "you must go to 4e!" situation. Play the edition you enjoy... but don't be surprised that not everyone thinks that it is the one for them.

Cheers!


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## KingCrab (Nov 30, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> On Marketing: I'm not the only one that thinks so.  Have a look at this: The Practice of Marketing




I enjoyed that.


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## MerricB (Nov 30, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I've run _Keep on the Borderlands_ using BD&D, 1e, 2e, and 3e.  Doing so, in each case, required only minimal modification.  I suspect that I will not be able to run _Keep on the Borderlands_ without heavy modification in 4e.  In fact, I suspect that _Keep on the Shadowfell_ is supposed to be 4e's _Keep on the Borderlands_.  I begin to suspect that the delay in getting an SRD to third-party developers is to ensure that KotS becomes a shared experience.  After all, you'll have nothing else to try.




I, too, have run KotB under several editions of D&D (most recently, 3.5e), and I've seen nothing at all that indicates I won't be able to run it with 4e. In fact, to a large extent, I think it'll be an easier job than with 3e, for the power of monster groups looks more like being 1e in baseline rather than 3e.

"Keep on the Shadowfell" being a 3e B2? I really, really hope so! 

Cheers!


----------



## I'm A Banana (Nov 30, 2007)

> A lot of what I am reading about 4e strikes me as "rust monster is only a gotcha monster". Very little strikes me as "rust monster is a concept that can be used in many ways."




This convo is more than making strange bedfellows, it's practically lion-laying-down-with-the-lamb kind of stuff. Though I suppose that's in season. 

I disagreed with you on the wisdom of the rust monster re-design. As I saw it, the only major hiccup was that the rust power magically went away, rather than (say) being removed with a skill check or something.

But I agree with you that 4e appears to be setting a tone that necessarily limits, and specifically with regards to "monsters are only good for combat" mentality, which was my first hint that 4e might be hitting a few conceptual stumbling blocks.

I like monsters that are good for combat. But I need my monsters to be good for MORE than just combat, too!

I used the term "failure of imagination" in the Dryad thread, and I think it would be applicable here, too. If the designers take the rust monster and just jettison it because of some reductionist philosophy like that, they have had a massive and systemic failure of imagination.

Which would probably explain most of these names they're coming up with, too.... 



> "Branding" is all about restricting options to a common denominator. As I said earlier, this is generally a bad thing for D&D. Fluff names like "Golden Wyvern Style" require more work to remove from the game than it seems on the surface, as Dr. Awkward pointed out so well. Indeed, it might be easier to stat up gnome PCs for yourself than to extract the common denominator fluff being built into the game's terminology.




Not only that, but it robs my ability as a DM to set that up in my world. D&D has let weird outliers quietly exist since 1e, and 3e, as you point out, was one of the first editions to really embrace the potential imagination of the player base. I feel like 4e may be a bit of a step back, where they tell you how you should play it so strongly that they won't support what's outside of their milieu.

The problem crops up when you realize NO ONE PLAYS IN THE "CORE SETTING." The core setting for all editions has been largely implied, and a house rule here or there (no half-races!) changes it. DMs will ALWAYS put house rules in place. If 4e tells me "Humans are generally horse-breeders of the plains," one of the first things I'm going to want to do is have them ride giant turtles on Polynesian islands, I'm sure. 3e didn't mind that so much. Take the Ride skill, take the stats for a giant tortoise, take the warm weather rules and the swimming rules, and run. 4e might break to pieces if I do that.

So it's not only work to remove, but it's also more difficult to change, or to use yourself for something different. The core of 3e went from Westerns to the Orient to Africa to the New World with only superficial changes (and those were some of my favorite products for the game, ever, period). The core of 4e can pretty much do only the core of 4e, which takes it back from the hands of the creative crew of the DM's and puts it back in Wizard's camp saying "We know what's best for you!"

Ick.



> Ditching the Great Wheel? Meh. The Great Wheel only existed as an example of how to create your own cosmology, anyway. Trying to force your cosmology down my throat by tying the "new core" PC races into it? No bloody thank you.




What's more weirding me out is not the new races (more options are better!), but the fact that they are so inextricably wed to the cosmology that it hurts to disentangle them. Take Eladrin Teleporting for instance. The claim is that they step into the Feywild to move. But if I don't use the Feywild in my game, I either nerf them or think of a different fluff. And if the fluff is more appropriate to another setting (Eladrin teleport because of cybernetic technology imbedded in their pancreas), it might interfere with the mechanics, giving me a worse cascade than 3e's ability damage!

Compare with a more vague earlier-edition "eladrin can teleport" note, leaving the wheres and whyfores up to the individual campaign, it leaves it much more open-ended.



> So to answer your question, the thing that is being removed by 4e that was supported by all the other editions, to varying degrees, and with varying degrees of emphasis, is the core identity of D&D itself: the trappings of the world, society, races, magic, gods and monsters shameless ripped off from other fantasy sources and filtered through the Gygaxian lens.
> 
> Add to it by all means. Take it away, though, and you deliver a weak sauce indeed. (Thanks, KM, for that phrase.)




What's slightly more upsetting to me is taking away the whole "The people who know your game best is your gaming group, we're going to give them tools to help them play the game they want to play" atmosphere for a "Our Way or the Highway!" kind of feel.

If they define their own mythology, they, by necessity, define it _in opposition to every other mythology out there_. And sorry, Wizards, but you are not capable of knowing what kind of game my group likes better than me. You should be empowering me to deliver them the game they want, not telling me to deliver them the game you want me to deliver.

A power of D&D's that it has always had, and something that defines it more against videogames than any nebulous concept of "non-linearality" is it's ability to be modded, altered, changed, re-arranged, broken, and re-built fairly easily. It's a Maker's game, a game made for tinkering it to your own style, for personalization. 

Wedding too closely the mechanics to their pet setting is one big fat "WARRANTY VOIDED IF OPENED" sticker on the thing. 

I still don't think the designers are myopic enough to do this. I still fear that it's going to have elements of it woven into the core rules.

And no problem on the semi-neologism, RC! Though I think I got it from MMORPG's, so....grains of salt and all that.


----------



## Hussar (Nov 30, 2007)

> What's more weirding me out is not the new races (more options are better!), but the fact that they are so inextricably wed to the cosmology that it hurts to disentangle them. Take Eladrin Teleporting for instance. The claim is that they step into the Feywild to move. But if I don't use the Feywild in my game, I either nerf them or think of a different fluff. And if the fluff is more appropriate to another setting (Eladrin teleport because of cybernetic technology imbedded in their pancreas), it might interfere with the mechanics, giving me a worse cascade than 3e's ability damage!




Just to take this idea for a second.  The Ethereal plane is massively hard coded into D&D.  Monsters come from there, spells can take you there, magic items abound etc.  Is that so much different than Feywild?  How is it different?


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## PeterWeller (Nov 30, 2007)

To me, it doesn't look like 4E is any more hard coded to a core set of assumptions than any previous edition, but it does look like the developers are being much more explicit about what those assumptions are.  Also, I don't see any difference between something like Eladrin teleporting through the Feywild and all Elves being proficient in short and long swords and bows.


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## Simon Marks (Nov 30, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The problem crops up when you realize NO ONE PLAYS IN THE "CORE SETTING."




I contend that this statement is simply not true.

However, we in the internets don't know this for certain one way or another.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 30, 2007)

MerricB said:
			
		

> I, too, have run KotB under several editions of D&D (most recently, 3.5e), and I've seen nothing at all that indicates I won't be able to run it with 4e. In fact, to a large extent, I think it'll be an easier job than with 3e, for the power of monster groups looks more like being 1e in baseline rather than 3e.
> 
> "Keep on the Shadowfell" being a 3e B2? I really, really hope so!
> 
> Cheers!




I take it that you've overcome your crisis of faith, then?

 

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking (Nov 30, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> This convo is more than making strange bedfellows, it's practically lion-laying-down-with-the-lamb kind of stuff. Though I suppose that's in season.





GREAT post, KM!  But....I hope you know that my birthday is 4 August, so you're the lamb.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 30, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> What's more weirding me out is not the new races (more options are better!), but the fact that they are so inextricably wed to the cosmology that it hurts to disentangle them. Take Eladrin Teleporting for instance. The claim is that they step into the Feywild to move. But if I don't use the Feywild in my game, I either nerf them or think of a different fluff. And if the fluff is more appropriate to another setting (Eladrin teleport because of cybernetic technology imbedded in their pancreas), it might interfere with the mechanics, giving me a worse cascade than 3e's ability damage!




This is exactly the example I was thinking of.


RC


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## Simon Marks (Nov 30, 2007)

However, one can say the same of Shadowdancers, Clerics, almost all the teleportation spells and a large chunk of monsters who all require a very specific setup of planes in 3.5.

Specifically the ethereal, postivie and negative energy planes. Oh, and the plane of Shadow.

3.5 wed the cosmology and the system as tightly as 4e is planning to do. The elemental Planes, the astral, ethereal and shadow planes are all vital for how 3.5 works. Removing them requires re imagining a very very large chunk of even just the PHB.

So... what?


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## Odhanan (Nov 30, 2007)

Great post indeed, KM.

To put it another way, I'm starting to feel like 4E will be to 3E what 2E was to 1E. 

Framing imaginations "to help the newbie", branding, nerfing stuff because "it doesn't make sense" or "it's bothersome" (Assassins, Monks... isn't that the job of developers/designers to make things work for everyone's sake instead of nerfing them because they wouldn't fit "their" vision of the game or its players for that matter?). I feel like there's some massive amount of condescension going on towards both people already playing the game AND people who would be interested in playing it. I never got that kind of feeling from Gary's writing.


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## Simia Saturnalia (Nov 30, 2007)

Simon Marks said:
			
		

> However, one can say the same of Shadowdancers, Clerics, almost all the teleportation spells and a large chunk of monsters who all require a very specific setup of planes in 3.5.
> 
> Specifically the ethereal, postivie and negative energy planes. Oh, and the plane of Shadow.
> 
> ...



The only flavor that's acceptable when being crammed down the throat of a D&D group (somehow ignoring the fact the idea is ABJECT LUNACY) is 'Gygax Brand Cream of All The  We Talked About In Mythological Studies 102'.

It's okay to force it on us -again- because we've been swallowing it for 30 years. New things are inherently bad, but since "I hate new things" sounds stupid, it gets cast as "forcing flavor on what should be generic rules" - ignoring the rules have never been generic and people love to answer calls for more generic D&D with "Maybe you should play GURPS".


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 30, 2007)

Simia Saturnalia said:
			
		

> The only flavor that's acceptable when being crammed down the throat of a D&D group (somehow ignoring the fact the idea is ABJECT LUNACY) is 'Gygax Brand Cream of All The  We Talked About In Mythological Studies 102'.





Straw man much?

Once more, with feeling:

I'm happy with _adding_ flavours.  I'm not seeing anyone say that they are not.  "This is the melting pot; take what you need to create the flavour you want" is good.  "This is the flavour; don't like it?  Sucks to be you." is bad.

RC


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## The Little Raven (Nov 30, 2007)

Hussar said:
			
		

> How is it different?




Because it wasn't made by a balding wargaming fan whose time of prominence was over 20 years ago?


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## The Little Raven (Nov 30, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> "This is the flavour; don't like it?  Sucks to be you."




A very apt description of the flavor given in 3e.

"If you don't like Greyhawk, too bad, you paid for it."


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## Kesh (Nov 30, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> The ability to select from a decent range of diverse races and classes is.  No thanks.  Why wait?  It's quite playable now without waiting for the folks with the machetes to stop their hacking and without spending another dime.



 They're adding in more, new races to the PHB. You'll still have selection there, plus the MM will have notes for playing certain "monsters" as PCs, including gnomes. Where is your machete?


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## Remathilis (Nov 30, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I'm happy with _adding_ flavours.  I'm not seeing anyone say that they are not.  "This is the melting pot; take what you need to create the flavour you want" is good.  "This is the flavour; don't like it?  Sucks to be you." is bad.




Anyone can make poor man's stew (add one cup of everything edible in your cabinet, season to taste) but pretty soon, you've mixed too many flavors and the stew becomes a brownish gloppy mess that doesn't taste like anything recognizable, let alone edible. Sure, its nourishing and it probably won't kill you, but adding chocolate sauce, mushroom soup, sour cream, curry, wasabi, cayenne pepper, blackberry jam, and fruit cocktail together makes a meal less than the sum of its parts.

D&D's mythos are getting like that. Its a collection of a lot of good things that kinda mix into a brownish mess. Better that D&D start with a honestly fresh recipe using some familiar and some new ingredients that blend well (even if some of us will need to or never will adjust to the new taste) and then let us add or subtract (via home rules and supplements) than to pour everything into the melting pot and serve hot. 

Dangit, now I'm hungry.


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## Xethreau (Dec 1, 2007)

I wonder how many "pro-assortment of fantasy" people absolutely hate the Asian style and flavored classes.


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## MerricB (Dec 1, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I take it that you've overcome your crisis of faith, then?
> 
> 
> 
> RC




I'm a lot happier now more interesting previews are coming up.

I'm very, very scornful of their work on gleemax.

Cheers!


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## HeavenShallBurn (Dec 1, 2007)

RyukenAngel said:
			
		

> I wonder how many "pro-assortment of fantasy" people absolutely hate the Asian style and flavored classes.



I rather like some Asian style thrown into the mix, as long as it doesn't drag Asian characterizations into the mix. 

 I swear after watching certain anime I wish I had possession of WMDs just to use them on the home town of the people who wrote those characters


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## I'm A Banana (Dec 1, 2007)

> A very apt description of the flavor given in 3e.
> 
> "If you don't like Greyhawk, too bad, you paid for it."




To me, 3e was only theoreticlaly Greyhawk. I don't know Greyhawk. I don't play in Greyhawk. I took 3e and played it in Nyambe, in the Northern Crown, in Sigil, in Cthulu-infested FR, in Rokugan, in postapocalyptic _Road-Warrior_-esque wastelands, in primoridal soup....

All without really changing the core rules.

4e appears to be much more closely tied to the metasetting than 3e is.

If it's NOT more closely tied, the whole OP is nonsense, because 3e defined it's own mythology, too.

If it IS more closely tied (and I agree with the OP that this is something 4e appears to be trying to do), it may mean that it will be more difficult for DMs to make it their own.

3e wasn't really Greyhawk unless Greyhawk is "a hodge podge of fantasy influences overlayed with buckles, peircings, and tatoos." 

I don't really think it was.


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## The Little Raven (Dec 1, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> All without really changing the core rules.




Well, if you weren't using the Ethereal Plane, Astral Plane, or Shadow Plane, then you had to be making some kind of modification for particular spells to work, or where particular creatures come from. If you didn't use the concept of the Positive Energy Plane, then how does healing happen and where does it summon that positive energy from (since healing was a Conjuration spell)?



> 4e appears to be much more closely tied to the metasetting than 3e is.




How?



> If it's NOT more closely tied, the whole OP is nonsense, because 3e defined it's own mythology, too.




3e took Greyhawk and made it 3e's mythology. They didn't make up something new, they took something old.



> 3e wasn't really Greyhawk unless Greyhawk is "a hodge podge of fantasy influences overlayed with buckles, peircings, and tatoos."




So, you start your post claiming that you don't know Greyhawk, and end it by saying you know what it isn't?

Almost every single generic D&D book assumed Greyhawk as the default setting, which is why we end up with Bigby, Leomund, Mordenkainen, Knight Protectors of the Great Kingdom, Pelor, Kord, and all of those wonderful *Greyhawk setting elements* in the core rules and beyond.



> I don't really think it was.




Well, since you already admitted to not knowing Greyhawk, I'll take this with a grain of salt.


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## I'm A Banana (Dec 1, 2007)

> Well, if you weren't using the Ethereal Plane, Astral Plane, or Shadow Plane, then you had to be making some kind of modification for particular spells to work, or where particular creatures come from. If you didn't use the concept of the Positive Energy Plane, then how does healing happen and where does it summon that positive energy from (since healing was a Conjuration spell)?




None of those concepts rules out "some distant source of magical energy" and/or "a dimension between places." And even if they did, the spells could work as written without having to worry about it. And even THEN, even if they were ruled out and it affected spells (like it did with Sigil and teleportation), it's such a minor point of the rules that going around it was not really a problem.

A racial ability to teleport (at will?) is much more ingrained in the system then a handful of spells that might possibly draw on or access some other dimension. Eladrin might not even be *usable*, if it's an important enough power for them.

It remains to be seen how, exactly, pervasive this type of thing is, but if they're not shy about slapping it on a racial power from level 1, it's reasonable to have a concern that they might not be particularly rare.

Or take the wizard styles that have those confusingly obtuse names like Golden Wyvern. The previews may suggest that it's a wizard style and a name of a feat. One may infer that it's could easily be more than that, too. If I don't have the Golden Wyvern Wizards IMC, for whatever reason, it means that I'm de-tangling at least two (and likely more) elements from each other, and having, as a DM, to account for that. 

The more common they are, the more they'll get in the way. We don't have proof that they're extremely common, but the previews suggest they may be, so it's a reasonable concern. 



> 3e took Greyhawk and made it 3e's mythology. They didn't make up something new, they took something old.




It still HAD a mythology, though, so 4e isn't doing anything new in defining their own. It may be a different mythology, but 3e built it's brand through it's mythology if you believe that 3e  had a strong implied setting.



> Almost every single generic D&D book assumed Greyhawk as the default setting, which is why we end up with Bigby, Leomund, Mordenkainen, Knight Protectors of the Great Kingdom, Pelor, Kord, and all of those wonderful Greyhawk setting elements in the core rules and beyond.




We may as well have had Merlin, Gandalf, The Bursar, Hoplytes, Ptah, and Krom for all the game was attached to those particular concepts.

Or, here's a better exercise, count the differences between the 3e SRD and the 3e Core Rulebooks. That's how generically non-Greyhawk 3e was.

4e, if it is building a brand, is going to have multitudinous differences from it's SRD, not just a handful of nearly meaningless names.


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## The Little Raven (Dec 1, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> None of those concepts rules out "some distant source of magical energy" and/or "a dimension between places."




Neither does a teleport using the Feywild as it's medium.



> A racial ability to teleport (at will?) is much more ingrained in the system then a handful of spells that might possibly draw on or access some other dimension. Eladrin might not even be *usable*, if it's an important enough power for them.




How is one easily discarded piece (a race you can't use) more ingrained than another easily discarded piece (a spell you don't want)?



> It remains to be seen how, exactly, pervasive this type of thing is, but if they're not shy about slapping it on a racial power from level 1, it's reasonable to have a concern that they might not be particularly rare.




Well, I'd expect this to be the case when they've made it very clear that movement is much more important in 4e than 3e's "sit still and get 4 attacks" setup.



> Or take the wizard styles that have those confusingly obtuse names like Golden Wyvern.




No more obtuse than a sports team calling themselves the Lions or the Packers. If people can remember that the Packers are Green Bay's football team, I expect that people should be able to remember that the Golden Wyvern are wizards that shape their spells. Same amount of factors in each thing to memorize (obtuse name, basic function, specific details that make them different).



> The previews may suggest that it's a wizard style and a name of a feat. One may infer that it's could easily be more than that, too. If I don't have the Golden Wyvern Wizards IMC, for whatever reason, it means that I'm de-tangling at least two (and likely more) elements from each other, and having, as a DM, to account for that.




And if Greyhawk gods are in the book I'm using, then I have to account for de-tangling multiple elements from eachother if I'm using different gods or modified versions of those same gods.



> The more common they are, the more they'll get in the way. We don't have proof that they're extremely common, but the previews suggest they may be, so it's a reasonable concern.




And I fail to see how they get in the way more than any elements of 3e. If the Ethereal can be explained as something else, so can the Feywild. If a class that doesn't fit in 3e can be removed (like monk), then so can classes in 4e. Same with races. I have yet to see any conclusive proof in any way that 4e is more difficult to change than 3e. In fact, with the knowledge that every class gains abilities/feats every level, instead of on a per-case basis (depending on how they're balanced), I'd say that it looks easier.



> It still HAD a mythology, though, so 4e isn't doing anything new in defining their own. It may be a different mythology, but 3e built it's brand through it's mythology if you believe that 3e  had a strong implied setting.




3rd Edition didn't define it's own mythology, it dusted off an old one and painted it on.



> We may as well have had Merlin, Gandalf, The Bursar, Hoplytes, Ptah, and Krom for all the game was attached to those particular concepts.




So, they're basically replacing things from 3e's assumed setting, and somehow it's suddenly more difficult to change than 3e was? That's what I'm not getting.



> Or, here's a better exercise, count the differences between the 3e SRD and the 3e Core Rulebooks. That's how generically non-Greyhawk 3e was.




A bunch of spells with different names, and because of those names different places in the alphabetical organization (y'know, since Hideous Laughter goes under H while Tasha's Hideous Laughter goes under T). Deities. Several monsters that found their origin in original D&D (which usually means in Greyhaw). The description of 90% of the planes.



> 4e, if it is building a brand, is going to have multitudinous differences from it's SRD, not just a handful of nearly meaningless names.




Not if it intends that brand to be open source, which could be a big reason why they're going with a new implied meta-setting.


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## Rel (Dec 1, 2007)

Mourn said:
			
		

> Because it wasn't made by a balding wargaming fan whose time of prominence was over 20 years ago?




There's been a lot of jerkishness in this forum of late, but this is really low, Mourn.  See you in three days.


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## Hussar (Dec 1, 2007)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> To me, 3e was only theoreticlaly Greyhawk. I don't know Greyhawk. I don't play in Greyhawk. I took 3e and played it in Nyambe, in the Northern Crown, in Sigil, in Cthulu-infested FR, in Rokugan, in postapocalyptic _Road-Warrior_-esque wastelands, in primoridal soup....
> 
> All without really changing the core rules.




You played Rokugan without Oriental Adventures then?  Cos, if you did, you changed a whole pile of core rules - completely new races, spells, iajutsu, monsters, alignment, honor, equipment (did I miss anything?).  About the only resemblance of core D&D to OA is in combat mechanics.

Didn't Nyambe also require a few hundred pages of new stuff and remove most of the PHB?  Didn't really read the setting, so I could be wrong there.




> 4e appears to be much more closely tied to the metasetting than 3e is.
> 
> If it's NOT more closely tied, the whole OP is nonsense, because 3e defined it's own mythology, too.
> 
> ...




3e may not have been Greyhawk, but, it most certainly was tightly welded to a particular campaign.  Unless you started doing all sorts of adjustments, you can't ignore the wealth/level, magic purchasing and demographics of 3e.  Change any one of those three core assumptions and a lot of the game gets a whole lot more difficult to work with.

3e is mechanically wedded to a particular campaign range very strongly.  You simply cannot do many other campaigns out of the box.  D20 can do a wide range.  But D&D?  Not so well.  Oriental Adventures, Conan, Planescape, Ravenloft - all require a large swath of new mechanics and massive editing of the 3.5 PHB in order to run.

The difference this time around is that we will have the same level of mechanical wedding to a particular flavour of setting, but, now, that setting will be specifically detailed right in the core book.  

And that fits nicely with the stated goal of 4e, which is to make it easier to run.  KM, you mentioned earlier that D&D is the Maker's game.  Possibly.  However, that also makes it much more difficult to bring in new people.  The makers are always going to use whatever mechanics to make their own setting.  However, there is a fairly large number of gamers who just want to get on with playing the game.  For whom spending hours (or hundreds of hours) detailing a fantasy world isn't fun.  They don't want to do it.  I know that I don't anymore.

So, now, apparently, we can pick up 4e, and the setting will be right there.  In the DMG will be a well detailed hometown for the PC's to start in.  There, that's enough setting to get a campaign up to about 4th or 5th level without the DM having to do any setting development.  SOunds like an excellent way to get new gamers into the game, rather than saying, "Hey, here's this game, spend 40 or 50 hours preparing your own world, which we won't really help you with at all other than to give maybe 10 or 20 pages in the DMG of advice about, THEN you can start playing."

It's my believe that the core books in 4e are being written with new gamers in mind, rather than people like us who've been doing it for years or even decades.  And I say GREAT!  For the first time, the core books, the books that every new gamer sees first, are actually going to be targetted at helping them.


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## Hussar (Dec 1, 2007)

_Hussar, looks like it didn't like the quote-in-quote-in-quote. I separated them.  ~PCat_

Thankees sah.  My bad.  Fixed now.  Sigh.


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## Mirtek (Dec 1, 2007)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> However, like other mythic creatures and elements, I bet they will have a unique D&D spin that will make them very different their mythic counterparts...



It always had the unique D&D spin in the past. I don't remember any nordic or indian myths talking about how Thor or Kali interacted with the blood war or dealt with the chinese pantheon.


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## AWizardInDallas (Dec 1, 2007)

Kesh said:
			
		

> They're adding in more, new races to the PHB. You'll still have selection there, plus the MM will have notes for playing certain "monsters" as PCs, including gnomes. Where is your machete?




Maybe I don't want half-demons and dragon people swimming in my soup?  You know as well as I do that the play notes in the monster manual for playing monster races don't have near as extensive a treatment as they do in the core rule books.  So now gnomes are relegated to a mere footnote in 4E.  Hack!  There's the machete. 

Besides, I already have the same rather lame "racial footnoting" with the current monster manuals.

Also, even World of Warcraft has gnomes!


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## Remathilis (Dec 1, 2007)

To address KM's and Mirtek's points (about Greyhawk/3e and combined myth)

Greyhawk, IMHO is NOT the quintessential D&D setting. Forgotten Realms is. Before all the gognards lynch me, allow me to elaborate.

Realms (up to 4e) is the truest form of hodge-podge D&D. One section of the continent (Faerun) has enough combined eco-system to house northern barbarians, southern jungles, and eastern deserts that are only slightly more than filed off Viking, African, and Egyptian myth sprinkled on the already mixed bag of core D&D. Its deity list is a combination of new creations (Lathandar, Torm) D&D influenced creations (Lloth, Moradin) and classic real mythology (Tyr, Lovitar). Beyond the Realms proper is even more blatant (Maztica, the Hordelands, Kara-Tur) In essence, Realms is the greatest example of the "melting pot" that catches all manner of new, old and borrowed traditions (nothing blue I guess) and tries to make sense of them under the banner of the D&D game.  Mystara, my favorite setting, is blatant to the point of pornographic when it comes to this "This is like X, but with a different name" approach to world-building.

So why does Realms work as a setting? Liberties. There is no real world myth of a champion of Tyr adventuring in Chult(Africa) to hunt down a cultist of Lovitar, so D&D fills in rest. D&D has always done that; modify the myth somewhat to fit the game (Vampires drain energy with a touch?) In that regard, 4e is carrying on its tradition, but cranking the amount up. Again, Realms makes a good model: It appears they are canning the "real world" deities from the Realms or modifying them.


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## Mallus (Dec 1, 2007)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> Anyone can make poor man's stew (add one cup of everything edible in your cabinet, season to taste) but pretty soon, you've mixed too many flavors and the stew becomes a brownish gloppy mess that doesn't taste like anything recognizable, let alone edible. Sure, its nourishing and it probably won't kill you, but adding chocolate sauce, mushroom soup, sour cream, curry, wasabi, cayenne pepper, blackberry jam, and fruit cocktail together makes a meal less than the sum of its parts.
> 
> D&D's mythos are getting like that.



Getting? Sure, ever since Dave Arneson wrote Blackmoor.


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## Rechan (Dec 1, 2007)

Ahem. Now that I'm back. First I'll apologize about the tone.



			
				pawsplay said:
			
		

> You're telling people that their opinion makes them unwelcome. "Good riddance" means, in case you were unaware, "I'm glad they're gone."



_Someone_ is going to get left out in the cold when change comes. I'd rather see people stick with what they like (1e, 2e, 3e, whatever) and be happy, than play something they hate with gritted teeth, cursing it every step of the way because it's not what they want. 

The sooner that those who say "D&D has left me behind, I'm not the target audience, I'm being forced by WotC to play their way" act on their feelings, the sooner things are better for everyone.

I am certain that those who don't want D&D 4e will not take it, those who want D&D 4e's mechanics will take what they want from it and ditch the rest, and those who do want D&D 4e and like it will take it and run it. Those are the only options. 

And I simply have grown impatient with folk who give the impression that they'll go with 4e, but they're going to hate it, or loudly proclaim that they hate it and they'll not be going with it - but despite their decision to stay with 3e, they're still loudly proclaiming it.   

I say good riddance to the continual fighting and the "It's still D&D" "No it's not". The sooner that everyone can decide what they're going to do, the better _everyone_ will be happy.


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## Remathilis (Dec 1, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> And I simply have grown impatient with folk who give the impression that they'll go with 4e, but they're going to hate it, or loudly proclaim that they hate it and they'll not be going with it - but despite their decision to stay with 3e, they're still loudly proclaiming it.




While I don't believe this area should be filled with like-minded zealots who fawn over every WotC proclamation as the Word of Pelor, I too get tired of people who hang around the 4e boards shouting about how 4e is Asmodeus Incarnate. Read if your interested, disagree if you don't like a decision, but for the love of Pete, don't derail interesting and informative threads by shouting "Anime" "Wizard$", "MMO" "WoW" and my personal favorite "Great, now my Homebrew world is ruined. WotC is teh suxxors!"

If I was interested in that kind of debate, I'd argue politics.


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## Rechan (Dec 1, 2007)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> While I don't believe this area should be filled with like-minded zealots who fawn over every WotC proclamation as the Word of Pelor, I too get tired of people who hang around the 4e boards shouting about how 4e is Asmodeus Incarnate. Read if your interested, disagree if you don't like a decision, but for the love of Pete, don't derail interesting and informative threads by shouting "Anime" "Wizard$", "MMO" "WoW" and my personal favorite "Great, now my Homebrew world is ruined. WotC is teh suxxors!"
> 
> If I was interested in that kind of debate, I'd argue politics.



I read a sig recently that read "If WotC gave away a box full of money, people would come to the forums and complain about how the bills are folded."


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## shilsen (Dec 1, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> I read a sig recently that read "If WotC gave away a box full of money, people would come to the forums and complain about how the bills are folded."



 In all likelihood while simultaneously complaining that there weren't enough bills.


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## EATherrian (Dec 2, 2007)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> Greyhawk, IMHO is NOT the quintessential D&D setting. Forgotten Realms is. Before all the gognards lynch me, allow me to elaborate.




As a LONG time Greyhawk and FR fan (yes, you can love both)  I have to agree with you.  FR really shows how you can integrate new and different ideas into a game world, and it does it well.  Still, Greyhawk will always have a warm spot in my heart, since it was my first game world, and I think it is more consistently built from a world-building standpoint, which is a hobby of mine.  Variety is the spice of life, though, so I don't see why we can't love all of the game worlds.


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## Dr. Strangemonkey (Dec 2, 2007)

I just don't think that:

A.) this core means what prior cores meant.

Previous cores seemed to be sort of mid-way point between what experienced gamers needed in terms of setting material - a generic pap that could be worked into just about anything - and what new players needed - a flavorful pap that you could eat right out of the box and then discover how to season on your own.

This core seems to be more about the latter, it gives you everything you need to hit the full range of the game experience from hyper-traditional races to resonant new ones, and with every race fitting an obvious niche and need in the game and classes.

Which I am less upset about than I might be because it does seem like tasty tasty pap, and I think the whole structure of this edition seems to assume that advanced players are really advanced players and that they'll go out, find what they need, and adapt it.  Heck that they can even just take the ingredients in the pap, and go out and cook something entirely different from what's on the box.

The core seems to be part of canon, but I don't think this edition assumes it defines canon in the way the old cores did.

B.) I disagree with much of this thread.  I don't think the new mythology is really either new or a newly distinct flavor to DnD.  I think its functional with regard to the flavor question where prior cores where not, but I think all the flavors here are familiar.  Whether a guy is a god or greater demon doesn't make much difference to me, but I am glad that Takhisis is now front and center and that something fey is playable right out of the gate.

Now there is room for legitimate complaint.  I've always felt screwed over by DnD naming conventions and by that standard three decently name feats out of four ain't bad, but there may be enough of turn here that the screw represents different complications, I wouldn't say I know yet.  And Wizards could be really screwing up on alignment, I appreciate their efforts to make it easier to subtract from the system or at least to use it more precisely, but alignment has to be usable at least as written.  A Miltonic satan figure for which we all have sympathy or a 40K style gray against a black background default won't serve anyone too well.

But even with those and Raven Crowking's excellent post doing a lot to open my eyes, I still think there isn't really enough evidence to merit the strong feelings people have about the flavor changes as a whole either way.

I like that we are looking like we are going to get a functional core, and I see the risks, but beyond that I think we have to wait and see.


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## Rechan (Dec 2, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> Maybe I don't want half-demons and dragon people swimming in my soup?  You know as well as I do that the play notes in the monster manual for playing monster races don't have near as extensive a treatment as they do in the core rule books.  So now gnomes are relegated to a mere footnote in 4E.  Hack!  There's the machete.



The gnomes are there. In the Core. That's not a machette, that's just de-emphasizing their presence. You are still given the option of making them core in your home brew by saying "Gnomse are allowed, they're on page X of the MM." 

Just like you can say "Tieflings and dragonborn are out."

It's simple.


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## Rechan (Dec 2, 2007)

RyukenAngel said:
			
		

> I wonder how many "pro-assortment of fantasy" people absolutely hate the Asian style and flavored classes.



Adore it. 

But then, for a character I've taken the Monk class, filed off the name, and called it "Secret Agent" or "Body Guard". Mechanics are just a package of abilities that can be flavored any way you want, imho. 

I wish there was more Indian, Arabian and African mythos/flavor in there, too. Instead of "Lalala European fantasy - oh look, a ninja. Wave hi." "Hi!" "Lalala European fantasy."


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## Rechan (Dec 2, 2007)

Simon Marks said:
			
		

> However, one can say the same of Shadowdancers, Clerics, almost all the teleportation spells and a large chunk of monsters who all require a very specific setup of planes in 3.5.
> 
> Specifically the ethereal, postivie and negative energy planes. Oh, and the plane of Shadow.



Feywild = Ethereal plane.
Shadowfell = Plane of Shadow.
Astral Sea = Astral plane. 

Whenever something in 3.5 references one of the above, just substitute the other name in. If you need specific planes like, the mechanical plane, you can drop it into the Astral sea if you must. 

There, done.


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## Lurks-no-More (Dec 2, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Feywild = Ethereal plane.
> Shadowfell = Plane of Shadow.
> Astral Sea = Astral plane.
> 
> ...



Isn't that supposed to confuse everyone, take tens of minutes of explanation whenever anything comes up, and bring the wrath of the WotC Gaming Police on your group, however?


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## Dr. Strangemonkey (Dec 2, 2007)

Lurks-no-More said:
			
		

> Isn't that supposed to confuse everyone, take tens of minutes of explanation whenever anything comes up, and bring the wrath of the WotC Gaming Police on your group, however?




No more than explaining why Elves and Dwarves don't hate each other in your world, that halflings are or aren't fat, or why on earth there are or aren't dungeons lying around everywhere filled with random creatures.

I've yet to play in a game that didn't involve a serious amount of explanation.

The WotC Gaming Police are another matter.

If I get one more citation they're going to cancel my dice insurance.  I'm a signed risk as it is, but now that I got my GleeBuster I should be able to slow down before they ping me.


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## Kesh (Dec 2, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> Maybe I don't want half-demons and dragon people swimming in my soup?  You know as well as I do that the play notes in the monster manual for playing monster races don't have near as extensive a treatment as they do in the core rule books.  So now gnomes are relegated to a mere footnote in 4E.  Hack!  There's the machete.




That's not a machete. You were arguing that you had less selection with 4e, but you don't. Now you're saying that you _don't like_ the selection, which is a different argument.



> Besides, I already have the same rather lame "racial footnoting" with the current monster manuals.




Again, you're making an assumption here. We don't know what the racial writeups in the MM will look like for 4e. Considering gnomes are core to Eberron, I doubt we'll get a half-assed treatment in the MM for them.



> Also, even World of Warcraft has gnomes!




Yeah. I played one. They bear little to no resemblance to D&D's gnome, or the Travelocity gnome, or other gnomes in general. Plus, they still get made fun of more than any other race.  D&D will still have gnomes, just as an optional race from the MM. You haven't lost your selection at all.


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## RandomCitizenX (Dec 2, 2007)

AWizardinDallas

I keep seeing you claim that the write up in the MM for gnomes will be less than the write up for the PHB races based on previous editions of the game. I'm not sure if anyone else agrees with me on this, but that seems to be an unreasonable assumption. We have not seen the format of the MM, of the PHB races, or of the Monsters as PC's in the MM. How can you know that the gnome write up in the MM will be subpar when compared to the PHB race write ups?


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## Doug McCrae (Dec 2, 2007)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> Greyhawk, IMHO is NOT the quintessential D&D setting. Forgotten Realms is.



Because FR is an even bigger, madder mess than Greyhawk? I think you're right.


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## Rechan (Dec 2, 2007)

RandomCitizenX said:
			
		

> I keep seeing you claim that the write up in the MM for gnomes will be less than the write up for the PHB races based on previous editions of the game. I'm not sure if anyone else agrees with me on this, but that seems to be an unreasonable assumption. We have not seen the format of the MM, of the PHB races, or of the Monsters as PC's in the MM. How can you know that the gnome write up in the MM will be subpar when compared to the PHB race write ups?



Especially given that races get abilities as they level, so they have to at least have the abilities of the race in the MM listed.


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## RandomCitizenX (Dec 2, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Especially given that races get abilities as they level, so they have to at least have the abilities of the race in the MM listed.




Exactly... If someone doesn't like the new flavor that has been shown I can accept that, but as far as mechanics go it boils down to there being way too many variables to make any assumptions.


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## PeterWeller (Dec 2, 2007)

I was going to write this up in its own thread, but I think it fits nicely enough here to not bother.

I think the changes to D&D's core are actually opening up new avenues of gameplay that weren't as easily implemented in earlier editions of the game.  There are two factors that are creating this: races and classes.

The eight races we are getting in PHB1 present a much greater range than earlier editions.  Most D&D races could be summed up as "they're like us (humans) but..."  In 4E, though, we are also getting lizard people, demon tainted people, and fey people on top of the traditional Tolkien set of Dwarfs, Elves, Halflings and Humans.  We now have core races that can fit into a greater variety of settings.  Old school D&D is supported by its Tolkien adoptions.  Tieflings are a solid fit for Lieber or Howard style Sword & Sorcery.  Dragonborn work with a wide variety of antecedents, especially JRPG influences.   Eladrin fit any setting where fey interact with humans.  That's not to say 3E or previous editions couldn't support these types of settings, but 4E has a lot more of their guts incorporated into its own.

Classes also help define a much greater range of styles and themes in 4E.  From what we're guessing, the list is fighters, rogues, rangers, warlords, clerics, paladins, wizards and warlocks.  Four of those are martial classes, and that's drawn some comments from these boards.  Why are there 4 martial classes and only 2 each of arcane and divine?  A possible answer comes from looking at people's desire to use D&D to play low magic S&S style games.  Look at 3E's options for such a campaign: barbarian, fighter and rogue.  These classes don't support a balanced party without making a lot of changes to the rules.  In 4E, on the other hand, we have four classes that fill three of the four roles.  A much more balances S&S style party can be built with the PHB tools.  In addition to this, warlocks look like they're going to much better emulate S&S style wizards.  Wizards themselves are being toned down, and thus fit better into a greater range of magic power.  Those implements are opening the door for the Harry Potter, Willow, and Gandalf fans out there.  Paladins losing their alignment restriction makes unholy knights and amoral warrior priests more viable.  Warlords mean that clerics are no longer a practical necessity.  No longer do you have to depend on the four pillars to have a balanced party, so no longer do you have to bend your campaign around these four pillars.

Basically, the choices WotC have made in establishing a stronger core identity to D&D have included a greater range of influences and styles than any previous edition.  D&D is becoming more identifiably D&D, but in doing so, its also cherry picking a new batch of assumptions that fit a greater range of play.

Now, I need to add a caveat to all this.  Everything I've said is based on my conjecture, so don't go bashing me for speaking as if its true.  I know it's mostly conjecture, but I didn't want to pepper "in my opinion"s and "as far as I can tell"s all over the preceding two paragraphs.  Also, I don't believe the martial classes are going to have flashy, mystical wuxia powers.  I think the whole point of the martial power source is to explain why cut purses and sell swords don't need mystical abilities to stand alongside arcane masters and the servants of the gods.


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## Cake Mage (Dec 2, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> ... From its roots, D&D was a game where you could read any novel, watch any movie, see any television show, and translate parts of it into your game. Everything was grist for the mill. It was easy to stat up new monsters, easy to stat up new spells and magic. That was an incredible strength. It meant that the DM could be inspired by just about anything. The game was invigorating to play, to run, even to prep.
> ...
> RC




I don't forsee that ever going away.  I still plan on doing that no matter what.  I like my chocobos.


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## Rechan (Dec 2, 2007)

> From its roots, D&D was a game where you could read any novel, watch any movie, see any television show, and translate parts of it into your game. Everything was grist for the mill. It was easy to stat up new monsters, easy to stat up new spells and magic. That was an incredible strength. It meant that the DM could be inspired by just about anything. The game was invigorating to play, to run, even to prep.



Even so, it's not very _good_ at emulating anything than what it is designed to do, unless you do some serious tap dancing.


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## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

RandomCitizenX said:
			
		

> AWizardinDallas
> 
> I keep seeing you claim that the write up in the MM for gnomes will be less than the write up for the PHB races based on previous editions of the game. I'm not sure if anyone else agrees with me on this, but that seems to be an unreasonable assumption. We have not seen the format of the MM, of the PHB races, or of the Monsters as PC's in the MM. How can you know that the gnome write up in the MM will be subpar when compared to the PHB race write ups?




Keep seeing?  Um, I only wrote it once.  I also didn't bring up the monster manual format for playing monsters as races.  Someone else did.  You're welcome to think it's an unreasonable assumption as that's your opinion.  I don't think it's that much of a stretch really and that's my opinion.  However, looking at "late 3.5" (as someone else here termed it, in other words, suggesting a progression not a cut over) the notes for playing monster races as characters in the most recent monster manuals suggest less notes for playing monsters as characters not more (i.e. when compared to earlier books).  WoTC is "streamlining" (as someone here also termed it) and doing so would run contrary to their design goal.

By the way, the racial foot noting in the monster manual is decidedly inconvenient.  Once upon a time players were not supposed to read the monster manuals.  Now players virtually have to if they want to locate additional racial options, even for as mild a change as high elf to wood elf.    That simple option, my friends, used to be in the good old 1E PHB.  

D&D used to be fairly encyclopedic and it's not anymore; we should be seeing a convenient, generous catalog of core races not just a handful.  D&D has been around for over thirty years and still the PHB contains only a handful of races.  Why?  Supplements make money.

Anyway my players and I have reached consensus and we won't be playing 4E as we dislike the changes were seeing in general.  I may entertain buying a third party D20 system with a better design philosophy and certainly more core race as well as class options.

The good news is the stuff we like is about to get a whole lot cheeper.


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## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Even so, it's not very _good_ at emulating anything than what it is designed to do, unless you do some serious tap dancing.




I disagree. That ability is limited only by game master skill and time.


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## Simon Marks (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> I disagree. That ability is limited only by game master skill and time.




Then it doesn't matter how much they change D&D, because a good DM can make any system emulate anything they like.


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## Mallus (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> I disagree. That ability is limited only by game master skill, and time _and player cooperation/buy-in_.



Fixed it for you.


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## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

Mallus said:
			
		

> Fixed it for you.




Yep.  I'll second that.


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## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

Simon Marks said:
			
		

> Then it doesn't matter how much they change D&D, because a good DM can make any system emulate anything they like.




One would have to _like_ the system.  Nice try though.


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## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> I disagree. That ability is limited only by game master skill and time.



Okay. High level campaign, low magic world, no divine or arcane magic allowed. Go!

Unless you just take the system into the back and beat it with a club until it's a bloody mess, and then try to bandage it up, you're not going to do that. This is why _Iron Heroes_ had to build everything from the ground up, using the d20 framework. 

Expecting a DM to do that just to get what he wants out of his game, and if _he doesn't_, he lacks skill? That's just offensive. 

D&D is a game system, built with certain assumptions in the system. It does D&D very well. 

Conan is a system built to run Conan very well. Spirit of the Century is built to run Pulp very well. CoC and Dread are built for 'weak mortals against the unbeatable Lovecraftian horrors from beyond'.

Why fight so hard with D&D to make it do a half-assed job of the above rather than just pick up a system that is _designed_ to do what you want it to do? The only answers are "I Only Play D&D" or "I can't find players who'll sit down and learn another system."


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## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> D&D used to be fairly encyclopedic and it's not anymore; we should be seeing a convenient, generous catalog of core races not just a handful.  D&D has been around for over thirty years and still the PHB contains only a handful of races.  Why?  Supplements make money.



And if it was a huge plethora of 20 races, the book would be oh, 400 pages. Because "Why stop with 20 races, why not put 20 classes in too?" and so on.

Seriously, what do you _expect_? How many races did the 1e PHb have? The 2e one? Where is this encyclopedic quality coming from, because I've never seen tri-keen and gith and drow in *any* PHB. So D&D has *never* been fairly encyclopedic; it's not new.


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## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Okay. High level campaign, low magic world, no divine or arcane magic allowed. Go!
> 
> Unless you just take the system into the back and beat it with a club until it's a bloody mess, and then try to bandage it up, you're not going to do that. This is why _Iron Heroes_ had to build everything from the ground up, using the d20 framework.
> 
> Expecting a DM to do that just to get what he wants out of his game, and if _he doesn't_, he lacks skill? That's just offensive.




No problem.  _Island continent of giants, land dragons, and beasts set in a dark age amongst the ruins of a once-high-age fallen dwarven kingdom over taken by great forests and jungle; orcish invaders landing from the sea on great wooden ships; heavy on mithral, adamantite and masterwork weapons to start with some discovery of past-age dwarven magic weapons and armor.  Here's a veritable lost world filled with mystery, adventure and lots of combat, maybe even some sailing and ship burning.  Players allowed to play dwarven barbarians, fighters, monks, rogues, scouts, swashbucklers, dragon shamans, warlocks (just to name a few); heavy on feats and skills._  Done?  What do I win?   

Okay, okay I'll have to draw some maps and type up a few things but that stuff is part of the FUN (to me, not to all).  Here's where Mallus is also correct: need player buy in.   

Plenty of game masters write their own game worlds.  I've not used a published game world as a matter of fact.  So, I have done that complete with house rules.  Um, I also mentioned time.  So take offense if it feels right, but you're stretching my intent.


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## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> D&D used to be fairly encyclopedic and it's not anymore; we should be seeing a convenient, generous catalog of core races not just a handful.  D&D has been around for over thirty years and still the PHB contains only a handful of races.  Why?  Supplements make money.




If you stop looking at just the number of classes and races and instead look at the range of options they present, the game looks like it will be even more encyclopedic than earlier editions.


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## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> And if it was a huge plethora of 20 races, the book would be oh, 400 pages. Because "Why stop with 20 races, why not put 20 classes in too?" and so on.
> 
> Seriously, what do you _expect_? How many races did the 1e PHb have? The 2e one? Where is this encyclopedic quality coming from, because I've never seen tri-keen and gith and drow in *any* PHB. So D&D has *never* been fairly encyclopedic; it's not new.




Great idea! Let's _add_ instead of cutting to the bone with each new addition!  Or, hey, how about we put spells in an actual spell book instead of in the PHB with every single edition?  Plenty of different ways to arrange text space and plenty of light and heavy books on the market.  Every new supplement adds to the referential substance of the game, encylopedias come in seperate volumes too.  I didn't know book weight was a big issue.


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## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> If you stop looking at just the number of classes and races and instead look at the range of options they present, the game looks like it will be even more encyclopedic than earlier editions.




I'm sure it will because profit margins are riding on it.


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## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> Plenty of game masters write their own game worlds.  I've not used a published game world as a matter of fact.  So, I have done that complete with house rules.  Um, I also mentioned time.  So take offense if it feels right, but you're stretching my intent.



No, I said *low magic world*. As in, 1 magic item per character. No spellcasters in the party. Seriously, Eberron has people crapping magical items - everbright lanterns are as plentiful as lightbulbs. Not quite "Middle Earth low magic".

D&D doesn't do low magic. Because if you *don't* have a +x weapon and a +x stat item and a +x (insert) by y level, you're going to get owned. Those things are *assumed* to be had by the system. And when you take them out, the thing starts to shudder under its own weight.


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## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> Great idea! Let's _add_ instead of cutting to the bone with each new addition!  Or, hey, how about we put spells in an actual spell book instead of in the PHB with every single edition?  Plenty of different ways to arrange text space and plenty of light and heavy books on the market.  Every new supplement adds to the referential substance of the game, encylopedias come in seperate volumes too.  I didn't know book weight was a big issue.



Hyperbole. The PHB has everything you need to run a character: races, classes, spells. They're not taking anything out of there.

Point to me one thing that is going to be absent from the 4e PHB that was there in the 2e PHB (barring gnomes).


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> No, I said *low magic world*. As in, 1 magic item per character. No spellcasters in the party.




And why can't you do that?

"OK, guys, we're playing in a low-magic world.  No PC spellcasters."  Done.

As the DM, I make sure that I use lower CR foes than I would for characters following the WPL guidelines, and give normal XP on the basis of CR.  As the characters grow in levels, they can fight tougher things, but eventually they "top out" because of the Lvl vs. CR XP guidelines, stopping them from becoming superhuman (i.e., high magic).

Easiest thing in the world to accomplish.

RC


----------



## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> And why can't you do that?



Because most of the higher level heavy lifting comes from spellcasters? 

If you don't have spellcasters, what do you do about poison damage? Ability loss? Negative levels? Good luck fighting anything with DR, which is most of your mid-high level opponents. Trolls are going to spank you.  

Or hell, *healing*. Running a game without a cleric is a pain in the ass. I can't imagine running a game without a wand of cure light or potions. 

"Well, we fought the monster this morning. Let's go rest a week so that we can heal all of our hit points back."

And if your response is "Well I'll just have to work around that", then congratulations - that's my point. It's *a lot of work* to do with D&D. Meanwhile, you could go to another system that is built to handle that. Tada, no needing to force the rectangular peg into the square hole. 

Enough people have tried it, and it has been a steady complaint about 3e that low magic is hellishly hard to do.

If you want, I can start a thread on the General board and ask those who've tried it, and we'll see what others have experienced?


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> And why can't you do that?
> 
> "OK, guys, we're playing in a low-magic world.  No PC spellcasters."  Done.
> 
> ...




But in doing that, you have to cut out the upper levels of the Monster Manual, as well as a good number of critters in the middle levels.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a consequence of houseruling in that manner.


----------



## Cadfan (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking- you could do that, but you'll have to do more than just reach for lower CR monsters.  You'll have to carefully ration out which status effects you permit your monsters to inflict on the PCs.  Something like "blind" isn't dangerous in regular 3e, because clerics can cure it at early levels.  But in a low magic campaign with no PC spellcasters, its a serious, serious problem because its permanent until cured.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Because most of the higher level heavy lifting comes from spellcasters?




So, what you are basically saying is that you can easily make a low-magic D&D, you just can't do high magic at the same time?  OK.  I certainly agree with that! 



> And if your response is "Well I'll just have to work around that", then congratulations - that's my point. It's *a lot of work* to do with D&D.




On the contrary, it's not much work at all.    

Indeed, it is far less work than running a 3e D&D campaign as-is.


RC


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> But in doing that, you have to cut out the upper levels of the Monster Manual, as well as a good number of critters in the middle levels.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a consequence of houseruling in that manner.





So?  That is also a logical consequence of a low-magic world, making the two work together very, very well.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Raven Crowking- you could do that, but you'll have to do more than just reach for lower CR monsters.  You'll have to carefully ration out which status effects you permit your monsters to inflict on the PCs.  Something like "blind" isn't dangerous in regular 3e, because clerics can cure it at early levels.  But in a low magic campaign with no PC spellcasters, its a serious, serious problem because its permanent until cured.




So?  That is (in general) a logical consequence of a low-magic world, making the two work together very, very well.  Where monsters can inflict status problems, they become far more serious threats...possibly something that you want to avoid, or deal with in some manner other than direct combat.

RC


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## Odhanan (Dec 3, 2007)

High level, low magic is very easily done with 3.x. You need just one page of houserules, addressing stuff like healing (reserve points à la Iron Heroes, or Health and Hit points like Monte Cook's doing right now), outstanding actions (action points are in) and then build adventures and encounters that are suited for such a party, and you're good to go really.

There could have been sourcebooks/DMGs addressing that sort of thing... but instead we have a reboot of the system. (shakes head)


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> So?  That is also a logical consequence of a low-magic world, making the two work together very, very well.




Low magic logically does away with most outsiders and dragons?  Not necessarily, I say.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> Great idea! Let's _add_ instead of cutting to the bone with each new addition!



Remember that in 4e the PHB races will be greatly expanded and more detailed mechanically than previous editions. Race choice will be much more meaningful. You'll still have your 3e style less meaningful gnomes and other races such as warforged in the MM. So in fact you're getting exactly what you're asking for - more races in core.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> Low magic logically does away with most outsiders and dragons?  Not necessarily, I say.




As things you can fight hand-to-hand with a reasonable chance of success?  Very much so, I say.

RC


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## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> As things you can fight hand-to-hand with a reasonable chance of success?  Very much so, I say.
> 
> RC




But isn't that the point?  Conan strangled his fair share of demons.  Bard killed Smaug.  Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser killed a whole variety of spooky otherworldly demons and giant Newhonian monstrosities.  Beowulf didn't have too much trouble beating the snot out of Grendel, his mother, and the Dragon.  There's a whole lot of low magic right there that isn't easily emulated, even with your house rules.


----------



## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> Remember that in 4e the PHB races will be greatly expanded and more detailed mechanically than previous editions. Race choice will be much more meaningful. You'll still have your 3e style less meaningful gnomes and other races such as warforged in the MM. So in fact you're getting exactly what you're asking for - more races in core.




No, I'm asking for more races in the _PHB_.


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> No, I'm asking for more races in the _PHB_.




I think everyone would like that, but you are getting a greater range of races in the PHB.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> But isn't that the point?  Conan strangled his fair share of demons.




Are we talking about the REH stories, or the stuff other people put out later?  Because they are different animals.  Moreover, I could certainly create Howardesque "demons" using templates in 3e that our "Conan" could handle.



> Bard killed Smaug.  Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser killed a whole variety of spooky otherworldly demons and giant Newhonian monstrosities.




Neither of these took place in really low-magic worlds.  Also, the Grey Mouser couldn't be a PC in our example world.  Nor could the dwarves in _The Hobbit_.  



> Beowulf didn't have too much trouble beating the snot out of Grendel, his mother, and the Dragon.  There's a whole lot of low magic right there that isn't easily emulated, even with your house rules.




Beowulf, as the highest level fighter (barbarian) around, had trouble with Grendel's mother, and the dragon killed him.    


RC


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## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Are we talking about the REH stories, or the stuff other people put out later?  Because they are different animals.  Moreover, I could certainly create Howardesque "demons" using templates in 3e that our "Conan" could handle.




Howard stuff.  I would put a lot of those demons on the level of Baalors and the like.




> Neither of these took place in really low-magic worlds.  Also, the Grey Mouser couldn't be a PC in our example world.  Nor could the dwarves in _The Hobbit_.




They're pretty low magic compared to standard D&D.  Newhon less so than Middle Earth.  Also, why couldn't Mouser or the Dwarfs be PCs?  




> Beowulf, as the highest level fighter (barbarian) around, had trouble with Grendel's mother, and the dragon killed him.
> 
> 
> RC




My point was he still killed all of them, and felt he had a reasonable chance of success.  (Well, probably not against the dragon.)


----------



## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> I think everyone would like that, but you are getting a greater range of races in the PHB.




Ones I don't want, half-demons and dragon people, at the expense of ones I do, gnomes.  I really didnt start the conversation regarding quantity, that just sort of drifted in from some where.


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> Ones I don't want, half-demons and dragon people, at the expense of ones I do, gnomes.





Fair enough


----------



## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> Ones I don't want, half-demons and dragon people, at the expense of ones I do, gnomes.  I really didnt start the conversation regarding quantity, that just sort of drifted in from some where.



And you'll have your gnomes: in the MM, which is core.

There'll be a plethora of races statted up for PCs in the MM. They'll have to dedicate several pages to them, given that 4e Races have abilities that correspond with levels. It won't be a two line foot note underneath the monster.


----------



## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

Okay, Raven. We'll see if you're right. I've created a thread asking DMs on their experiences with making D&D into low magic, and how it worked out for them.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> Howard stuff.  I would put a lot of those demons on the level of Baalors and the like.




I think you could use a refresher on your Howard.      Pick any one demon, and we'll see exactly what it can do in terms of D&D 3e.



> They're pretty low magic compared to standard D&D.  Newhon less so than Middle Earth.  Also, why couldn't Mouser or the Dwarfs be PCs?




But not low magic in the terms of "no more than 1 magic item per PC, no PC spellcasters".  The Grey Mouser and the dwarves are, I am afraid, spellcasters.



> My point was he still killed all of them, and felt he had a reasonable chance of success.  (Well, probably not against the dragon.)




So, Grendel in our example would be CR 3, Grendel's mother CR 5, and the Dragon CR 7.  Are you suggesting that this would be impossible?

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Okay, Raven. We'll see if you're right. I've created a thread asking DMs on their experiences with making D&D into low magic, and how it worked out for them.




All you might do is show how other systems work(ed).  If you want to see how my single houserule affects the game, run a playtest.  

RC


----------



## Simon Marks (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> One would have to _like_ the system.  Nice try though.




The your argument isn't "This version of D&D isn't as flexible as other versions of D&D" but instead is "I don't like this version of D&D"

Which is, I guess, fair. I don't like AD&D, you reckon you won't like 4e.

Because what people are saying about 4e vs 3.5 (or AD&D) is that 3.5 is ... like 5 on the flexibilty scale but 4e looks like it will be 3 or even 2. Much less flexible.

Hero, or Tri-stat, or GURPS is (IMHO) 300 on the flexibility scale.

Compared to 'designed to be generic systems' no D&D system is flexible and generic. They are all D&D.


----------



## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> It won't be a two line foot note underneath the monster.




As someone pointed out, you don't know that for a fact any more than I do.


----------



## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> All you might do is show how other systems work(ed).  If you want to see how my single houserule affects the game, run a playtest.



Other systems? What? No. I'm talking about D&D, not your houserules.


----------



## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> As someone pointed out, you don't know that for a fact any more than I do.



_Sigh_. We don't know that the PHB won't be a book of blank pages with the words "SUCKER!" written over them either, so making any assumptions about 4e is just as pointless.

Do you honestly believe that WotC, with Eberron as popular as it is, would just say "Here's two lines of text for gnomes, now get the hell out"?


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I think you could use a refresher on your Howard.      Pick any one demon, and we'll see exactly what it can do in terms of D&D 3e.




They all struck me as pretty damn bad ass, not in the special powers sense, but definitely in the hit points and damage values sense.  Then again, Conan himself always struck me as a giant BA.




> But not low magic in the terms of "no more than 1 magic item per PC, no PC spellcasters".  The Grey Mouser and the dwarves are, I am afraid, spellcasters.




I never said your low magic doesn't work, I was saying that your low magic house rules don't work very well for a world that's less low magic.  




> So, Grendel in our example would be CR 3, Grendel's mother CR 5, and the Dragon CR 7.  Are you suggesting that this would be impossible?
> 
> RC




What if I want them to be a lot tougher than that?  That's fine for how you want it, but your house rules don't necessarily work out the chinks in my idea of a low magic world.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Other systems? What? No. I'm talking about D&D, not your houserules.





Um, no.

I suggested that low magic D&D was simple to do, and gave an easy formula for doing it.  The responses of others who do not use that formula has nothing to do with how easy it is to do with that formula, or how well that formula works.

In fact, if you remove the definition of "low magic" as "1 magic item per PC, no PC spellcasters" you can do easy low magic in 3e using only one houserule.  This is now posted to your thread.

There are other houserules you can use to make an even better game (I recommend weapon skills), but they aren't necessary.

RC


----------



## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Um, no.
> 
> I suggested that low magic D&D was simple to do, and gave an easy formula for doing it.  The responses of others who do not use that formula has nothing to do with how easy it is to do with that formula, or how well that formula works.



Well that's a great statement, but that's not my hypothesis.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Dec 3, 2007)

AWizardInDallas said:
			
		

> By the way, the racial foot noting in the monster manual is decidedly inconvenient.  Once upon a time players were not supposed to read the monster manuals.  Now players virtually have to if they want to locate additional racial options, even for as mild a change as high elf to wood elf.    That simple option, my friends, used to be in the good old 1E PHB.



1e PHB page 16:


> There are many sorts of elf, and descriptions of the differing types are found  in *ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, MONSTER MANUAL*. Elven player characters are always considered to be high elves, the most common sort of elf.


----------



## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

Simon Marks said:
			
		

> The your argument isn't "This version of D&D isn't as flexible as other versions of D&D" but instead is "I don't like this version of D&D"
> 
> Which is, I guess, fair. I don't like AD&D, you reckon you won't like 4e.
> 
> ...




Those are all subjective value judgements so there's nothing to dispute except that you're now trying to put words in my mouth.  I never typed the words you erroneously placed in quotes above.  We simply disagree with the current design philosophies and changes we're seeing.


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Um, no.
> I suggested that low magic D&D was simple to do, and gave an easy formula for doing it.  The responses of others who do not use that formula has nothing to do with how easy it is to do with that formula, or how well that formula works.
> RC




I want you to know that I don't think your formula is faulty in any way.  It sounds like it works really well for parameters you set out.  I was just pointing out that it does cut out a lot of the "end game."


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> They all struck me as pretty damn bad ass, not in the special powers sense, but definitely in the hit points and damage values sense.  Then again, Conan himself always struck me as a giant BA.




Pick one.



> I never said your low magic doesn't work, I was saying that your low magic house rules don't work very well for a world that's less low magic.




Which you attempt to prove by adding additional magical elements?     Colour me confused.



> What if I want them to be a lot tougher than that?  That's fine for how you want it, but your house rules don't necessarily work out the chinks in my idea of a low magic world.




Well, I didn't say that the simple guidelines I gave would do everything that you might want; I said it would deliver low-magic D&D that worked.  On top of which, if Beowulf's toughness is X, then Grendel's toughness is less than X, and Grendel's Mother's toughness is between the two.  The dragon in Beowulf doesn't compare well to D&D dragons, though it might if you slapped the Advanced Bestiary feral dragon template on it.

So long as the bars constantly move, no set of rules can meet them.

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Well that's a great statement, but that's not my hypothesis.




Please state your hypothesis, then.


----------



## AWizardInDallas (Dec 3, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> 1e PHB page 16:




Eh, someone has too much time on their hands.  What does the original Unearthed Arcana say?


----------



## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Please state your hypothesis, then.



Whatever man. You're right, I'm wrong, people have never had a problem making D&D do anything it wants to. D&D is perfect.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> I want you to know that I don't think your formula is faulty in any way.  It sounds like it works really well for parameters you set out.  I was just pointing out that it does cut out a lot of the "end game."




Only because "end game" in this sense is "high magic stuff".  And, yes, you cannot do low magic without cutting out a lot of high magic stuff.

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Whatever man. You're right, I'm wrong, people have never had a problem making D&D do anything it wants to. D&D is perfect.




People have always had a lot of problem making D&D do what they want it to do....Pick any day in the last several years, and you'll see that people have had lots of problems with how 3e plays right out of the box.  People have had a lot of solutions, too.

Are you really saying that you'd rather throw up your hands in the air than simply tell me what it is that you are trying to prove?

If you are trying to prove that low-magic 3e can't be done easily, then I'd say I can easily disprove that (and just have).  If you are trying to say that people tend to overcomplicate this, and fear tampering with 3e due to its "delicate balance" then you're right.  I don't think the balance is really all that delicate, and I think it is pretty darn easy to tamper with, but I agree that the perception is out there that it is a house of cards, ready to fall down with the first stiff breeze (i.e., houserule).

The question is, what is it you are trying to prove?

RC


----------



## Rechan (Dec 3, 2007)

The argument is not that important to me. I was trying to make a point, it's pointless to continue. Yes, I'd rather throw my hands up. I'm dropping it.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

Rechan said:
			
		

> I'm not trying to prove anything. You're obviously right. I was trying to make a point, it's pointless to continue. Yes, I'd rather throw my hands up. I'm dropping it.




Fair enough.


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Only because "end game" in this sense is "high magic stuff".  And, yes, you cannot do low magic without cutting out a lot of high magic stuff.
> 
> RC





I don't think dragons, greater demons and star gods are high magic.  I think throwing fireballs, wearing full suits of magic armor and half a dozen trinkets, teleporting great distances with a word, wands of wonder, and staffs of power are high magic.  Your system helps me cut out the latter, but not the former.  There isn't anything wrong with that, but it's not right for my idea of what a low magic campaign is.  I'm not judging your frikking rules, man.  I'm just pointing out how they don't work for me.

Also, sorry, but I can't for the life of me recall any specifics of Conan fighting a really nutso demon.  It's been a while, but I can recall him working over some "dragons" and Xaltotun (sp?).  Also, the Elephant/star-god thing always struck me as being something very, very high level.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> I don't think dragons, greater demons and star gods are high magic.




Again, I didn't choose the definition of "low magic" in this thread.



> Also, sorry, but I can't for the life of me recall any specifics of Conan fighting a really nutso demon.




There's a reason for that.



> It's been a while, but I can recall him working over some "dragons" and Xaltotun (sp?).




If by this you mean "running from a dinosaur, and eventually poisoning it" then yes.    



> Also, the Elephant/star-god thing always struck me as being something very, very high level.




In that story (The Elephant's Tower) Conan fights a giant spider....in D&D terms a Small Monstrous Spider if memory serves.  He doesn't fight the Being from Yag.

RC


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

Well, I never said I wasn't rusty on my Conan. 

Aww, hell, for Sh*ts & giggles, you never accounted for Xaltotun.  Could Conan kill him under your rules?  (I'm obviously rusty on this one, but I'm pretty sure he chopped that dude down.)


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> Well, I never said I wasn't rusty on my Conan.
> 
> Aww, hell, for Sh*ts & giggles, you never accounted for Xaltotun.  Could Conan kill him under your rules?  (I'm obviously rusty on this one, but I'm pretty sure he chopped that dude down.)




Conan got a mystic jewel (artifact) that negated Xaltotun's powers.  Then he led his army to defeat the guys Xaltotun put in charge of his kingdom, while another spellcaster dealt with Xaltotun.  In order to get the jewel, Conan had to fight.......humans and a giant snake.  He also encountered some undead creatures that have no simple D&D analog.  In one case, he was beaten (and rescued) and in another case he fled.

All-in-all, it could work using my houserule exactly as it did in Conan.

RC


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 3, 2007)

Thanks    Didn't he end up using that sword to off him, though?  (And no, I'm confusing Xaltotun with Thulsa Doom from the movie, hehe.)


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 3, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> Thanks    Didn't he end up using that sword to off him, though?  (And no, I'm confusing Xaltotun with Thulsa Doom from the movie, hehe.)




Nah.  In the novel, _Hour of the Dragon_, it is revealed that Conan protected an unpopular religious sect when he took the crown of Aquilonia.  After his kingdom is usurped, agents of that sect aid him to regain his throne.

I forgot to mention earlier that Conan also fought an ape in that story, but the ape nearly kills him.

RC


----------



## Hussar (Dec 7, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I think you could use a refresher on your Howard.      Pick any one demon, and we'll see exactly what it can do in terms of D&D 3e.
> 
> 
> *snip*
> ...




I decided to take that up.  Just for the challenge and the enjoyment of reading Conan again.  So, I went to the first Conan story The Phoenix in the Blade which can be found on the Gutenburg Project.  As I remembered, there is a demon in that story.  Conan fights him.    I'll quote the text:



> At that instant a fearful scream burst from the rogues at the door as a black misshapen shadow fell across the wall. All but Ascalante wheeled at that cry, and then, howling like dogs, they burst blindly through the door in a raving, blaspheming mob, and scattered through the corridors in screaming flight.




Fear aura.



> The flying weapon glanced singing from the slanting skull it should have crushed, and the king was hurled half-way across the chamber by the impact of the giant body.




DR right off the bat.



> Over his mangled arm it glared fiendishly into the king's eyes, in which there began to be mirrored a likeness of the horror which stared from the dead eyes of Ascalante. Conan felt his soul shrivel and begin to be drawn out of his body, to drown in the yellow wells of cosmic horror which glimmered spectrally in the formless chaos that was growing about him and engulfing all life and sanity.




Gaze attack that sounds like save or die.



> And his outflung hand struck something his dazed fighting-brain recognized as the hilt of his broken sword. Instinctively he gripped it and struck with all the power of nerve and thew, as a man stabs with a dagger. The broken blade sank deep and Conan's arm was released as the abhorrent mouth gaped as in agony.




Magic weapons required to harm the monster.  Yup, definitely DR.

So, Demons in Conan's world are incredibly strong (even Conan could not break its grip), have death gaze attacks and damage reduction.  Sounds pretty close to D&D demons.  Doesn't a Nabassu (sp) have pretty much exactly these abilities?


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 7, 2007)

So my memory isn't that bad after all.  Thanks Hussar.


----------



## Hussar (Dec 7, 2007)

Taking a look at the Nabassu posted on the WOTC site, I'd say our Conan critter isn't too far off.  Probably somewhere half way between the Cr 5 juvenile which doesn't have the DR to shrug off axe attacks from Conan and the CR 15 version adult which has too many SLA's to really fit.  

Although, since we don't know how the demon managed to pass all the way through Conan's palace with no one seeing it, it's quite possible that it retains its teleport ability.  If you yanked off the wings and the SLA's from the CR 15 version, you'd probably get pretty close.  The Regeneration/Good would fit perfectly with the idea that only the Phoenix sword could kill the beast.  

Yet, even the CR 10 version is going to absolutely hammer a party that lacks magic weapons and a cleric.  Even if they win, they're going to be losing LOTS of levels.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 7, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> So my memory isn't that bad after all.  Thanks Hussar.




Care to elaborate?


----------



## PeterWeller (Dec 7, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Care to elaborate?




Did you bother reading Hussar's post, or are you just trying to perpetuate the argument now?


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 7, 2007)

PeterWeller said:
			
		

> Did you bother reading Hussar's post, or are you just trying to perpetuate the argument now?




I don't currently read Hussar's posts.  

RC


----------



## Remathilis (Dec 9, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I don't currently read Hussar's posts.
> 
> RC




Then for your non-ignore reading: 



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> I decided to take that up. Just for the challenge and the enjoyment of reading Conan again. So, I went to the first Conan story The Phoenix in the Blade which can be found on the Gutenburg Project. As I remembered, there is a demon in that story. Conan fights him. I'll quote the text:
> 
> _Quote:
> At that instant a fearful scream burst from the rogues at the door as a black misshapen shadow fell across the wall. All but Ascalante wheeled at that cry, and then, howling like dogs, they burst blindly through the door in a raving, blaspheming mob, and scattered through the corridors in screaming flight._
> ...


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 10, 2007)

> So, Demons in Conan's world are incredibly strong (even Conan could not break its grip), have death gaze attacks and damage reduction. Sounds pretty close to D&D demons. Doesn't a Nabassu (sp) have pretty much exactly these abilities?




So, the demon has a high Strength, DR, fear aura, and a SoD effect.  Does this actually sound "pretty close to D&D demons"?  No.  It sounds _inclusive of some things D&D demons have_, while excluding many, many others.  For starters, no Summon or Telepathy.  Demons in Conan don't have Fire Resistance, either (in one story, Conan uses Iron and Fire to destroy a demon).  And, while it has DR, it has so few hit points that, by using a sword that bypasses DR, Conan dispatches it with how many blows?  One?  Two?

Does that sound like a D&D demon?

Not to me.  D&D demons are not the glass cannons that Conan's demon is.  Even if you give Conan a +10 damage bonus, this demon cannot have more than 30 hit points tops.  The closest D&D creature to what Conan faces here is, perhaps, a Bodak with an improved grapple modifier.


RC


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## Simon Marks (Dec 10, 2007)

All we have proved is that D&D doesn't emulate fiction well.

Again.


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 10, 2007)

Simon Marks said:
			
		

> All we have proved is that D&D doesn't emulate fiction well.
> 
> Again.





No.  All we have proved is that, if you wish to emulate _specific_ fiction, you will have to make modifications to do so.  

BTW, I lost track of the other thread where this was being discussed (can't access subscribed threads   ), wherein it was claimed that Smaug knocked down a house with one sweep of his tail.  I reread the battle at Lake Town over the weekend, and this was incorrect.  Smaug knocks in the _roof_ of the Great House....a feat requiring far less in terms of size and strength than was implied.


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