# Monte Cook back at wizards



## Rex Blunder (Sep 20, 2011)

Looks like Wizards has rehired Monte Cook. I think this is a great idea: Monte is a thoughtful game developer, who obviously has respect for the good ideas of past editions, and it'll do Wizards good to have him in R&D.

That is, if he is in R&D? It's possible that I misread it and he's just writing freelance Legends and Lore articles, but a full-time job sounds more likely.


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## Nyronus (Sep 20, 2011)

Color me mildly dreadful. Besides the fact that 3.5 and all of its attendant problems were his baby, he also apparently thought punishing noobs was good game design. He phrases it as awarding system mastery, admits now it was a mistake, but it really is just noob punishment, and that strikes me as something kind of  and dumb to deliberately keep in a system. It also misses the point of the way Magic was designed. Magic has different tiers of balance not to reward the smart people for being better at the game, but to make the game fun for many different people. The difference between 3.5 Toughness and you Ten-Mana Green Fatty, is that the Ten-Mana Green Fatty rewards the player psychologically by appealing to visceral fun centers of the brain, while Toughness just leaves a lingering malaise when you realize you might have permanently crippled your character. Yeah, the Ten-Mana Green Fatty is crap compared to two-mana counter-spells and one mana goblins combined with cheap buffs and burn, but that's not the point. You'd never run a ten-mana fatty deck at a tournament against people with finely honed ass-kicking machines, you run it when you want to B.S. at the kitchen table. Having a run and smash class (i.e., the Slayer), being balanced against the complex cerebral class (the mage, or, say, a well made Ranger to keep it in role), is an example of what Magic does with its Timmy and Spike distinction. Hell, its an example of one upping that distinction by allowing both to coexist in the same meta-game. So not only was it a bad idea, but a bad idea based around a painful misunderstanding of its inspiration.

If this is what consists of the mans resume, yeah, call me anxious if he's doing more than writing a weekly article.


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## Sonny (Sep 20, 2011)

He had nothing to do with 3.5. He had already been gone from wizards for awhile before that came out. 3.0 is his baby though.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Sep 20, 2011)

I am cautiously optimistic that Monte Cook's return to WotC and D&D won't suck. I was a big fan of his post-WotC work, in particular, the Books of Experimental Might.  It was a very forward-looking book, and contained a lot of the good ideas that made it to 4th edition.

I think though, that many people in the gaming community see the writing on the wall, and it indicates that things will be moving in a more backward direction come Next Edition, whenever that is. For better or worse, that seems to be the way the wind is blowing. I think they really felt the hurt when half the 3.x crowd bailed for PF, and they would go to great lengths to get some of that audience back. This, despite the fact that 4e earned them many fans who were glad to see the last nail in 3rd edition's coffin.

That said, there are some elements of his game design that I'm not anxious to see a return to. From the tone of the article linked above, he seems to have learned a valuable lesson with respect to the whole concept of "system mastery," so we'll just have to wait and see how this develops.


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## Rechan (Sep 20, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> 0
> I think though, that many people in the gaming community see the writing on the wall, and it indicates that things will be moving in a more backward direction come Next Edition, whenever that is. For better or worse, that seems to be the way the wind is blowing. I think they really felt the hurt when half the 3.x crowd bailed for PF, and they would go to great lengths to get some of that audience back.



Which raises the question that even if WotC went back to something 3e-like with 5e, that the PF/3.5 crowd would be willing to come along. 

It would be pretty easy to anger the PF/3e crowd _and_ the 4e fans.

Whatever goes, I hope WotC _takes its time_. I'm pretty sure a _lot_ of upset would come if they turned over to 5e with only 4-5 years in 4e. Especially with all the effort they're putting into getting new people to play, only to switch.


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## Sonny (Sep 20, 2011)

> I've spent the past several months talking about D&D's past and how that relates to its future. It's now time to focus much more on the future of the game. Monte has an unmatched design pedigree in the RPG field, and for that reason we've brought him on board to work with R&D in making D&D the greatest RPG the world has seen.




It really does sound like Development of 5th edition is now underway. Three years into the 4th Edition. 

I'm sure it could be read another way, but I think most people will read it as 5E development. 

I wondering exactly what they plan to keep from 4e. The fixed math is a likely candidate. I can't see them requiring Minis again though. That kinda bit them in the butt when the minis market became unprofitable.

I'm sure there will be some powers other then spells, but again, there's no way it will be like 4e is right now. There's simply too much work involved in creating new classes. 

I mentioned in another thread I think a powers list would be the way to go, much like the spell lists of 1st-3rd edition. It'll be interesting to see where D&D is headed, that's for sure.


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## Sonny (Sep 20, 2011)

Rechan said:


> Which raises the question that even if WotC went back to something 3e-like with 5e, that the PF/3.5 crowd would be willing to come along.
> 
> It would be pretty easy to anger the PF/3e crowd _and_ the 4e fans.
> 
> Whatever goes, I hope WotC _takes its time_. I'm pretty sure a _lot_ of upset would come if they turned over to 5e with only 4-5 years in 4e. Especially with all the effort they're putting into getting new people to play, only to switch.




I think more than anything, by the time 5e comes around in a few years, if the next edition is more like older editions and has a decent license for third parties, that Paizo would likely support it. 

I don't think either Wizards nor Paizo see the splintering of the D&D audience as something to hold on to, and that they would both be stronger with the largest audience possible.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 20, 2011)

Nyronus said:


> Color me mildly dreadful. Besides the fact that 3.5 and all of its attendant problems were his baby, he also apparently thought punishing noobs was good game design. He phrases it as awarding system mastery, admits now it was a mistake, but it really is just noob punishment, and that strikes me as something kind of  and dumb to deliberately keep in a system. It also misses the point of the way Magic was designed. Magic has different tiers of balance not to reward the smart people for being better at the game, but to make the game fun for many different people. The difference between 3.5 Toughness and you Ten-Mana Green Fatty, is that the Ten-Mana Green Fatty rewards the player psychologically by appealing to visceral fun centers of the brain, while Toughness just leaves a lingering malaise when you realize you might have permanently crippled your character. Yeah, the Ten-Mana Green Fatty is crap compared to two-mana counter-spells and one mana goblins combined with cheap buffs and burn, but that's not the point. You'd never run a ten-mana fatty deck at a tournament against people with finely honed ass-kicking machines, you run it when you want to B.S. at the kitchen table. Having a run and smash class (i.e., the Slayer), being balanced against the complex cerebral class (the mage, or, say, a well made Ranger to keep it in role), is an example of what Magic does with its Timmy and Spike distinction. Hell, its an example of one upping that distinction by allowing both to coexist in the same meta-game. So not only was it a bad idea, but a bad idea based around a painful misunderstanding of its inspiration.
> 
> If this is what consists of the mans resume, yeah, call me anxious if he's doing more than writing a weekly article.



Sorry, but if you read the article, you quoted, you would have noticed, that he believes that approaching the game this way was not the best idea, and that they rather did it because D&D has always been that way...


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## Argyle King (Sep 20, 2011)

I'd be pretty happy with a 5E built around something like Ptolus.  


Keep most of the 4e cosmology fluff though; I've come to enjoy the new planar fluff.  Though I'd still like a few tweaks.


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## Nyronus (Sep 20, 2011)

Sonny said:


> He had nothing to do with 3.5. He had already been gone from wizards for awhile before that came out. 3.0 is his baby though.




Sorry. Brainfart. I knew he was one of the big-wigs behind Third Edition, and in my head I user "3.5" as a shorthand for "3rd Edition" in general, even if there is a big distinction between third edition's two halves. Whoops.

Of course, that's even slightly more incriminating since 3.5, for all of its problems, still improved the game compared to 3.0. It's his problems 3.5 was meant to fix!

-

I'll give the guy a fair shake (if we aren't all just misinterpreting what "help R&D out" means), but I'm wary. This may not be the writing on the wall, but when your trying to send a message to your fans that your dedicated to a product, hiring the guy who made what many of your fans consider an outdated, inferior, or just incompatible product directly competing with yours, and then telling them he's going to be the voice of the game's future, is not a way to do so.

Edit: @UngeheuerLich Sorry, but if you actually read my post you'd notice how I said, in the second sentence, that I realize he's now against the idea, but my whole point was that it was an _asinine concept to begin with, only made worse by the fact that he didn't understand the ideas he was trying to emulate and that this doesn't boast well for his competence_. Also, he said that it was something that had always been there, and that they deliberately made sure it stayed for the reasons he outlined, even if he thinks its a bad idea now.


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## Pentius (Sep 20, 2011)

Sonny said:


> It really does sound like Development of 5th edition is now underway. Three years into the 4th Edition.
> 
> I'm sure it could be read another way, but I think most people will read it as 5E development.




I dunno, it seems to me that a lot of things have sounded like 5e is on the way.  it's a standard thing to hear whenever there's any staff change at WotC.

Mainly I just hope Monte's writing is good.  He's been a big force behind things I really don't like in my gaming, but WotC's recent releases have also been very hit or miss with me, so this could swing it either way(of it swings it anywhere at all).


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 20, 2011)

But if you look at 3rd edition, no matter how problematic parts of it was, it was a great game that revived D&D.

I also had more fun with 3.0, because even though some things were less balanced, it was closer to ADnD and didn´t encourage the use of minis.
All in all, it was more DMcentric, as figuring out the amount of cover e.g. was more or less a decision of the DM...

More fiddly, yes.
More imbalanced,yes

but it was a lot closer to its roots, and the worst offenders, druids, were not that imbalanced...

And i guess, people who believed D&D 3.5 is all bad are no longer actually working on 4E. And this was a mistake!
3.x really had flaws. But it also had very very great parts. And not all of them were retained in the pathfinder conversion.

I would really like to read what monte cook´s design principles were.

@ 5e:
In no way will 5e come out, before character builder, adventure tools etc have been released fully functional.
It is very very important for their credibility that they bring out a good working program as promised, no matter how ling it takes.
It is also important for them to have such tools for 5e.
And if you ask me, they need to fully support 4e tools for those who like to stay with 4e. There is no reasons for them to withdraw them, as no matter if you play 4e or 5e, you give them money.

So in a perfect world, we have 5e sooner than later, best if we all can take part in some kind of beta test.


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## Pentius (Sep 20, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> But if you look at 3rd edition, no matter how problematic parts of it was, it was a great game that revived D&D.



I think that was more to do with the timing, than the system.  The climate in the hobby is a lot different now, so what worked then may not work now.



> I also had more fun with 3.0, because even though some things were less balanced, it was closer to ADnD and didn´t encourage the use of minis.



My mileage varies.  I found minis a requirement with 3e, and my 4e experience has been a lot more like my AD&D experience than the 3e days were.




> All in all, it was more DMcentric, as figuring out the amount of cover e.g. was more or less a decision of the DM...



I disagree.  The reigning in of Casters world breaking effects handed a lot of power back to the DM, as did splitting the rules for PCs and NPCs.  As a 4e DM, I have a lot more decisions in my hands, and more freedom to make them, then I did during 3e(or in my case, 3.5).


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## Nikosandros (Sep 20, 2011)

All I read is that Monte will be writing the next installments in the column, no mention whatsoever of the fact that he's been hired by WotC. I agree, that this might indicate an involvement with the development of the game, but all of this seems a bit premature at this point...


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## Sonny (Sep 20, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> @ 5e:
> In no way will 5e come out, before character builder, adventure tools etc have been released fully functional.
> It is very very important for their credibility that they bring out a good working program as promised, no matter how ling it takes.
> It is also important for them to have such tools for 5e.
> ...




I doubt 5e would be out sooner then 2013, unless it's based almost entirely on 3e. And I doubt it will be. So it's going to be awhile still. Seems pretty clear though, either there's a big 4e revamp in the future, or 5e is definitely in development at this point.


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## Sonny (Sep 20, 2011)

Nikosandros said:


> All I read is that Monte will be writing the next installments in the column, no mention whatsoever of the fact that he's been hired by WotC. I agree, that this might indicate an involvement with the development of the game, but all of this seems a bit premature at this point...




"I've spent the past several months talking about D&D's past and how that relates to its future. It's now time to focus much more on the future of the game. *Monte has an unmatched design pedigree in the RPG field, and for that reason we've brought him on board to work with R&D in making D&D the greatest RPG the world has seen.*"

I don't see how telling people it's now time to focus on the future and Monte has been brought in to help make D&D the greatest rpg the world has ever seen, could mean he's only  writing column for them.

Edit: Also _bringing someone on board_ pretty much means that person will be working for the company. At least in the companies I've worked for, that's what bringing someone on board has meant.


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## Nikosandros (Sep 20, 2011)

Sonny said:


> "I've spent the past several months talking about D&D's past and how that relates to its future. It's now time to focus much more on the future of the game. *Monte has an unmatched design pedigree in the RPG field, and for that reason we've brought him on board to work with R&D in making D&D the greatest RPG the world has seen.*"
> 
> I don't see how telling people it's now time to focus on the future and Monte has been brought in to help make D&D the greatest rpg the world has ever seen, could mean he's only  writing column for them.
> 
> Edit: Also _bringing someone on board_ pretty much means that person will be working for the company. At least in the companies I've worked for, that's what bringing someone on board has meant.



I somehow had missed the most relevant part... yes, I concede that you're right.


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## wedgeski (Sep 20, 2011)

I have mixed expectations about this. I loved 3E in its day, as much as I love the current edition, and I gorged myself on Malhavoc product after he left Wizards. I consider him one of the best in the field.

But... 4E is a different beast to 3E. I *like* that about it. It reflected a very different gaming landscape to the one that existed when 3E was under development. I also seem to remember Monte posting in one of his blogs that he didn't actually like 4E all that much (not really surprising considering his contribution to its predecessor).

Having said all that, Monte is nothing if not a pro. He's obviously been brought on for a reason, and I'm excited to see what he has to say.


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## Pentius (Sep 20, 2011)

wedgeski said:


> I also seem to remember Monte posting in one of his blogs that he didn't actually like 4E all that much (not really surprising considering his contribution to its predecessor).




I poked around the net a little to see if I could find anything on Monte's thoughts on 4e(pre-return to WotC, natch), but while I found a lot of talking about Monte not liking 4e, the only thing I could find that he has actually said was a bit on his blog where he mentioned not liking the license, as a publisher.


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## wedgeski (Sep 20, 2011)

Pentius said:


> I poked around the net a little to see if I could find anything on Monte's thoughts on 4e(pre-return to WotC, natch), but while I found a lot of talking about Monte not liking 4e, the only thing I could find that he has actually said was a bit on his blog where he mentioned not liking the license, as a publisher.



I had a quick poke around to see if I could back myself up on this, but with no success. I'm happy to be wrong.


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## delericho (Sep 20, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> I think though, that many people in the gaming community see the writing on the wall, and it indicates that things will be moving in a more backward direction come Next Edition, whenever that is.




Not necessarily. The skill system Mearls outlined a few weeks ago was from Monte, and it was very different from the 3e system.

My guess would be that 5e won't be a step backwards towards 3e (except perhaps in style), nor an evolution of the ideas of 4e. My guess would be that it is again something really quite different.



Pentius said:


> I poked around the net a little to see if I could find anything on Monte's thoughts on 4e(pre-return to WotC, natch), but while I found a lot of talking about Monte not liking 4e, the only thing I could find that he has actually said was a bit on his blog where he mentioned not liking the license, as a publisher.




I'm not aware of anything about 4e. He is on record as being very critical of _3.5e_, though.


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## Kzach (Sep 20, 2011)

Mike Mearls + Monte Cook = Pure Unadulterated Awesome.

Their love-child will be 5e and it will be so good that it will create a utopian gaming nirvana where all fans of all editions will come together in peace, harmony, and the Gygaxian Way.


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## delericho (Sep 20, 2011)

Sonny said:


> I think more than anything, by the time 5e comes around in a few years, if the next edition is more like older editions and has a decent license for third parties, that Paizo would likely support it.
> 
> I don't think either Wizards nor Paizo see the splintering of the D&D audience as something to hold on to, and that they would both be stronger with the largest audience possible.




I can't see it happening. Paizo were burned by losing the license for the magazines, and then again by the GSL fiasco. (Note that I am _not_ saying WotC did anything wrong here - just that what they did didn't suit Paizo.) Between those two events, they will have learned a very valuable lesson about tying the existing of your company to a license granted by some other company.

Couple that with the massive success of Pathfinder, and I really can't see Paizo coming back onboard, unless a huge chunk of their following switch back to 5e. And I can't see that happening either - many of the Pathfinder fans are so fanatical that 5e could be wrapped in pure gold and they still wouldn't buy!

Just about the only way WotC could get Paizo to support 5e would be to buy out the company and then put all those guys in charge of R&D going forward.


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## Zaran (Sep 20, 2011)

Eh.  I'd like to believe that 5e is still not in the works.  They have said that the Legends and Lore were nothing but articles on how they think and are not previewing a new edition.  Also, they have not said Cooke is actually working for WotC.  I think it's more like we have made them feel that they suck as developers and have got someone outside the system for us to beat down.

If they are doing 5e... it would be inane for them to make it so different from 4e.  That will only create new issues.


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## Alnag (Sep 20, 2011)

I must say I am bit sceptical about all this. Despite the fact I respect Monte Cook, I was not fascinated by any of his works so far all that much. Also his new proposition for a skill system which I don't like even slightly makes me even more sceptical.

If I am not mistaken, Monte Cook was used as a "mascot" for Pathfinder at one time, and it seems like WotC simply makes the same "mascot" thing again for 5e (or DnD NEXT or whatever you want to call it). 

So what exactly is his advantage over any other designer? Experience? And isn't that actually disadvantage as well? If you are youg you tend to be more creative and flexible, able to approach thing from new angle. If you have a burden of experience, you tend to use good old ways and approach the thing the same way as you approached it before. If I would like to play DnD by Monte Cook and I can play 3e (or Pathfinder for that matter). The reason why I choose 4e is because I like the new angle and if I (as a customer) am supposed to choose 5e it should rather approach the thing from a new angle again.


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## Scribble (Sep 20, 2011)

I've always been a huge fan of the flavor elements Monet Cook puts into his stuff... Unfortunately the crunch always seemed to over worked. Like 5 different steps where one could have sufficed, or rules for things seemingly just so it could be put on paper...

But maybe that's just how 3e was, and he will do different things with a different system? 

Dunno though... He cut his teeth on Rolemaster, and I feel like the elements of 3e that tended to bug me were the Rolemastery bits...


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## MerricB (Sep 20, 2011)

Monte Cook's a great designer, but I believe he needs a good developer to keep his ideas grounded. He's likely to get that at Wizards.

Ditto with Mike, actually.

Having a good development & playtest team makes a world of difference.

Cheers!


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## Alnag (Sep 20, 2011)

Scribble said:


> Unfortunately the crunch always seemed to over worked. Like 5 different steps where one could have sufficed, or rules for things seemingly just so it could be put on paper...




That is my feeling exactly. (And at this time 4e seems to be overworked as it it, no need to add to that... )


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## Riastlin (Sep 20, 2011)

For me personally, I reckon I'll like almost anything that is put out.  This isn't a WotC thing either, but rather just a reflection of the fact that I've thoroughly enjoyed pretty much every RPG I've played, be it AD&D, 3.x, 4ed, Shadowrun, Pathfinder, Hollow Earth, Savage Worlds, etc.

While Monte has certainly had his bumps in the road, he has also been very succesful in other respects.  More importantly though, as mentioned in the above link, Monte also has shown the ability to understand when he's screwed up.  Personally, I think its a good sign when somebody is willing to put his or her ego aside and own up to their mistakes.

As for 5ed in general, I truly believe that they are indeed working on it.  Or at least on the evolution of the current edition.  In other words, I highly doubt they'll be content to just stand pat and only release a few updates now and then.  Its just not in their long term economical interests.  I don't think this is any sort of conspiracy on their part either.  It just makes too much sense for them to keep working on ways to improve both the game and their profits.  Frankly, I think its something that pretty much every company should be doing (including in all likelihood Paizo).  That being said, I also don't think that 5ed is necessarily right around the corner (realizing of course that this is a term that has many different meanings).  Traditionally, WotC likes to announce new editions at GenCon, which would mean at the earliest, we'll get an announcement next August, which means a 2013 release at the earliest (in my opinion).


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## Scribble (Sep 20, 2011)

I'm still of the belief that we won't see a true 5e.


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## CasvalRemDeikun (Sep 20, 2011)

I think the one major thing being overlooked here is being good people and congratulating Monte on his return to Wizards of the Coast.  Seriously, can't we just wish him well without all the doomsaying and prognosticating?  I swear, the D&D community as a whole is downright toxic nowadays.  We can be better than this.

I, personally, don't know an incredible much about his post-WotC stuff, but other people have said some good things.  Ptolus was a friggin' monstrously huge book of awesome, apparently.

But honestly, good luck Monte!


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## Crazy Jerome (Sep 20, 2011)

I've had Cook's stuff from some of his early Iron Crown days right up until Ptolus. It has all been relatively high quality, adjusted for the environment he was working in. (At ICE, they practically weren't paying anyone for awhile, and support was gone.)

If you read between the lines in some of the 3E commentary, and early Malhovic diaries, it is pretty clear that the 3E design team tried to steer a very narrow course between innovation and tradition. Sometimes, the compromises weren't the best ones. It is implicit in the Malhovic products that the lesson learned from this was: When you want tradition, go full bore for tradition. When you want innovation, likewise. The compromises seldom work in the details. The compromises sometimes work great when element A is traditional and element B is innovative. The trick is picking which is which.

So with what Merric already noted about support, I see nothing but good concerning a both challenged and supported Cook on the job.


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## Felon (Sep 20, 2011)

Nyronus said:


> Color me mildly dreadful. Besides the fact that 3.5 and all of its attendant problems were his baby, he also apparently thought punishing noobs was good game design. He phrases it as awarding system mastery, admits now it was a mistake, but it really is just noob punishment, and that strikes me as something kind of  and dumb to deliberately keep in a system. It also misses the point of the way Magic was designed...If this is what consists of the mans resume, yeah, call me anxious if he's doing more than writing a weekly article.



You're basically doing that thing folks on the internet do: seize upon a minor comment, go way overboard dissecting its meaning, and ignore the relevance of timeliness. That's from, what, 2002? 2003 maybe?

So, in summary: old artcile, and admitted it wasn't all that great of an idea at the time. Unclench.


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## Vael (Sep 20, 2011)

I'm not all that knowledgeable of Monte Cook's works, so until I see 4e products with his name on it, I'm going to wait and see what this means. In the meantime, I like that he's taking over the Legends and Lore column, as his ideas have already surfaced there, and I'd like to see how he presents them.

As for 5e ... I don't doubt it's coming, but I don't think it's gone much beyond the doodling on a paper napkin phase. There's still a lot of life left in 4e.


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## SSquirrel (Sep 20, 2011)

As you can tell from reading my sig, I have one of the original copies of Ptolus and thought it was a fantastic book.  I was a very big of all the Malhavoc releases.  Things like Beyond Countless Doorways (Planescape reunion book) and Arcana Unearthed/Evolved were both great.  If you look at later developments in 3.5 you see things lifted from his work at Malhavoc.  Arcana Unearthed/Evolved introduced racial levels, which were added during 3.5 and some of the 4E Paragon Paths like Beastblooded Minotaur are certainly a "more Minotaur than your average Minotaur" kind of deal.  

AU/AE had an increased emphasis on the implement people were using and they mattered.  A Magister was nothing w/o his staff, Swordmages cast their spells thru their bladed weapons, etc.  What did WotC do with 4th Ed?  Weapons and implements really matter.  AU also increased casting flexibility greatly from it's d20 origins, which isn't something that was really kept in 4E, but classes certainly stand out from each other and do a good job of covering all the various tropes.  AU stood out b/c it had Humans, but nothing else that was familiar.  New races, new classes.  Taking big chances.  That spirit was certainly in 4E.

As far as nothing publicly replacing his work w/dungeonaday.com, hasn't he had a couple of different non-fiction novels he's spent the last few years working on, besides his work w/Paizo regarding Pathfinder?  He's had various irons in the fire.  I'm curious what his relationship and involvement w/Paizo is at this point if he's officially working for WotC again.  

Monte, big gratis on being back at WotC and I hope this means only good things for you.  I also hope this means that next year's D&D setting is Arcana Evolved   I think it could translate very well in many ways.

PS If there is a new edition you are working on, remember that feats and talents need to become separate design space.


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## Kzach (Sep 20, 2011)

CasvalRemDeikun said:


> I think the one major thing being overlooked here is being good people and congratulating Monte on his return to Wizards of the Coast.  Seriously, can't we just wish him well without all the doomsaying and prognosticating?  I swear, the D&D community as a whole is downright toxic nowadays.  We can be better than this.




Hahahaahahahahaahahahahahahaa.

The gaming community has been like this ever since I can remember. Hell, you should see some of the old Greyhawk mailing list and newsgroup conversations. Talk about vitriol! The only thing that is different is that there are more ways in which we can come together and argue with each other


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## Gargoyle (Sep 20, 2011)

I believe that Monte Cook is the one ingredient that was missing from making the 4e soup the tastiest version of D&D.  His influence would have probably tempered the changes that Mearls brought into the system and created a 4e that fixed the problems of 3.5e without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  

I look forward to whatever they come up with, though I'm still not convinced it will be 5e any time soon.


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## Kzach (Sep 20, 2011)

Gargoyle said:


> His influence would have probably tempered the changes that Mearls brought into the system and created a 4e that fixed the problems of 3.5e without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.




It was an ugly baby anyway.


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## Sonny (Sep 20, 2011)

delericho said:


> Couple that with the massive success of Pathfinder, and I really can't see Paizo coming back onboard, unless a huge chunk of their following switch back to 5e. And I can't see that happening either - many of the Pathfinder fans are so fanatical that 5e could be wrapped in pure gold and they still wouldn't buy!
> 
> Just about the only way WotC could get Paizo to support 5e would be to buy out the company and then put all those guys in charge of R&D going forward.




There's a portion of the pathfinder audience who are fanatical, but it's not some overwhelming percentage. Their last two supplements (Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic) have gotten meh reviews by many Pathfinder players. 

Hell, one of the biggest boosts Pathfinder got was Monte Cook's support. And now that will be gone once his name is on a competing product. Many people play pathfinder because they tried 4e and didn't like it. They're not some brainwashed legion dedicated to Paizo's cause.

Even losing only 25 percent of Paizo's audience to 5e would be serious. After all, even Paizo knows one day they would have to release a 2e of Pathfinder and risk splitting their pathfinder audience even more.

Maybe you're right though. And it's just my wishing that both Paizo and WoTC will be using the same edition again, allowing Eric Mona to freelance on Greyhawk material.


----------



## Umbran (Sep 20, 2011)

Rechan said:


> It would be pretty easy to anger the PF/3e crowd _and_ the 4e fans.




You know, if 3e/PF fans get upset by whatever comes out in the 4e branch - get angry over developments in a game they no longer play - well, then I think they can be dismissed as being silly.

Really.  It'd be like getting up in arms because writers kill off a character in a TV show you don't like and don't watch.  I mean, that's just plain silly.  No other word for it.


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## GreyLord (Sep 20, 2011)

I personally didn't like Cook's take on RPGs.  I actually DID like rolemaster, but I like my Rolemaster and D&D separate.  Ever after Cook got into D&D, it went downhill...in a MAJOR way.  He introduced it into a skill packet idea instead of it's roots...he's the one that rewrote the game.

If you don't like 4e...thank Monte...as he started the entire trend of...let's rewrite the game into something completely different with 3e (actually it had it's roots with some of the stuff he worked on prior to 3e in D&D and proceeded from there).  4e actually wasn't as drastic a rewrite as 3.X was (though many may try to claim otherwise).

His stuff after 3e's release hasn't really been all that inspired either, in my opinion.

So why would Monte be hired?

First, because there are many who think he is a good guy and can give great direction to the RPG side of the business (WotC is far more then D&D these days).

Second, those same people will vouch for him.

Third, because he has something many others don't...name recognition.  For some reason there are many out there that love the combination of him and the idea of D&D.  That's a power in marketing that is rare...and hard to match.  In fact, to get that can be a vital portion of marketing.  You can't just pass up a chance at using something like that.

In the competition WotC has with other RPG makers...his name is more likely to draw people to WotC's RPGs than just about any other name out there currently.  Getting him is like winning the sweeps in the ratings...he's probably even more valuable to the brand name of WotC's D&D than even Monte realizes.

Aka...he could save or destroy the game...or both at the same time.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 20, 2011)

Hmmh, I just spoke about the difference between 3.0 and 3.5... 4e is an entirely different thing...

I falsely assumed, it was clear, that I was responding to a post... the problem: someone sneaked in, and since I did not quote, it was not clear.

IMHO 3.0 > 3.5 in many regards, as 3.5 slaughtered a lot of sacred cows... the only problem: 3.5 > 3.0 in other regards... so we slowly switched (or better slided) to 3.5...

but 4e is currently the best edition we have. Great principles, especially those things you mentioned:
The NPC - PC split and toning down of casters.

On the other hand, my favourite edition would make the split less severe (more or less equal number of hp and especially damage numbers, less strict afvancement rules which allows for even more freedsom), it would underline rituals more and brings back real spell books, and it would do away with feats and brings proficiencies back (which includes proper scaling of skill bonuses)

5e will even be better... (i hope so at least)


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## Roland55 (Sep 20, 2011)

Vael said:


> I'm not all that knowledgeable of Monte Cook's works, so until I see 4e products with his name on it, I'm going to wait and see what this means. In the meantime, I like that he's taking over the Legends and Lore column, as his ideas have already surfaced there, and I'd like to see how he presents them.
> 
> As for 5e ... I don't doubt it's coming, but I don't think it's gone much beyond the doodling on a paper napkin phase. There's still a lot of life left in 4e.




Actually, 4E will in some sense live forever.  It's fairly complete, lots of useful product exists, and it has a strong player base.

Heck, Umbran is playing Deadlands with his group these days.  How long since that was being actively developed?

No one here need fear anything.  4E already exists in a complete and eminently playable form -- WOTC will not show up and take it away from you.

Thus -- 4E will "live forever."


----------



## Roland55 (Sep 20, 2011)

Kzach said:


> Hahahaahahahahaahahahahahahaa.
> 
> The gaming community has been like this ever since I can remember. Hell, you should see some of the old Greyhawk mailing list and newsgroup conversations. Talk about vitriol! The only thing that is different is that there are more ways in which we can come together and argue with each other




Kzach's post rings true.  

We are indeed an argumentative, feisty, negative bunch.

Maybe, just this once, we could take a positive stance ... wait patiently (if vocally) ... and expect something great.  Suspend disbelief.  Offer positive moral support.

You know, for a change.  Just to keep "them" off their guard.


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## _NewbieDM_ (Sep 20, 2011)

Interesting hypothetical situation:

A Monte Cook-aided 5th Ed. releases at the same time as a Pathfinder 2, inspired by a Monte Cook designed 3rd ed. 

partial Cook game vs. partial Cook game...

Grab the popcorn....


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## Viking Bastard (Sep 20, 2011)

Monte Cook is the closest thing D&D has to a living rockstar. WotC needs good PR. They're obviously retooling things; having that be Monte Cook-stamped would seem like a good move.


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## delericho (Sep 20, 2011)

Sonny said:


> Hell, one of the biggest boosts Pathfinder got was Monte Cook's support.




Nah. Monte did a quick review of the rules, and wrote a foreword. That's all - and that's really not much. Pathfinder was sold largely on the reputation for quality that Paizo had built up for their adventures.



> Even losing only 25 percent of Paizo's audience to 5e would be serious.




Serious, yes, but survivable. Whereas the alternative is dropping Pathfinder and tying the survival of the company into a license that they don't control. And, having dropped Pathfinder they wouldn't be able to restart it if WotC pulled the rug out from under them.

I just can't see them taking that step.


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## was (Sep 20, 2011)

sounds cool..looking forward to his work


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## darkwing (Sep 21, 2011)

I really like the 4e philosophy on game play (i.e. the game should be fun for everyone regardless of class or level) more than any previous edition and I hope Mike Mearls and Monte Cook don't screw it up.


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## Dice4Hire (Sep 21, 2011)

I would like to see some things new at WOTC, particularly a look back at wht already exists, with an eye for tweaking it.

Maybe WOTC will do it, but I am not sure.


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## UngainlyTitan (Sep 21, 2011)

delericho said:


> Nah. Monte did a quick review of the rules, and wrote a foreword. That's all - and that's really not much. Pathfinder was sold largely on the reputation for quality that Paizo had built up for their adventures.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I cannot either. It has been a while since i read the OGL but I assume that Pathfinder is OGL, since it is built on an OGL chassis. So abandonning Pathfinder also risks someone else coming in and carrying the torch. Then they would be at the mercy of the Wizards licence and have the new OGL champion snapping at their heels.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Sep 21, 2011)

darkwing said:


> I really like the 4e philosophy on game play (i.e. the game should be fun for everyone regardless of class or level) more than any previous edition and I hope Mike Mearls and Monte Cook don't screw it up.



Didn't you hear? Mike Mearls ruined *everything*.


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## Shemeska (Sep 21, 2011)

This will be interesting. Assuming that they're now (or have been for a while) working on a 5e, they're in a really awkward position regarding what sort of thing to release to try to reclaim anything resembling their previous era market share.

If they release something more in line with pre-4e design notions, will they regain much of the 3.x crowd that either went with PF or never stopped playing 3.x? The ship may have sailed there unless they reverse course hard and gut many of the 4e'isms. Yet if they do that they risk starting Nerd Rage War II and having the people who didn't like 3.x and adore 4e feeling betrayed - and based on comments over on the WotC forums a number of people are already lighting torches and grabbing pitchforks in the event that WotC "backslides".

Mind you, this doesn't really impact me much. I've got a preferred edition that I play, which WotC doesn't make, so the route they go has little influence on my gaming at this juncture. Yet if anyone could find a solution for WotC that doesn't involve them losing even more of a market they splintered, Monte could, assuming he would have the creative freedom to abandon things that failed to gain traction in the RPG marketplace regardless of internal feelings at WotC about some of those design elements. It'll be difficult if not impossible.

Would be hard to get my money though, unless for instance they gave Monte a budget and let him do a 5e Planescape true to the original setting, its metaplot and design elements without having to adhere to 4e PoL at all. Yeah, that I'd throw money at WotC for.


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## Incenjucar (Sep 21, 2011)

5E would go about as well as the 3DS right about now, at best, so if he's working on it, it's too many years off to be worth focusing on right now.

I would absolutely adore Monte getting to bring Planescape back in all its glory - ideally, utilizing the bulk of the old material while making room for the PoL folks to play - Portals fix almost everything. Just having fresh rules for the old ideas would be fantastic.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 21, 2011)

Shemeska said:


> This will be interesting. Assuming that they're now (or have been for a while) working on a 5e, they're in a really awkward position regarding what sort of thing to release to try to reclaim anything resembling their previous era market share.
> 
> If they release something more in line with pre-4e design notions, will they regain much of the 3.x crowd that either went with PF or never stopped playing 3.x? The ship may have sailed there unless they reverse course hard and gut many of the 4e'isms. Yet if they do that they risk starting Nerd Rage War II and having the people who didn't like 3.x and adore 4e feeling betrayed - and based on comments over on the WotC forums a number of people are already lighting torches and grabbing pitchforks in the event that WotC "backslides".
> 
> ...



Seems to me like the most likely result of a 5e that tried to split the difference between 3.x/PF and 4e is that it would A) not please the retro crowd, B) not please the 3.x/PF people as it would still be quite different from classic D&D, and C) wouldn't please the 4e crowd because it would be losing too much. I think it would be the death of WotC D&D frankly. 

I'm just wondering though what Monte Cook can do for 4e? Be a PR person I guess? Not sure how far that can go without his name anywhere on the game. Write 5e? That's clearly years in the future. Even 2013 is really pushing it. You can only make me buy so many books in so many years and switch game systems so many times...

In terms of what he can do with 4e? The things that discourage many people from 4e aren't things that can be fixed WITHIN 4e, so no huge rules revamps are really going to happen because you can't accomplish enough that way and have a 4e compatible game. Adventures? Well, surely they don't need to hire the guy for that, but they could. The thing is they already know how to write good adventures, they just need to DO it. Logan Bonner has written excellent 4e adventures for instance. 

So what exactly can Monte Cook do for WotC? I am not sure I get it. Maybe it is just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks....


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## Incenjucar (Sep 21, 2011)

WotC has recently lacked creative ambition, so it's possible that he can jump start things there. Who knows, maybe he'll push for elemental classes.

*cough*


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## Kzach (Sep 21, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> WotC has recently lacked creative ambition, so it's possible that he can jump start things there.




Please explain. I'd really like to hear how you can justify that statement given all the material that's come out just in the last six months.


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## Incenjucar (Sep 21, 2011)

Kzach said:


> Please explain. I'd really like to hear how you can justify that statement given all the material that's come out just in the last six months.




Much of it being variations of material that has already been released in some form, or variations on an existing concept that is already more or less covered. What new ground has been tread is often done in the barest way possible - vampires being the poster children of this.

That's not to say that the material is BAD, but it's not ambitious. WotC's curveballs have all been in packaging or promotions, rather than in game ideas.


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## Vaeron (Sep 21, 2011)

I doubt 5e is coming anytime very soon, and think it would be a horrible mis-step if it does.

I don't  think a 5e, closer to 3e or 2e or any e, would do much to help WotC at  this point.  Every revision/new edition/modification they've released from 3.0 to 3.5 to 4e to 4e Essentials has split and divided their fanbase.  A lot of people just don't trust Wizards any more.  3.0 lasted only 3 years.  3.5 lasted only 5.  4e thus far has lasted 3 (the same length of 3.0's entire run).  Those who believe Essentials was pretty much an update and revision of 4e would probably argue 4.0 only lasted 2 years.  

Having developed a reputation as a company that abandons systems quickly, it's in WotC's best interest for several reasons not to do so this time, and instead make 4e the best game it can be.

I guess the bottom line for many is that they are, at this point, very suspicious of WotC, and not certain if they can trust them enough to invest heavily in a product line that might be defunct in just a couple years.  Even a lot of gamers who continue to love what is released for 4e will say that the original PHB and DMG are now pretty much defunct.  (I happen to disagree, as my gaming group does not use the updates or errata and our game hasn't suffered at all because of it).

If WotC carted out another new edition, whether they call it 5e or whatever, anytime within the next 3 years it will just cement in a lot of people's minds (and clearly I'm one of them) that they're only interested in selling new books.  This is of course what businesses do.  But business also need to please their customers, and continually abandoning product lines people have spent hundreds of dollars on is not the way to do that.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 21, 2011)

No, the best way to handle it for WotC would be supporting 4e with few new things, and supporting a new 5th edition or a something more "retro" which bases of 4e but with a more modular system.

Wizards would be fools, if they decide to pull the plug and actually stop supporting the online tools.
As long as 4e is supported, they actually should do a 5e ASAP.
Not an edition that should please everyone, but an edition that allows for a different kind of playstyles... and I would not try to bring back the pathfinder crowd. People who want something more similar to ADnD are a much better target IMHO.
I am sure there are a lot of people playing pathfinder and 4e who would instantly switch if such a system will exist. (Or even better: no need to switch, as your DDI account allows you to get material for both games.)

Nearly all of those articles my Mike Mearls in the las 8 month were fantastic. He had great ideas, pointed out problems, pointed out how problems in the system were overcome by roleplaying.
Give me an edition based on d20 that incorporates those design principles, and I would actually play it.
Just to make sure: feat and talents need to be different design spaces, as someone said in a different thread, I would however like them to be called combat and non-combat proficiencies!



@WotC only wanting to sell books: they need to do that, and the best way to do it is creating the best D&D experience ever, and if that means two parallel editions side by side, so be it.


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## Walking Dad (Sep 21, 2011)

Felon said:


> You're basically doing that thing folks on the internet do: seize upon a minor comment, go way overboard dissecting its meaning, and ignore the relevance of timeliness. That's from, what, 2002? 2003 maybe?
> 
> So, in summary: old artcile, and admitted it wasn't all that great of an idea at the time. Unclench.



But he did it. And it was the big game he is famous for.



wedgeski said:


> ...
> 
> Having said all that, Monte is nothing if not a pro. He's obviously been  brought on for a reason, and I'm excited to see what he has to  say.



His love for magic users over more martial character shows in most of his designs. I don't know if I consider this professional.



Kzach said:


> Mike Mearls + Monte Cook = Pure Unadulterated Awesome.
> 
> ...



Mearly worked for Cook before, when he designed Iron Heroes.
IMHO, the best game book for martial characters with Monte cooks's name on it.



MerricB said:


> Monte Cook's a great designer, but I believe he  needs a good developer to keep his ideas grounded. He's likely to get  that at Wizards.
> 
> ...



This. His setting ideas are fresh and good, but they needed to be rooted in good rules.

BTW, hasn't he worked with Paizo until now?


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 21, 2011)

So Monte Cook and Mearls synergize very well?


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## ourchair (Sep 21, 2011)

It's quite likely that if Monte has a role outside of Legends and Lore articles, it's to act as a consultant of the 3.x ethos to help marry more old school ideas (not necessarily simulationist ones, good or bad) into 4e or future editions.

Design and development is a team effort, and its quite likely that his design style would serve as a corrective to other not so old school ideas. Conversely, other designers help keep his style in check. The ideal being to hybridize multiple schools of design.

So, I remain cautiously optimistic.


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## vagabundo (Sep 21, 2011)

Ha.. I called it.. I knew after Mearls mentioned him in those articles.

Even though 3e is not my cup of tea. I'm kinda of happy that he is back. I see it as a nice balance with Mearls et al. 

I'm interested in seeing where this goes now.


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## Crazy Jerome (Sep 21, 2011)

I'll go out on a limb here and state that I think Monte Cook respects precedent more than most game designers/developers. He does this, while at the same time being somewhat willing to buck precedent. How far this goes, and how much of it was the people around him on various projects, I can't say. And naturally, this means nothing for any particular element in a game, since such a designer could, by definition, either build around the element or kill it dead. Most important elements will, however, remain in some useful form.

If you had a good design with nevertheless some holes in it, and you wanted to revise that design while staying true to its spirit--you could do a lot worse than get Monte Cook involved.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 21, 2011)

You may be entirely correct, but still it leaves the question of what he can actually DO for WotC at this point. 4e is 'mid-edition', and frankly the only way WotC is going to avoid a monstrous backlash and making its name crap forever in the book of a large amount of the fanbase is to stick with 4e and ride it to the end of its lifecycle, which is going to mean at least 4 or 5 more years at this point if they have any intention of being able to sell an edition of the game ever again that everyone won't assume is a bad investment.

SO, what is Cook (or anyone else) going to do for WotC right now? They already know they need to focus on adventures and settings and related stuff. They already know there are certain issues with the play of 4e at the table that can't be fixed in a compatible way. What does that leave for Monte Cook (or WotC in general) to do? I guess he could come on as a producer of adventures. That might be his best role, but it seems like a fairly minor role for a guy with such a high profile. Maybe they can use him for PR value "Monte Loves 4e", "Monte's 4e Adventure Path X, Y, and Z!" etc. That wouldn't hurt, but I don't think it will have a HUGE impact.

IMHO WotC is stuck with the bed they've made, they're going to sleep in it for a good while. Making some kind of big panic move now will only make things worse, and if they DO stick to 4e, support it well, and make as much of it as they can and loyally support the existing 4e fanbase for a few years, they can go a long ways. Heck, we don't know what shape Paizo or other competition will even be in in 5 years, WotC is a big company, it can survive and make long-term plans while moving towards whatever direction it wants to take in 5 years slowly and in a measured way. 

THEN in say 2013 they can start working on 5e for real, with a good idea of where to go with it. Having a good stable of experienced game designers at that point would be great of course. Right now? I'm not sure it does them a heck of a lot of good.


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## Scribble (Sep 21, 2011)

Callin it...

Optional games kind of like Gamma World, that can be slotted into a normal D&D game to change the play experience.

Players can take elements from standard 4e and use them (like monsters in Gamma World) or use elements from the other products.


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## UngainlyTitan (Sep 21, 2011)

Scribble said:


> Callin it...
> 
> Optional games kind of like Gamma World, that can be slotted into a normal D&D game to change the play experience.
> 
> Players can take elements from standard 4e and use them (like monsters in Gamma World) or use elements from the other products.



This has been my view for some time also mainly because WoTC D&D is now firmly tied to software tools and the turnaround time on the software is pretty long. Particularly since the forst lot is not yet finished.


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## darkwing (Sep 21, 2011)

Scribble said:


> Callin it...
> 
> Optional games kind of like Gamma World, that can be slotted into a normal D&D game to change the play experience.
> 
> Players can take elements from standard 4e and use them (like monsters in Gamma World) or use elements from the other products.




That's probably close to the truth. 4e is pretty established but WotC needs to keep making money from the D&D franchise somehow. WotC would love love love to make products like collectible cards an integral part of D&D.


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## Dannager (Sep 22, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> So Monte Cook and Mearls synergize very well?




They just disagree over whether or not that ought to entitle them to a +2 synergy bonus.


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## Rechan (Sep 22, 2011)

Well. From a Dev standpoint, if they are making 5e I hope they take their dear sweet time. 4e was 2 years from conception to printing. And we saw the glaring bugs right out of the gate. 

So I hope they iron this crap out well in advance.


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## Droogie128 (Sep 22, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> But if you look at 3rd edition, no matter how problematic parts of it was, it was a great game that revived D&D.
> 
> I also had more fun with 3.0, because even though some things were less balanced, it was closer to ADnD and didn´t encourage the use of minis.
> All in all, it was more DMcentric, as figuring out the amount of cover e.g. was more or less a decision of the DM...
> ...




3e relied on minis just as much as 4e. They're both very similar in combat mechanics. Both use minis for the same purposes. 3e needs them for range, movement, AoO's, AoE's, zones, terrain, flanking, size, etc. The same reasons that 4e uses them. The main difference is that 4e utilizes forced movement a lot more. Otherwise, they're identical in their need for minis to track combat.


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## mudlock (Sep 22, 2011)

Scribble said:


> Callin it...
> 
> Optional games kind of like Gamma World, that can be slotted into a normal D&D game to change the play experience.
> 
> Players can take elements from standard 4e and use them (like monsters in Gamma World) or use elements from the other products.




Agreed. There won't be a "5e", but there'll be a 4e-based "D&D, 2013 edition", which will be fully compatible with the Rules Compendium but feature its own races, classes, monsters, etc., and be the only thing usable in official play, but you're of course welcome to do whatever you want at home.


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## Henry (Sep 22, 2011)

Well, this does explain why Mearls and Cook were palling around at Gencon a good bit (according to a couple of comments on podcasts I listened to).


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 22, 2011)

Droogie128 said:


> 3e relied on minis just as much as 4e. They're both very similar in combat mechanics. Both use minis for the same purposes. 3e needs them for range, movement, AoO's, AoE's, zones, terrain, flanking, size, etc. The same reasons that 4e uses them. The main difference is that 4e utilizes forced movement a lot more. Otherwise, they're identical in their need for minis to track combat.



Did you ever play 3.0?

The focus on minis was really introduced in 3.5... 3.0 just presented it as an option...


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## Mithreinmaethor (Sep 22, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Did you ever play 3.0?
> 
> The focus on minis was really introduced in 3.5... 3.0 just presented it as an option...




I know I did and I started buying minis when I started playing 3.0 as did a ton of other people I played with locally and at conventions.

Or was this a rhetorical question?


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 22, 2011)

No, it was not. 

It may be splitting hairs, but I was perfectly fine never touching a mini when playing 3.0 and just started to pay a bit more attention to the grid, when feet were converted to squares...

So in this case, splitting hairs is ok, as it was a response to a different post...

IMHO 3.0 was not more reliant on a battle grid than ADnD. It started 3 years later...

and this happened in the transition to 3.5 and as far as I remember it was when monte cook already quit.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Sep 22, 2011)

The push toward minis began long before 3.0. Not counting 2e's Battlesystem supplement, which was just that -- a supplement for tactical wargaming, the push toward minis as the standard began in Player's Option: Combat & Tactics. It was still optional, as the name implies, but it was something that came out post-TSR, and was probably released with the business plan of selling piles of minis with an eventual (at the time) third edition of the game.


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## Scribble (Sep 22, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> No, it was not.
> 
> It may be splitting hairs, but I was perfectly fine never touching a mini when playing 3.0 and just started to pay a bit more attention to the grid, when feet were converted to squares...
> 
> ...





I know 3.5 emphasized it more with the pictures and stuff, but I think maybe tht just solidified it in some people's minds?

3.0 relied on minis just as much, but like any other game if you were ok with some abstraction it worked ok without minis.

When I first started, I was in the ugh minis mindset... I didn't use them, but after a while all the little bonuses and abilities that needed more spacial awareness started attracting my group and I, so we went to the minis...

Maybe the same thing happened with you, so you have the idea that 3.5 added more of a minis push?

3.5 seemed to simply acknowledge that, yeah... you probably were using minis so why hide the fact.

These days I'm leaning more and more away from them.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 22, 2011)

No actually I don´t own any minis and I am still not too comfortable with them... i know about the benefits, when to use them, and I absolutely do think, that having mini rules is a good thing. But in 3.0 they were clearly intended as optional, in 3.5 they were the default.

I am more liking a game that presents some options and tools for the DM to use, and I will add some famebait:
The players handbook should not have all combat rules. Only the basics. All the options should be in the DM´s hand. As much as I adore the intention of the 4e system. As much as I personally like to move and to slide around... the overemphasize of the movement aspects make abstracter combats hard to run...


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## Scribble (Sep 22, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> But in 3.0 they were clearly intended as optional, in 3.5 they were the default.




Well.. I think this isn't so "clear," considering we're having this debate.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 22, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> The push toward minis began long before 3.0. Not counting 2e's Battlesystem supplement, which was just that -- a supplement for tactical wargaming, the push toward minis as the standard began in Player's Option: Combat & Tactics. It was still optional, as the name implies, but it was something that came out post-TSR, and was probably released with the business plan of selling piles of minis with an eventual (at the time) third edition of the game.




Yeah, it began in Men and Magic! lol. 

Every edition from 1974 on has ASSUMED you kept track of exactly where the PCs and monsters were, and it was generally assumed that was done with minis on some form of 'battle map'. 1e DMG shows pictures of which squares and hexes an attacker would be attacking from a flank (and thus bypass your shield). 1e and earlier never ever actually explicitly mention a grid or even really assume one, but they certainly are based on the assumption that the players are well aware of such things.

Anyway, I would think that Cook et al. simply continued with the assumptions of 2e AD&D, which were pretty much identical to those of 1e in that respect, Combat & Tactics excepted perhaps (never read it myself). 3e really doesn't IME make a lot of really new play style assumptions. It just codifies things more accurately and explains things that were never explained at all before (movement during combat was a VERY murky area in the AD&D rules, depending on how you read them once you engage an enemy you really can't move at all). The end result was that the long-existing requirement of having some sort of map of what was going on in combat simply became a lot more apparent, and then 3.5 further cleared things up and a grid/minis became virtually mandatory.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 22, 2011)

Scribble said:


> Well.. I think this isn't so "clear," considering we're having this debate.



I would check it out, but my elder brother drowned most of my 3.x books... 

if those links are an indicator...
http://www.dragon.ee/30srd/
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#measuringDistance

But I admit, combat and tactics of ADnD had a very narrow focus on a grid, as it was ditching the idea, that a combat round is 1 minute. (With 1 minute rounds, tactical movement on a grid would have been silly to be hones, as in 1 minute there was a lot more going on, than jst walking in a straight line. All those tactical movements were more or less comprised to: in the last minute you could dance around and intercept goblin A while he tried to reacht the wizard, pinning him down on that space.)

And I am clearly not opposed to minis, but having a grid and counting squares is not really something i like that much.


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## Sonny (Sep 22, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> WotC is a big company, it can survive and make long-term plans while moving towards whatever direction it wants to take in 5 years slowly and in a measured way.




Yes, WOTC is a big company and can survive and make long term plans. The people running the D&D division can't. How many great D&D designers who worked at WoTC have been canned? Yeah, LOTS. Nearly every year they lay people off. Whether times are good or not. 

A few, like Rich Baker have been there long, but for most, there is no job security with Wizards.

And that's the thing, if you're one of the people working on D&D, you can't afford to play the long game because you don't know if you'll even be there next year.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 22, 2011)

Sonny said:


> Yes, WOTC is a big company and can survive and make long term plans. The people running the D&D division can't. How many great D&D designers who worked at WoTC have been canned? Yeah, LOTS. Nearly every year they lay people off. Whether times are good or not.
> 
> A few, like Rich Baker have been there long, but for most, there is no job security with Wizards.
> 
> And that's the thing, if you're one of the people working on D&D, you can't afford to play the long game because you don't know if you'll even be there next year.



Yes, but having worked for large companies I can pretty well guarantee you that some guy who was hired in at a non-management grade a year or two ago even KNOWS what the strategy might be for the product he's working on, and surely has zilch input on anything like that. Mike probably has a good bit of input, and product line/brand managers, etc. Releasing a new version ASAP as some kind of strategy to keep Joe New Guy developer in work is not really their concern.

Besides, you're working on some kind of assumption like 4e is horrible bad, going down in flames, ZOMG. Actually it looks like as many people buy 4e as buy PF and there are certainly plenty of people playing it. Of course they want to sell more and no doubt they find PF to be somewhat alarming, but that doesn't mean they're desperate or feel the need to ditch their entire product and start over.

Remember, it gets pretty tangled. 4e is now tied in with a bunch of board game products, novels, DDI, etc etc etc. You don't light half your game division on fire because maybe one set of books didn't do that well. Notice how they're still putting out 4e books and other products pretty frequently too. Obviously they can make money on those products or they wouldn't exist. It might not be all they could wish it to be, but it ain't cat spit.


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## Mercurius (Sep 22, 2011)

Kzach said:


> Mike Mearls + Monte Cook = Pure Unadulterated Awesome.
> 
> Their love-child will be 5e and it will be so good that it will create a utopian gaming nirvana where all fans of all editions will come together in peace, harmony, and the Gygaxian Way.




Best post ever. I can't XP you, though.


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## Sonny (Sep 22, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, but having worked for large companies I can pretty well guarantee you that some guy who was hired in at a non-management grade a year or two ago even KNOWS what the strategy might be for the product he's working on, and surely has zilch input on anything like that. Mike probably has a good bit of input, and product line/brand managers, etc. Releasing a new version ASAP as some kind of strategy to keep Joe New Guy developer in work is not really their concern.
> 
> Besides, you're working on some kind of assumption like 4e is horrible bad, going down in flames, ZOMG. Actually it looks like as many people buy 4e as buy PF and there are certainly plenty of people playing it. Of course they want to sell more and no doubt they find PF to be somewhat alarming, but that doesn't mean they're desperate or feel the need to ditch their entire product and start over.
> 
> Remember, it gets pretty tangled. 4e is now tied in with a bunch of board game products, novels, DDI, etc etc etc. You don't light half your game division on fire because maybe one set of books didn't do that well. Notice how they're still putting out 4e books and other products pretty frequently too. Obviously they can make money on those products or they wouldn't exist. It might not be all they could wish it to be, but it ain't cat spit.




Losing half your audience isn't somewhat alarming. It's really bad.  I can't think of any business that loses so much of their audience to a competitor and thinks they should stay the course. 

I still don't think D&D 5e will be around before 2013, but really if publishing 4e books was really profitable for them, they would be doing it more.

And switching editions doesn't mean they can't keep 4e their board game version of D&D. 

I don't think they're in panic mode, but, I do think since they do have all the sales data we don't, they likely do have a very good reason to bring Monte Cook back, scale back their publishing of game books and start talking about the future of D&D already.


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## Matt James (Sep 22, 2011)

I used minis in AD&D. Just sayin' --they were way too cool not to use, and I had no other use for the little pewter dudes.


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## Scribble (Sep 22, 2011)

Sonny said:


> Losing half your audience isn't somewhat alarming. It's really bad.  I can't think of any business that loses so much of their audience to a competitor and thinks they should stay the course.




This subject is interesting, and I think hard to define in normal terms, since it involved an edition switch.

A couple of questions we'd need to know:

1. Were all of the people who now play Pathfinder actually customers of WoTC or were they simply playing some version of 3e? (For instance prior to 4e I played 3.5 however WoTC very rarely saw any of my money. I would hardly call myself a true customer.)

2. Does WoTC garner more income now, with the DDI then it did prior to 4e with the 3e game, and if so, does it matter that audience size is smaller?

3. What do edition switches normally entail as far as lost customers?

4. Do we even know if the audience size IS smaller? It could be that a lot of people stayed with Pathfinder, but an equal number of new people started playing 4e. 


One major thing I think they didn't account for well enough was the ramifications of the OGL.


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## Dannager (Sep 22, 2011)

And the most important question: Why do we assume that a person who purchases a Pathfinder book is a lost customer for WotC?


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## Sonny (Sep 22, 2011)

Dannager said:


> And the most important question: Why do we assume that a person who purchases a Pathfinder book is a lost customer for WotC?




Very good point. I think our idea of it may be a bit skewed since we've seen so many edition war threads around here. But I can tell you I've purchase pathfinder rpg books and am still primarily playing 4e, still have my sub to insider so I'm not a lost customer.

I do feel sometimes I am an exception since I've also purchase Hackmaster's new Monster book and PHB, C&C rulebooks, etc... I'm also as likely to buy a new 4e book as a pathfinder book if the subject sounds interesting enough.

Either way I do feel Wizards knows what they are doing and making these changes for good reasons. Even if they won't share the data they're basing it on.


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## billd91 (Sep 22, 2011)

Dannager said:


> And the most important question: Why do we assume that a person who purchases a Pathfinder book is a lost customer for WotC?




I wouldn't characterize them a definitively lost customer, but I think it's realistic to assume that a substantial proportion of PF buyers aren't 4e customers and some of them are so because of the presence of PF. I think it's also reasonable to assume, whatever the exact percentage of customers lost or now shared is, PF has made substantial inroads into the pre-4e WotC customer base at 4e's expense.

Whether or not the customer is completely lost, however, that's money spent that 4e failed to attract. Each customer is only spending a particular buck once. So whether or not an individual is a customer of both (or many other) games, they are in competition.


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## Dannager (Sep 22, 2011)

billd91 said:


> Whether or not the customer is completely lost, however, that's money spent that 4e failed to attract.




So is popcorn at a movie theater.

WotC isn't losing money until someone does not buy something they would have purchased had it not been for an alternative offering. If they're buying Pathfinder books and not buying 4e books, then yeah, that's money WotC might be losing. But if they're buying Pathfinder books _and_ 4e books? Then it might be the movie theater popcorn getting the snub.

The only thing we can say for sure is that, either way, it's not bad news for Pathfinder.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 22, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I wouldn't characterize them a definitively lost customer, but I think it's realistic to assume that a substantial proportion of PF buyers aren't 4e customers and some of them are so because of the presence of PF. I think it's also reasonable to assume, whatever the exact percentage of customers lost or now shared is, PF has made substantial inroads into the pre-4e WotC customer base at 4e's expense.
> 
> Whether or not the customer is completely lost, however, that's money spent that 4e failed to attract. Each customer is only spending a particular buck once. So whether or not an individual is a customer of both (or many other) games, they are in competition.




Yeah, I don't think we can draw ANY conclusions. For example:

I never bought ANY 3e or 3.5 products at all. I tend to buy most of the 4e books. I haven't bought any PF books.

Sonny buys PF and 4e books, I'll assume he bought 3.5 books too.

My sister bought 3.5 books, bought 1 4e book, and hasn't bought any PF books.

Someone somewhere bought 3.5 books and now only buys PF books.

Some other guy somewhere never bought 3.5 books and now buys PF books.

Now, if we knew how many people fell into these different categories we'd have some idea of what's going on. Lets assume we can rely on the PF and 4e sell about the same that tends to come from what market data we have. In theory EVERY one of those PF customers could be people that weren't buying 3.5. Realistically not, but the possibilities range all the way from PF hasn't hurt 4e one bit, to PF took away half of 4e's cookies. We don't even know relatively how much 4e sells vs how much 3.5 sold in its last year. WotC might in theory be perfectly happy if 4e simply increased sales enough above the decay curve of 3.5 to pay for its development. Note that no reference there need even be made to PF, and you'll note that Mearls sounded almost puzzled by questions about competition from PF, though clearly he realizes it sells well.

Yes, it goes without saying that WotC will look at Paizo's sales and think about how to get that business. That doesn't mean they are desperate or think 4e somehow 'failed'. Nor does any of that indicate that the intelligent response to Paizo would be to abandon the half of the customers you've got and go after the other half that the other guy has. 

And lets not kid ourselves here people. While we have probably all played older editions of various games because that's what we had, or there was some specific reason for it, nobody really wants the current version of a game they like to become the past version. WotC DEFINITELY doesn't want that, because if they release some 5e I don't like, I won't buy it. They don't want that. Any 5e that comes out WILL have to please the 4e (IE actual paying customers today) before all else. Don't kid yourselves about that.


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## Imaro (Sep 22, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> WotC DEFINITELY doesn't want that, because if they release some 5e I don't like, I won't buy it. They don't want that. Any 5e that comes out WILL have to please the 4e (IE actual paying customers today) before all else. Don't kid yourselves about that.




I think the problem with your logic is that just because they aim to please their current audience (which let's not forget included many who enjoyed 3.5 before 4e was introduced but don't enjoy 4e) means they will succeed at it. 

OAN: It's funny how those who didn't like 4e were considered acceptable losses by many of the 4e fanbase... yet your logic above now all of a sudden assumes it is somehow imperative to please the current 4e fanbase with a new edition.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 23, 2011)

Imaro said:


> I think the problem with your logic is that just because they aim to please their current audience (which let's not forget included many who enjoyed 3.5 before 4e was introduced but don't enjoy 4e) means they will succeed at it.
> 
> OAN: It's funny how those who didn't like 4e were considered acceptable losses by many of the 4e fanbase... yet your logic above now all of a sudden assumes it is somehow imperative to please the current 4e fanbase with a new edition.



You assume anyone set out with the idea of, or knowledge of, someone being certainly displeased. In any case, I think everyone is pretty well advised at this point in history that NO edition roll will be 100% pleasing to everyone. 

The point I'm making is not that MY preferences should be privileged. It is that IN THIS SITUATION, where there is a whole other game that the displeased people are already playing, that it would be foolish for WotC to think that making an about face and going after those people when they have me and all the other people that like 4e already as customers. History is replete with examples of producers of products thinking that they're going to continue to please audience A AND please some other audience B with a product that is everything to everyone. It almost invariably fails miserably.

Now, at some point, when WotC, in the fullness of time, makes a 5e is it reasonable to think that they'll incorporate the lessons learned from 4e in 5e? Of course they would be stupid not to. 5e might well be more pleasing to some fraction of the audience that didn't like 4e, and the way it might do that may be evoking certain things from previous editions. That's different IMO from actually going backwards and creating a 5e that is basically 3.5 warmed over in the hope that it would be a successful strategy. It would also be far different from making a 5e that is yet again entirely different and doesn't build on what was done in 4e at all.

So, IMHO, 5e needs to A) build on 4e, and B) not be rushed out before 4e has run its course. This is purely based on my sense of what is likely to succeed, not on my own narrow preferences. Of course we're all biased, so I'm undoubtedly wrong to some greater or lesser degree, but so it goes.


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## Jan van Leyden (Sep 23, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Now, at some point, when WotC, in the fullness of time, makes a 5e is it reasonable to think that they'll incorporate the lessons learned from 4e in 5e? Of course they would be stupid not to.




But wouldn't this mean that R&D, marketing and sales department work in close conjunction? Could you really imagine sales and marketing given usable hints on what the mysterious Customer wants?

Isn't it more likely to paint the target consumer in broad strokes (age group, education, disposable income) and have R&D guess what this mysterious figure would like?


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## UngainlyTitan (Sep 23, 2011)

Jan van Leyden said:


> But wouldn't this mean that R&D, marketing and sales department work in close conjunction? Could you really imagine sales and marketing given usable hints on what the mysterious Customer wants?
> 
> Isn't it more likely to paint the target consumer in broad strokes (age group, education, disposable income) and have R&D guess what this mysterious figure would like?




They already hace some solid data from what people build on the character builder and some data on what people play from the VTT. If they ever get the VTT open to the public then they will have one of the best market research tools ever created for the pen and paper rpgs. 

My own view would be that htey should not finalise 5e until they have those tools mature in 4e and they can then fine tune 5e to what ever covers most of their subscription market. 

Subscribers are a more stable source of income than any other segment of the gamer coimmunity and that is what they are most likely to persue.

Any one else they get is jam on top.


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## P1NBACK (Sep 23, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Besides, you're working on some kind of assumption like 4e is horrible bad, going down in flames, ZOMG. Actually it looks like *as many people buy 4e as buy PF* and there are certainly plenty of people playing it.




lol

Emphasis mine. 

Like that's a good indication of 4E success.... "Hey! They're keeping up with a company and former 3PP that's reprinting their old game!"


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## Walking Dad (Sep 23, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> No, it was not.
> 
> It may be splitting hairs, but I was perfectly fine never touching a mini when playing 3.0 and just started to pay a bit more attention to the grid, when feet were converted to squares...
> 
> ...




So what? I asked above, how did you handled big magic bursts and walls without the DM just saying 'it hits them, not them'? And if you did this, you can do the same with other games, too.


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## Imaro (Sep 23, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> You assume anyone set out with the idea of, or knowledge of, someone being certainly displeased. In any case, I think everyone is pretty well advised at this point in history that NO edition roll will be 100% pleasing to everyone.




Uhm... yes, I do. Can you honestly tell me that the 4e developers/designers didn't realize totally revamping the cosmology would displease people? Was there not a specific statement to the effect of this game isn't for people who like traisping around in fairy rings?

Like you said no edition will be 100% pleasing to everyone, and since we know that your first statement seems illogical. The thing is that they were hoping enough people (or enough new people) would enjoy their new cosmology enough to make up for those who didn't.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> The point I'm making is not that MY preferences should be privileged. It is that IN THIS SITUATION, where there is a whole other game that the displeased people are already playing, that it would be foolish for WotC to think that making an about face and going after those people when they have me and all the other people that like 4e already as customers. History is replete with examples of producers of products thinking that they're going to continue to please audience A AND please some other audience B with a product that is everything to everyone. It almost invariably fails miserably.




Unless of course the customers they loss spend significantly more money on product than those they currently have. We have no figures so we really don't know how this situation is looking to WotC. You're assuming they are happy (or at least content) with their customer base right now to the point that they are not willing to risk a significant part of it in order to bring others back into the fold. IMO, this just doesn't fit with the way in which 4e was rolled out. I mean maybe they learned a lesson or something but you may be attributing more value to the 4e customer base than WotC is. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Now, at some point, when WotC, in the fullness of time, makes a 5e is it reasonable to think that they'll incorporate the lessons learned from 4e in 5e? Of course they would be stupid not to. 5e might well be more pleasing to some fraction of the audience that didn't like 4e, and the way it might do that may be evoking certain things from previous editions. That's different IMO from actually going backwards and creating a 5e that is basically 3.5 warmed over in the hope that it would be a successful strategy. It would also be far different from making a 5e that is yet again entirely different and doesn't build on what was done in 4e at all.




They tried the "evoking" route with essentials, and there's no evidence it brought a significant chunk of Pathfinder/3.5 players back to 4e (though in full disclosure I play essentials and PF now.). No I think when it boils down to it there is a significant chunk of the former player base that don't particularly care for many of the base assumptions of the 4e core engine... and that won't be fixed with evoking former editions. Do I think they will make a warmed over 3.5? No. Do I think the next iteration of the game will go bvack to some core assumption based around 3.5/PF play vs. 4e play... I think it's very likely even if the core engine is neither 4e or 3.5. Do I think 5e will build on 4e... no, not really. I honestly don't think 4e (and I'm not counting boardgames and other stuff... just the rpg) is doing well enough to constitute continuing with it. I do think they will keep DDI up as a source of revenue from 4e players but mostly for the web tools.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, IMHO, 5e needs to A) build on 4e, and B) not be rushed out before 4e has run its course. This is purely based on my sense of what is likely to succeed, not on my own narrow preferences. Of course we're all biased, so I'm undoubtedly wrong to some greater or lesser degree, but so it goes.




I don't agree with A. but definitely agree with B, especially after the skill challenge math fiasco that has been a part of 4e since launch.  But to each his own.


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## Scribble (Sep 23, 2011)

Something I've always wondered- what happens in a normal edition switch over? 

How many people end up moving to the new edition just because there is more support for it? 

How many people end up just quitting because they don't like the new direction, but there is no reason to keep bitching about it?


Also how many people get mad that there is an edition switch, even though they're not really buying any of the stuff for the current edition anymore anyway?


I wonder how much did Pathfinder benefit by being a very visible place for people to rally behind when they otherwise might have just moved on? 



I think really what it shows is edition changes as they've been done in the past are kind of dumb.


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## Incenjucar (Sep 23, 2011)

There is no such thing as a normal D&D edition change. When D&D changes, it changes big. Many other RPGs tend to have many more, smaller edition changes. 4E is also unique in that in changed the default cosmos, which I don't think usually happens with RPGs. While I enjoy the new cosmology, it probably would have been best if they included significant support for the old cosmology so that people could continue playing in the same world without homebrewing everything.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 23, 2011)

Walking Dad said:


> So what? I asked above, how did you handled big magic bursts and walls without the DM just saying 'it hits them, not them'? And if you did this, you can do the same with other games, too.




I guess the reason it does not work that well anymore is that noone bothers if you wing 15ft or 30 ft radiuses, but if you handwave 3 squares, you just have more discussions...
emphasized in 4e, where a few squares can actually be quite important... besides beeing in some areas...


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## Nemesis Destiny (Sep 23, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> There is no such thing as a normal D&D  edition change. When D&D changes, it changes big. Many other RPGs  tend to have many more, smaller edition changes. 4E is also unique in  that in changed the default cosmos, which I don't think usually happens  with RPGs. While I enjoy the new cosmology, it probably would have been  best if they included significant support for the old cosmology so that  people could continue playing in the same world without homebrewing  everything.



I have never really considered the impact of such changes, because I  have never used a default cosmology, really. It would be kind of a big  deal, but at the same time, being presented with more options for such  things is not a bad thing IMO. Though it is a lot of work to convert  such things between editions, especially the later ones where things are  so tied into feats and powers and whatnot.


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## Scribble (Sep 23, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> There is no such thing as a normal D&D edition change. When D&D changes, it changes big. Many other RPGs tend to have many more, smaller edition changes. 4E is also unique in that in changed the default cosmos, which I don't think usually happens with RPGs. While I enjoy the new cosmology, it probably would have been best if they included significant support for the old cosmology so that people could continue playing in the same world without homebrewing everything.




White Wolf changed its flavor stuff with their change, and if I remember a good amount of how the rules worked too?

D&D is kind of unique though in that when it's done a full on edition change it wants to vastly change the rules.


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## Infiniti2000 (Sep 23, 2011)

Scribble said:


> I'm still of the belief that we won't see a true 5e.



But maybe we'll see a 4.5E.   Really, I'm surprised no one else has  mentioned this possibility in this thread.  Yeah, I know, no one wants  to consider it.


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## Scribble (Sep 23, 2011)

Infiniti2000 said:


> But maybe we'll see a 4.5E.   Really, I'm surprised no one else has  mentioned this possibility in this thread.  Yeah, I know, no one wants  to consider it.




I honestly don't think we'll see a new edition, or anything with a number in it for a very long time, if ever again.

Numbers create stopping points. We're now moving to a ner version, your version is outdated.

But releasing stuff akin to Essentials, and Gamma World adds to the whole thing.

So again I think we'll see products like Essentials that are designed to be entirely compatible with "baseline" 4e, and products more like Gamma World that are stand alone, or designed to be mixed in various ways with "baseline" elements.

Don't like the monsters in Baseline? Use the rules from D&D Monsterfest!

Don't like how characters are created in Baseline? Use the rules from D&D Allstars!

Don't like the complex minis rules? Use the combat rules from D&D Lite...

This way, we can all argue till our hearts explode about which is the bestest way to fight orcs, but we're all paying WoTC for that, instead of some of us cursing WoTC because we would rather play some other number's format.


That's my guess- I could be entirely wrong, but...


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## Imaro (Sep 23, 2011)

Scribble said:


> White Wolf changed its flavor stuff with their change, and if I remember a good amount of how the rules worked too?
> 
> D&D is kind of unique though in that when it's done a full on edition change it wants to vastly change the rules.




This is only partly true. White Wolf did eventually, but there were numerous editions of the old/classic WoD lines before nWoD was created. Also when they creted the nWoD they were very upfront about it being a different game only loosely based on the old one.


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## Scribble (Sep 23, 2011)

Imaro said:


> This is only partly true. White Wolf did eventually, but there were numerous editions of the old/classic WoD lines before nWoD was created. Also when they creted the nWoD they were very upfront about it being a different game only loosely based on the old one.




Right- I forgot about the different editions before the most recent "reboot."

Either way, it's been done before. The big reboot I mean.


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## Pentius (Sep 23, 2011)

Scribble said:


> Something I've always wondered- what happens in a normal edition switch over?
> 
> How many people end up moving to the new edition just because there is more support for it?
> 
> ...



Given human nature, especially in fandoms, I'm fairly sure that previous edition changes were just as rage-inspiring, at the time.  However, lacking the more thorough integration with the internet we have now, it was harder to group up and hate together, and that is where the real, lasting hate thrives.


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## Shemeska (Sep 23, 2011)

Infiniti2000 said:


> But maybe we'll see a 4.5E.   Really, I'm surprised no one else has  mentioned this possibility in this thread.  Yeah, I know, no one wants  to consider it.




You mean Essentials?


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## Old Gumphrey (Sep 23, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> Didn't you hear? Mike Mearls ruined *everything*.




http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/290165-mike-mearls-ruined-everything.html

Also, can someone explain to me why every single one of these threads, bar none, becomes a discussion about PF sales vs 4e sales? Is this really a fun or interesting topic to speculate on? I guess it must be.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Sep 23, 2011)

Old Gumphrey said:


> http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/290165-mike-mearls-ruined-everything.html
> 
> Also, can someone explain to me why every single one of these threads,  bar none, becomes a discussion about PF sales vs 4e sales? Is this  really a fun or interesting topic to speculate on? I guess it must  be.



My best guess is that some people actually do believe that Mearls ruined everything (D&D related).

Another thing is that, certain elements of the RPG fanbase enjoys chest-thumping "my-Edition-ca-beat-up-your-Edition" nonsense.


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## Mr. Patient (Sep 23, 2011)

Shemeska said:


> You mean Essentials?




I wish Essentials really was 4.5, but it isn't.  With 3.0/3.5, you had a clean(ish) break, a whole new set of core rules that provided a complete game.  Essentials is something more than just supplementary material, but neither is it really a complete set of new core rules.  While it brought some great new stuff to the game, I feel like it left the in-print version somewhat of a mess.  Updates and stealth errata are scattered across various books and documents, rendering a ton of material obsolete but still officially supported.  And there's no obvious answer to the question "What books do I need to buy?".  (I know some people will be along shortly to tell me what their answer to the question is, and that's great, and I'm not looking to get into an argument over it).  Personally, I wouldn't want to run an Essentials-only game, because of the lack of support for rituals and the incomplete treasure/magic item system.


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## M.L. Martin (Sep 24, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> There is no such thing as a normal D&D edition change. When D&D changes, it changes big. Many other RPGs tend to have many more, smaller edition changes.




  Well, some of this is that D&D is the 800-lb. gorilla, so even a small portion of its fanbase getting irritated looks big in this hobby. But I think it should be noted that it's only been two changes that have been dramatic--the two full edition changes shepherded by WotC. 1E->2E caused some controversy, but the mechanical changes were really on the scale of the new editions in most other RPGs. It's only been 3E and 4E that have dramatically rebuilt the game.


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## mudbunny (Sep 24, 2011)

Here's my prediction.

The 40th anniversary of D&D is coming up.

WotC will offer, to the best of their legal rights, an updated set of core rules for each edition of D&D as a gift set.

At the same time, there will be a new edition of D&D, call it the Anniversary Edition, that will be similar to Savage Worlds or GURPS in that depending on what you want to do, you add various rule sets.


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## mudbunny (Sep 24, 2011)

Stupid double post.


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## Jan van Leyden (Sep 24, 2011)

Old Gumphrey said:


> Also, can someone explain to me why every single one of these threads, bar none, becomes a discussion about PF sales vs 4e sales? Is this really a fun or interesting topic to speculate on? I guess it must be.




That isn't so hard to understand. If you present hard numbers or can make believe in hard numbers, you are demonstrating some objective truth. 

Like in "4e is a great disaster" or, the other way round, "Pathfinder doesn't play a significant role".


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## Pentius (Sep 24, 2011)

Old Gumphrey said:


> http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/290165-mike-mearls-ruined-everything.html
> 
> Also, can someone explain to me why every single one of these threads, bar none, becomes a discussion about PF sales vs 4e sales? Is this really a fun or interesting topic to speculate on? I guess it must be.




Well, you see, we can't just show each other our manparts(Code of Conduct and all), so we default to the next best thing: proving that our version of our niche hobby where we pretend to be magical elves is better than the other guy's version of our niche hobby where we pretend to be magical elves, as if we all haven't had any experience liking something that isn't the most popular thing of the day.

I win, of course, because I pretend to be a Half-orc, and everyone knows that adds, like, just a lot in the size area.


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## ForeverSlayer (Sep 25, 2011)

I for one I very happy that Monte Cook is back in the saddle over at Wizards.  I have always enjoyed Monte's work and I feel like he will bring so much more back to Wizards.  

I very much believe that 5th edition is in the works because like any business, you always have that next idea waiting just in case the current one takes a fall.  

I don't quite understand the whole taking a step backwards approach that some people are talking about in this thread. Negative opinions of a previous edition are not very good grounds for saying the next edition is taking a step backwards if it uses something that a previous edition used.  If you want to say that then every edition is a step backwards because they all use some kind of element from previous editions.  

The end result is where you lay the final judgement.  Let's say Wizards of the Coast made more money with 3rd edition than with 4th edition.  You could say that 4th edition was a step backwards because at the end of the day it is about sales and about what the majority of people want.  If a company puts out product A then a few years later put out product B with less people buying it then they have taken a step backwards.  You really can't say that one edition plays better than the other.  Sure it may play better to you as an individual but that's all just opinion.  

I just want to say Congratulation to Monte Cook and I hope he steers Wizards of the Coast back to where it should be.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Sep 25, 2011)

Sorry, Slayer, but this is the 4e section of the forum. You have to expect that a significant portion of the users here will feel that going _*back*_ to the trappings of previous editions will be viewed as a step _*back*ward_. And yes, with a discernable, if slight negative connotation.

I can't speak for everyone, but I know I'm not alone when I say that I play 4e now precisely because I didn't like a lot of the direction that 3.x was going. If I wanted to play a previous edition, I would. If I wanted to play PF, I would. If 4e hadn't come out, I'm sure I would still be gaming, but it probably wouldn't be a previous edition (much as I loved some of them when they were current).

I'm not knocking those who like(d) prior editions; I firmly believe that you should play what makes you happy. That said, frankly as a customer, I couldn't care less about sales numbers. I don't think that sales tells the whole story. So what if 3.x sold better than 4th. Doesn't make it a better game.


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## ForeverSlayer (Sep 25, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> Sorry, Slayer, but this is the 4e section of the forum. You have to expect that a significant portion of the users here will feel that going _*back*_ to the trappings of previous editions will be viewed as a step _*back*ward_. And yes, with a discernable, if slight negative connotation.
> 
> I can't speak for everyone, but I know I'm not alone when I say that I play 4e now precisely because I didn't like a lot of the direction that 3.x was going. If I wanted to play a previous edition, I would. If I wanted to play PF, I would. If 4e hadn't come out, I'm sure I would still be gaming, but it probably wouldn't be a previous edition (much as I loved some of them when they were current).
> 
> I'm not knocking those who like(d) prior editions; I firmly believe that you should play what makes you happy. That said, frankly as a customer, I couldn't care less about sales numbers. I don't think that sales tells the whole story. So what if 3.x sold better than 4th. Doesn't make it a better game.




In business you want to continue to grow with each product that you come out with.  You want this years BMW to outsell last years model and the same goes for D&D.  The goal is for the next edition to outsell the previous and if that happens then it is a success.  The ultimate goal is to give the majority what it wants and if the majority wants a different system and is willing to fork over the quid to get it then Wizards will typically go that route.


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## Nichwee (Sep 25, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> In business you want to continue to grow with each product that you come out with.  You want this years BMW to outsell last years model and the same goes for D&D.  The goal is for the next edition to outsell the previous and if that happens then it is a success.  The ultimate goal is to give the majority what it wants and if the majority wants a different system and is willing to fork over the quid to get it then Wizards will typically go that route.




Actually in business the plan is for each YEAR to match, or if possible outsell, the previous one. So if you made £X last year you want to make at least £X this year. It doesn't matter if you do so by selling more stuff from the current edition or by putting out a new one to encourage people to buy more base books.
Whether 4e has outsold 3.5 is irrelevent. Whether it outsold what they could have sold for 3.5 stuff _this year_, and whether it outsells what they feel they could make from a 5e at the moment, is all that matters.


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## Mistwell (Sep 27, 2011)

From Monte Cook's FB page:

Monte Cook:
Since a lot of people seem to be enjoying speculating on my current job, I'll throw this out there. I was very comfortable before the WotC offer came along (you'll see the fruits of some of those labors soon enough). WotC's very attractive, generous, and downright fun offer was enough to get my attention, but if someone there wanted me to do something I didn't want to do, or that I feel is wrong for the game (or for gamers), I walk away. It's that easy.

Obviously, I don't think that's going to happen, or I wouldn't have bothered in the first place. I'm working with good people who love the game.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 27, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> ...
> I can't speak for everyone, but I know I'm not alone when I say that I play 4e now precisely because I didn't like a lot of the direction that 3.x was going. If I wanted to play a previous edition, I would. If I wanted to play PF, I would. If 4e hadn't come out, I'm sure I would still be gaming, but it probably wouldn't be a previous edition (much as I loved some of them when they were current).
> ...




You know, what is really funny:

i also didn´t like where 3e was going... and especially where it ended with pathfinder...
the beginning of 3e however was a very good system with some flaws (especially the forgotten restrcitions to balance spellcasting, and multiclassing between magic using classes)

On the other hand, the rules assumed a lot of things that were lost in 3.e´s lifespan (prestige classes moved from DM contend to player contend eg.)
Why? Because they were cool and sold well... and were used to fix some innate peoblems of the system (multiclassing). But it also exposeda much more iportant problem:
You suddenly had to plan out your character from the beginning to fullfill all requirements...

so at the end of 3.5, we had a system patched together with "hot fixes" that rather made the flaws more obviuos than providing real solutions...
...4e tried to adress some innate problems...but threw some babies out with the bathwater...

Hiring one of the pwople who created the initial 3.0 to help researching, to explain, what was the intention of a certain rule, maybe already knowing what allowed this rule to not play out as intended should be great for the future of D&D.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 27, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> You know, what is really funny:
> 
> i also didn´t like where 3e was going... and especially where it ended with pathfinder...
> the beginning of 3e however was a very good system with some flaws (especially the forgotten restrcitions to balance spellcasting, and multiclassing between magic using classes)




I read the 3e PHB & DMG and my reaction was basically "this game is horribly flawed unto total brokenness", which appears to have been basically born out. Sorry, nothing about 3e impresses me except that the people who designed had nary a clue about how to create good workable mechanics. Not so much in the small sense, but in the large. The way things fit together was just borked. The less that team has to do with 4e (or 5e) mechanics the happier I'll be.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 27, 2011)

however when you remember where they started (from 0! than I believe it was an impressive work.
The skill system worked very well, the d20 system in general worked great. The only problematic things were stat boosting items and the item dependency which was carried over from ADnD. And saving trows, but that was another matter... it really has its reasons why d20 became so popular...
I just believe, some rules were not used as expected: (take 20, take 10, the skills system in general...)
It was the whole idea and possibility of optimizing a character that broke the system. With an average group using the rules to make a fun character, most parts really worked well together (and I played up to level 13 or so... and many groups in the level 5-9 range)
Actually the same level range I always played in ADnD... play experience were great...

I believe 2 things broke the system:

1. Monster killing gives enough xp to easily climb up higher than the sweet spot
2. Players were used to optimize characters in a computer rpg and expected the DM to allow buying items...


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 27, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> however when you remember where they started (from 0! than I believe it was an impressive work.
> The skill system worked very well, the d20 system in general worked great. The only problematic things were stat boosting items and the item dependency which was carried over from ADnD. And saving trows, but that was another matter... it really has its reasons why d20 became so popular...
> I just believe, some rules were not used as expected: (take 20, take 10, the skills system in general...)
> It was the whole idea and possibility of optimizing a character that broke the system. With an average group using the rules to make a fun character, most parts really worked well together (and I played up to level 13 or so... and many groups in the level 5-9 range)
> ...




There were a lot of other flaws in 3e unfortunately. It seems to me it took some of the weakest elements of 2e and just made them central parts of the system, and then on top of that removed any number of limiting factors on casters.

The skill system was really no more than a tweak of the 2e NWP system and contained all of the already well-known flaws of that system, and made them worse by moving many more key adventuring abilities under this already heavily flawed system. 

Numerous classes of spells, buffs and meta-magic were drastically overpowered, to the point where a bunch of them were actually nerfed in 3.5, even though ironically they made other changes that actually made things worse. 

Druids were just outright borked OP. You didn't even need to play the class to figure that out. It was plain to see on day one. Clerics were perhaps slightly less obvious but it was pretty plain there were problems there too.

The MCing system was again clearly borked from day one. It was totally vulnerable to cherry-picking and never worked in a way that really added to the game. Instead it just rewarded whomever could number-crunch through the thing and come up with the most exploitative class/level combinations. 

All IMHO, but 3e had really serious flaws that should never ever have seen print at all. Yes, if you manhandled the thing sufficiently you could get it to hold together for a few levels, but the rules system absolutely worked against you and effectively it only ever really worked if you had players that were willing to play in certain non-optimal ways and/or a DM that beat them with a stick on a regular basis. 

There were some nice features of 3e, the reworking of saves and just generally moving mechanics to a standardized d20 mechanic, but that was vastly overshadowed by the problems. And I'd note that 4e kept these advances and improved on them, reimagined the skill system in a workable fashion, and generally created a much more workable way to combine features from different classes that avoids most of the 3.x MCing issues. There are aspects of 4e design that are certainly a matter of taste and play style, but in game systems terms 4e succeeded where 3e failed. I don't think WotC owes it to anyone to go backwards, 3e has very little to say to 4e at this point.


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## Crazy Jerome (Sep 27, 2011)

Abdul, I agree with you on many of the details, but I think UngeheuerLich is not off base.

The way I see it, in game design (or any design) there comes a point where the designers leave the realm of pure design, theory, early prototyping (glossing over flaws with experience)--and get down to the nitty gritty of making it work--execution, implementation, development, testing.  This inevitably involves compromises--i.e. compromising the design.

In fact, this is part of all the wild and sometimes mutually incompatible friction labeled at these recent articles.  We are seeing design before compromises have been made, and some people don't like it.  They want to make compromises *now*, and move the game in some direction they think they'll prefer.  Or rather, they want to put a stake down to fight over the boundaries of the compromises that will inevitably ensue.  Sometimes, I wonder why designers even bother to let us see inside.

But it is also fairly clear to me that the 3E design had some of this same kind of friction internally, during development.  Whether it was between the designers, or the designers and the developers, or inherent in the clash of trying to do something new with some fidelity to tradition, or insufficient ability to articulate/defend/manage the design and compromises during development and playtesting--I don't know.  

I'm not saying that the 3E design was really good, and then it got all messed up later.  I am saying that however good the 3E design was initially, it was seriously messed up during development/testing by some bad compromises.

You can see this in some of the things that got said about what feats and prestige classes (to pick two easy examples) were meant to do, versus their expanded and largely incoherent roles.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 27, 2011)

@Abdul:

Hey, you don´t have to argue wth me about 4e´s superiority in general... otherwise I would not be here in this forum.
But then again. The +1/2 per level is now redundant, as most checks assume easy hard and medium tasks set at your own level... So you could as well just drop the 1/2 per level bonus and actually have a much easier table...
The ablity increases also don´t do the skill system much good.
And skill versus defense seemed to have worked somewhere during the design phase...
So while it NOW does the job done quite well, it is not elegant anymore, as it used an seemingly arbitrary table to set DCs...

In 3e i could just say: expert tasks are DC 15 and be done with it... the whole game long...
but as you said: some key abilities were also moved into that system (which was eased somewhat in 3.5 by making animal empathy e.g. a feature instead)


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## Zaran (Sep 27, 2011)

I think the biggest flaw of 4e is that there is no Donkeyhorse.  Maybe Monte Cook will bring them back to DnD!


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## mudlock (Sep 27, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> The +1/2 per level is now redundant, as most checks assume easy hard and medium tasks set at your own level... So you could as well just drop the 1/2 per level bonus and actually have a much easier table...




Except it isn't. A 15 foot wide chasm is always going to be a DC 15 athletics check to jump across. But you don't have epic level characters jump across 15 foot wide chasms if you expect to challenge them.

Higher DC checks are suppose to be more impressive things. A hard religion check at level 25 should let you know more impressive stuff than a hard religion check at level 2. The *relative difficulty* of the challenge *for the character* is still going to be the same--"hard"--but it's up to you, as a DM (and a player) to find the "40 foot chasm" equivalent for a religion check. You *have* to give it meaning; *you* have to give it meaning. Otherwise it's just numbers.

The system just tells you the numbers for what's fair. It's clear how athletics scales, but all other skill checks scale (or at least, should scale) too, they just do it in less obvious ways.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 27, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Abdul, I agree with you on many of the details, but I think UngeheuerLich is not off base.
> 
> The way I see it, in game design (or any design) there comes a point where the designers leave the realm of pure design, theory, early prototyping (glossing over flaws with experience)--and get down to the nitty gritty of making it work--execution, implementation, development, testing.  This inevitably involves compromises--i.e. compromising the design.
> 
> ...




Yeah, I think 3e TRIED to be an improved 2e in essence. You can definitely see what they were aiming at. I have to say though, not all of the things that were issues in 3e were simply a matter of things getting twisted up in development. The skill system particularly was simply a bad design. Had someone put out that skill system in say 1978 I'd just chalk it up to the immaturity of game design in general at that time and it would compare favorably with other systems of its vintage. 20 years later, in light of all the excellent work done in the 90's in particular, it was simply a fumbling attempt, 10 years behind the times, and rather uninformed. Again it just strikes me as someone taking the rudimentary NWP system and just generalizing it without actually thinking about how it fit into the greater whole of the game.

In fact IMHO the roots of most of the failings in 3e really go straight back to the design. They aren't the kind of 'math error' sorts of things you see in 4e, or hacks that someone found were needed late in the cycle because of other changes, like Masterwork Armor. Instead they were fundamental misapprehensions about what the purpose and use of various subsystems was. Maybe some things were late issues like adding vastly overpowered buff spells and giving wizards ways to circumvent the restrictions AD&D put on casting in combat. I think the issues started much earlier though with a failure to truly understand AD&D at a deep level. Ironically the first things out of Monte's mouth in this latest L&L clearly seem to demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of 4e as well. I'm not impressed so far.

[MENTION=39596]Unspeakable[/MENTION] 
Yeah, I hear you. I think mudlock is right about the 1/2 level thing though. Now, maybe there's some other way to approach that instead of a scaling bonus, but he's got a point. The ability score bumps I agree with you about. I think those were a bad idea on the whole. I get what the idea was, but it really messes with the math a lot and buggers up the range of skill bonuses, amongst other things. Were I making something like 4e now I'd consider alternatives to the 1/2 level bonus, but I'm not sure yet if you can really get rid of it, or exactly what to put in its place.


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## Crazy Jerome (Sep 27, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> In fact IMHO the roots of most of the failings in 3e really go straight back to the design. They aren't the kind of 'math error' sorts of things you see in 4e, or hacks that someone found were needed late in the cycle because of other changes, like Masterwork Armor. Instead they were fundamental misapprehensions about what the purpose and use of various subsystems was. Maybe some things were late issues like adding vastly overpowered buff spells and giving wizards ways to circumvent the restrictions AD&D put on casting in combat. I think the issues started much earlier though with a failure to truly understand AD&D at a deep level. Ironically the first things out of Monte's mouth in this latest L&L clearly seem to demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of 4e as well. I'm not impressed so far.




Could be.  I don't put it on Monte, because I've got so much of the Arcana Evolved stuff.  What I see there is that when he had a clear design in mind, and developed it himself, it did what he wanted it to do.  Whether what he wanted was the best thing is open to debate, but I don't think many people would read his design diaries for AE and think he didn't get what he was doing.

Tell me how we ended up with "Use Rope" skill, and I'll tell you who was to blame for the 3E failings.  Was it that the "design" for covering a niche was just to slap on another skill?  Or did a developer really go to bat for it?  Or did the simulation versus gamism schism in the team get a management compromise instead of a clear ruling?  Or was there a flaw in the design revealed by the need for the skill, and instead of revising, they put on a band aid?  Or did they simply run out of time and budget, after having done the best they could.  

That last one might be generous, but it is also the single most likely reason.  But see, I don't *know* how it got that way.  But I recongize a symptom of a screwed up implementation when I see it.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 28, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Could be.  I don't put it on Monte, because I've got so much of the Arcana Evolved stuff.  What I see there is that when he had a clear design in mind, and developed it himself, it did what he wanted it to do.  Whether what he wanted was the best thing is open to debate, but I don't think many people would read his design diaries for AE and think he didn't get what he was doing.
> 
> Tell me how we ended up with "Use Rope" skill, and I'll tell you who was to blame for the 3E failings.  Was it that the "design" for covering a niche was just to slap on another skill?  Or did a developer really go to bat for it?  Or did the simulation versus gamism schism in the team get a management compromise instead of a clear ruling?  Or was there a flaw in the design revealed by the need for the skill, and instead of revising, they put on a band aid?  Or did they simply run out of time and budget, after having done the best they could.
> 
> That last one might be generous, but it is also the single most likely reason.  But see, I don't *know* how it got that way.  But I recongize a symptom of a screwed up implementation when I see it.




Yeah, we don't either of us know what really went down. I'm just saying, there was a lot of stuff in 3e that seemed 'wrong' to me that wasn't numbers. Skills had number problems, but they also had more basic issues like just arbitrarily mixing valuable combat skills in with RP fluff at all the same cost. Not that 4e totally fixed that, but if I were going to mess with skills it would be in the vein of tightening up the numbers and maybe documenting how exposition should work and reminding DMs that there are other options besides just a DC. 4e already fully supports 'poke this and learn something' and even 'poke this and if you're trained learn something'. 

Anyway, it is all out of our hands and we really have no idea what work he's actually doing for WotC until it shows up as a product announcement.


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## Argyle King (Sep 28, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I read the 3e PHB & DMG and my reaction was basically "this game is horribly flawed unto total brokenness", which appears to have been basically born out. Sorry, nothing about 3e impresses me except that the people who designed had nary a clue about how to create good workable mechanics. Not so much in the small sense, but in the large. The way things fit together was just borked. The less that team has to do with 4e (or 5e) mechanics the happier I'll be.





Oddly, I thought the same thing about some of 4E's concepts after the first campaign I played in.  Suffice to say, the usual GM of the group has banned me from ever buying Dimensional Shackles as well as doing many other things which were presented as viable & non-broken options.  However, I will say that -for me- 4E mostly misses the mark on a lot of 'small sense' things and small details.  

I also find that -in my opinion- the final 4E product was not the same as what is presented in the preview books (both of which I have and still sometimes read.)  I do expect there to be difference between prototype and actual product; it's natural for an idea to evolve during the design process, but -for me personally- the end 4E product ditched too much of what I found exciting about the 4E previews.  In particular, I find the tone and feel of the game to be vastly different.  

Likewise, while I understand why changes were made to some of the rules with each new round of books, I don't feel confident in the direction the changes took the game.  I do feel changes were needed in many aspects of the game due to flawed designs right out of the gate; however, I feel there were instances in which the solution I would have preferred (and the solution that I feel made for a more consistent sent of rules) was much different than the official changes.  An example of this would be how multiple resistances interact with damage types; there are other threads here on Enworld which discus the wonkiness which can arise with how multiple resistances are currently handled.  In my humble opinion, the rules functioned more consistently in their original PHB1 form than they currently do.

This post is in no way meant to bash 4E.  It's a game which I play.  Neither is it meant to defend 3E; as someone who played 3E for a long time, I am very familiar with the bugs in the design.  However, as I sit and watch many of these threads, there seems to be (I could be imagining things) an underlying implied message which insists that the 4E methods and ideals are some sort of bastion of excellent design.  There are many things I feel 4th Edition does right and does well, but there are also many things about 4th Edition which I do not believe work well; they prompted  and pushed me to explore rpgs outside of the D&D brand; something I had never willingly done before 4th Edition.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 28, 2011)

mudlock said:


> Except it isn't. A 15 foot wide chasm is always going to be a DC 15 athletics check to jump across. But you don't have epic level characters jump across 15 foot wide chasms if you expect to challenge them.
> 
> Higher DC checks are suppose to be more impressive things. A hard religion check at level 25 should let you know more impressive stuff than a hard religion check at level 2. The *relative difficulty* of the challenge *for the character* is still going to be the same--"hard"--but it's up to you, as a DM (and a player) to find the "40 foot chasm" equivalent for a religion check. You *have* to give it meaning; *you* have to give it meaning. Otherwise it's just numbers.
> 
> The system just tells you the numbers for what's fair. It's clear how athletics scales, but all other skill checks scale (or at least, should scale) too, they just do it in less obvious ways.



I know about the Idea... and some skills actually have static DCs...
but there are skills that scale with your own level... (look at rules compendium)
I am also not against a scaling bonus... but I believe it is better if you can decide which skill you focus more...

Even if you just have a seperate pool of talents to increase skills. Not as many skillpoints as in 3rd edition. Actually the old ADnD proficiency was not that bad in hindsight... the +1/2 level to ALL skills is not the best solution i could imagine...


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 28, 2011)

Johnny3D3D said:


> Oddly, I thought the same thing about some of 4E's concepts after the first campaign I played in.  Suffice to say, the usual GM of the group has banned me from ever buying Dimensional Shackles as well as doing many other things which were presented as viable & non-broken options.  However, I will say that -for me- 4E mostly misses the mark on a lot of 'small sense' things and small details.
> 
> I also find that -in my opinion- the final 4E product was not the same as what is presented in the preview books (both of which I have and still sometimes read.)  I do expect there to be difference between prototype and actual product; it's natural for an idea to evolve during the design process, but -for me personally- the end 4E product ditched too much of what I found exciting about the 4E previews.  In particular, I find the tone and feel of the game to be vastly different.
> 
> ...




No, but what strikes me is that the flaws in 3e were deep issues of fundamental organization and the totality of the game that was delivered, where the issues with 4e are all of the 'dimensional shackles' variety. I can change dimensional shackles or get rid of them. I suppose I could also rip out the 3e skill system and replace it, but obviously these are tasks of greatly different magnitude. My 4e game sans dimensional shackles (or even with some feats given out for free etc) is still fundamentally 4e as designed with at best a couple of tweaks to the size of some bonus. 3e with a different skill system is a whole new game. Maybe one that is pretty similar to 3e, but you'd have to explain the differences in detail to a player new to your table. I don't even have to mention that dimensional shackles don't exist, and I can explain 'get Weapon Expertise for free at level 1' in 2 sentences and not expect to even have to mention it again.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 28, 2011)

[MENTION=58416]Johnny3D3D[/MENTION]

I also own both preview books, and i do have the same feeling about them... The initial design seemed to have been better than the end result... and I have the feeling, that previewing the rules was one of the reasons... there was so much hate around... every innovation incited a big flamewar... and some things in the initial 4e releases seemed half baked as a result....


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## Crazy Jerome (Sep 28, 2011)

Leaving out the later stuff in each edition, I'd say that the design/development of 3E and 4E are like this:

3E: Selectively ambitious in spots, but overall leaned slightly towards cautious in approach. This led to a lot of half-hearted compromises in places where it would have been better to have either left well enough alone, or alternately, better to push the intent of the design with conviction.

OTOH, the gaping holes in it, like much of the versions before, can be easily tinkered with at the edges. Ripping out the whole skill system, and replacing it with something consistent, is hard. (I know, I tried more than once.) But if you want to tweak stuff all over the place, it really won't matter much. Part of this is because an already unbalanced system can take a lot of abuse without losing anything appreciable, but on a more positive note, systems with such compromises tend to have multiple ways around any problem introduced. (Single class fighter not getting it done? Multiclass fighter/rogue might. Still not matching up with cleric, druid, or wizard at high levels? Nothing you did was going to anyway--so marginal improvement from mixing in rogue levels won't hurt.)

4E: Overall very ambitious, mixed with a bit of selective caution in some spots and outright timidity in others. The intent of the design is largely pushed with conviction. This means that it succeeds or fails on its own terms. When it fails, it fails hard.

OTOH, the transparency is there. When it works, you know it works, and you can probably easily see why. And if you can't, someone else can help you see it. It's so easy, that even some people that don't like it, don't play it, and don't fully understand it--can glimpse some of the essential interactions. Likewise, when it breaks, it is usually equally obvious. This means that there are wide areas that you can touch easily and with impunity, knowing that you practically *can't* break them. (The magic item usage by PCs is far more robust than even most early and thoughtful fans appreciated.) OTOH, if your preferences happen to require touching one of the areas that are not meant to be messed with, you are out of luck. (You'll have to really think about the whole design to make such changes well.  You can't whip up a such a change off the cuff.) For this reason, 4E is selectively resistant to "drift". Since it is the first version of D&D to combine this hard resistance with transparency, it can really tick people off. (Earlier versions were also somewhat resistant to drift in places, but not nearly as obvious. This meant that it took a long time for people to realize, "Hey, that really don't work well when I change it." What you don't know doesn't often irritate you.)


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## Crazy Jerome (Sep 28, 2011)

Johnny3D3D said:


> This post is in no way meant to bash 4E. It's a game which I play. Neither is it meant to defend 3E; as someone who played 3E for a long time, I am very familiar with the bugs in the design. However, as I sit and watch many of these threads, there seems to be (I could be imagining things) an underlying implied message which insists that the 4E methods and ideals are some sort of bastion of excellent design. There are many things I feel 4th Edition does right and does well, but there are also many things about 4th Edition which I do not believe work well; they prompted and pushed me to explore rpgs outside of the D&D brand; something I had never willingly done before 4th Edition.




Not speaking for anyone else, a lot of my criticism is directed from the perspective of the ideal, and with an appreciation for what other games have done to push design, since D&D first came on the scene. This in no way implies that I think the products being criticized were, relatively speaking, poor.

So, for example, I can write 5,000 words on why the 3E skill system is poor, from multiple angles--as a skill system for D&D in general, and for 3E in particular. But in the context of what the 3E designers had to work with, their concerns about embedding as much D&D tradtion as possible, and so forth--I'll readily admit that it was decent enough for what it was. It doesn't drag down 3E into some unplayable mess--far from it. It's biggest problem is that it is trying to do something impossible--simultaneously please several audiences with mutually exclusive preferences. But I'm not sure that problem could have been easily identified without hindsight.

The 3E skill system is very obviously a 1.0 version (after prototypes, betas, and alphas such as the NWP system). As an ideal, it is lacking. As a 1.0 version--I've seen much worse. (And 4E is very much a 2.0, with all that implies. Most products aren't really hitting their full stride until 3.0, and then incremental improvements happen from there.) 

The 3E skill system is about as good a skill system as the 4E skill-challenge system is a structured narrative framework. Both are 1.0.


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## mudlock (Sep 29, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> but there are skills that scale with your own level... (look at rules compendium)




And what did you find when you looked in the rules compendium? Because nothing is coming to my mind. Maybe you're thinking of assisting, which now is based on your level (something I disagree w/, btw; what would have been so hard about saying "the DC minus 10"?))



UngeheuerLich said:


> I am also not against a scaling bonus... but I believe it is better if you can decide which skill you focus more...




If only there were some sort of thing, maybe a feat, which would allow one to FOCUS on a SKILL is they thought it was more important...


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 29, 2011)

mudlock said:


> And what did you find when you looked in the rules compendium? Because nothing is coming to my mind. Maybe you're thinking of assisting, which now is based on your level (something I disagree w/, btw; what would have been so hard about saying "the DC minus 10"?))
> 
> 
> 
> If only there were some sort of thing, maybe a feat, which would allow one to FOCUS on a SKILL is they thought it was more important...



RC page 130-131 does state that if a DC doesn't specify a level then it is assumed to be at the level of the PC. Many specific DCs establish different rules. For instance Monster Knowledge check DCs are of the level of the monster. Many others give fixed DCs for specific things. 

Lets look at these 'character level' checks though. Take History, where one check you could make is "Inspire a militia (moderate DC)". Now, what sort of militia are you inspiring at level 1 and what sort of threat are you inspiring them to face up to? At level 20? The DC might well be moderate for your character in both situations. The game simply never conceives of the idea that you would actually care what it takes to inspire the level 1 militia when you're level 20. Or if you DID have to inspire such a militia it is going to be darned hard since you're asking them to stand up to an epic level threat. Since everything ties conflict to something appropriate to your level the rules don't REALLY need to talk about drastically different level challenges. Whenever it does matter, because something can be directly measured like a long jump, the DCs are absolute and stated that way. It would be erroneous to conclude things like "climbing a wall is always a moderate DC check of your level". It is correct to conclude that "all the walls that the DM is going to care about if I climb them or not are pretty much my level." Given that the DM can either set specific DCs for unusual situations, or add modifiers for unusual difficulties when the check is called for, etc, the difference actually is close to immaterial in play. It just would have been nice if they had actually said that in words instead of implying it in a way that you have to study the skill system to infer.


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## Argyle King (Sep 29, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> No, but what strikes me is that the flaws in 3e were deep issues of fundamental organization and the totality of the game that was delivered, where the issues with 4e are all of the 'dimensional shackles' variety. I can change dimensional shackles or get rid of them. I suppose I could also rip out the 3e skill system and replace it, but obviously these are tasks of greatly different magnitude. My 4e game sans dimensional shackles (or even with some feats given out for free etc) is still fundamentally 4e as designed with at best a couple of tweaks to the size of some bonus. 3e with a different skill system is a whole new game. Maybe one that is pretty similar to 3e, but you'd have to explain the differences in detail to a player new to your table. I don't even have to mention that dimensional shackles don't exist, and I can explain 'get Weapon Expertise for free at level 1' in 2 sentences and not expect to even have to mention it again.




I'd hardly say all of the 4E issues are of that variety; I'd say a large portion, but not all.  I have issues with the 4E skill system as well.  In many instances, I find it to be fine.  However, when there are times that it doesn't seem to work (or fit) for something I want to do, it really comes off as lacking.  In that regard, I suppose my opinion about 4E is that it's very binary and/or hit & miss.  When things work, they work great; when something breaks down, it breaks down rather severely.  

I'll also add that -for a while- it seemed as though the rules were not consistent.  I'm not a rules-Nazi, and I'm fine with breaking from the mold, but -as a new 4E DM- I had a lot of confusion about why the monster creation guidelines in the back of the DMG seemed to rarely match up with the numbers presented with the monsters in MM1.  I understand the concept that monster creation is as much art as it is science; I understand that one monster may need to do less damage due to having a status effect attached to an attack, but -even considering those things- there were times when the numbers just simply did not add up.  There were other times when I started to feel as though the player community and fanbase of the game were more proficient in using the rules and generating satisfying content than the people who were paid to write the books.  Some of this has been fixed in newer books, but there are still a few dangling issues.  For me personally, it's not that big of a deal to fix them on my own for my table; however, I remember part of the stated appeal of 4E being to be easier for new groups - some of the work needing to be done to achieve a better experience with the system is not easy work for someone new to rpgs.

I will also admit that many of the issues I personally have with the system are due to how my ideals about gaming differ from the ideals 4E is built upon.  As such, some of the problems I have are non-issues for other people.  I play the game, and I enjoy the game, but there are many aspects of the game I wish were more in line with what I wanted out of an rpg experience.  Somewhere during the 4E preview they were at a point which I feel was good for me, and then something happened to mutate that into a different experience.  When I sit and play 4E, I often see signs that a certain aspect of the game started to be designed in one way, and then for seemingly no reason got shifted into working a different way.  As a player, and as someone who wants to like D&D, I ask myself what happened, and where the concepts I liked went.


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## mudlock (Sep 29, 2011)

Johnny3D3D said:


> Somewhere during the 4E preview they were at a point which I feel was good for me, and then something happened to mutate that into a different experience.




Okay, this is like the fourth time you've alluded to this in this thread without giving any examples, so as someone who never looked at the previews, fine; I'll bite:

What things, specifically, did they change?


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## Argyle King (Sep 29, 2011)

mudlock said:


> Okay, this is like the fourth time you've alluded to this in this thread without giving any examples, so as someone who never looked at the previews, fine; I'll bite:
> 
> What things, specifically, did they change?





For one, the previews wholeheartedly embraced the 'Points of Light' idea.  The tone, mood, and scope (IMO) presented was very different from that found in the end 4E product as well as what is supported by the 4E mechanics.  The world was a primal and dangerous place; in this regard, I would say Dark Sun is probably the closest 4E product to the world as presented in the preview materials.  What I expected -based on the previews- was something much closer to Low Fantasy or perhaps a more grounded Sword & Sorcery experience with a touch of the dark duality found in classic fairy tales helping to shape the tone and feel of the world.

In contrast, the end result of 4E was much more high fantasy and presented the PCs (again, IMO) in a much more exaggerated fashion.  To the point where it's somewhat ridiculous for the PCs to view the world around them in any manner that I would associate with the terminology of 'Points of Light.'  Yes, I get the idea that PCs should be the main characters; that is an idea I support.  However, the previews didn't paint a portrait in which I saw the PCs kicking in the door, totally annihilating threats, and just leaving a trail of destruction in their wake without a second thought.  

I also had thought there would be more support for non-directly combat related tasks.  With the previews showcasing an image of a world which I took as being somewhat dark and broken, I had thought there would be more support for interacting with that world.  I thought with all of the unclaimed and unexplored territory there would be room for PCs to do things like settle a region and cut out a realm for themselves.  What I imagined from the previews was something that had the grittiness and primal nature of Dark Sun, the post-war/battered world feel and pulp style of 3rd Edition Eberron, and the sense of wonder & jolt to my imagination I had when I first picked up a D&D book only to have it tell me "we don't know what is in this part of the map; make of it what you will."

I will say that the first round of books did a very nice job of that third point.  The Nentire Vale map was a great start, and a lot of the fluff alluded to things which made me hopeful for those other two points I listed to be met.  There were things I didn't like right out of the gate, but I thought to myself "ok, so maybe they just don't have that part of the game worked out yet; I'll stick with it and see."  However, as more material was released, I instead found the game moving further and further away from the things I liked in the preview material.  The mechanics didn't do a good job of portraying the stated fluff; as more fluff was released, it moved further away from what I was lead to imagine from the preview materials.  

Now, a lot of that is a discussion on feel.  Feel is subjective; however, I'm by far not the only person I know who holds the opinion that there seems to have been a shift in focus between Worlds & Monsters and the end product of 4E.  Likewise, there are also sidebars in the preview books which talk about ideals behind certain  ways of doing things which seem to have never quite made it into the final draft of the game.  There were also discussions in other places with the designers -before 4E was released- which talked about concepts they felt were important to the game such as making the character matter more than equipment and having choices such as race matter more than simply being some sort of boost/power at level 1.  Aside from some race specific feats (which was exactly how 3rd Edition did it for the most part) that didn't happen until much later material with things such as backgrounds and some of the alternate features in Neverwinter.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Sep 30, 2011)

Johnny3D3D said:


> For one, the previews wholeheartedly embraced the 'Points of Light' idea.  The tone, mood, and scope (IMO) presented was very different from that found in the end 4E product as well as what is supported by the 4E mechanics.  The world was a primal and dangerous place; in this regard, I would say Dark Sun is probably the closest 4E product to the world as presented in the preview materials.  What I expected -based on the previews- was something much closer to Low Fantasy or perhaps a more grounded Sword & Sorcery experience with a touch of the dark duality found in classic fairy tales helping to shape the tone and feel of the world.
> 
> In contrast, the end result of 4E was much more high fantasy and presented the PCs (again, IMO) in a much more exaggerated fashion.  To the point where it's somewhat ridiculous for the PCs to view the world around them in any manner that I would associate with the terminology of 'Points of Light.'  Yes, I get the idea that PCs should be the main characters; that is an idea I support.  However, the previews didn't paint a portrait in which I saw the PCs kicking in the door, totally annihilating threats, and just leaving a trail of destruction in their wake without a second thought.



To be fair, the onus to produce the feel you describe is almost entirely on the DM. One of the DMs in my group ran a default PoL-type game when 4e first came out and it evoked _exactly_ the feel implied by the preview materials. I can't even place the blame on official modules, because he used some when running his game. I think that the feel you're looking for is just difficult to do well; some DMs will be good at it, and others won't.



> I also had thought there would be more support for non-directly combat related tasks.  With the previews showcasing an image of a world which I took as being somewhat dark and broken, I had thought there would be more support for interacting with that world.  I thought with all of the unclaimed and unexplored territory there would be room for PCs to do things like settle a region and cut out a realm for themselves.



Again, this is DM-territory. I don't think they can spell out how this is supposed to be done; it defeats the purpose.



> Now, a lot of that is a discussion on feel.  Feel is subjective;



You got that part absolutely right. And subjective impressions are based on experience. Maybe with a different DM, it would have "clicked" for you. 



> ...however, I'm by far not the only person I know who holds the opinion that there seems to have been a shift in focus between Worlds & Monsters and the end product of 4E.  Likewise, there are also sidebars in the preview books which talk about ideals behind certain  ways of doing things which seem to have never quite made it into the final draft of the game.  There were also discussions in other places with the designers -before 4E was released- which talked about concepts they felt were important to the game such as making the character matter more than equipment and having choices such as race matter more than simply being some sort of boost/power at level 1.  Aside from some race specific feats (which was exactly how 3rd Edition did it for the most part) that didn't happen until much later material with things such as backgrounds and some of the alternate features in Neverwinter.



There are some elements of the design that are only now coming into their own, but I think this is to be expected, to a point. They can't release everything at once, in all fairness.

Like the point about characters mattering more than items; perhaps they should have put inherent bonuses in DMG1 instead of 2, but realize that as well as it works, there is no way they could have made it the "standard" because there are far too many folks used to, or actively enjoying the christmas tree effect from 3.x. I mean, plenty of those folks were not going to play 4e anyway, but you can at least recognize the role that edition war politics played in some of their decisions about which direction to take things.


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## Argyle King (Sep 30, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> To be fair, the onus to produce the feel you describe is almost entirely on the DM. One of the DMs in my group ran a default PoL-type game when 4e first came out and it evoked _exactly_ the feel implied by the preview materials. I can't even place the blame on official modules, because he used some when running his game. I think that the feel you're looking for is just difficult to do well; some DMs will be good at it, and others won't.
> 
> Again, this is DM-territory. I don't think they can spell out how this is supposed to be done; it defeats the purpose.
> 
> .





To an extent I agree, but I also disagree somewhat.  I believe that there is a relationship between crunch and fluff.  I can try to run the same module with the same group of players; using Savage Worlds in one case, D&D 4E in another, and GURPS in yet a third; the same module will come across differently.  There will be recognizable similarities, and there will probably be some parts of the module where you barely notice, but the different things that the respective games highlight and/or don't highlight will spin the feel in some way.

Likewise, there's a big difference in how a castle comes across as a magic item which gives a +2 on diplomacy checks compared to how a castle comes across as a structure which has statistics derived from a less abstract system.  I'm claiming neither that one is better or worse; only that they are different and have the ability to produce different experiences.  I believe certain ways of handling an aspect of gameplay present themselves better to certain styles than others do.

I haven't only played with one DM.  If that were the case, I would be completely open to accepting that what happens at one table may not happen at another; that's a concept I understand and have indeed experienced (I've sat at tables where the 3rd Edition Bard was the most useful member of a party.)  

I'm not bashing 4th Edition.  It's a game I still play; I've pretty consistently been playing it at least once per week.  At some points since it's been released, I was playing three times per week.  Currently I play in a Saturday game, and I am running a game on Wednesdays.  There are many things about the game I enjoy, but I've had to change how I view D&D to be able to more fully enjoy it.  As well, when running a game, I've found that I get the best results by ignoring a lot of the official DM advice given.

It's a fun game, it has many merits, but there are also a lot of things about it which I feel could be done much better.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 30, 2011)

mudlock said:


> And what did you find when you looked in the rules compendium? Because nothing is coming to my mind. Maybe you're thinking of assisting, which now is based on your level (something I disagree w/, btw; what would have been so hard about saying "the DC minus 10"?))



As Abdul said, climbing, e.g.
Although he is right of course, as indeed most times you would not bother with "lower level walls".
But I even could imagine a high level wizard trying to climb onto a mundane wall... it is just counter intuitive to assist or climb against a DC of your own level.
What would have been so hard to say: Set a level for the obstacle and use the DC of that level for that challenge... 



mudlock said:


> If only there were some sort of thing, maybe a feat, which would allow one to FOCUS on a SKILL is they thought it was more important...



senseless when feats compete with more flavourful feats or mechanical better feats... this needs to be seperated


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## Argyle King (Sep 30, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> senseless when feats compete with more flavourful feats or mechanical better feats... this needs to be seperated





This is actually one of the changes which ties into what I was talking about with my posts.  In the beginning, there seemed to be a belief that feats should generally be used to refine your character; not used so much to define your character.  Look at PHB1; the feats which do provide a mechanical bonus are tied to themes or certain weapons and various other things rather than simply being flat bonuses.  As the game has grown, it has grown further and further away from that and become closer to showcasing the same faults 3rd Edition had toward the end within 4th Edition's house.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 30, 2011)

Johnny3D3D said:


> This is actually one of the changes which ties into what I was talking about with my posts.  In the beginning, there seemed to be a belief that feats should generally be used to refine your character; not used so much to define your character.  Look at PHB1; the feats which do provide a mechanical bonus are tied to themes or certain weapons and various other things rather than simply being flat bonuses.  As the game has grown, it has grown further and further away from that and become closer to showcasing the same faults 3rd Edition had toward the end within 4th Edition's house.




I think part of the issue here is that it was an untenable vision. It sounded good in theory, but when each feat is tied to a very narrow set of options the result is (and 4e shows it well) massive feat bloat. They recalibrated slowly and found that it made more sense to write more general feats, and with Essentials we see the final evolution of that, with a relatively svelt feat list. I get what you're after and I sympathize entirely with you. It just was one of those cool but fatally flawed ideas.

I think 4e in a lot of ways is like that. It is a good system. It is just very hard for a group of game designers to fully comprehend how such an extensive game is going to feel when it is all done. They had certain goals. Those goals might not have been entirely met, and some of them probably couldn't actually be met within the context of the design. The problem is you have to at some point nail down the broad outline of the mechanics of a game so you can get on with it, and often you find out towards the end that a lot of decisions you made 2 years earlier didn't exactly contribute to your goals, or even undermine them. Other things are just "this is off a bit" (like monster damage and certain other things). Those can be fixed. 4e, being almost a ground up new game design, came with a lot of areas where I think the developers going back 2 years in time would say "no, that won't get you what you want, maybe do this instead", so it is something of a prototype. Unfortunately you don't get easy do-overs and revisions are costly. 

I rather agree with Nemesis on the feel thing. I'm working up ideas now for another campaign and one of the things that I want to do is a much more radical take on Points of Light. The world isn't just one where the 'Empire of Nerath' fell apart and the roads are bad. This is a world where the very existence of humanity was and is in doubt. Getting to the next town is not something you attempt lightly. In fact nobody is even sure if the next town still exists. You'll be lucky to get word once in a year from someone who's gone that far. If you wander around in the woods at night (the woods that surround the edges of every field) you're not likely to come back. 4e can handle that. It just isn't Nentir Vale as presented in the DMG. It is a lot more like a fairy tale, the world is big, hostile, and largely unknown. Only the toughest adventurers venture out into it, and even they step carefully.


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## Argyle King (Sep 30, 2011)

I do try to cut 4E some slack because I consider that a lot of ideas were new.  However, that's one area where I personally feel the original design failed.  I think there should have been more of an effort to attempt to understand why things were done the way they were in the previous edition instead of just out and out dismissing the previous edition as horrible design.

That does not mean I am saying 4E should be more like 3E.  Only that I think they should have taken more time to explore why the previous team made some of the decisions they in regards to the previous set of rules.  Even if they looked at a previous rule and decided they felt it was total crap, I still feel as though taking that little bit of extra time to look at 3E in various stages of its life (beginning, middle, and end) would have lead to a more informed game design process behind 4E.  

I also feel there are a lot of 4E ideas which work well, but aren't used enough.  The disease track system is one of them.  I feel that a lot of granularity could have been added to the game by using that model for more things.  Imagine if a save against mind control was less yes/no; less binary than it currently is.  Imagine if you instead had a starting position on a condition track -dazed for sake of example.  On your turn you then make some sort of mental roll to resist; if you make the roll you improve; if you fail, perhaps you fall to being stunned.

A little may bookkeeping?  Maybe a little, but I feel it would be a smoother experience overall than being so yes/no, and it's already something which we sometimes see with effects that have aftereffects once saves are made.  My point not being to debate the virtues of the disease track system, but being to showcase why I feel as though there were 4E ideas which seem to have been abandoned along the way for no obviously visible reason.  In some cases I feel as though those abandoned mechanics work better for something than the things which are normally used.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 30, 2011)

Yeah, it is hard to say. They threw a LOT of different ideas into the pot and it is difficult to tell why they've developed some and not others. In some cases like feats it clearly seems like they ran into issues. With others like the disease track things are less clear. I think they just devised it as a way to deal with diseases, and haven't thought much about other uses, or felt like it would be a real change in consistency of design to start using it in really different ways. I just don't know. There certainly are a lot of tools out there though for people to pick up on and do things with.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 30, 2011)

Johnny3D3D said:


> That does not mean I am saying 4E should be more like 3E.  Only that I think they should have taken more time to explore why the previous team made some of the decisions they in regards to the previous set of rules.  Even if they looked at a previous rule and decided they felt it was total crap, I still feel as though taking that little bit of extra time to look at 3E in various stages of its life (beginning, middle, and end) would have lead to a more informed game design process behind 4E.




I believe this is the most important thing why hiring Monte Cook has been a great Idea! He knew, why he implemented something.
Even if it was adding "Timmy" feats. He knows about it, he can show the  game designers, which feats were not meant to be useful for powergaming  etc.



Johnny3D3D said:


> I also feel there are a lot of 4E ideas which work well, but aren't used enough.  The disease track system is one of them.  I feel that a lot of granularity could have been added to the game by using that model for more things.  Imagine if a save against mind control was less yes/no; less binary than it currently is.  Imagine if you instead had a starting position on a condition track -dazed for sake of example.  On your turn you then make some sort of mental roll to resist; if you make the roll you improve; if you fail, perhaps you fall to being stunned.





This usage of the disease track seems great for me. It should not be that diffcult to take 2 or 3 conditions and combine it into a track...

I could see:

free -> CA -> dazed* -> stunned
free -> CA -> dazed* -> mindcontrolled
free -> CA -> dazed* -> stunned -> helpless
CA -> prone
slowed - > Immobilized -> restrained

Encounter powers could just be reduced by one step of the end of the creatures turn. Dailies need a save.

Granted saves also work for Encounter powers to further reduce the effect of the condition. (And you can´t worsen your condition)

Oh, and add Rituals to the List of undderused good ideas.


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## Nikosandros (Sep 30, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Whenever it does matter, because something can be directly measured like a long jump, the DCs are absolute and stated that way. It would be erroneous to conclude things like "climbing a wall is always a moderate DC check of your level". It is correct to conclude that "all the walls that the DM is going to care about if I climb them or not are pretty much my level." Given that the DM can either set specific DCs for unusual situations, or add modifiers for unusual difficulties when the check is called for, etc, the difference actually is close to immaterial in play. It just would have been nice if they had actually said that in words instead of implying it in a way that you have to study the skill system to infer.



In general, I agree with you, but if you look at the DC table for acrobatics, it really seems that the difficulty of balancing across a narrows surface of a given width does scale with the character level.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Sep 30, 2011)

Nikosandros said:


> In general, I agree with you, but if you look at the DC table for acrobatics, it really seems that the difficulty of balancing across a narrows surface of a given width does scale with the character level.




On the other hand the exactly analogous Athletics skill gives exact fixed DCs for each and every thing you can do with it, climbing being a situation EXACTLY analogous to balancing. Nor does the writeup for Acrobatics in any other material ever mention any kind of level relative mechanics. Every adventure ever published specifies DCs for anything along these lines that the PCs have to do etc. I can only conclude that the system was designed around fixed DCs that are generally intended to be proportionate to the character's level based on that being the challenging way for things to be and fluffed out as more risky and outrageous situations. 

I think RC was just in some areas poorly edited. The way they reworded things like free actions are equally nonsensical if taken literally.


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## Argyle King (Sep 30, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I could see:
> 
> free -> CA -> dazed* -> stunned
> free -> CA -> dazed* -> mindcontrolled
> ...




That's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.  I feel that is a great model to use for all sorts of things; it can even be used outside of combat.  Let's say you have a weapon which has been sundered. (I know that's not in 4E, but I am illustrating how some pre-4E ideas could be given a place in 4E without breaking the system; in fact by using the existing 4E model.)  Alright, so now your weapon has the 'sundered disease' and starts at the broken end of the track.  If by chance your character has a skill at fixing weapons (this might be where backgrounds and character themes could come into play more; perhaps granting a special fluff ability to fix weapons or cook or any manner of other things,) you could make a roll akin to the endurance roll to recover from a disease, but based on an armory skill instead.  On a success, the weapon improves a step toward being restored; on a failure the repairs are too far beyond your current skill, and you'll need to venture into town to find a blacksmith.  

My idea isn't perfect, but I'm not a game designer either.  Maybe I'm completely off base, but -from my point of view- that seems to be a good way to incorporate a lot of elements which were cut from 4E design because they were said to not fit (or in some cases said to not fit without breaking the game in some way.)  That could also be one of the optional layers of rules which the L&L articles have recently spoke of.  If you are a group which does not want to bother with that extra layer, just ignore it and also ignore monster abilities which interact with it.  I feel the tools are there to build a better game; instead of fumbling around with creating new subsystems and new mechanics to tack onto the game, why not use what is there?  Why not use what already works?


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## ourchair (Oct 1, 2011)

Umbran said:


> You know, if 3e/PF fans get upset by whatever comes out in the 4e branch - get angry over developments in a game they no longer play - well, then I think they can be dismissed as being silly.
> 
> Really.  It'd be like getting up in arms because writers kill off a character in a TV show you don't like and don't watch.  I mean, that's just plain silly.  No other word for it.



At first, I thought, you're absolutely right.

And then I thought *shrug* I dunno, what happens if a 3e/PF fan gets upset when something 3e/PFey comes out in the 4e branch and then he or she is all like NERDRAGE!? because now 4e is more like the edition they like and that makes her unhappy!!111

Hey, it could happen.


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## Argyle King (Oct 1, 2011)

ourchair said:


> At first, I thought, you're absolutely right.
> 
> And then I thought *shrug* I dunno, what happens if a 3e/PF fan gets upset when something 3e/PFey comes out in the 4e branch and then he or she is all like NERDRAGE!? because now 4e is more like the edition they like and that makes her unhappy!!111
> 
> Hey, it could happen.





"Rawr!  I hate when more games are made to cater to my tastes."

?


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 1, 2011)

lol


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## ourchair (Oct 6, 2011)

Johnny3D3D said:


> "Rawr!  I hate when more games are made to cater to my tastes."
> 
> ?



Exactly.

The only thing you can count overzealous fanboys to hate more than their favorite thing being changed is the very thing they oppose being changed to be more like their favorite thing.

I mean, do you know how many tech pundits and fanboys got upset each time Microsoft evolved Windows past version 1.0? The Mac users who said "PCs would be better if they were more like Macs," were all like, "They're copying Apple, HOW DARE THEY!" to say nothing of the DOS loyalists who thought, "Don't put this GUI in my PC!"


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## wedgeski (Oct 6, 2011)

[MENTION=58416]Johnny3D3D[/MENTION] has made some excellent points on how the final game turned out versus the preview books. I never interpreted PoL as grim'n'gritty and low magic, however. That would've been incredibly unlikely in D&D's default setting.

I started my homebrew campaign with every intention of embracing the PoL concept, but it soon became clear to me that the more I made my campaign fit the idea of D&D that has grown in my head over the last couple of decades, the less like PoL it seemed to become. The points of light themselves were expanding, and the untamed wilderness between them was shrinking, and the truly dangerous bits of my campaign were now on the periphery of a civilized and stable land.

4E itself -- the mechanical framework and its assumptions -- still supports this type of game wonderfully, and we've had years of fun with the game, but the default setting as envisaged in the previous books didn't really came to fruition in my case.


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## wedgeski (Oct 6, 2011)

Johnny3D3D said:


> That does not mean I am saying 4E should be more like 3E.  Only that I think they should have taken more time to explore why the previous team made some of the decisions they in regards to the previous set of rules.  Even if they looked at a previous rule and decided they felt it was total crap, I still feel as though taking that little bit of extra time to look at 3E in various stages of its life (beginning, middle, and end) would have lead to a more informed game design process behind 4E.



I don't think we can reasonably say whether this happened or not. They might have agonised over the bits of 3E they chucked out, or they might have done as you suggested, or more likely somewhere in between. (Feel free to quote the preview books at me on this, I haven't read them in a while.  )



> I also feel there are a lot of 4E ideas which work well, but aren't used enough.  The disease track system is one of them.  I feel that a lot of granularity could have been added to the game by using that model for more things.  Imagine if a save against mind control was less yes/no; less binary than it currently is.  Imagine if you instead had a starting position on a condition track -dazed for sake of example.  On your turn you then make some sort of mental roll to resist; if you make the roll you improve; if you fail, perhaps you fall to being stunned.



Complexity doesn't inherently equal good design, but on the other hand I do believe 4E strayed too far from a model built for SW Saga that seemed to work extremely well.

Book-keeping *is* a problem in 4E combats (like many DM's I've had to develop my own little tools and methods for condition tracking), but it also gives you a lot of tactical options and excellent rewards for effective party strategy.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Oct 6, 2011)

wedgeski said:


> @Johnny3D3D  has made some excellent points on how the final game turned out versus the preview books. I never interpreted PoL as grim'n'gritty and low magic, however. That would've been incredibly unlikely in D&D's default setting.
> 
> I started my homebrew campaign with every intention of embracing the PoL concept, but it soon became clear to me that the more I made my campaign fit the idea of D&D that has grown in my head over the last couple of decades, the less like PoL it seemed to become. The points of light themselves were expanding, and the untamed wilderness between them was shrinking, and the truly dangerous bits of my campaign were now on the periphery of a civilized and stable land.
> 
> 4E itself -- the mechanical framework and its assumptions -- still supports this type of game wonderfully, and we've had years of fun with the game, but the default setting as envisaged in the previous books didn't really came to fruition in my case.




Well, I think the PoL CONCEPT itself is best done in a grim kind of tone, and I think they did start out with that thought in mind. The problem was as a generic setting it kind of has to be something of a kitchen sink. Thus it is very hard to keep it true to any one theme. Personally my next project is going to be mapping out just such a setting, one where the darkness is DARK and starts at the eves of people's houses. A darkness that holds secrets, where nobody is sure if the next town even exists anymore, let alone people consider GOING there. I think that might be a little beyond what PoL started out as conceptually, but I think it is more robust than what it has evolved into. 

And yeah, I think 4e will support this type of game quite well. Vastly better than 3.x would have overall. 3.5 does low level gritty OK, but it tends to fall apart pretty quickly, either the PCs are not up to facing down the dark, or they're running around with world shaking magic rewriting the concept. I think 4e will pull it off pretty well, grim but not hopeless, dark but if you're hardy and brave enough the destined heroes can make a path through it. 4e is also easier to fluff, so recasting powers a bit will be easy enough.


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## Argyle King (Oct 8, 2011)

wedgeski said:


> Complexity doesn't inherently equal good design, but on the other hand I do believe 4E strayed too far from a model built for SW Saga that seemed to work extremely well.
> 
> .




Neither is simplicity inherently good.  

As far as my disease track idea, I think the step up in complexity from multiple saves to a condition track is small; especially in comparison to what I feel the game would gain.  

Mechanically, the game gains a way to incorporate elements of past editions without breaking the 4E model; in fact, it does so by embracing the 4E rules.  

Fluffwise (because I do believe there is a connection between crunch and fluff,) the subtle change from saves as they are now to a condition track (in my opinion) creates the possibility of more dynamic and dramatic play.  Instead of a PC being instantly dominated, there is a mental struggle between the PC and the enemy for control of his mind.  Likewise, the party psion can combat a mindflayer; both locked in a struggle which can take steps forward and backwards instead of being so yes/no.

If I can touch on that last point again and again bring up mechanics, I think I also found a way to make the orb wizard as originally published a little less broken.  Instead of being able to use the orb as an insta-win button which causes a target to go straight from save to suck, the orb acts as a way to penalize one of the target's rolls to recover from a condition.  It would still need some work to get the bugs out of the system, but I believe it is a sound idea.


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## MerricB (Oct 8, 2011)

wedgeski said:


> I do believe 4E strayed too far from a model built for SW Saga that seemed to work extremely well.




Speaking as someone who played in a 1st-20th level campaign of SW Saga, and is running a campaign that has gone from 1st-27th level in 4E, Saga had a *lot* of problems which 4E doesn't have. 

4E had the problem with the monsters vs character maths at higher levels (which is mostly fixed now), but Saga had a lot of character vs character issues that just got worse and worse. Saga really missed having healing surges; it was just too easy to take wounds you couldn't heal.

Towards the end of our Saga campaign, we really wished Saga had incorporated a lot more of 4E in its design. We haven't thought the opposite.

Cheers!


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## Oldtimer (Oct 9, 2011)

MerricB said:


> 4E had the problem with the monsters vs character maths at higher levels (which is mostly fixed now), but Saga had a lot of character vs character issues that just got worse and worse. Saga really missed having healing surges; it was just too easy to take wounds you couldn't heal.



This is exactly the same problem we had with SWSE. A fun game, but far too often grievious wounds forced the players to take a vacation mid-adventure.

If I should start a new campaign in SWSE, I would most definitely try to graft healing surges onto to the game.


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