DND 5.0 remake

[Ironwolf85]

damn... agreed there. probably woulda hurt my head
i downloaded a lot of them when it was totally legal to do so, and before WOTC (more hasbro's fault probably I don't think they understand RPG's, they only recently figured out how card games work ) tried to kill 3.5 ruthlessly.
I think it was that ruthlessness that turned me off their products, the threat of lawsuit hanging over my head if I did not comply with their product mandate.

[Callie Del Noire]

Found this post on the Paizo message boards. 

WoTC has a dirty little secret.
A Brand is just a word.

WoTC, or more accurately Hasbro, hires people to write rules and modules and then releases them to us with a label.

And so does Paizo.

The people that actually write the words change from year to year. The brand doesn't.

The reason 3.0 became so popular came in three parts. First, they got people to real the rules they released because they were a brand people recognized and respected.

Second, the rules they put out were pretty good. Not great, 3.0 was flawed enough that 3.5 followed a few short years later...but pretty good.

And third, and most importantly, the OGL encouraged freelancers. And freelancers are the people who eventually get hired to write the material.

4E is not being replaced because of the first reason. Certainly in 2008 WoTC had the clout to get us all to at least take a look, regardless of how distasteful we found the transition.

4E is not being replaced because of the quality of the rules, which while I personally found to be a major step back weren't completely unpalatable.

4E is being replaced because the people who wrote the rules and the modules in house aren't nearly as good as an open free market of ideas.

Paizo is very small. But they pull from a large pool of writers and artists. They have access to this pool because they pay them money and ask very little in exchange regarding what they do outside of the project they are assigned. If Wolfgang Baur wants to write a competing setting, feel free. If Monte Cook wants to write a module for Paizo then go help design 5E, good for him.

Paizo doesn't care what freelancers do on the side, as long as they put out quality products when paid to do so.

Paizo is what Newt Gingrich wanted from his wife. An open relationship.

WoTC's genius in 2000 when they created the OGL was what made them "The World's Most Popular Role Playing Game."

Who is left from those times? Monte? And only because he was hired to come back.

So what is WoTC? What is the link between the 2012 company and the company that saved the brand when TSR was going under?

It is a label.

While I've heard lip service about the mistakes of the GSL vs OGL, I am skeptical until I see a return.

WoTC could design a brilliant system, but it will be nothing without support. They could address all of our concerns, but it will be nothing without a system that allows evolution to correct the concerns not yet discovered.

And why should we believe that the WoTC team now working will find some panacea every other game developer has missed in the past...including the staff on the team itself.

For now, the d20 system is the best system on the market, in large part because of the available variations and options that exist that have been run through all of our games through the years. It is the reliable truck that gets it done, that every mechanic knows how to work on.

It is they system you can find players for, and you can find GM's to run.

5E still can get people to read it, on brand. Although a lot less will pay for the privilege.

And I have no reason to think that with the devs involved it won't be a decent game, although I also have no reason to think it will be better than anything else they each put out in the past, none of which are better than the current d20 system.

The real question is if they can get the freelance community to come on board and put out quality material because they will have a personal investment in the system beyond a paycheck.

Frankly, I would be a lot more hopeful if the same group was putting it out as a freelance rather than under Hasbro.

Either way, the d20 system has a 12 year head start.

[Chris Brady]

Wow.  So incorrect it's not funny. Mike Mearls, Robert Schwalb and Bruce Cordell were part of the 3e crew, which still work at WoTC for one.  And that's what just jumped out at me.

And second, I'm trying to remember D20 OGL spawned that is still going strong and which wasn't a rewrite of the SRD with some house rules (Pathfinder) or done by Green Ronin (Mutants and Masterminds, and even then, they're desperately trying to get away with D20 nomenclature, like it's a dirty word or something...)

I can't think of anything.  Anyone, help?

But...  Man, that's just fanning the Edition War flames again.

[Callie Del Noire]

Wow.  So incorrect it's not funny. Mike Mearls, Robert Schwalb and Bruce Cordell were part of the 3e crew, which still work at WoTC for one.  And that's what just jumped out at me.

And second, I'm trying to remember D20 OGL spawned that is still going strong and which wasn't a rewrite of the SRD with some house rules (Pathfinder) or done by Green Ronin (Mutants and Masterminds, and even then, they're desperately trying to get away with D20 nomenclature, like it's a dirty word or something...)

I can't think of anything.  Anyone, help?

But...  Man, that's just fanning the Edition War flames again.

I didn't say it was CORRECT.. but that is the typical outlook I hear on the 'con' side of 4e and I am sure that there are as many falliacies on the 'Pro' side.

I do agree that Hasbro wants more control of what comes into their game's theater BUT it's not as open and shut as that guy said. (did like the Newt comment.. that was worth a giggle)

There is a LOT of folks with this perception. That is why I THINK 5e is being considered.

I do have a curiousity on how much they gained in audience compared to what they lost in old school gamers who went back to AD&D, 2e, stayed with 3e or went to another system.

I do know from friends they hashed out a good chunk of the game store market starting out but he doesn't work for the game store anymore (works for Books A Million now ironically). Moves like cutting Walmart a 50% reduction on initial release price with a buy back option had to hurt in the long run.

[MasterMischief]

What I find ironic is people screamed bloody murder when WotC did 3.5 and then acted like Pathfinder (which is just 3.75) was the second coming of Jesus.  Can you imagine the gnashing of teeth if WotC (dirty, greedy bastards who only in it for the money) had tried to do a 3.75?  The fans would have lynched them.

[Callie Del Noire]

What I find ironic is people screamed bloody murder when WotC did 3.5 and then acted like Pathfinder (which is just 3.75) was the second coming of Jesus.  Can you imagine the gnashing of teeth if WotC (dirty, greedy bastards who only in it for the money) had tried to do a 3.75?  The fans would have lynched them.

I think there would have been less hate that some of the flame wars I saw for 4e. Though, I have to conceed your point, a lot of fecal masses would have impacted with the rotating oscillator.

[MasterMischief]

I think there would have been less hate that some of the flame wars I saw for 4e. Though, I have to conceed your point, a lot of fecal masses would have impacted with the rotating oscillator.

Are you kidding?  Were you anywhere near the internet when 3.5 came out?

[Callie Del Noire]

Are you kidding?  Were you anywhere near the internet when 3.5 came out?

Not for the first 2 months. (sitting in the middle of CLASSIFIED for a bit of it.)

[Chris Brady]

What I find ironic is people screamed bloody murder when WotC did 3.5 and then acted like Pathfinder (which is just 3.75) was the second coming of Jesus.  Can you imagine the gnashing of teeth if WotC (dirty, greedy bastards who only in it for the money) had tried to do a 3.75?  The fans would have lynched them.

I've been saying that on RPG.net's D20 ghetto for years, right up until I got banned (if you must know, and I don't mind telling my side, PM me), but no one ever listened to me.  I wanted to know what gave them a special 'Get Out of Jail' card, that WoTC only wished it had.  Truth be told, I've always felt that Pathfinder is a bit of a scam.  Ignore the fact that as a pure art book, it's well worth the $50, the fact remains that to be backwards compatible for it to work, you sort of have to reprint the rules.  But the 3.5 SRD already is on the Internet for free!  And OGL makes it legal!

However, some of the Rule tweaks are excellent, like the two I remember, the changes to Cleave and Great Cleave, as well as the Paladin's Smite ability.  Makes me wish I had thought of them when I could still stand 3.x

That said, a full glossy paged book, with colour art plates (of which the core book has A LOT) over 200 pages?  It's worth $70 flat out.  The PFRPG core book is a steal at $50.

[Callie Del Noire]

I've been saying that on RPG.net's D20 ghetto for years, right up until I got banned (if you must know, and I don't mind telling my side, PM me), but no one ever listened to me.  I wanted to know what gave them a special 'Get Out of Jail' card, that WoTC only wished it had.  Truth be told, I've always felt that Pathfinder is a bit of a scam.  Ignore the fact that as a pure art book, it's well worth the $50, the fact remains that to be backwards compatible for it to work, you sort of have to reprint the rules.  But the 3.5 SRD already is on the Internet for free!  And OGL makes it legal!

However, some of the Rule tweaks are excellent, like the two I remember, the changes to Cleave and Great Cleave, as well as the Paladin's Smite ability.  Makes me wish I had thought of them when I could still stand 3.x

That said, a full glossy paged book, with colour art plates (of which the core book has A LOT) over 200 pages?  It's worth $70 flat out.  The PFRPG core book is a steal at $50.

I like any book you can beat a missionary at your door to death with.

My first look at Pathfinder was due to the stuff they had done with their 'full campaign a year' thing they did in the last few bits of Dungeon before WoTC burned them on the magazine deals. (My opinion.. I don't know the full back story but from what it looked like they got left holding the bag when WoTC pulled everything back in house)

I like the artwork for the MOST part. (Their iconic barbarian and druid make me grit my teeth..but I LOVE the fighter, cleric and pali A LOT)

[Chris Brady]

Fair enough.  I'd get it myself, but WAR has some technical issues in his style that bother me as an artist.  He's got the dynamic colours down to an...  Well, an art form, but he needs serious work on his anatomy and perspective.

[MasterMischief]

I like any book you can beat a missionary at your door to death with.

I can not count the number of times someone thumbed their nose at Hero because the book was 'too big'.

The Pathfinder setting and supplemental material is excellent.  I will give them that.  But if WotC had put out the exact same thing, people would have raked them over the coals and accussed them of killing puppies.

[Callie Del Noire]

I can not count the number of times someone thumbed their nose at Hero because the book was 'too big'.

The Pathfinder setting and supplemental material is excellent.  I will give them that.  But if WotC had put out the exact same thing, people would have raked them over the coals and accussed them of killing puppies.

Looks at extensive collection of BOUGHT pdfs from Paizo.. looks at LACK of pdfs from WoTC.

Nah..they'd have done only half as much.

I'm still reeling from (in my opinion) the raping they gave the forgotten realms. I looked through 4e gaz and nearly cried. They killed off so many good guys (and godlings) and made things so radically different (as well as bumping forward 100 years) that it wasn't the realms that I had been playing in for so long.

[Oniya]

I can not count the number of times someone thumbed their nose at Hero because the book was 'too big'.

The Pathfinder setting and supplemental material is excellent.  I will give them that.  But if WotC had put out the exact same thing, people would have raked them over the coals and accussed them of killing puppies.

I like big
Books
And I can't deny...

(I'mma stop before I get myself in real trouble.)

[Callie Del Noire]

I like big
Books
And I can't deny...

(I'mma stop before I get myself in real trouble.)

No please...go right ahead.. (sets cup of cider down) go right ahead.. I'm all ready for something silly.

[MasterMischief]

I like big
Books
And I can't deny...

How do you feel about bullet-proof?   

Hero Games 5th Edition Rule Book Ballistic Test

[Callie Del Noire]

The biggest book my folks owned while I was growing up was this HUGE DICTIONARY.. it was like 18 inches THICK with those microscopically thin pages you can ALMOST see through and a font that was described as TINY.

[Chris Brady]

Oh boy... The FR setting...  You do know why they did that?  Because people were upset at the fact that the uber NPCs had effectively taken over the game.  In one absolutely BRILLIANT piece of fiction, Mr. Greenwood put forth that all the 'ruins' in FR had long been cleaned out, and that Elminster went around putting some of his own in dungeons so that newer heroes (the PCs) would have something to find.  Yeah, no.

And let's not forget that most of 'epic heroes' of the realm were magic users and were over level 35 on average, with Elminster topping it out at 45.  Hell, emo-poster boy Drizzt Do'Urden was only level 16 (3 Fighter, 1 Barbarian and 13 Ranger, if I remember rightly.)  And each of them were fiction characters first, which broke the games rules.  Hell, Elminster was banging the Goddess of Magic!  (Ah, Ed Greenwood, giving hope to boring old men for decades.)

WoTC correctly realized that this demeaning and patronizing to the players of D&D and decided to change it.  After all, no one wants their epic adventures to be dismissed as irrelevant, by some non-player character.

[Callie Del Noire]

Oh boy... The FR setting...  You do know why they did that?  Because people were upset at the fact that the uber NPCs had effectively taken over the game.  In one absolutely BRILLIANT piece of fiction, Mr. Greenwood put forth that all the 'ruins' in FR had long been cleaned out, and that Elminster went around putting some of his own in dungeons so that newer heroes (the PCs) would have something to find.  Yeah, no.

And let's not forget that most of 'epic heroes' of the realm were magic users and were over level 35 on average, with Elminster topping it out at 45.  Hell, emo-poster boy Drizzt Do'Urden was only level 16 (3 Fighter, 1 Barbarian and 13 Ranger, if I remember rightly.)  And each of them were fiction characters first, which broke the games rules.  Hell, Elminster was banging the Goddess of Magic!  (Ah, Ed Greenwood, giving hope to boring old men for decades.)

WoTC correctly realized that this demeaning and patronizing to the players of D&D and decided to change it.  After all, no one wants their epic adventures to be dismissed as irrelevant, by some non-player character.

Well I never had the players meet any of the uber types when I game it. They did their own thing. And I tweaked down the Chosen a bit anyway. There were enough bad guys in Thay and Callisham to do what I wanted without running into the 'uberdudes'.

[MasterMischief]

So you are mad at WotC for raping a world you happily altered anyway? 

Right.  Got it.   

[Callie Del Noire]

So you are mad at WotC for raping a world you happily altered anyway? 

Right.  Got it.   

I simply don't see how literally 'emptying' the ocean, destroying the sea, killing off every 3rd good god and destroying every city fits with 'revamping'.

I used the setting.. just didn't put the 'big guns' on stage to out do the players. No fun if your guy spends 4 days in a running fight with the big bad to have a 'goat farmer' come over the hill and go 'pop you're a soap bubble' on them.

[Chris Brady]

Well I never had the players meet any of the uber types when I game it. They did their own thing. And I tweaked down the Chosen a bit anyway. There were enough bad guys in Thay and Callisham to do what I wanted without running into the 'uberdudes'.

It did beg the question, though.  If Thay and the Zentharim, were such big threats, why didn't Khelben, the Seven Sisters or Elminster himself come and deal with them?  Answer?  They had 'bigger things' to deal with.  Meaning that the PC's were always going to play in the 'little leagues'.  Not exactly what some of the fans wanted in their favourite setting.  So WoTC, with R.A. Salvatore and Ed Greenwood (among other writers) decided to 'reboot' the setting for players first.

Did they do a good job?  That's personal opinion.  I never really liked the Forgotten Realms to be honest.

[Callie Del Noire]

It did beg the question, though.  If Thay and the Zentharim, were such big threats, why didn't Khelben, the Seven Sisters or Elminster himself come and deal with them?  Answer?  They had 'bigger things' to deal with.  Meaning that the PC's were always going to play in the 'little leagues'.  Not exactly what some of the fans wanted in their favourite setting.  So WoTC, with R.A. Salvatore and Ed Greenwood (among other writers) decided to 'reboot' the setting for players first.

Did they do a good job?  That's personal opinion.  I never really liked the Forgotten Realms to be honest.

Personally I liked the 2E version better.. I always felt the 'rumor accuracy' point where the NPCs level could fluxuated.

Hmm.. thinking back.. I think the most 'powerful harper' the players ran into was someone like Mirt the Moneylender.

[Chris Brady]

Personally I liked the 2E version better.. I always felt the 'rumor accuracy' point where the NPCs level could fluxuated.

Hmm.. thinking back.. I think the most 'powerful harper' the players ran into was someone like Mirt the Moneylender.

I still have my Undermountain box set, and the 2e FR adventure guide.  I loved the guide especially because of the 'treasure options' and the various currencies.

[Ironwolf85]

pathfinder player here... don't have the money after swapping from 3.5 to 4, then to pathfinder, to go for 5e on the chance it might be good.
pathfinder does what I need it to do, and that is why I like it, i don't care about flame wars or editions. I have found a game that I understand and enjoy, i'm sticking with it for now, because I haz noi money to take a leap of faith on 5e.
the 4e books have been sitting on the gameshop's shelf for years collecting dust, after a good selling spree, people stopped buying them but WOTC kept releasing more books and expecting us tpo cough up $30 a month for the newest book.
a lot of older gamers were pissed, and I was irritated at the constant marketing of new books I was supposed to buy.

okay rant done... or not...

I've been wanting to try forgotten realms, but we've never really done it. I only have the 4e book for it, but I've played the original buldar's gate and BG2 on pc... I remember amn, Saravok, the city of Buldar's Gate itself, I remember the story as it played out and every detail of it. a scene where Peter (my character) apparently a son of Baal, this paladan sired by an evil god of murder fought alongside Drizzt do-urden, watched his finsterfather killed by his half brother, prevented a war, fled candlekeep, watched Ortz the imploding ogre at the local fair, ddied god knows hoe many times before figuring otu how to get through durlag's crazy tower. He lost his soul to a wizard and hunted him down to retreve it. fought monks of clamishan and protected his brothers and sisters from genoside. and when the bloodshed was over and he stood before his father's throne, shattered it, destroying his chance at godhood, and went on adventures across the world before dying a peaceful death as an old man.
I remember Minsk, Jerhiea, Dyhner, Imoen, Tiax, Zahera, i remember fighting back to back with them, listening to their banter. it was like playing a storybook in my childhood.
even as I read the drizzt series for the first time, drizzt isn't forgotten realms to me, what WOTC says isn't forgotten realms to me.

the adventures of Peter the Paladin, the places he saw, the people he met, the adventures he had, as cheesy as his name sounds (I was 10 at the time)...

peter the paladin and his world's edge blade, son and destoryer of Baal, lord of Seven Star keep. he Drizzt and Elmister are my only big-wigs, and peter's dead of old age, a side affect of giving up godhood, you can die of old age.

sorry for the rant... but that is forgotten realms to me, not what's written by wizards.

I am keeping returned aber... of all the things that annoyed me about 4e there was one thing I loved.
Dragonborn... I loved playing them and even introdouced them ot other settings.