DND 5.0 remake

[MasterMischief]

Okay, so maybe that came out a bit more codger-like than I intended.

See, that's fine.  You like the oldies.  Me?  I love the new stuff.  I love the variety.  I love the polish.  And I do not think it has anything to do with video games or having read the right books.  I just happen to think the industry has been improved.  As much as I loved D&D at first, it was too stifling.

EDIT: And just for the record, I started with the Red Boxed Basic set back in 82.  So you can teach an old llama new tricks.

[Callie Del Noire]

The problem with the OGL was that D20 was dominating the market.  And most of it was outright crap.  Only one thing came out of that glut that ended up being any good.  And that was Mutants and Masterminds.  The rest has either failed, or companies decided to go another route.

Hell, the GSL has been one of the best things for the industry!  You have Mongoose's Runequest (1&2 and now Legend), you have Chaosium's reformatting of their signature Basic Roleplaying System, Cthulutech, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk made something of a less than great comeback, Icons, Supers, Anima: Beyond Fantasy, Dark Heresy and it's sister games of Rogue Trader and Deathwatch, Savage Worlds!  And that's just a small smattering of what has been available at my favourite game store!

So this is a MUCH better than when the OGL came out.

It was a start, OGL.. without it you'd never had GSL showing up. It showed that it was possible for the 'backroom publisher' to get started. Most of my favorite supplements for d20 modern came out of this rush.

Don't get me started on Cyberpunk..I weep at the loss of my old Cpunk 2020 for what we got after.

[Chris Brady]

The problem with the OGL is that it was stifling the market.  Because 3.x was effectively 'free' to use, no one wanted to try anything outside the box.  And Modern D20 was a mistake.  WoTC even claimed it was, because it just didn't do what it meant to 'right'.  But now that people have to pay to use the D&D rules, publishers said *beep* that, I'm going my own way.  Which is wonderful.

Of course, this is my opinion.  Although I do agree that CP v3 was not...  Oh, it was just garbage, let's be honest, so many holes in it's plot to begin with.

[Callie Del Noire]

The problem with the OGL is that it was stifling the market.  Because 3.x was effectively 'free' to use, no one wanted to try anything outside the box.  And Modern D20 was a mistake.  WoTC even claimed it was, because it just didn't do what it meant to 'right'.  But now that people have to pay to use the D&D rules, publishers said *beep* that, I'm going my own way.  Which is wonderful.

Of course, this is my opinion.  Although I do agree that CP v3 was not...  Oh, it was just garbage, let's be honest, so many holes in it's plot to begin with.

I cry at what could have been. I even considered building a cyberpunk 2020 game around the cybergen setting. the image of a 'runner against corporate America.

[Avis habilis]

EDIT: And just for the record, I started with the Red Boxed Basic set back in 82.  So you can teach an old llama new tricks.

Amen to that. I got my start with Moldvay Basic too, & I have a fine time with Fiasco, or In a Wicked Age, or ... well, Thou Art But a Warrior not so much. Come to think of it, I love me some Essentials 4e, too.

[MasterMischief]

What's the deal with Fiasco?  I have been curious about it.

[Chris Brady]

Amen to that. I got my start with Moldvay Basic too, & I have a fine time with Fiasco, or In a Wicked Age, or ... well, Thou Art But a Warrior not so much. Come to think of it, I love me some Essentials 4e, too.

Truth be told, Essentials is the version of 4e I play the most.  I prefer it over the base version.

[adifferenceinsize]

What got me was the powers. Daily, encounter, ct. They are COOLDOWNS. Gone were any utility spells for mages.  And enchanting required 'magic dust' you got from disenchantment things. And you were (initially) stuck on a very tight set of choices and tiers that set you on a specified career path.

And multiclassing was majorly broken.

Fun fact - the power timing system in 4E wasn't really an innovation at all. Most of the changes from AD&D to 4E were essentially the designers making increasingly explicit what had always been somewhat implicitly designed as the core of the encounter system. The "5 encounter workday" was an assumption from way back, and spell caster classes were always meant to have a flow that would work like "per encounter" and "per day" powers. It just so happened that like most of D&D, when you bothered to be at all rigorous with the applications of the rules, the assumptions proved to be non-optimal actions. Unless you had a specifically tight timeline, for example, why not Rope Trick after every big encounter to let your arcane casters recharge? Suddenly, you find the balancing element between wizards and fighters et al. taken right away.


I liked AD&D when I was kid (I started off my brother's hand-me-down of a 1E DMG and 2E PHB), liked 3E when it was around (won an UnCon contest or two), and enjoy 4E now. However, for all the D&D vs. Pathfinder hoopla now, I fear the two real issues for their prospective 5E development is really traditional D&D vs. modern RPG design shifts and the internal interests of Hasbro and Wizards. The sound of the attempts to modularize the next edition sounds interesting, if fairly GURPS-ish, but given their need to support RPGA, I fear it will not last. Further, how the general direction of design decisions and their quality in play have gone from better to worse after hitting what I consider a sweet spot right after the PHB 2 came out, their attempts to wrangle the breakthroughs in consistency and the desire to pull in more of an old-school mechanical aesthetic will end up appeasing nobody. If 3E was Diablo and 4E was WoW, I fear they'll end up with 5E as Dominion, a good game with a whole lot of pieces that can easily lead to bad games if not assembled with care.


Personally, I'm much more hopeful at the talk of an Exalted 3E, as it seems the guys in charge of that are more likely to move that game forward appreciably.

[Callie Del Noire]

Fun fact - the power timing system in 4E wasn't really an innovation at all. Most of the changes from AD&D to 4E were essentially the designers making increasingly explicit what had always been somewhat implicitly designed as the core of the encounter system. The "5 encounter workday" was an assumption from way back, and spell caster classes were always meant to have a flow that would work like "per encounter" and "per day" powers. It just so happened that like most of D&D, when you bothered to be at all rigorous with the applications of the rules, the assumptions proved to be non-optimal actions. Unless you had a specifically tight timeline, for example, why not Rope Trick after every big encounter to let your arcane casters recharge? Suddenly, you find the balancing element between wizards and fighters et al. taken right away.


I liked AD&D when I was kid (I started off my brother's hand-me-down of a 1E DMG and 2E PHB), liked 3E when it was around (won an UnCon contest or two), and enjoy 4E now. However, for all the D&D vs. Pathfinder hoopla now, I fear the two real issues for their prospective 5E development is really traditional D&D vs. modern RPG design shifts and the internal interests of Hasbro and Wizards. The sound of the attempts to modularize the next edition sounds interesting, if fairly GURPS-ish, but given their need to support RPGA, I fear it will not last. Further, how the general direction of design decisions and their quality in play have gone from better to worse after hitting what I consider a sweet spot right after the PHB 2 came out, their attempts to wrangle the breakthroughs in consistency and the desire to pull in more of an old-school mechanical aesthetic will end up appeasing nobody. If 3E was Diablo and 4E was WoW, I fear they'll end up with 5E as Dominion, a good game with a whole lot of pieces that can easily lead to bad games if not assembled with care.


Personally, I'm much more hopeful at the talk of an Exalted 3E, as it seems the guys in charge of that are more likely to move that game forward appreciably.

I just.. couldn't get into the 4e. I disliked the fact that you couldn't effectively multiclass out of the box, the MMO feel was pretty big and for a lot of other reasons. I tried but I couldn't get into it.

It was stuff like the redaction of alignments, and then they went and seeming killed off every 2nd good guy in the Forgetten Realms (as well as jumping forward 100 years) and a lot of stuff they didn't need to do except to cut off all the old supplements.

[Chris Brady]

One thing I will freely slam 4e for is the abandoning of settings.  The 'One Setting Per Year' was the worst way to go about it.  Say what you will about the supplement treadmill (and I do agree ther IS a reachable limit) but one or two books per setting, and then dropping it?  Stupid.

Callie, do you play any MMO games?  I ask because you seem to have the wrong idea on how they work.  4e may not be the game for you (and I respect that) but...  Honestly, 3e is more in line with an MMO, in how it works.  In fact it's too much like WoW for me to get back into.   Still, in hopes of stopping this edition war, I admit to some intrigue as to what Wizards plans to do with fifth.

And according to some sources inside Hasbro, they don't interfere with WoTC's business. It's profitable enough for them not to feel the need to step in.

[Callie Del Noire]

One thing I will freely slam 4e for is the abandoning of settings.  The 'One Setting Per Year' was the worst way to go about it.  Say what you will about the supplement treadmill (and I do agree ther IS a reachable limit) but one or two books per setting, and then dropping it?  Stupid.

Callie, do you play any MMO games?  I ask because you seem to have the wrong idea on how they work.  4e may not be the game for you (and I respect that) but...  Honestly, 3e is more in line with an MMO, in how it works.  In fact it's too much like WoW for me to get back into.   Still, in hopes of stopping this edition war, I admit to some intrigue as to what Wizards plans to do with fifth.

And according to some sources inside Hasbro, they don't interfere with WoTC's business. It's profitable enough for them not to feel the need to step in.

Let's see.. I got into betas for UO, EQ, I've played Star Wars (current and the old one), I've played WoW since the third month it was out (I have 7 level 85s on my favorite server), I've played City of Heroes and a few others as well that I can't recall. So yes, I play MMOs.

[AndyZ]

Been reading this lately.  I've personally enjoyed 4e nearly since its inception, and am willing to give a list of pros and cons as I see them.

Roleplaying

4e generally follows the pattern, in my experience, that you're going to shift between using the system for combat, and not using the system during roleplaying.  Effectively, there are very few aids listed to help you play your character outside of a combat situation.

That's rather fine with me.  I'm used to freeforming, and I don't need to see an Alignment on my sheet to tell me how to play.  If anything, being placed in a rigid box feels a little constraining, because maybe I'm mostly a good and upstanding citizen, but I'll happily slit the throats of kobolds in their sleep because of what kobolds did to my mother.  Systems do not do a good job of equating the entire human condition.

If someone can't use the system for proper roleplaying, then maybe they just can't handle playing without a system.

Minor bits

I much prefer picking out a few skills where you're especially good as opposed to having to toss around points every level.  Being able to actually roll your fireball instead of having the DM roll to save is also more fun.

Not so much a fan of rituals.  I don't like paying for Tenser's Floating Disk; I'd rather see more options for wizards using utility-type spells.  However, it also means that you can get someone raised even if no one is playing a healer, which is nice.

Encounter Powers

I love having at-will, encounter and daily powers.  Fighters are more interesting than "I have feats and I swing my sword all day," and Wizards are more interesting than "I do a few awesome things every day and spend the rest of the time hitting things with my staff."  We used to joke in lower levels of 3e games that various classes should just sit in the back and play cards until they have enough experience to actually be useful, which was around the time that fighters and the like got to the point where they were jealous that other classes had actual options in their choices during a round.

Healing

In 4e, everyone completely heals up over the course of the night, rather than getting back just a few HP every day.  Some people hate this, but I love it, because otherwise your choices are to force someone to play a healer, or to camp out for weeks and weeks healing up between each battle.

I get that people want some degree of realism, but I'm playing an elf who can shoot fire out of his hands.  Then again, I'm the type who doesn't want to have to keep track of encumbrance or food, because it feels like meaningless bookkeeping.

Square fireballs

Many people don't like that an area attack takes up a 3x3 space instead of taking up a round area.  However, it's important to remember that you're using a square grid.  Figuring out a square takes about two seconds, as opposed to slowing everything down as someone got some measuring tape to try to make things almost-not-quite circular.



The first time I started playing 4e, a lot of the changes bothered me until I realized why many of them were put into place.

For the record, though, I hate Essentials.  They've attempted to just slide it into the normal 4e game, and that just doesn't work well for balance.  If you let classes freely mix and match Essentials powers, then the classes which don't have such options will be left behind.

However, I realize that different people like different things.  I'm just curious how many have actually played 4e for more than half a session before passing judgment.

I'm also severely glad that WotC gave this much advance notice.  Ever bought heavily into a system and then had them announce a few months later that it's being shifted out?  I have.  It's painful.

[Chris Brady]

By the by, I'm thinking that 5e is waaaaaay off in the distance, like at least two more years away.  What I'm getting with this announcement, and the subsequent ones so far, is that they want to try a few ideas.  And the call for playtesters is to try them out.  If this is anything like the 3e playtests, we're in for a long wait for the new edition war.

I just hope it's not going to be like Paizo's 'playtest', which wasn't.

[TheGlyphstone]

By the by, I'm thinking that 5e is waaaaaay off in the distance, like at least two more years away.  What I'm getting with this announcement, and the subsequent ones so far, is that they want to try a few ideas.  And the call for playtesters is to try them out.  If this is anything like the 3e playtests, we're in for a long wait for the new edition war.

I just hope it's not going to be like Paizo's 'playtest', which wasn't.

A long wait? Look at this thread alone, the edition war has already started.

[MasterMischief]

It never ended.

[Callie Del Noire]

It never ended.

It NEVER ends.

The only game I have yet to see support of a newer version for is the new Cyperpunk RPG. No one apparently likes it.

[Avis habilis]

By the by, I'm thinking that 5e is waaaaaay off in the distance, like at least two more years away. 

They said something about D&D Experience moving to GenCon in 2013, so I'm thinking that's when they'll be turning it loose. A year & a half of testing to get ready doesn't sound like quite enough, but maybe they've got a longer head start on this than I thought.

The only game I have yet to see support of a newer version for is the new Cyperpunk RPG. No one apparently likes it.

That was such a clear catastrophe it couldn't be defended.

[Callie Del Noire]

That was such a clear catastrophe it couldn't be defended.

Yet R Talsorian still puts out new books for it. Someone must be buying it.

[Chris Brady]

I said new Edition War, we still have the old ones, of course.  As for CPv3, can we please stop mention that paper base disaster?

[Avis habilis]

The Dungeon Bastard has the right idea.

Dungeon Bastard - Edition Wars

[MasterMischief]

No, your prom date was ugly.   

[Ironwolf85]

Yet R Talsorian still puts out new books for it. Someone must be buying it.

*raises hand* Yo.... played it recently... needs some tweaks but we made it work. shame they don't print the main book anymore, just additions.

also I'm an avid pahtfinder fan, i started with 3.5 and never understood it, I started my gaming group myself with flyers around the collage dispite not knowing how to play. My players shoved a 3.5 monster manuel and DM guide into my hands and said "you posted fliers you're DM... go!" I nearly killed them with a bodak at level 1 because it looked cool.
when the new game shop opened up and my game-club dissolved at the end of the year, i got into 4e which was the first system that I understood and ran.
side note, the guy who introdouced 4e by playing the game hindered and crippled my fighter constantly and used him as a punching bag so bad he made me, being the new player, cry. never played with him again.
i ran a 4e game for about one and a half years, it was quick it was fun, and because I wan't coming off 3.5 let alone 2.0 I got along with it pretty well, even if it was more "kick in the door and stab things" bought the books, and got sick of buying books, so I started creating my own stuff.
thing was none of the old vets wanted to play 4e, the most damning argument was lack of customization, the constant need to buy new books (I can't afford $30 a month I have bills) and it was too "videogamey" course I'm a videogamer and I understood, it wasn't just technical, the feeling was more in pacing.

when Pathfinder came out I understood what they meant, I've been playing Pathfinder ever since, and have not been dissapointed.
CMD VS CMB did a lot of good for me persionally.
in 4e it would have been hard for my Gnoll Cleric of Isodome to figure out how to climb aboard (acrobatics) a moving dragon, kill the blackguard riding it not by fighting him mono-e mono but with a spell that stunned him, then grabbing, tripping, and throwing him. letting gravity do the damage to his high level ass instead. when the dragon tried to shak me off, (yay check) i folded up it's wings using the steering harness (handle animal applied to figuring out the harness even if the black dragon was intelligent.) and sent it crashing into a mountian side, took a lot of damage (failed Ref save to bail at the last second to a nearby ledge), but thankfully the dragon cushoned the impact, and lacking featherfall, I used a high level heal and Bears endurence on the way down to give me enough HP to (barely) survive terminal velocity impact with pavement.

I loved pathfinder ever since.
4e kinda said, your imagination must stay within our bounderies... not just through playstyle, but through ruthlessly hunting all prior 3.5 and 3.0 materal.
Pathfinder was more like "here's some rules and pre-made stuff if you want it, have fun"

[TheGlyphstone]

Frankly, if you understood Pathfinder, you would have understood 3.5 with the same quantity of experience. The mechanical baseline was 90% the same, just changing a lot of the numbers. Where Pathfinder worked was clearing away the vast system bloat 3.x had accumulated, purging the nine billion optional rules, variant rulesets and magic systems, and working on making core interesting rather than bland oatmeal that you added the flavor of splatbooks to.

[Ironwolf85]

now that I play pathfinder I do understand 3.5 better, and sometimes incorprate some of it's stuff into pathfinder because the systems are simmilar.
for 3.5 I was literally handed four thick books and told "you get to be DM..." I was sort of kicked from the nest and told to fly. I didn't get the hang of it till pathfinder.

[TheGlyphstone]

now that I play pathfinder I do understand 3.5 better, and sometimes incorprate some of it's stuff into pathfinder because the systems are simmilar.
for 3.5 I was literally handed four thick books and told "you get to be DM..." I was sort of kicked from the nest and told to fly. I didn't get the hang of it till pathfinder.

Yeah, that was a mistake on their part.

At least you didn't get handed the entire 20+ book 3.5 line.