I mean, I could see a book of that size if you are creating a compendium of the base rules + several splat books. Red Brick did a similar thing with Earthdawn Classic, compiling all of the extra stuff in all the splatbooks into a handy GM's guide and Players guide. They are humongous, but they have literally everything you need, rules-wise, without owning 10 books (they even did an index, too!).
But just for a base "learn how to play" book? Umm...
I mean, I could see a book of that size if you are creating a compendium of the base rules + several splat books. Red Brick did a similar thing with Earthdawn Classic, compiling all of the extra stuff in all the splatbooks into a handy GM's guide and Players guide. They are humongous, but they have literally everything you need, rules-wise, without owning 10 books (they even did an index, too!).
But just for a base "learn how to play" book? Umm...
Technically it's the core rules + one splat.
Of course you couldn't actually use the core rules without that splat, so...
They just announced they're adding another, uh, 40 pages worth of mechanics due to Kickstarter fulfillment.
That's the new thread title. I can't believe how thick that book is. It's like they purposely made it that thick because they really don't want to ever make another game and what nerd is going to read all those rules.
It's kind of interesting to think about the evolution of RPGs. Like at some point game makers reached peak crunch and just had to admit that they could never truly simulate a fantasy world accurately with dice.
I was super into 4th edition while I played it but now I really question whether I could go back to it after playing the more "agile' 13th Age. And now I have my eyes set on even more flexible indie systems...
Who would seriously have the time or inclination to read and learn THAT thing. It's kind of nuts!
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
It's funny, because I keep seeing Eclipse Phase on my shelf, and I've been meaning to read it, but it's rather intimidating.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
It's kind of interesting to think about the evolution of RPGs. Like at some point game makers reached peak crunch and just had to admit that they could never truly simulate a fantasy world accurately with dice.
I was super into 4th edition while I played it but now I really question whether I could go back to it after playing the more "agile' 13th Age. And now I have my eyes set on even more flexible indie systems...
Who would seriously have the time or inclination to read and learn THAT thing. It's kind of nuts!
There are probably a 100 or so people who have read it through. As an adult, I look at that and go "yeah I don't need 400 pages of charms taking up space in my brain."
It's kind of interesting to think about the evolution of RPGs. Like at some point game makers reached peak crunch and just had to admit that they could never truly simulate a fantasy world accurately with dice.
I actually want to come back around to this. I think I could write a fully-realized RPG with a setting and core mechanics to resolve conflict in less than 25 pages.
The narrative/granular crunch continuum has been at the heart of a struggle for the soul of the hobby for a while now. As opportunities for people to make money doing this vanish -- and no offense to our handful of professional game designers intended but that's been a good thing -- we've seen a lot of the best ideas in gaming mechanics begin to codify. Where I can see two games that have wildly divergent intentions but share similar mechanical design, present information in the same order (this is key and, incidentally, one of Onyx Path's biggest crimes), and commonality in phrases.
This happened in computer RPGs, too, and a lot faster there because such shortcuts quickly became useful shorthand for programming for desired outcomes.
I find that the more you attempt to constrain my ability to interact with the world, the less likely I am to be interested in your bullshit. But by the same token, the more facades you present to the same endgame, the less likely I am to be interested in your bullshit.
There are practical considerations, too. Shadowrun drives me nuts because not only do I have a guaranteed party split, but I have the progress of one group hinging upon the outcome of another's and the worst thing that can happen is one gets held up while the other is trying to get through the system ICE. This is one of those things that no mechanical improvement is ever actually going to resolve and people get viscerally angry when I point that out; but some games are flawed. Actually, all games are flawed, but some are notably worse than others.
Some of you probably noted I specified granular crunch and didn't just say crunch. That's because crunch itself isn't inherently opposed to narrativist games. It's only when you seek granularity that exceeds the level of fidelity you actually need to realize your setting (or build a toolbox with 60 sockets when 12 will do) that it becomes problematic.
Which isn't to say bad games can't have good ideas. Exalted 3 stole pretty liberally from other games (which is generally a good thing); it included a lot of Fate-esque touches. But it failed to dismiss the granular crunch of the last editions in favor of something lighter that would really emphasize the supposed focus of the product: the setting. More to the point, they opted to add 400+ pages of intensely granular natural language everything in the description is true granular crunch.
Which might have a thriving market. But probably not for long.
It's kind of interesting to think about the evolution of RPGs. Like at some point game makers reached peak crunch and just had to admit that they could never truly simulate a fantasy world accurately with dice.
I was super into 4th edition while I played it but now I really question whether I could go back to it after playing the more "agile' 13th Age. And now I have my eyes set on even more flexible indie systems...
Who would seriously have the time or inclination to read and learn THAT thing. It's kind of nuts!
Oh man, if you think 4e is crunchy have I got games for you.
4e is the gamist branch of game designs. Lots of things in 4e are the way they are because it makes the gameplay interesting. Where you find your true "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME" levels of crunch are simulationist games where things have to be "realistic".
Though 4e is really not that bad in design, it's issues (for me) come up in play with the large variety of modifiers and conditions and tracking of those. Which could be completely solved with a good companion app to track those things...
I'm still waiting for the first game to really pull that off. Take all the annoying tracking that gives good game play options but are annoying for petty human brains to keep up on and offload it to a computer so play is nice and simple and smooth.
It's kind of interesting to think about the evolution of RPGs. Like at some point game makers reached peak crunch and just had to admit that they could never truly simulate a fantasy world accurately with dice.
I was super into 4th edition while I played it but now I really question whether I could go back to it after playing the more "agile' 13th Age. And now I have my eyes set on even more flexible indie systems...
Who would seriously have the time or inclination to read and learn THAT thing. It's kind of nuts!
Oh man, if you think 4e is crunchy have I got games for you.
4e is the gamist branch of game designs. Lots of things in 4e are the way they are because it makes the gameplay interesting. Where you find your true "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME" levels of crunch are simulationist games where things have to be "realistic".
Though 4e is really not that bad in design, it's issues (for me) come up in play with the large variety of modifiers and conditions and tracking of those. Which could be completely solved with a good companion app to track those things...
I'm still waiting for the first game to really pull that off. Take all the annoying tracking that gives good game play options but are annoying for petty human brains to keep up on and offload it to a computer so play is nice and simple and smooth.
4E was definitely a math-person's game. I had groups where it didn't work at all and groups where it did. And when it did, it was glorious. Of course, not every party can be composed solely of people with STEM degrees.
4E is, without a doubt, my favorite iteration of the D&D line, but I definitely understand that it's not for everyone. I'd liken it to a high end sports car; not everyone needs or wants one, and most people won't really know what to do with it, but by Bahamut if that's what you're down for right now it's amazing.
It's kind of interesting to think about the evolution of RPGs. Like at some point game makers reached peak crunch and just had to admit that they could never truly simulate a fantasy world accurately with dice.
I was super into 4th edition while I played it but now I really question whether I could go back to it after playing the more "agile' 13th Age. And now I have my eyes set on even more flexible indie systems...
Who would seriously have the time or inclination to read and learn THAT thing. It's kind of nuts!
Oh man, if you think 4e is crunchy have I got games for you.
4e is the gamist branch of game designs. Lots of things in 4e are the way they are because it makes the gameplay interesting. Where you find your true "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME" levels of crunch are simulationist games where things have to be "realistic".
Though 4e is really not that bad in design, it's issues (for me) come up in play with the large variety of modifiers and conditions and tracking of those. Which could be completely solved with a good companion app to track those things...
I'm still waiting for the first game to really pull that off. Take all the annoying tracking that gives good game play options but are annoying for petty human brains to keep up on and offload it to a computer so play is nice and simple and smooth.
4E was definitely a math-person's game. I had groups where it didn't work at all and groups where it did. And when it did, it was glorious. Of course, not every party can be composed solely of people with STEM degrees.
4E is, without a doubt, my favorite iteration of the D&D line, but I definitely understand that it's not for everyone. I'd liken it to a high end sports car; not everyone needs or wants one, and most people won't really know what to do with it, but by Bahamut if that's what you're down for right now it's amazing.
I find this amusing because my group had the exact opposite problem. Mechanically, there was almost nothing to it. Every class felt the same. The wizard played the same as the fighter who played the same as the rogue. They all had their 2d6+x with stun attack, their 1d8+x daze attack, their 2d6+4 aoe attack, etc.
To us, 4th ed wasn't a sports car. It was a dozen sedans painted different colors. Yawn.
See, that was never my experience. At all. Classes were structured similarly, for reasons of balance and ease of adoption, but the things they could do varied wildly. Much more so than any comparison of non-casters in any other edition of the game. Even within single classes, the structure of the power system meant that picking different options produced very different play-styles, though with a common theme across a class.
Honestly Aspect it really feels like a complaint from reading the rules than playing the rules. There was some bleed over between classes but that was because casters were no longer the ones that got all the stuff beyond "Stick sharp thing in bad guy, roll a die of damage".
It's kind of interesting to think about the evolution of RPGs. Like at some point game makers reached peak crunch and just had to admit that they could never truly simulate a fantasy world accurately with dice.
I was super into 4th edition while I played it but now I really question whether I could go back to it after playing the more "agile' 13th Age. And now I have my eyes set on even more flexible indie systems...
Who would seriously have the time or inclination to read and learn THAT thing. It's kind of nuts!
Oh man, if you think 4e is crunchy have I got games for you.
4e is the gamist branch of game designs. Lots of things in 4e are the way they are because it makes the gameplay interesting. Where you find your true "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME" levels of crunch are simulationist games where things have to be "realistic".
Though 4e is really not that bad in design, it's issues (for me) come up in play with the large variety of modifiers and conditions and tracking of those. Which could be completely solved with a good companion app to track those things...
I'm still waiting for the first game to really pull that off. Take all the annoying tracking that gives good game play options but are annoying for petty human brains to keep up on and offload it to a computer so play is nice and simple and smooth.
4E was definitely a math-person's game. I had groups where it didn't work at all and groups where it did. And when it did, it was glorious. Of course, not every party can be composed solely of people with STEM degrees.
4E is, without a doubt, my favorite iteration of the D&D line, but I definitely understand that it's not for everyone. I'd liken it to a high end sports car; not everyone needs or wants one, and most people won't really know what to do with it, but by Bahamut if that's what you're down for right now it's amazing.
I get what you're saying here but I don't think "Math" is the right term for it. In play, 3e had far far more math between polymorphing, the AC/Attack/Stat boosting via spells and the infamous Power Attack. In 4e the goal was to flatten all that shit down to where people had hit rates within a few % of each other by design.
There is a separate component, that I name the "tactical" layer, where all the things like conditions and EONT boosts and all that reside. I don't know if it's fair to not call that math but it doesn't fall there for me. I do admit that it is the sort of thing your typical STEM-er will be all about though. Edit: ...and while I enjoy this layer and think it's fun it is definitely a headache and the most difficult part of actually running a 4e game.
Honestly Aspect it really feels like a complaint from reading the rules than playing the rules. There was some bleed over between classes but that was because casters were no longer the ones that got all the stuff beyond "Stick sharp thing in bad guy, roll a die of damage".
It's kind of interesting to think about the evolution of RPGs. Like at some point game makers reached peak crunch and just had to admit that they could never truly simulate a fantasy world accurately with dice.
I was super into 4th edition while I played it but now I really question whether I could go back to it after playing the more "agile' 13th Age. And now I have my eyes set on even more flexible indie systems...
Who would seriously have the time or inclination to read and learn THAT thing. It's kind of nuts!
Oh man, if you think 4e is crunchy have I got games for you.
4e is the gamist branch of game designs. Lots of things in 4e are the way they are because it makes the gameplay interesting. Where you find your true "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME" levels of crunch are simulationist games where things have to be "realistic".
Though 4e is really not that bad in design, it's issues (for me) come up in play with the large variety of modifiers and conditions and tracking of those. Which could be completely solved with a good companion app to track those things...
I'm still waiting for the first game to really pull that off. Take all the annoying tracking that gives good game play options but are annoying for petty human brains to keep up on and offload it to a computer so play is nice and simple and smooth.
4E was definitely a math-person's game. I had groups where it didn't work at all and groups where it did. And when it did, it was glorious. Of course, not every party can be composed solely of people with STEM degrees.
4E is, without a doubt, my favorite iteration of the D&D line, but I definitely understand that it's not for everyone. I'd liken it to a high end sports car; not everyone needs or wants one, and most people won't really know what to do with it, but by Bahamut if that's what you're down for right now it's amazing.
I get what you're saying here but I don't think "Math" is the right term for it. In play, 3e had far far more math between polymorphing, the AC/Attack/Stat boosting via spells and the infamous Power Attack. In 4e the goal was to flatten all that shit down to where people had hit rates within a few % of each other by design.
There is a separate component, that I name the "tactical" layer, where all the things like conditions and EONT boosts and all that reside. I don't know if it's fair to not call that math but it doesn't fall there for me. I do admit that it is the sort of thing your typical STEM-er will be all about though. Edit: ...and while I enjoy this layer and think it's fun it is definitely a headache and the most difficult part of actually running a 4e game.
One group I played with, that was populated with programming types, wrote an initiative tracker that also tracked statuses, durations and such. It was pretty swank. For my less technically inclined group, I bought some really cheap plastic poker chips at the dollar store that were meant for kids and they fit perfectly around the bases of our miniatures. So we just color coded them with markers and stripes to represent conditions and effects.
There were definitely technical challenges to running 4E games, especially if you were deep into the combat system. But for some players it was just so satisfying. My wife tried playing 3rd, hated it, and then when 4E came out she became as big a D&D nerd as I was. That turn-to-turn decisionmaking and leveraging your abilities to maximum effect really resonated with her. And I personally loved playing Fighters in 4E. After so long in the wilderness, it felt really good to actually be a badass.
I thought I was going to hate 4th Ed D&D when it was announced. Had a couple really fun campaigns with it though. Every edition has its good and bad things.
Also I love you people, but half the conversation in the thread right now is about if Ardent can shoot you through a book. That's strange even for us.
Hey, I'm going to be Gming an Edge of the Empire game, all of us are new to the system. Any tips?
Don't let the funny dice scare the players. I made cheat sheets on what they could spend advantages on. That helped for the first few sessions.
When making characters players probably want to invest heavily in attributes since raising them post character creation is very costly/difficult.
Have fun. If you have an specific questions I'm sure the people here can help.
It's not a real RPG rulebook unless it can tank small arms fire.
I can assure you that I could shoot you through even that monstrosity.
Then clearly more stretch goals are in order.
There's a metal-binding backer award that I'm still pretty sure I could shoot you through.
I mean, we're talking small arms here. There's a good chance it'd stop a shot from a .22 with regular ammo. Give me a big enough gun or enough shots and sure, I could shoot through that book too!
I think the answer is for you to back the project, get one of the books, and take it to a shooting range and then post results.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Someone posited that the reason Morke insisted on natural language and 600+ pages is because he gets paid per word.
I was like "But Rich..." and then I was like "But Rich..!" and finally I was like "But Rich."
It is really common to be paid by words, but who the fuck edited this to allow that?
Nobody, is kind of the thing. SLS just basically admitted in the OP forums that his job was much more proofreader than editor. The editing was supposed to be done by the dev.
Who happens to be Holden, who is one of the primary writers. And we all know when you let the writer be the editor of the book.
I find this amusing because my group had the exact opposite problem. Mechanically, there was almost nothing to it. Every class felt the same. The wizard played the same as the fighter who played the same as the rogue. They all had their 2d6+x with stun attack, their 1d8+x daze attack, their 2d6+4 aoe attack, etc.
To us, 4th ed wasn't a sports car. It was a dozen sedans painted different colors. Yawn.
To me this critique is flatly bizarre, and (not to attack) it feels like the type of complaint I'd hear from someone looking through the PHB and/or building characters, but not actually playing. I've played a few different characters in 4e and I don't think I've ever had them feel samey at all. To the point of even playing 3 different Str/Wis builds (Warlord, Paladin, Cleric) that all felt wildly different, even though you could argue those should feel very similar, they really didn't at all.
It's just very weird because I hear this problem a lot but have never actually encountered it. And I've played with people who wound up not liking 4e, and preferring other games (some 3.x, some Pathfinder), but I've never had anybody that I've actually played with that felt like any two class/builds were overly samey.
I find this amusing because my group had the exact opposite problem. Mechanically, there was almost nothing to it. Every class felt the same. The wizard played the same as the fighter who played the same as the rogue. They all had their 2d6+x with stun attack, their 1d8+x daze attack, their 2d6+4 aoe attack, etc.
To us, 4th ed wasn't a sports car. It was a dozen sedans painted different colors. Yawn.
To me this critique is flatly bizarre, and (not to attack) it feels like the type of complaint I'd hear from someone looking through the PHB and/or building characters, but not actually playing. I've played a few different characters in 4e and I don't think I've ever had them feel samey at all. To the point of even playing 3 different Str/Wis builds (Warlord, Paladin, Cleric) that all felt wildly different, even though you could argue those should feel very similar, they really didn't at all.
It's just very weird because I hear this problem a lot but have never actually encountered it. And I've played with people who wound up not liking 4e, and preferring other games (some 3.x, some Pathfinder), but I've never had anybody that I've actually played with that felt like any two class/builds were overly samey.
I played....probably three or four campaigns. Mind you, its been many years, systems, and games since then, so I don't have a huge recollection of details, but the one thing that sticks in my mind is that the one thing everyone said as they quit the campaigns was "I didn't want to play a wizard, I wanted to play an X" where X is any class that's not a wizard. As far as the few tables I played at, 4th edition turned every class into a wizard, and it sucked.
EDIT: This is why my lasting impression of 4th ed is that every class plays the same. When everyone who drops from the group has the same complaint about it, it gets ingrained into the mind that that's the/a huge problem.
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tzeentchlingDoctor of RocksOaklandRegistered Userregular
I find this amusing because my group had the exact opposite problem. Mechanically, there was almost nothing to it. Every class felt the same. The wizard played the same as the fighter who played the same as the rogue. They all had their 2d6+x with stun attack, their 1d8+x daze attack, their 2d6+4 aoe attack, etc.
To us, 4th ed wasn't a sports car. It was a dozen sedans painted different colors. Yawn.
To me this critique is flatly bizarre, and (not to attack) it feels like the type of complaint I'd hear from someone looking through the PHB and/or building characters, but not actually playing. I've played a few different characters in 4e and I don't think I've ever had them feel samey at all. To the point of even playing 3 different Str/Wis builds (Warlord, Paladin, Cleric) that all felt wildly different, even though you could argue those should feel very similar, they really didn't at all.
It's just very weird because I hear this problem a lot but have never actually encountered it. And I've played with people who wound up not liking 4e, and preferring other games (some 3.x, some Pathfinder), but I've never had anybody that I've actually played with that felt like any two class/builds were overly samey.
I played....probably three or four campaigns. Mind you, its been many years, systems, and games since then, so I don't have a huge recollection of details, but the one thing that sticks in my mind is that the one thing everyone said as they quit the campaigns was "I didn't want to play a wizard, I wanted to play an X" where X is any class that's not a wizard. As far as the few tables I played at, 4th edition turned every class into a wizard, and it sucked.
EDIT: This is why my lasting impression of 4th ed is that every class plays the same. When everyone who drops from the group has the same complaint about it, it gets ingrained into the mind that that's the/a huge problem.
I mean, if these people are used to the previous generations of "wizards get options to do whatever, everyone else gets to swing a sword" or what have you, then sure, I could see how "give everyone options to do cool stuff" could become "everybody is a wizard," because that's what it meant to be a wizard.
I will say that I never felt that way, especially since in the parties I've played in some still felt that they didn't have as much cool stuff to do (admittedly, he was playing an archer ranger, whose best option 9/10 times is Twin Strike). But having played a fighter, a monk, a druid, and an invoker in four different campaigns, none of them felt the same and all had very different approaches. But! That's not to discredit you or your friends' feelings, cause obviously it didn't work in the end. And admittedly, looking through lists of powers is very similar to looking through a spellbook to find the best options.
I find this amusing because my group had the exact opposite problem. Mechanically, there was almost nothing to it. Every class felt the same. The wizard played the same as the fighter who played the same as the rogue. They all had their 2d6+x with stun attack, their 1d8+x daze attack, their 2d6+4 aoe attack, etc.
To us, 4th ed wasn't a sports car. It was a dozen sedans painted different colors. Yawn.
To me this critique is flatly bizarre, and (not to attack) it feels like the type of complaint I'd hear from someone looking through the PHB and/or building characters, but not actually playing. I've played a few different characters in 4e and I don't think I've ever had them feel samey at all. To the point of even playing 3 different Str/Wis builds (Warlord, Paladin, Cleric) that all felt wildly different, even though you could argue those should feel very similar, they really didn't at all.
It's just very weird because I hear this problem a lot but have never actually encountered it. And I've played with people who wound up not liking 4e, and preferring other games (some 3.x, some Pathfinder), but I've never had anybody that I've actually played with that felt like any two class/builds were overly samey.
I played....probably three or four campaigns. Mind you, its been many years, systems, and games since then, so I don't have a huge recollection of details, but the one thing that sticks in my mind is that the one thing everyone said as they quit the campaigns was "I didn't want to play a wizard, I wanted to play an X" where X is any class that's not a wizard. As far as the few tables I played at, 4th edition turned every class into a wizard, and it sucked.
EDIT: This is why my lasting impression of 4th ed is that every class plays the same. When everyone who drops from the group has the same complaint about it, it gets ingrained into the mind that that's the/a huge problem.
I played 4E pretty much once a week from 2009 to 2011. First my group when from Maids to 3.5 to 4E and they loved it. 3 of the guys were also Warhammer players so it's not surprising that they loved it. My second group played it a bit but it's when I kinda grew bored of it. By this point, I'd played Rogues, Clerics, Rangers, Monks, Wizards, and a Bard and I was really getting tired of it. It was too video gamey to me, especially when I had also been playing nWoD and All Flesh Must Be Eaten and drooling over Eclipse Phase. The mechanics was "Pick Power, roll dice, calculate damage", repeat. Doesn't matter what class it was. I never got the feel that I could go outside those boxes and do cool things. Sure, I know you can, but the system really didn't make it feel like it, which was my problem. If I wanted to play "Press 1 to use Power" I could play WoW. The game felt like it had to be that way. I like 13th Age because it doesn't feel like that, even if it does pretty much the same thing, it just feels better to me.
I find this amusing because my group had the exact opposite problem. Mechanically, there was almost nothing to it. Every class felt the same. The wizard played the same as the fighter who played the same as the rogue. They all had their 2d6+x with stun attack, their 1d8+x daze attack, their 2d6+4 aoe attack, etc.
To us, 4th ed wasn't a sports car. It was a dozen sedans painted different colors. Yawn.
To me this critique is flatly bizarre, and (not to attack) it feels like the type of complaint I'd hear from someone looking through the PHB and/or building characters, but not actually playing. I've played a few different characters in 4e and I don't think I've ever had them feel samey at all. To the point of even playing 3 different Str/Wis builds (Warlord, Paladin, Cleric) that all felt wildly different, even though you could argue those should feel very similar, they really didn't at all.
It's just very weird because I hear this problem a lot but have never actually encountered it. And I've played with people who wound up not liking 4e, and preferring other games (some 3.x, some Pathfinder), but I've never had anybody that I've actually played with that felt like any two class/builds were overly samey.
I played....probably three or four campaigns. Mind you, its been many years, systems, and games since then, so I don't have a huge recollection of details, but the one thing that sticks in my mind is that the one thing everyone said as they quit the campaigns was "I didn't want to play a wizard, I wanted to play an X" where X is any class that's not a wizard. As far as the few tables I played at, 4th edition turned every class into a wizard, and it sucked.
EDIT: This is why my lasting impression of 4th ed is that every class plays the same. When everyone who drops from the group has the same complaint about it, it gets ingrained into the mind that that's the/a huge problem.
I mean, if these people are used to the previous generations of "wizards get options to do whatever, everyone else gets to swing a sword" or what have you, then sure, I could see how "give everyone options to do cool stuff" could become "everybody is a wizard," because that's what it meant to be a wizard.
I will say that I never felt that way, especially since in the parties I've played in some still felt that they didn't have as much cool stuff to do (admittedly, he was playing an archer ranger, whose best option 9/10 times is Twin Strike). But having played a fighter, a monk, a druid, and an invoker in four different campaigns, none of them felt the same and all had very different approaches. But! That's not to discredit you or your friends' feelings, cause obviously it didn't work in the end. And admittedly, looking through lists of powers is very similar to looking through a spellbook to find the best options.
Here''s the thing, though. Every character could do cool stuff in D&D 3 and D&D 3.5. All you had to do was build your character that way (I typically ended up with something like Fighter/Sorcerer/Spellsword/Dragon Disciple). In D&D, your character could be as simple or as complicated as you wanted it to be. In 4th ed, everyone was a wizard, whether they wanted to be or not.
You're still using the word "wizard" to mean "gets to do cool stuff"
Building a character to do something cool in D&D 3.X as a non-caster meant you did that one cool thing, eventually, and until you got to that eventually you kind of sucked.
Every class in 4e had several cool things to do, which varied from class to class, and they only got better at doing them as they leveled up.
No, I'm using "Wizard" for "Casts a limited number of magic spells from their spell book per day" which is what every class in 4th edition does. You can change the flavor text all you want, but every class in fourth ed is casting spells from a spell book for their actions. They're all wizards.
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But just for a base "learn how to play" book? Umm...
Of course you couldn't actually use the core rules without that splat, so...
They just announced they're adding another, uh, 40 pages worth of mechanics due to Kickstarter fulfillment.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I was super into 4th edition while I played it but now I really question whether I could go back to it after playing the more "agile' 13th Age. And now I have my eyes set on even more flexible indie systems...
Who would seriously have the time or inclination to read and learn THAT thing. It's kind of nuts!
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Steam: Korvalain
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
There are probably a 100 or so people who have read it through. As an adult, I look at that and go "yeah I don't need 400 pages of charms taking up space in my brain."
The narrative/granular crunch continuum has been at the heart of a struggle for the soul of the hobby for a while now. As opportunities for people to make money doing this vanish -- and no offense to our handful of professional game designers intended but that's been a good thing -- we've seen a lot of the best ideas in gaming mechanics begin to codify. Where I can see two games that have wildly divergent intentions but share similar mechanical design, present information in the same order (this is key and, incidentally, one of Onyx Path's biggest crimes), and commonality in phrases.
This happened in computer RPGs, too, and a lot faster there because such shortcuts quickly became useful shorthand for programming for desired outcomes.
I find that the more you attempt to constrain my ability to interact with the world, the less likely I am to be interested in your bullshit. But by the same token, the more facades you present to the same endgame, the less likely I am to be interested in your bullshit.
There are practical considerations, too. Shadowrun drives me nuts because not only do I have a guaranteed party split, but I have the progress of one group hinging upon the outcome of another's and the worst thing that can happen is one gets held up while the other is trying to get through the system ICE. This is one of those things that no mechanical improvement is ever actually going to resolve and people get viscerally angry when I point that out; but some games are flawed. Actually, all games are flawed, but some are notably worse than others.
Some of you probably noted I specified granular crunch and didn't just say crunch. That's because crunch itself isn't inherently opposed to narrativist games. It's only when you seek granularity that exceeds the level of fidelity you actually need to realize your setting (or build a toolbox with 60 sockets when 12 will do) that it becomes problematic.
Which isn't to say bad games can't have good ideas. Exalted 3 stole pretty liberally from other games (which is generally a good thing); it included a lot of Fate-esque touches. But it failed to dismiss the granular crunch of the last editions in favor of something lighter that would really emphasize the supposed focus of the product: the setting. More to the point, they opted to add 400+ pages of intensely granular natural language everything in the description is true granular crunch.
Which might have a thriving market. But probably not for long.
Oh man, if you think 4e is crunchy have I got games for you.
4e is the gamist branch of game designs. Lots of things in 4e are the way they are because it makes the gameplay interesting. Where you find your true "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME" levels of crunch are simulationist games where things have to be "realistic".
Though 4e is really not that bad in design, it's issues (for me) come up in play with the large variety of modifiers and conditions and tracking of those. Which could be completely solved with a good companion app to track those things...
I'm still waiting for the first game to really pull that off. Take all the annoying tracking that gives good game play options but are annoying for petty human brains to keep up on and offload it to a computer so play is nice and simple and smooth.
Then clearly more stretch goals are in order.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
4E was definitely a math-person's game. I had groups where it didn't work at all and groups where it did. And when it did, it was glorious. Of course, not every party can be composed solely of people with STEM degrees.
4E is, without a doubt, my favorite iteration of the D&D line, but I definitely understand that it's not for everyone. I'd liken it to a high end sports car; not everyone needs or wants one, and most people won't really know what to do with it, but by Bahamut if that's what you're down for right now it's amazing.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
This is exalted, man. Think bigger.
$100 Million: Individual animated armor suits for each physical copy, powered only by dark magics and backer rage.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I find this amusing because my group had the exact opposite problem. Mechanically, there was almost nothing to it. Every class felt the same. The wizard played the same as the fighter who played the same as the rogue. They all had their 2d6+x with stun attack, their 1d8+x daze attack, their 2d6+4 aoe attack, etc.
To us, 4th ed wasn't a sports car. It was a dozen sedans painted different colors. Yawn.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I get what you're saying here but I don't think "Math" is the right term for it. In play, 3e had far far more math between polymorphing, the AC/Attack/Stat boosting via spells and the infamous Power Attack. In 4e the goal was to flatten all that shit down to where people had hit rates within a few % of each other by design.
There is a separate component, that I name the "tactical" layer, where all the things like conditions and EONT boosts and all that reside. I don't know if it's fair to not call that math but it doesn't fall there for me. I do admit that it is the sort of thing your typical STEM-er will be all about though. Edit: ...and while I enjoy this layer and think it's fun it is definitely a headache and the most difficult part of actually running a 4e game.
Note to self: always let Ardent win.
One group I played with, that was populated with programming types, wrote an initiative tracker that also tracked statuses, durations and such. It was pretty swank. For my less technically inclined group, I bought some really cheap plastic poker chips at the dollar store that were meant for kids and they fit perfectly around the bases of our miniatures. So we just color coded them with markers and stripes to represent conditions and effects.
There were definitely technical challenges to running 4E games, especially if you were deep into the combat system. But for some players it was just so satisfying. My wife tried playing 3rd, hated it, and then when 4E came out she became as big a D&D nerd as I was. That turn-to-turn decisionmaking and leveraging your abilities to maximum effect really resonated with her. And I personally loved playing Fighters in 4E. After so long in the wilderness, it felt really good to actually be a badass.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Well mine came with a cortosis-kevlar mesh insert and reactive d10 dice armor.
Bring it.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Also I love you people, but half the conversation in the thread right now is about if Ardent can shoot you through a book. That's strange even for us.
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Thanks!
It is really common to be paid by words, but who the fuck edited this to allow that?
Someone being paid by the page edited?
I mean, we're talking small arms here. There's a good chance it'd stop a shot from a .22 with regular ammo. Give me a big enough gun or enough shots and sure, I could shoot through that book too!
I think the answer is for you to back the project, get one of the books, and take it to a shooting range and then post results.
You should be paid by the number of pages that come in, not the number that go back out.
Nobody, is kind of the thing. SLS just basically admitted in the OP forums that his job was much more proofreader than editor. The editing was supposed to be done by the dev.
Who happens to be Holden, who is one of the primary writers. And we all know when you let the writer be the editor of the book.
To me this critique is flatly bizarre, and (not to attack) it feels like the type of complaint I'd hear from someone looking through the PHB and/or building characters, but not actually playing. I've played a few different characters in 4e and I don't think I've ever had them feel samey at all. To the point of even playing 3 different Str/Wis builds (Warlord, Paladin, Cleric) that all felt wildly different, even though you could argue those should feel very similar, they really didn't at all.
It's just very weird because I hear this problem a lot but have never actually encountered it. And I've played with people who wound up not liking 4e, and preferring other games (some 3.x, some Pathfinder), but I've never had anybody that I've actually played with that felt like any two class/builds were overly samey.
I played....probably three or four campaigns. Mind you, its been many years, systems, and games since then, so I don't have a huge recollection of details, but the one thing that sticks in my mind is that the one thing everyone said as they quit the campaigns was "I didn't want to play a wizard, I wanted to play an X" where X is any class that's not a wizard. As far as the few tables I played at, 4th edition turned every class into a wizard, and it sucked.
EDIT: This is why my lasting impression of 4th ed is that every class plays the same. When everyone who drops from the group has the same complaint about it, it gets ingrained into the mind that that's the/a huge problem.
I mean, if these people are used to the previous generations of "wizards get options to do whatever, everyone else gets to swing a sword" or what have you, then sure, I could see how "give everyone options to do cool stuff" could become "everybody is a wizard," because that's what it meant to be a wizard.
I will say that I never felt that way, especially since in the parties I've played in some still felt that they didn't have as much cool stuff to do (admittedly, he was playing an archer ranger, whose best option 9/10 times is Twin Strike). But having played a fighter, a monk, a druid, and an invoker in four different campaigns, none of them felt the same and all had very different approaches. But! That's not to discredit you or your friends' feelings, cause obviously it didn't work in the end. And admittedly, looking through lists of powers is very similar to looking through a spellbook to find the best options.
I played 4E pretty much once a week from 2009 to 2011. First my group when from Maids to 3.5 to 4E and they loved it. 3 of the guys were also Warhammer players so it's not surprising that they loved it. My second group played it a bit but it's when I kinda grew bored of it. By this point, I'd played Rogues, Clerics, Rangers, Monks, Wizards, and a Bard and I was really getting tired of it. It was too video gamey to me, especially when I had also been playing nWoD and All Flesh Must Be Eaten and drooling over Eclipse Phase. The mechanics was "Pick Power, roll dice, calculate damage", repeat. Doesn't matter what class it was. I never got the feel that I could go outside those boxes and do cool things. Sure, I know you can, but the system really didn't make it feel like it, which was my problem. If I wanted to play "Press 1 to use Power" I could play WoW. The game felt like it had to be that way. I like 13th Age because it doesn't feel like that, even if it does pretty much the same thing, it just feels better to me.
Here''s the thing, though. Every character could do cool stuff in D&D 3 and D&D 3.5. All you had to do was build your character that way (I typically ended up with something like Fighter/Sorcerer/Spellsword/Dragon Disciple). In D&D, your character could be as simple or as complicated as you wanted it to be. In 4th ed, everyone was a wizard, whether they wanted to be or not.
Building a character to do something cool in D&D 3.X as a non-caster meant you did that one cool thing, eventually, and until you got to that eventually you kind of sucked.
Every class in 4e had several cool things to do, which varied from class to class, and they only got better at doing them as they leveled up.
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