Joshua Ohmer's page

Oh I can't stand WoD, and know lots of other people who feel the same.

The mechanics are nonsensical and useless -- all flavor and no crunch (caveat: I have no idea what the mechanics are like these days, or how much they've changed from their first incarnation). Plus, everybody I knew (back when I actually played it) who played V:tM were all the annoying, angsty Rice vampire wannabes. Who wants to spend time with that. So over the "being a vampire would be cool" thing.

Also, while I love Shadowrun, and have played since the beginning, I have always had a hate on for the rules (at least until SR4, which solves pretty much all the problems I've ever had with the system).

Oh, you are going to LOVE the irony, then, that the Shadowrun people and the White Wolf people admit that White Wolf allowed them to pillage the new WoD rules (which aren't SOOO different from the old ones) to create the Shadowrun 4e rules. They're pretty much the same engine with d6es in place of d10s.

Wow, she really does!
I guess Orcus might be killing kittens because of that tract.

I've seen an old copy of Dark Dungeon, but I didn't know Chick was still printing it. I heard somewhere that the artist was a gamer and normally did freelance fantasy illustrations (might have been for TSR). Anyway, they were paying, and he needed the the income, so he drew it because he thought the script was so goofy no one could possibly take it seriously.

Wish I could remember which artist that was--he had the good sense to refuse to sign the artwork!

I'm among the not-thrilled-about-4e camp, but I actually have to give WotC kudos on the way they are handling it. It feels too soon for a completely new edition, but there are two reasons I'm holding out judgment. One is that 3-3.5 was such a large improvement over 2e rules, imo, and therefore 4e might have some revelations to offer.

The second reason is that WotC has pretty much covered their bases at this point. Their strategy for D&D has been to produce the central rules for the game, allowing other publishers, under the OGL, to explore the infinite array of possible variations out there. Wizards has completed their mission. They have covered the four basic character archetypes--some of them many times over--they have given us guides to major types of terrain and settings, they've produced two full campaign settings, and given us books about alignments and the Planes. At this point, if they want to avoid the slow decline in sales, quality, and relevance that TSR experienced with their product line, they need to move on to new territory. TSR showed that adventure modules were not terribly profitable, so WotC has mostly avoided that arena. The only thing left to do is reboot.

While I plan to continue using my sizable 3-3.5 library (48 books from WotC, 138 from other OGL publishers), I will be curious to see what 4e has to offer. Maybe I'll be able to use some 4e material as 3.5 house rules. The forthcoming Rules Compendium seems like a very good idea. It's sort of a parting gift to those of us loyal to 3.5. It's rare in a game system to see the rules set become "complete", such that they can be compiled from many sources and republished, and it's nice of Wizards to do so.