James Wyatt just published an article in the Dungeon online at WotC. You can get there by pressing this button.
In it, James list the races that appear in the "Players Handbook". No mention of gnomes. I'm pissed. I always loved the gnomes. I always thought the 3.5 gnome was the coolest version yet. I guess I'll have to make my own 4e. gnome, when the core rule books come out.
Other than that I liked the article. I like the atmosphere they are going for in fourth edition. James also gives good advise on where to focus when starting a new campaign.
But damn him and his gnome exclusion fallacy. I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!
James also gives good advise on where to focus when starting a new campaign.
...so, my campaign will be focusing on gnomes. And edition 3.5.
Maybe they go fight succubi in Abyss.
However things work out for Golarion... I'm pretty sure you'll be seeing gnomes as PC races there despite whatever their fate may be in the 4th edition core books.
So, are we looking at a feud of Jacobs and Wyatt like the Hattfields and McCoys ? ^_^
Visualizes a gnome, squinting into the sunlight with a pair of Small 'Dragoon' pistols, his hands twitching over the dragon-emblemed grips, staring down an unrecognizable foe ten paces away, the town bell slowly tolling towards High Noon...
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However things work out for Golarion... I'm pretty sure you'll be seeing gnomes as PC races there despite whatever their fate may be in the 4th edition core books.
Looking at the clock
Visualizes a gnome, squinting into the sunlight with a pair of Small 'Dragoon' pistols, his hands twitching over the dragon-emblemed grips, staring down an unrecognizable foe ten paces away, the town bell slowly tolling towards High Noon...
This Shire ain't big enough for both editions...
You best be packing off with them succubi yonder and git.
I can't access the Wizards (or the Gleemax) site from work. Someone want to repost the article (maybe behind a spoiler tag)?
Contributor
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I gotta be honest. I don't actually care one way or the other about gnomes, but a fair chunk of my group have been complaining that there's no need for both gnomes and halflings as core races for years. This may actually be the first thing that makes some of them believe that 4E has some improvements they like.
Gnomes are supposed to be in the MMI with notes on how they can be used as a PC race.
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I gotta be honest. I don't actually care one way or the other about gnomes, but a fair chunk of my group have been complaining that there's no need for both gnomes and halflings as core races for years. This may actually be the first thing that makes some of them believe that 4E has some improvements they like.
I'm with the Scribe on this one. I actually dislike gnomes. Not to the point that I would be upset if they were in the 4E PHB, but their exclusion doesn't bother me at all, I actually see it as a good thing.
Another note: half-orcs are also missing from Mr. Wyatt's list of races. I am also not bothered (even pleased) by their exclusion.
Here is the article by James Wyatt.
Room to Adventure
Imagine a world shrouded in darkness -- vast stretches of wilderness untouched by the civilizing hands of humans and dwarves, dotted with crumbling ruins left by the ancient empire of the tieflings or the last great elf kingdom.
Scattered far and wide amid that darkness, like faint stars in the night sky, are the enclaves of civilization; here and there one finds a great city-state or strong barony, but mostly you encounter frontier towns or close-knit villages of farmers and artisans who cling close together for protection against the dark.
Your players' characters will start in one of those points of light.
This idea of the world as a vast sea of darkness, with only feeble, flickering points of light keeping civilization alive, is a core idea of 4th Edition D&D. It's not intended to turn every campaign into a horror game or something laden with dark angst. Instead, it gives space for adventure.
It's tempting for me to design a campaign setting as a world, or at least a continent, filling in every square mile with swamps and forests and nations divided by borders. And sure, I can look at a map like that and say monsters are in the swamp and elves in the forest, and this nation doesn't get along with that nation. That's the sort of thing I've been doing since I was in middle school, inspired by the World of Greyhawk and early Forgotten Realms products. TSR put out hefty campaign worlds -- just as Wizards of the Coast still does -- and my natural inclination was to develop my worlds in as much rich detail.
The trick is, when you work with such a large scale, all of those details are far away from the PCs.
If I were to drop the PCs down right on one of those borders where two nations are simmering at the edge of all-out war, there'd be room for adventure there. That could be a pretty cool campaign. Maybe a city is right on the border. Maybe its people don't really consider themselves members of either nation, and they resent being fought over, but there are also plenty of immigrants from both nations living within its walls. That could be a lot of fun.
But that only works because I've switched from the big map to a very small spot on it. Once I start running that campaign, the forest with the elves and the swamp with the monsters don't matter, at least not until the campaign grows and expands to include them. In the short term, I'm better off putting time into fleshing out the city on the border and the adventure possibilities there, rather than putting another thought into what lies half a continent away.
When you start with the small view, you're creating space for adventure even on that micro level. It's not just about the monsters that live in the swamp a hundred miles distant, it's about the dangers that threaten you where you live. In 4th Edition, the danger is large and the safe zones are small. Adventure is never far away.
Start Small!
Side Note: Greenbrier is a name that popped into my head maybe a year ago, and I jotted it down. Now I finally have a chance to use it! That's a useful habit to get into: When a cool idea comes to mind, write it down someplace where you'll be able to find it when it matters.
Greenbrier is one of those tiny points of light amid the surrounding darkness, but it's more like a flickering candle than a burning beacon. As the darkness grows, the little village draws people from the surrounding area to its sheltering walls, offering what little promise of safety might come from numbers and the fragile wooden palisades surrounding the center of town.
The starting place of your campaign might be the place the characters grew up. It might be a city that has attracted them from all the surrounding countryside. Or it might be the evil baron's castle where each of them, hailing from across the barony, is locked up in the dungeon at the start of the campaign, throwing them right into the midst of the adventure. Whatever you choose, the key thing is that it provides a common starting location for the characters -- a place they have all gathered, met, and decided to put their lives in each other's hands.
For my campaign, I want the players to have the sense that they've known each other for a long time and have some past connections. For that reason, I'm going with the first option: the place all the characters grew up. I'll call it the village of Greenbrier.
Space for Races
Besides creating room for adventure, the notion of points of light gives me an excuse to bring a bunch of different races together in what might otherwise be a stereotypical human farming village. As a starting point, I'm going to flip through the races chapter of the Player's Handbook so that, no matter what race a player chooses for his character, there will be some story ideas in his background.
The populace is mostly human. The Player's Handbook suggests that the last powerful empire before the fall of the present darkness was a human one, and I have no reason yet to change that. I'll make a lot of settlements human-dominated, though none of them will be human-only. The humans of Greenbrier are mostly farmers, which means that the lands of the village spread far out from the palisades. So some residents of the village don't have the protection of the walls -- those farms are vulnerable to attack. That's useful for providing adventure hooks.
I don't want to stick elves off in some distant forest. Let's say there was such a forest where the elves lived, but some enemy burned the forest down several years ago -- long enough ago to explain any half-elves in town. The elves moved into the smaller, tame forests closer to Greenbrier, and their camps and roving bands are as much a part of the village as the scattered farmsteads. I don't know yet who burned the forest down. I'll come back to that.
Eladrins are a new race in the Player's Handbook. They're akin to the elves, but they more often make their homes in the Feywild. I'm not positive what I want to do with them yet. My placeholder idea is that the forest where the elves lived was a "thin place" where passage between the world and the Feywild was easy, and an eladrin town stood near the elven community. The Feywild is unharmed, but some of the eladrins lived among the elves and have relocated with the elves.
Hmmm... I'm not sure I like that. Maybe the Feywild isn't unharmed. I could say that whatever enemy burned the forest also invaded the Feywild and drove the eladrins out. Or maybe that enemy came from the Feywild, driving the eladrins into the world before them. I'll come back to that when I'm ready to give more thought to the nature of this enemy. Some dwarf merchants and artisans are settled in the village, and others come through in caravans from time to time. Dwarf caravans link Greenbrier to the big city and a few other nearby towns. Caravans on the roads are another easy target for bandits and monsters -- more adventure hooks!
A group of halflings, like the elves, has moved in close to Greenbrier in response to danger -- some threat up the river drove them to move. They live on a raft of small boats lashed together, ready to pick up and float away if danger draws too near.
I like the tiefling race presented in the new Player's Handbook, but I don't see them fitting in to Greenbrier. I think I'll tell my players not to make a tiefling right out of the gate -- as the campaign goes on, perhaps they'll have the opportunity to bring in a tiefling to replace a dead character, once they've moved into more cosmopolitan areas.
Humans, elves, eladrins, dwarves, and halflings make Greenbrier a fine melting pot. But it needs one more ingredient race-wise. What about shifters? They're my favorite race from the Eberron setting, and I want to use them in my game. They're not in the Player's Handbook, but they are in the Monster Manual, so my players could make shifter characters if they want to. I'm going to say that these shifters used to wander the plains where Greenbrier is now, and in the early days of the village there was a lot of conflict between the shifters and the humans with their expanding farms. At this point, some shifters still live in the wild, but they're evil. The ones in the village have been pretty well assimilated.
All I've done so far is to flip through the Races chapter of the Player's Handbook and think about the role I want each race to play in my new campaign. Shifters aren't in there and tieflings are, but I'm using a little creative freedom to put in a race I like and leave one out that's not working for me just now.
That simple start sparked a lot of story ideas, and I'm getting a pretty clear idea of the village in my mind. The plight of the elves emphasizes the danger of the world beyond this little point of light, but I haven't decided yet what force of evil destroyed their home.
Heart of the Village
I don't really need a map of Greenbrier -- the simple idea of a village grown up around a crossroads will do fine for now. A wooden palisade stands around the center of town, offering feeble protection against the encroaching wild.
There's a common house in the middle of town -- it serves as the classic D&D tavern, sure, but it's also where the villagers gather for meetings to handle the sorts of things a town council would handle in a larger settlement.
The temple is the other main gathering place, where people come together to celebrate and mourn the many passages of life. I'll need to give some thought to the temple and the religious life of the village.
Turning to another chapter in the Player's Handbook, I run down the list of gods. I don't get very far before Bahamut's portfolio jumps out at me: He's the god of justice, protection, and honor. These people fear the encroaching darkness, so it seems natural to me that they would pray to Bahamut for protection. I'll say that Bahamut's altar occupies center stage, as it were, in the temple.
That needn't be the end of it, though. In any polytheistic religion, people offer prayers and make sacrifices to different gods for different occasions. As the sun god, Pelor is an important god of agriculture. He'll get a shrine in one wing of the temple. In better days, he was more important than Bahamut in Greenbrier. In fact, there might still be townsfolk who resent the priests of Bahamut for usurping Pelor's place in the center of the temple.
That story has some interesting possibilities -- but I'm not sure where I'm going with it just yet. It might be a seed I plant that doesn't flower until later in the campaign -- maybe much later.
Bahamut is often closely associated with Moradin and Kord -- they say that the three gods share an Astral Dominion, called Mount Celestia. So those gods will also have shrines within the temple. That ought to be enough for now -- four important deities, with some room for stories in the relationships among their most devoted followers.
Drawing the First Circle
From the starting point of the village, I need to fill in a circle around it -- just enough to give me and my players about as much knowledge of the surrounding world as the characters and the other people in town would have. These aren't world travelers -- they know their village, the road that links it to other towns, the river the halflings came down, and the burned forest. And that's all I need to know right now.
So I sketch out a map with Greenbrier at the center. I've said it's a crossroads, so I'll give some thought to what lies down at least three roads.
The big city appears on the map as an arrow pointing north and labeled "to Silverymoon." I've stolen the name from the Forgotten Realms, and later on when the PCs find their way there, I might steal more than just the name. I like Silverymoon as a good example of a city situated in the midst of dangerous wilderness.
The southern branch of the road points "to Tower Watch." That's the next nearest town. Its name (pulled out of the air) suggests that it might have been built in or near an ancient ruin with a prominent tower, either crumbling or still standing, mysterious and unexplored.
Oh, I like that. I think my PCs will explore the tower of Tower Watch before too long.
The halflings live on a river. I don't know yet what lies upriver to the northwest (except whatever made the halflings move) or where the river flows -- presumably there's a big lake or an ocean down that way somewhere, to the southeast. That sparks an image of Lake Town from The Hobbit, which might be another cool thing to steal. So the third branch of the road runs along the river, with an arrow pointing to Lake Town.
The last touch on the map is an ancient road running off to the west, branching away from the river. The bricks laid down to mark its course in centuries past are broken and worn, choked with grass and weeds. It, too, runs off the edge of the map, with an arrow pointing "to Harrows Pass." Why? Because my son came up with that name one day and I really liked it.
And there's my campaign setting.
No, not really. But it's the start of it. It's where my players will have their first experience of 4th Edition -- their first adventures as novice characters just beginning their heroic journeys. And it hints at what lies beyond: Tower Watch, Lake Town, Harrows Pass, the burned forest, Silverymoon.
The only thing it lacks is a dungeon.
Greenbrier Chasm
The frightened little village of Greenbrier needs a dungeon -- it needs space right nearby where player characters can answer the call to become heroes. The darkness encroaches, and heroes must push it back.
So right at the edge of the burned forest (which I should probably name at some point), a chasm named after the village opens up. I imagine Greenbrier Chasm as a deep cleft in the ground, choked with the prickly weeds that gave the village its name when settlers first cleared them away to make room for their farms.
Greenbrier Chasm opened up when the forest burned. I still don't know why, but that means it's a relatively recent arrival on the scene -- the latest evidence that danger and evil are closing in on the little village.
And when Greenbrier Chasm opened up, it revealed a dungeon -- the long-buried ruins of an ancient city or stronghold. By scrambling down through the briers to the bottom of the chasm, characters can gain access to these ruins and search them for treasures. Note for future reference: There might be a deeper point in the chasm that leads into another layer of dungeon, or some event might make the chasm deeper as the campaign progresses.
This will be the dungeon where my PCs gain their first few levels, letting their characters grow and mature into budding heroes.
Next month: The dungeons of Greenbrier Chasm!
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Interesting,
Eladrin look more and more like Elven Aasimar.
Pelor's a god of agriculture? I didn't know...
I'm guessing Tiamat gets fair billing as an evil deity now.
Hmm, Shifters in the MM 1? I doubt everything in MM1 is going to be OGL, but I can hold out hope for Changelings and Shifters now.
Hmm, James can't find a starting place for Tieflings. Tieflings = the new gnome ;-)
However things work out for Golarion... I'm pretty sure you'll be seeing gnomes as PC races there despite whatever their fate may be in the 4th edition core books.
Suppose the PHB I does not in fact have gnomes as a PC race (which seems likely). Golarion has them already, so you decide to keep them around, following the notes in the MM I on using them as PCs. Here's the big question: how easily will the MM I allow you to turn a "monster" into a playable PC race? If it's a very simple thing, you're golden. If it's not, then there's the potential that, later on, when the official gnome PC stats come out in PHB II or III or whatever, Golarion's gnomes will be mechanically different than 4E's gnomes. I'm guessing you don't see this as problematic, but I'm still curious as to your take on it.
(Truth be told, I have no idea how hard it'll be to turn the MM I's write-up of gnomes into a playable PC race. We've heard that monsters are no longer built the same way as PCs, so I'd expect conversion would be more an art than a science. On the other hand, WotC must know that people will want to play gnomes so maybe that entry will be written with this in mind.)
I thought the idea was to use real world mythology for gods, not strip them from Greyhawk. If Greyhawk isn't core anymore, stop using it's stuff.
This is something we need to accept: in WotC's mind, none of this is Greyhawk's stuff anymore. Now it's just D&D IP, which 4E's designers will use to their hearts' content to add "fluff" when they deem it necessary. We already know that Tharizdun has been swiped and is a major part of the core cosmology and I believe Vecna is too, along with many other formerly Greyhawk specific elements.
I don't like it either, for both historical and esthetic reasons, but there's no stopping it. Greyhawk is dead and WotC is looting its corpse for shiny objects to make 4E sparkle.
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Um - it doesn't actually say anywhere in the article "gnomes are no longer a player race in D&D". And if the example of the shifters is anything to go by, they will probably be in the MM. Is this really much of a crisis? The "Kremlinology" re 4E, trying to dissect every utterance to find fault and significance might be going a little too far. Unless someone can point me at something more definitive, I think this might be just be speculation at this point. Possibly or even probably true, but <shrug>-worthy at this stage.
No mention of half-orcs, either. I'd rather have them and gnomes than another flavor of elf, but I guess that's why I'm not a game designer.
It's a decent article, though. I just hope that Iggwilv's Legacy and Hell's Heart get put up there in full before the end of the month. Yeah, this Dungeoncraft stuff is nice if you haven't read it somewhere else or if you want to comb through for 4th edition but Dungeon is for adventures and it's more than halfway through the month of October with only a third of an adventure up.
I predict that within a day of the PHB being released, the fans will come up with replacements for gnomes, half-orcs and every other race that gets excluded in the new PHB, so I'm not all that worried. I much more interested in the streamlined new mechanics and finally (Hooray! Huzzah!) an alternative to the Vancian spellcasting system. Who knows, it could set off a new wave of third party D&D publishing - another D20 gold rush. "Ye Olde Compleate Guide to Gnomes" anyone?
Here's the big question: how easily will the MM I allow you to turn a "monster" into a playable PC race? If it's a very simple thing, you're golden.
My guess is that it will be pretty easy, as he kind o alludes to that with the shifter reference here -- also if i recall, some of their old blog posts allude to the ease as well
Decent article. I like his design methods for world building, similar to what I do but with a bit of a reverse. (His is center out, mine is larger area outline, find the center then design out.)
I found it funny that he couldn't use tieflings in his setting start. Really? No place in a traditional looking D&D town for half demons? (or is it devils)?
I've never understood peoples need to throw things away for no reason. If you don't care for gnomes that is fine, don't use them, but they SHOULD be a core race and some of us like them. I mean I'm no fan of elves, I dont hate them, I just don't really use them much, but I'd never think of doing away with them.
I found it funny that he couldn't use tieflings in his setting start. Really? No place in a traditional looking D&D town for half demons? (or is it devils)?
The way I read it, he didn't want to include them because, in his mind, his town wouldn't support them. I didn't get the impression that it was not possible, just that it was a "design" decision on his part. Whether there will be place in any "traditional" D&D town is up to the DM, I suspect.
Greg
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I found it funny that he couldn't use tieflings in his setting start. Really? No place in a traditional looking D&D town for half demons? (or is it devils)?
My question is - what kind of world are the designers envisioning where tieflings are more iconic than gnomes.
Tiefling characters may be cool. But so, upon occassion are half-dragons, aasimars, undead vampires, half-giants, kobolds, etc., etc.
I appreciate making it possible and even easy to make these sort of PCs but to make any of these iconic character races just seems... wrong.
The absence of gnomes (always a fringe race as PCs) in the PHB bothers me less than the presence of tieflings et. al.
Fast forward a couple of drafts into the future. We'd started understanding that our power-rich approach to the classes meant that we almost certainly wouldn't be launching with every class we might want to. Our understanding of the party roles indicates that the sorcerer and the wizard might very well be standing on each other's toes and pointy hats. Then, once we saw the concept art Bill O'Connor provided for tieflings, we knew that we had to commit to including tieflings as a PC race, rather than just hopeful it would work out (more on that in a future Design & Development column).
Note: bold is my added emphasis
According to Rob Heinsoo the inclusion of the Tiefling was not based on any mechanical reasons or iconic status but on the fact that they thought their picture looked cool. Maybe a future Design & Development article will clarify this decision but this gives me little reason to have any faith in them at all.
Here is the whole article for anyone who is interested:
But the warlock was in our thoughts. Coming out of Complete Arcane, the class's chief innovation had been its eldritch blast ability, which provided unlimited arcane firepower round after round after round. After some initial shock, everyone admitted that the warlock's eldritch blast didn't break the game. The class's ability to maintain relevant arcane attack power, instead of running out of finite resources like a wizard, had a great deal of influence on our early thoughts about 4th Edition. We understood that the warlock didn't have to be the exception. All of our classes might be improved by having abilities they could count on all day long.
Fast forward a couple of drafts into the future. We'd started understanding that our power-rich approach to the classes meant that we almost certainly wouldn't be launching with every class we might want to. Our understanding of the party roles indicates that the sorcerer and the wizard might very well be standing on each other's toes and pointy hats. Then, once we saw the concept art Bill O'Connor provided for tieflings, we knew that we had to commit to including tieflings as a PC race, rather than just hopeful it would work out (more on that in a future Design & Development column).
And what class would tieflings naturally gravitate to? A class that acquired scary powers by negotiating , pacts with shadowy, infenral, or feral patrons? That worked for us. But what we didn't know at the time was how dramatically the warlock class would improve as we progressed through design. Of all the classes, the warlock has made the greatest strides from its initial concept to its final execution. In truth, we've been aided by the fact that the class doesn't have a weighty existing legacy. There aren't thousands of D&D players who have a solid and well-reasoned idea of exactly what a warlock's powers should accomplish. Whenever we came up with something cool and flavorful, we felt entirely free to try it out -- instead of qualifiedly free, as we often felt with several other classes.
Tieflings begin with a backstory of splintering betrayals and stolen power. Warlocks carry on with a fundamental choice of a pact with one of three varieties of supernatural patron. I'm leaving the specific pacts out of this, but I will say that the pacts provide direct benefits when you send an enemy you've marked to their afterlife reward; your patrons show their gratitude by giving you a Boon of Souls. And when you play a warlock, you have the tools to put your enemies away. Rather than relying only on eldritch blast, you'll also have an arsenal of curses (send enemy directly to hell for a round, then bring them back in more pieces), conjurations (maws -- connected to beings that remain thankfully off-screen -- materialize to chew your enemies), and movement powers (teleport and turn invisible, anyone?) to get you out of the trouble you're surely going to get yourself into.
From the perspective of lead designer, it's easy to see when a class is working out. I just have to notice the ease with which the designers and developers create cool mechanics for it. The warlock is feeling no pain, in contrast to her future enemies.
I don't like it either, for both historical and esthetic reasons, but there's no stopping it. Greyhawk is dead and WotC is looting its corpse for shiny objects to make 4E sparkle.
Ditto. Big-time.
According to Rob Heinsoo the inclusion of the Tiefling was not based on any mechanical reasons or iconic status but on the fact that they thought their picture looked cool. Maybe a future Design & Development article will clarify this decision...
Clarify what? I'm terribly afraid they explained things as plainly and truthfully as possible :/
I think gnomes add to the game's funkiness and allow for a certain style of roleplay that ushers mischief and humor to the game table. The "what a gnome acts like" emphasis may have forced the players hand a bit, as playing a dwarf oftens lead to archetypically brusque behavior that induces narcolepsy, but it has its own special signature.
Many people choose characters that are bigger, badder, blacker, tougher, cooler and smarter than them. I'm just so fantastically maximized in real life, playing a lil gnome was a nice change of pace. ;)
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According to Rob Heinsoo the inclusion of the Tiefling was not based on any mechanical reasons or iconic status but on the fact that they thought their picture looked cool.
The problem is that including them as a PC race in the core books grants them iconic status and influences future products.
If one of the designers himself can't see including them in his personal campaign's core village maybe he should reconsider including them in the core rulebook.
Um, guys, gnomes are going to be in the first Monster Manual!
Um, guys, gnomes are going to be in the first Monster Manual!
Yes, but not in the Player's Handbook. Which means for those who only buy the Player's Handbook (like most of my friends since they never DM) there won't be any gnomes.
Um, guys, gnomes are going to be in the first Monster Manual!Yes, but not in the Player's Handbook. Which means for those who only buy the Player's Handbook (like most of my friends since they never DM) there won't be any gnomes.
So what you are saying is that nobody in your group will purchase a MM that you can borrow while making a character?
Um, guys, gnomes are going to be in the first Monster Manual!
Yeaah. From James' article it should be easy to convert from MM to PC race.
I think gnomes add to the game's funkiness and allow for a certain style of roleplay that ushers mischief and humor to the game table. .....
Which is why I love them gnomes. They remind me of stroies of menehunes, the Hawaiian Gnome.
So what you are saying is that nobody in your group will purchase a MM that you can borrow while making a character?
Oh sure I will likely buy a copy but whether or not they would actually be able to borrow it to make their characters before the session is a different story. Besides my players usually don't play anything outside of the player's handbook; it hasn't been worth their effort in the past (who knows, that might change with 4E if we ever get around to playing again). Anyway, I don't think the availability of gnomes in the Player's Handbook is the issue. The issue is the inclusion of a non-iconic race (and consequently the exclusion of one of the previous Player's Handbook races) for no other reason than because it had a cool picture.
To be fair, WotC did a good job providing sufficient info in the 3.5 MM to (easily) make a PC out of anything. I assume/hope they'll do at least as well with 4/e.
To be fair, WotC did a good job providing sufficient info in the 3.5 MM to (easily) make a PC out of anything. I assume/hope they'll do at least as well with 4/e.
Well even though it may not have been that difficult (3.5E has been the easiest to do it but it was still kind of clunky and took effort) it was still more work than it was worth for my players. Hell, on the occasions when I was going to do it for NPCs I found it was easier to use a PC race from the Player's Handbook and just change the name. But yes, it was easier to do in 3.5E.
Suppose the PHB I does not in fact have gnomes as a PC race (which seems likely). Golarion has them already, so you decide to keep them around, following the notes in the MM I on using them as PCs. Here's the big question: how easily will the MM I allow you to turn a "monster" into a playable PC race?
Various of the WOTC people have said that they are designing the MMI races to be directly playable as PC races.
Bear in mind they said the same thing about 3.0.
Does anyone remember where they actually said that gnomes would be in the MM1? I remember someone saying it but I can't remember who. If someone could point me to the source I would appreciate it.
Thanks!
After reading the article, I didn't get excited about 4.0. The article can be applied to any version of D&D one plays. I can do the exact same thing with the books I have now. If 4e makes running the game smoother, then good for it. But 4e didn't get James Wyatt to write his campaign world that way, wanting to do something different did. Don't attribute one man's creativity to the whole system. I didn't get anything concrete or exciting about 4e from that article, but the article did make me want to DM.
So what you are saying is that nobody in your group will purchase a MM that you can borrow while making a character?Um, guys, gnomes are going to be in the first Monster Manual!Yes, but not in the Player's Handbook. Which means for those who only buy the Player's Handbook (like most of my friends since they never DM) there won't be any gnomes.
Any way you slice it, it means far less hot gnomish action.
Which is why I love them gnomes. They remind me of stroies of menehunes, the Hawaiian Gnome.I think gnomes add to the game's funkiness and allow for a certain style of roleplay that ushers mischief and humor to the game table. .....
Does anyone remember where they actually said that gnomes would be in the MM1? I remember someone saying it but I can't remember who. If someone could point me to the source I would appreciate it.
Thanks!
Click here for Logan Bonner's blog. This particular blog entry says that he's working on the gnomes in the MM.
Um, guys, gnomes are going to be in the first Monster Manual!
not the point
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After reading the article, I didn't get excited about 4.0. The article can be applied to any version of D&D one plays. I can do the exact same thing with the books I have now. If 4e makes running the game smoother, then good for it. But 4e didn't get James Wyatt to write his campaign world that way, wanting to do something different did. Don't attribute one man's creativity to the whole system. I didn't get anything concrete or exciting about 4e from that article, but the article did make me want to DM.
Exactly. When I read the article all I could think was: "this is how hundreds of DMs create worlds or settings so what's so crazy about this?" In fact, this is a weak and watered down version of Ray Winniger's excellent Dungeoncraft articles on world building. It would have been nice to see those articles referenced at least.
Like you said, it made me want to go back and read those articles from past Dungeons and perhaps cook up a little setting to start a new campaign with. It did not get me excited about the options found in 4e.
It would have been nice to see those articles referenced at least.
History began in 2007, as far as 4E is concerned.
To put it less snarkily, I wouldn't expect us to get much in the way of explicit references to pre-4E materials. That's not what 4E is about; WotC doesn't want to "bog down" the game with too much history or indeed much acknowledgment of what went before the new edition springs fully formed from Rich Baker's head (sorry, I'm being snarky again, aren't I?).
Look, this is a total reinvention of not only the game but also the "culture" of the game. It's meant to draw in new people who have no idea who Ray Winninger is or that there ever was a print version of Dragon. The past, to the extent that it gets mentioned at all, is a source for "homages" and "reminiscences," not to mention a storehouse of ideas that can be looted, removed from their original context, and reworked for the brave new D&D. The past is over; it might as well not have happened.
As I said of Greyhawk, I don't like this. It runs counter to almost everything I, as a player for nearly three decades, like and enjoy, but it's the way it is. I suspect we'd all be a lot happier if we realized that 4E is not the continuation of the same game but effectively a reboot. It's Dungeons & Dragons 2.0 and will succeed or fail on its own merits, not whether it is true to the past. I wish it were otherwise, but it ain't.
I suspect we'd all be a lot happier if we realized that 4E is not the continuation of the same game but effectively a reboot. It's Dungeons & Dragons 2.0 and will succeed or fail on its own merits, not whether it is true to the past. I wish it were otherwise, but it ain't.
You know, this is the first time someone has really brought this up, at least as far as I have seen. I have to say I can't find any fault in this line of thought. Now that I look at it this way, as a whole new game instead of a new edition of the old game, I can treat D&D 3.x just like I do DragonQuest, Traveller, and all the other out of print games I continue to enjoy.
I am still a bit miffed that a game I enjoy playing is going out of print, but that's happened to lots of good games in the past, and they still have plenty of followers.
You know, this is the first time someone has really brought this up, at least as far as I have seen.
You won't see it brought up mostly because WotC wants to have its cake and eat it too. I remember, back in the early 3E days, Ryan Dancey saying that the name Dungeons & Dragons had a huge recognition factor among the general populace. It was a powerful "brand" on par with stuff like Kleenex and Coke and so forth -- a "generic" name applied to fantasy games even though most of the people who recognized it didn't know precisely what you did in D&D only that it was a game about wizards and warriors and so forth. So, even though 4E is effectively a different game, it's important that the appearance of continuity be maintained so as to take advantage of its public recognition. And of course, like many other brands, there's a lot of loyalty to it, so they need to maintain it so that the game's diehard fans can stick with it.
At the same time, WotC doesn't want to have its hands tied creatively being having to follow 30+ years of accumulated lore and history. They want to be freed to do their own thing and blaze their own paths. That necessitates effectively starting over, taking a few names and concepts from the original games and then reworking them to suit their new agenda. It's like the SciFi Channel's Battlestar Galactica of RPGs. That might be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how WotC handles it and what your tastes are, but let's not make the mistake of thinking it's still the same game.