I personally hate the idea of roles and that is why I either don't use published adventures or only use parts of them. Understandably, when designing adventures you need to have some kind of framework to work in and there are going to be some basic assumptions made so I am not surprised that many published adventures require a fighter, cleric, rogue, and a wizard.
As for Logue coming out of the closet and 4E? Meh, I'll wait and see.
I know that, I am long time playtester for Green Ronin (and currently playtesting the upcoming A song of Ice and Fire game*).
And I know that nobody in marketing his right mind will allow negative feedback.* shameless plug: a brilliant game by the way. No D20 or True 20 engine, but a new one. Especially designed for this game. If you are looking for grim and gritty rules and like G.R.R. Martins Books, this game is for you!
Keep us updated on when it will be coming out.
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I am losing respect for Logue in this matter. He is a great writer and I was a fanboi of his but this whole matter has soured me a bit. Bad days ahead...Of course, Logue did write adventures for Eberron, so that's already a black mark against him in my book.Freelancer=prostitute
My question is: What do those who do not approve of Nick writing 4e products do for a living. This is his job and of course all freelancers are going to write for 4e if they can because that is where a lot of the new products are going to come from.
How do you make your money?
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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This is the best reason I've heard for DMs to get off their lazy butts and design campaigns and adventures around the PC's, not vice versa.
And if we don't have time to get off our lazy butts, does that mean we have to quit playing? Your way or the highway?
There reason you're seeing more and more of a drift toward out of the box adventure paths is because the core audience of D&D is aging. Yeah, I'd love to pour the amount of time into my games that I did when I was 15, but I have 2 kids, a full time job, and barely enough time to sit and play, much less build the detail rich worlds of yesteryear. I take adventure paths and I add my own touches to them and I work in elements from the characters as best I can.
But thanks for judging me and my play style so harshly, I appreciate that.
Your play style sucks, Sebastian. Get on board the hellacious style or go home.
The Hellacious Style:
All dancing all the time. Dance party D&D! GET DOWN!
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Good luck to Nic, one of my favorite writers, and his projects. And I appreciate him coming on and telling us what he can.
Seriously, is anyone else reading between the lines however? He says he got the email that allows him to only say nice things and not talk about anything he doesn't like. He only mentioned the DMG. There's these two other books called the PHB and the MM left out of that discussion.
This hasn't actually swayed me one bit!
-DM Jeff
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This is the best reason I've heard for DMs to get off their lazy butts and design campaigns and adventures around the PC's, not vice versa.And if we don't have time to get off our lazy butts, does that mean we have to quit playing? Your way or the highway?
There reason you're seeing more and more of a drift toward out of the box adventure paths is because the core audience of D&D is aging. Yeah, I'd love to pour the amount of time into my games that I did when I was 15, but I have 2 kids, a full time job, and barely enough time to sit and play, much less build the detail rich worlds of yesteryear. I take adventure paths and I add my own touches to them and I work in elements from the characters as best I can.
But thanks for judging me and my play style so harshly, I appreciate that.
That is an accurate view of my gaming table anyway.
Good luck to Nic, one of my favorite writers, and his projects. And I appreciate him coming on and telling us what he can.
Seriously, is anyone else reading between the lines however? He says he got the email that allows him to only say nice things and not talk about anything he doesn't like. He only mentioned the DMG. There's these two other books called the PHB and the MM left out of that discussion.
This hasn't actually swayed me one bit!
-DM Jeff
You missed a part of his post. His post said "my very most favorite thing" not "the only thing I like". Possibly I'm putting words in his mouth, but I just wanted to clarify what I took from his post.
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My question is: What do those who do not approve of Nick writing 4e products do for a living. This is his job and of course all freelancers are going to write for 4e if they can because that is where a lot of the new products are going to come from.
How do you make your money?
As english is not my primary language I have always the fear of some misunderstanding (easier with forum/written communication, a nightmare without proper mastery of the main language).
So I'll state here as clearly as I can.
I have the utmost respect and admiration for Nick as a professional, an author, a gamer; I suspect that he's a better DM than me, too. I subscribed the "Blood of the Gorgon" project almost only because of his name was in it.
As a freelance, he has every right to work on as many game systems that he can and that he likes, no matter what.
His comments regarding 4E are even more interesting because of that, even if thay somehow conflict with some older posts of his (yes, I went to check other threads, both 4E related and not, in which he espressed his opinion regarding 3.5 and the new D&D style of game).
Right now, his enthusiasm doesn't change my opinion of one single blasted inch.
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My question is: What do those who do not approve of Nick writing 4e products do for a living. This is his job and of course all freelancers are going to write for 4e if they can because that is where a lot of the new products are going to come from.
How do you make your money?
As english is not my primary language I have always the fear of some misunderstanding (easier with forum/written communication, a nightmare without proper mastery of the main language).
So I'll state here as clearly as I can.
I have the utmost respect and admiration for Nick as a professional, an author, a gamer; I suspect that he's a better DM than me, too. I subscribed the "Blood of the Gorgon" project almost only because of his name was in it.
As a freelance, he has every right to work on as many game systems that he can and that he likes, no matter what.His comments regarding 4E are even more interesting because of that, even if thay somehow conflict with some older posts of his (yes, I went to check other threads, both 4E related and not, in which he espressed his opinion regarding 3.5 and the new D&D style of game).
Right now, his enthusiasm doesn't change my opinion of one single blasted inch.
Yes, I seem to remember that some of his previous posts have seemed definitely pro-3.5 and anti-4th Ed. That's the thing that confused me when I first opened this thread. Of course, maybe he was gently reminded on which side his bread is buttered. Who knows? I also wonder how Pett, Vaughan, and Leoti feel about the edition change. I seem to remember that Greer is mostly anti-4th at least at the moment.
But yeah, I have a lot of respect for all these guys. But my intention to stay with 3.5 won't be influenced by anyone but myself. And I hope that is true for everyone else out there. Think for yourselves! I certainly don't expect my views to sway anyone else.
This is the best reason I've heard for DMs to get off their lazy butts and design campaigns and adventures around the PC's, not vice versa.
While that may be possible for some people, others (like myself) love the Adventure Paths because they give us great stories without us having to do all the work ourselves. That doesn't mean I don't customize the adventures to fit my party; far from it. I always change things in the adventures to fit my party, and bring out elements of the campaign world specifically for them. It's just really nice to have encounters already designed for me, or stories laid out by badass new gods like Nick or James or Jason.
Let's say I'm one of your players and I announce I'd like to play an aristocratic bard, the rightful second son of the local Duke, framed for treason by the Thieves' guild. My character'd like to regain his good name and standing in the family.
Creepy. The bard in my Age of Worms game has almost this exact background, only instead of the Thieves Guild it was the military.
Are you, the DM, going to say, "Well, you can be a royal scion if you like, but this campaign's never going to address any of your backstories. And the adventures presume the party is well-balanced, so why don't you change your character to a wizard, and let's make the ranger into a cleric."
No; as I mentioned, I did let my Shackled City game go ahead without those roles. Thing is, the suggestion I would make wouldn't be "hey, you guys need a wizard" or "someone make a cleric" but rather "maybe you guys should have someone who can use arcane magic" or "one of you might want some capacity to heal." For example, the "rogue" character in my Age of Worms game was actually a warlock/daggerspell mage who took the right skills to fill the rogue role.
If anything, one of the things I like best about 4E is that, while it groups classes into roles, this means it becomes easier to have a nonstandard party, whether you're running a Pathfinder game (and we have at least two active 4E Pathfinder games here at the office) or something you made up. A warlord, a paladin, a warlock, and a wizard is a perfectly optimal party in 4E, and three of those four are "nonstandard" classes. 4E's roles do provide a baseline expectation that writers of adventures can look to without shoehorning those expectations into individual classes. Adventure design seems easier to me, as I don't necessarily have to worry about whether or not the party going through the adventure has a cleric.
Also, you don't HAVE to have all the roles filled in your party, though it does help. You don't have to have a cleric or a warlord to get some healing; training in the right skills, potions, and a little caution on the battlefield or in the dungeon can keep your party alive. But if you have a cleric or warlord it lets the players be a little more aggressive (maybe even reckless) with their playstyle. At the same time, I'm discovering how well some of the classes work together thanks to the roles; rogues and fighters are best buddies because their role-related abilities play well together. My wizard loves Andrew Finch's warlord because we work well in concert.
Obviously, you'll have to judge for yourself when 4E comes out, but I'm really jonesing for the day I'm in a party that doesn't include one of the traditional "Core Four" classes, and it just hasn't happened yet because someone always wants to play a fighter, or a rogue, or a cleric...
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Mr Thompson
First, let me say thank you for posting again on these boards despite fear of "flame wars." I know I'm a little late to offer these sentiments but I'd nonetheless extend them to you.
Second, the following really stuck out to me because it addresses one of my biggest concerns abotu 4e.
"we have at least two active 4E Pathfinder games here at the office."
My understanding is that this would be "extremely difficult." If you could shed some light on whether this has been proven to be true or not I would definately appreciate it. If not, I understand.
I'm sure someone will correct this butcherd quote:Who is driving!??!
Bear is driving! How can that be?!?!
No, thats about right, assuming the source is Clerks Animated Series.
I love the Trasformer crushing the people inside it as it changes from car to robot.
Ahhh, classic.
Thanks to Nick for sharing. I now feel better about refusing 4e :-)
About "cool" - well, its not the word itself that is objectionable, but its use as smokescreen when the folks at wizards could not disclose any true information. The attempt at humour was rather lame IMO, but then, the language barrier might keep me from appreciating it fully.
Stefan
What he said.
I love ya Nicky. Sorry I can't follow you down this road.
But I'll be waiting here for you, when you come back to the 3.5 faithful.
Oh, I will in no way shape or form abandon 3.5.
Know this. I love that game. I plan to keep playing it (and writing for it) for a long long time from now. Stay tuned.
I just felt I should disclose my status as a freelancer working on 4E products. I can't talk much about 4E. I'm only permitted to say things I like, hence: You should all definitely give the DMG a look see.
ALSO: I do NOT speak for Paizo in any way shape or form. How could I. I'm just a freelancer.
YOU CAN REST ASSURED: No matter what Paizo decides to do in the future, I'll be begging to write for them, 3.5, 4E, or Other. If they'll still have me. :-)
others (like myself) love the Adventure Paths because they give us great stories without us having to do all the work ourselves.
Hit the nail on the head for me. I mean I consider myself a decent GM, back when I ran games, but I know I'll never be able to craft a story as good as Paizo's AP every single week. There's just not enough hours in my day to make games from scratch this good with this level of consistency.
I understand that under the NDA you are only allowed to present a fragmentary picture of a whole, and that's fine, that's just business. But it also means that I can't take your great closet escape as anything more than a commercial. I don't mean this as a slight against you in the least, Nick. I'm as unconvinced now as I have been since the announcemnt of 4E and the DDI. Moreso, after the unveiling of the Race & Class books and the Pit Fiend stat block.
No slight taken my man. I wouldn't expect ANYONE to let the mere fact that I am freelancing on a product convince them to invest whole hog in an entire new edition of a game.
Oh no! They got to Nick too! What happened Nick? Did they steal your tinfoil hat? Seriously, I'm glad you like the game. You really had us going the way you were ripping on the pit fiend entry earlier this week. Man this is weird.
I drank the Kool-Aid.
Second, the following really stuck out to me because it addresses one of my biggest concerns abotu 4e.
"we have at least two active 4E Pathfinder games here at the office."
My understanding is that this would be "extremely difficult." If you could shed some light on whether this has been proven to be true or not I would definately appreciate it. If not, I understand.
Providing a direct conversion guide would be difficult. You can't just say, "Add +5 to the Minotaur's AC and add 10 to each save to get the monster's defenses." That won't produce a balanced 4E monster. Converting the adventures over, however, is not so bad. You've got to rebuild the monster stats, maybe rejigger the encounters using the new assumed encounter design (1 PC = 1 monster), and convert some of the out-of-combat mechanics, like skill checks and traps. That might sound like a lot, but it probably boils down to less than amount of prep time you'd put into designing encounters from scratch.
Fortunately, doing monster stats is pretty fast and easy, and a lot of the Pathfinder critters already have built-in "special abilities" that can be used as inspiration for 4E abilities. When you know what the monster is supposed to do, it's pretty easy to make it do that in 4E. I will say that it might be more challenging for someone to do that, say, the day they bought the books, because you'll want some time to digest the game as a whole. Owen Stephens mentioned on his blog that he thought 4E needed to be absorbed as a whole system before the real workings of the mechanics became apparent (kind of like how you needed to do the same thing when 3E first came out), but fortunately the monster design guidelines in the DMG make creating monsters along a certain theme pretty easy.
The real conversion difficulty is with player characters, because the way classes are designed is pretty different. You can do it, of course, but it's more like a "re-envisioning" than a conversion. Likewise, 3E has 8+ years of material to draw on for PCs, much of which just has no analogue in 4E yet. However, once you distill a PC down to its concept you can probably find a way to represent that in 4E (though, of course, there will always be exceptions). If you're dead-set on playing a class not in the PHB, though, you will probably have more difficulty, though as I mentioned with my bard example there are always ways to make it work.
I am losing respect for Logue in this matter. He is a great writer and I was a fanboi of his but this whole matter has soured me a bit. Bad days ahead...Of course, Logue did write adventures for Eberron, so that's already a black mark against him in my book.Freelancer=prostitute
I am a freelancer...nothing less, nothing more. I work for a lot of people in such regard. Though the messiness of the edition switch (all the POLITICS and POWER PLAYS and INSANITY) has made it much harder just to sit down and do some writing for the game we all love. I'm seriously considering quitting the biz entirely, and walking back to whatever edition of D&D I like as a pure hobbyist.
But yeah, I worked on some 4E stuff, I'm out of the closet.
Your play style sucks, Sebastian. Get on board the hellacious style or go home.
The Hellacious Style:
All dancing all the time. Dance party D&D! GET DOWN!
D&DR? Dungeons and Dancing Revolution?
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I just wanted to chime in and add my thanks to Rodney for dropping by and giving us an idea of what to expect. I am pretty excited about 4e but I can understand why others would not be. You have been fantastic in answering questions and concerns.
As for the title of this thread, it is almost cruel. Here I was, so excited that Nic was coming out of the closet, only to find it wasn't the closet I thought it was. :)
Andy Collins is one of the finest human beings I've ever met. He is compassionate, brilliant, generous, wise, and full of love for the game. He is, quite frankly, one of the world's best game designers, and he has a bright and glorious soul that exudes kindness, warmth, and strength of spirit. He is not disingenuous or duplicitous. Nor does he conspire to murder our childhood love of D&D. He is a committed designer working hard to make the game better for as many people as possible.Are you trying to sound like you've been brainwashed, or did it just sort of happen?
Andy really is a great guy. I've hung out with him socially on several occasions, I've been a guest at his house. I've played a slew of games with him. He is hyper-intelligent and very kind.
I just wanted to chime in and add my thanks to Rodney for dropping by and giving us an idea of what to expect. I am pretty excited about 4e but I can understand why others would not be. You have been fantastic in answering questions and concerns.
As for the title of this thread, it is almost cruel. Here I was, so excited that Nic was coming out of the closet, only to find it wasn't the closet I thought it was. :)
Ha! I'm married and all, but I AM in theatre, so gay is just one step away! :-)
I drank the Kool-Aid.4E has Kool-Aid? And titties!? I swear, if I find out it has cake too, I'll be breaking down my LGS's door at midnight of release day.
Yea.. well... Mona and Mike are talking about including 95% more chocolate and tea with Pathfinder.
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As for the title of this thread, it is almost cruel. Here I was, so excited that Nic was coming out of the closet, only to find it wasn't the closet I thought it was. :)
To use the vernacular of my generation
"ROTFLOL"
AB, I will say that one of my wife's/my own dearest friends in undergraduate is of a similar persuasion as your are. I just wanted to say, thanks for standing up for who you are and not meekly conforming.
Rock on.
Will Nick stating some good things about 4E springboard me on to the Warlord-Bandwagon? No. Does it give me a bit more hope than I had before about the project? Yes. I've enjoyed Nick's work in the past, which is a step in the right direction, but if the game comes out and I think it sucks donkey Grauls, then I'll play 3.5. No harm, no foul. I think that this is sprialing a bit out of control. Props to the man for being honest with us.
However, I wait with baited breath for the release of 4E Torture Porn...
You have definately provided me something to ponder, and I thank you for it.Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
I think so, Brain, but where are we going to find a duck and a hose at this hour?
Are you pondering what I'm pondering?I think so, but how are we going to get the ogres into halfling sized "hot pants?"
Glad to see I'm not the only one thinking along those lines. :D
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[
Ha! I'm married and all, but I AM in theatre, so gay is just one step away! :-)
Or a quick, decisive shove in the right direction. I guess it depends on your point of view. :)
Gay jokes aside, I don't ever think I have said how much I appreciate your work. I like what you do and its good to hear you have some freelance work with 4e.
Andy really is a great guy. I've hung out with him socially on several occasions, I've been a guest at his house. I've played a slew of games with him. He is hyper-intelligent and very kind.
Oh boy, not more praise! Don't you have 5000 words to write today?
Hmm.. I don't think I'll be convinced until Rich Pett signs on for 4dventure. I mean.. who is this Logue guy, anyway? [;P]
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AB, I will say that one of my wife's/my own dearest friends in undergraduate is of a similar persuasion as your are. I just wanted to say, thanks for standing up for who you are and not meekly conforming.Rock on.
Thanks. I always try to ride that line between being open and comfortable and just getting up in people's faces. I want to respect comfort zones. But, I have a big crush on Nic so I couldn't let this one pass.
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Oh, I will in no way shape or form abandon 3.5.
Know this. I love that game. I plan to keep playing it (and writing for it) for a long long time from now. Stay tuned.
Woah, that was really neat. My soul just had a warm feeling of comfort, like when getting a good hug or a perfect cup of hot chocolate.
-DM Jeff
4E has Kool-Aid? And titties!? I swear, if I find out it has cake too, I'll be breaking down my LGS's door at midnight of release day.
Can I interest you in the delicious new cake golem?
4E has Kool-Aid? And titties!? I swear, if I find out it has cake too, I'll be breaking down my LGS's door at midnight of release day.
Can I interest you in the delicious new cake golem?
By the way, I saw you played Kent in a production of King Lear. That is a fantastic show and a great role. I had the opporutnity to play Edmund in a local production. One of the best experiences of my life.
Ha! I'm married and all, but I AM in theatre, so gay is just one step away! :-)
They're producing Lear at the local university here where I live in April. Sadly I wasn't cast, but at the same time, it's a relief. Always did have trouble with the Shakespeare.
Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.
BTW, thanks for dropping by, Rodney! It's nice to see you again!
You'd think I'd be able to get up to the city more, what with having a car now and all. Maybe I need to make Josh Frost start up a game soon...he's been threatening to do so for months.
But yeah, glad to be posting some more. Now that it's getting closer to 4E's launch I actually feel like I can say something more than "Sorry, can't say," which doesn't do anyone much good.