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The *FIRST* thing a DMG should do is teach a DM how to run a game. Making encounters, handling players, etc.
I actually agree. These are not antagonistic statements.
if [the DM] doesn't feel confident in dealing with his players and making fun and interesting encounters, then the worldbuilding is completely useless.
For sure! That's part of the DMG's job to make the DM feel confident in his abilities to design adventures AND settings on his own, make the players feel comfortable at the game table and share the fantasy coming out of the game itsef.
Needless to say, this is why I consider the 4E DMG arguably the best ever DMG produced for D&D.
More power to you and your players, really!
I disagree, and would further argue there is no correlation between a world-building "how to" chapter and the amount of tables in the DMG, so the point is kind of moot for me.
And, whether we like it or not there will be multiple DMGs and I can speculate that most of the more detailed aspects of world-building and advanced DM advice will be in these future products.I often see debates on the 4e board ended one of two ways.
- "Come on, you didn't need that anyway. The rule was broken (or unnecessary, or nobody used it, or whatever)." Failing that, we move on to...
- "There are more books coming out. Just wait."
I like 4e (at least today, but that's another story). But I can still see that WotC has failed to provide certain things with 4e that players have reasonably come to expect.
You're playing both sides of the argument. On one hand you're saying "but it's so easy for me to build a setting, the DMG doesn't need to explain that!", and when you're called out on it, you go instead for "Beginner DMs are just not able to do this". Gee, I don't know... maybe that's what the DMG is supposed to provide? Tools and advice to be able to do this when you're a beginner?
The DMG is supposed to be a guide for beginner DMs to, you know... "master" the game. It's supposed to enable. Not frame. It's supposed to be a complete manual, not an "introduction". If all it does is say "you can use your imagination later by buying next supplement X, but to run things without prep work, then please buy setting book Y", it is certainly not doing its job!
Once again, D&D is not supposed to be run with published setting lambda. It's supposed to enable you, as a DM, to use your imagination, build your own campaigns and worlds right out of the gate. If you lack time to build adventures and settings, the "supplements" (emphasis on the actual word) then come in.
The 4E DMG does not do that.
Okay when you say make your own setting, do you mean something completely different from medieval fantasy, 'cause that's what I'm arguing. If it's just another setting that fits easily with what's given, then that's simple to do and they do give you advice on how to change your setting to be more like that. That's what changing the basic assumptions of the world is. That's what making your campaign a horror themed one is. If you have an idea to change the setting, then chances are you already know what you're gonna do. I mean you can say what if they beginning DM wants a world where there is a huge empire? But the answer is he knows what to do already if he came up with the idea to begin with. That's pretty easy to do, and the DMG does touch on that subject.
But say I want to make an Asian setting, that's something that a whole book can cover, not a small entry on culture and weapons. Honestly, how many people made an Asian campaign from the last DMG? Better yet, how many of those people didn't go on to use a different campaign setting, or worked extensively on one of their own?
And to compare to Pathfinder, what about that? I mean there's an implied setting with that game, is there gonna be instructions to make your own setting?
Why is that the more people mention any edition of D&D from OD&D to AD&D 1E, I want to scrap all my current edition material and pick up OSRIC?Your getting old. Simplicity is starting to seem like a virtue.
Yea, I turn 30-1/2 next month. I'm ancient. I'm over the hill.
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You're playing both sides of the argument. On one hand you're saying "but it's so easy for me to build a setting, the DMG doesn't need to explain that!", and when you're called out on it, you go instead for "Beginner DMs are just not able to do this". Gee, I don't know... maybe that's what the DMG is supposed to provide? Tools and advice to be able to do this when you're a beginner?
The DMG is supposed to be a guide for beginner DMs to, you know... "master" the game. It's supposed to enable. Not frame. It's supposed to be a complete manual, not an "introduction". If all it does is say "you can use your imagination later by buying next supplement X, but to run things without prep work, then please buy setting book Y", it is certainly not doing its job!
Once again, D&D is not supposed to be run with published setting lambda. It's supposed to enable you, as a DM, to use your imagination, build your own campaigns and worlds right out of the gate. If you lack time to build adventures and settings, the "supplements" (emphasis on the actual word) then come in.
The 4E DMG does not do that.
Okay when you say make your own setting, do you mean something completely different from medieval fantasy, 'cause that's what I'm arguing. If it's just another setting that fits easily with what's given, then that's simple to do and they do give you advice on how to change your setting to be more like that. That's what changing the basic assumptions of the world is. That's what making your campaign a horror themed one is. If you have an idea to change the setting, then chances are you already know what you're gonna do. I mean you can say what if they beginning DM wants a world where there is a huge empire? But the answer is he knows what to do already if he came up with the idea to begin with. That's pretty easy to do, and the DMG does touch on that subject.
But say I want to make an Asian setting, that's something that a whole book can cover, not a small entry on culture and...
I keep hearing this. If I recall correctly, and I've only skimmed through someone else's copy so I could be wrong, but all the advice given as just a series of questions with no advice whatsoever on what the answers would be. I know what the questions are: "What would happen if you removed the arcane power source?" for example. What I don't know is what effect that would have. And after looking at the advice given, which was just questions, I still don't know what effect it will have. That isn't advice!
Panda-s1 missed my point. I wasn't talking about putting machine guns into a quasi-medieval setting. I was talking about things like magic levels and divine involvement in the world within the conventions of the game. Historically, D&D has tried to be flexible enough to allow for a variety of campaign worlds within certain assumptions (like the existence of both arcane and divine magic). You were supposed to be able to play anything from medieval Europe with real elves and wizards and spellcasting priests to a setting like FR where the gods walk the Earth. And there was at least a basic level of advice in the DMG about how such decisions affect your campaign and game world. That's missing from the 4e DMG.
Well, the issue isn't really missing; it's just raised and not dealt with. And I think that's the dumbest possible way of doing it. If you're not going to suggest possible answers to a question, why raise them? That whole section is a useless waste of space. Now, some people are arguing that beginning DM's shouldn't be altering the assumptions of the default setting in even small ways. My question is, what if a beginner picks up the core books and wants to run a game with his friends but doesn't like the assumptions of the PoL setting? Will that player be discouraged from taking up the game because of that?
The omission is particularly galling in the case of magic level. If you change the assumptions about the commonness or scarcity of magic, it affects the mechanics because the monster stat blocks assume that the PCs have magic items of a given power level based on their level. So if a beginning DM decides he wants magic to be rare and adjusts treasure accordingly, the monsters suddenly become tougher and the PCs keep getting TPK'd. Might that turn some players off to the game? On something that affects the mechanics so strongly, the designers had a duty to provide warnings about the effects on game play.
Panda-s1 missed my point. I wasn't talking about putting machine guns into a quasi-medieval setting. I was talking about things like magic levels and divine involvement in the world within the conventions of the game. Historically, D&D has tried to be flexible enough to allow for a variety of campaign worlds within certain assumptions (like the existence of both arcane and divine magic). You were supposed to be able to play anything from medieval Europe with real elves and wizards and spellcasting priests to a setting like FR where the gods walk the Earth. And there was at least a basic level of advice in the DMG about how such decisions affect your campaign and game world. That's missing from the 4e DMG.
Well, the issue isn't really missing; it's just raised and not dealt with. And I think that's the dumbest possible way of doing it. If you're not going to suggest possible answers to a question, why raise them? That whole section is a useless waste of space. Now, some people are arguing that beginning DM's shouldn't be altering the assumptions of the default setting in even small ways. My question is, what if a beginner picks up the core books and wants to run a game with his friends but doesn't like the assumptions of the PoL setting? Will that player be discouraged from taking up the game because of that?
The omission is particularly galling in the case of magic level. If you change the assumptions about the commonness or scarcity of magic, it affects the mechanics because the monster stat blocks assume that the PCs have magic items of a given power level based on their level. So if a beginning DM decides he wants magic to be rare and adjusts treasure accordingly, the monsters suddenly become tougher and the PCs keep getting TPK'd. Might that turn some players off to the game? On something that affects the mechanics so strongly, the designers had a duty to provide warnings about the effects on game play.
Okay first off, considering it's Dungeons and Dragons why wouldn't a beginner DM want to have magic in their setting? So yeah maybe he will be discouraged from taking up the game, the game has always had magic items, and there's a frickin' wizard on the cover of the PHB, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there's a lot of magic in the setting.
That aside, yes there is no explicit "Do this!" kind of dialog. The solution? NPCs get a flat bonus to everything off a table based on their level. If you want no magic items that's the way to do it. It's how monsters and NPCs keep up with the PCs 'cause they're not gonna be carrying around magic items or have feats.
But on another note, the game already treats magic items as pretty scarce, and the majority of them are gonna be found in dungeons, so making magic rarer isn't much of a problem since the game seems to treat it as such anyway. Increasing magic, yeah I can see that being a problem 'cause then you'd assume that any item you want is for sale, then as a DM you have to ask yourself if these items weren't as common would you give them away anyway?
Could they have pointed out certain things? Sure, that would have been useful, but honestly I don't see why a beginning player would pick up D&D to make a world where magic is scarce.
I would disagree with you Red Death quite strongly.
The *FIRST* thing a DMG should do is teach a DM how to run a game. Making encounters, handling players, etc.
THIS is IMO, the first thing a new DM needs. Not tips on "how to build his own world" because if he doesn't feel confident in dealing with his players and making fun and interesting encounters, then the worldbuilding is completely useless.
Believe it or not, I agree with this completely. I also like how the 4e DMG attempted to address metagamers, munchkins and hanck n 'slashers in a non-confrontational manner by treating each game play style as basically valid, since it is clearly "fun" for someone, and offered salient suggestions for how to integrate these play styles with the "table at large".
HOWEVER
The 4e DMG retails at the same price as the (34.95 list price, I realize various online retailers have since discounted the books) as the the PHB BUT CONTAINS 96 LESS PAGES THAN THE PHB.
The 3.5 PHB has 320 pages, including glossary and index (the same as the 4e PHB) and retailed at $29.95 US in 2003. Adjusted for inflation in 2008, this is $35.26 US.
Why cut the world building content so completely? Would it have "ruined" the 4e PHB to include 10 or 20 more pages on world building?
I imagine the following "conspiracy theories" are at play:
- Including world building content competes non-core offerings (FR, Eberron Campaign settings) by WoTC.
- Including world building content competes with DDI content offerings.
- Including world building content fragments the 4e D&D brand
The usefulness of world-building content is ultimately defined by the consumer; some folks buying the 4e DMG have no use for it, others crave it. The decision to cut that content, in face of the price of the book and page count, is extremely difficult to justify, especially since WoTC has been positioning the DDI as the definitive rules look up, rather than the DMG (examples: DDI rules compendium /search, "slim" index in DMG, lack of formal glossary.)
But on another note, the game already treats magic items as pretty scarce, and the majority of them are gonna be found in dungeons, so making magic rarer isn't much of a problem since the game seems to treat it as such anyway. Increasing magic, yeah I can see that being a problem 'cause then you'd assume that any item you want is for sale, then as a DM you have to ask yourself if these items weren't as common would you give them away anyway?
The treasure packets and resulting bonuses to stats from magic items are a core balance mechanic in 4e. If you remove these, you drastically reduce player effectiveness. Even with regular increases in gear, as charted out by the treasure packet section in the DMG, a player's base chance to hit decreases from ~65% to 40% over the course of play from level 1-30. These metrics only worsen if you cut magic items. The result is having to re-balance every encounter by using the rules in the "DM's toolbox" chapter in the 4e DMG to lower monster level. Of course, nothing is provided to determine what the correct party level is...except DM fiat.
On the other point, every magic item in 4e is already for sale, provided you have the material cost for the enchant item ritual.
Finally, I strongly believe rule zero is not a substitute for proper game balance, especially when the publisher spends 100's of thousands of dollars (US) on game development.
It seems to me that this approach of 4E of making a check instead of describing really what you're doing, how you're doing it without any check at all (the trap example of Mearls) isn't really something new to 4E, but was really introduced by 3E with on/off switches like defined skill uses and the concept of feats.
4E in that regard is a natural evolution of 3rd ed rather than a change.
What do you guys think?
I essentially agree. One of the effects that one noticed in the change from 2nd to 3.x was that it was much more difficult to do dungeons full of the really fiendish traps.
In 1st and 2nd edition there was a popular third party cottage industry in making whole books of really nasty traps. I also recall that DMs would regale each other with tales about how their most recent trap had outwitted their players as it had been designed to take into account the fact that the players would use a 10' pole.
Essentially up until the advent of 3rd edition traps, at least the big complex ones were, essentially puzzles. Find/Remove Traps was not thought to cover them. The players essentially had to figure their way out of the trap like they were James Bond after he's captured by the villain.
In 3.x traps generally ceased to play much of a role outside of combat and I think that this is mostly true of 4E as well - though one's DM might insist that the crazy room with massive gears, a huge pinball and flippers the size of Dragons all powered by Giant Space Hamster Wheels is not a trap at all but is in fact a skill challange.
My reading of the section was that if a player even wants to go ahead and the the 20% payout, they get it residuum. This prevents a mechant from needing to have any cash on hand. He just dusts the magic item and give the player his cut. This kind of stuff makes me wonder about inflation and other real world economic things. What does it do to the "lucky" nation that sits above a relatively large storehouse of minor magical items.
I went and checked and cash is mentioned as well.
Of course, after the players get access to the enchant item ritual, this all goes away. If they afford it, they craft it, and any magic item not nailed down is potential fodder for disenchant magic item.
You can only use the enchant an item ritual to make an item up to your level, never higher. Cash is still king as you can buy any item you can afford. All you need to do is get the DM to stop adhering to the wealth by level guidelines. If any of my players are reading this shoot me an email and I'll send you a list of the stores in Toronto that carry the kinds of things I like.
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Anyway this got me thinking about ways to spruce uo the economic system a bit. One could have a system where you sell to merchants for 1/5 value and buy from merchants at 100%. Catch is that merchants only have some random sample of magic items. Bigger cities could have more merchant caravans that PCs could check out based on size.
PCs can also always commission items from some one with the Enchant Items Ritual but they need to find a wizard of high enough level, bigger cities have higher level individuals available. Commisioned Items cost 125% book price. Anything the players want can be had but there is a premium.
Finally players can Enchant whatever they want using a ritual but buying residuum involves a 125% premium.
Seems pretty simple but with a slightly more in depth economic model and I can tailor it to my home brew which is most certianly not POL, not quite yet anyway.
I often see debates on the 4e board ended one of two ways.I am struck by how rarely we can agree that WotC might have eliminated an element for which there is a valid demand or need.
- "Come on, you didn't need that anyway. The rule was broken (or unnecessary, or nobody used it, or whatever)." Failing that, we move on to...
- "There are more books coming out. Just wait."
I like 4e (at least today, but that's another story). But I can still see that WotC has failed to provide certain things with 4e that players have reasonably come to expect.
I didn't say it wasn't there. It is. They do give you advice on world building.
I can agree, advanced options aren't there. I'm saying more options will become available as time goes on and more books come out. WotC is taking a NEW approach to putting out books. They have told us this. There will be a new PHB, DMG and MM every year. So you can't concievably expect ALL of the information to be in the first set of core books. They want you to buy those later books - so they are saving some more advanced options for those books.
It's up to you to peruse those books and see if they are worth buying for you.
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I often see debates on the 4e board ended one of two ways.I am struck by how rarely we can agree that WotC might have eliminated an element for which there is a valid demand or need.
- "Come on, you didn't need that anyway. The rule was broken (or unnecessary, or nobody used it, or whatever)." Failing that, we move on to...
- "There are more books coming out. Just wait."
I like 4e (at least today, but that's another story). But I can still see that WotC has failed to provide certain things with 4e that players have reasonably come to expect.
I didn't say it wasn't there. It is. They do give you advice on world building.
I can agree, advanced options aren't there. I'm saying more options will become available as time goes on and more books come out. WotC is taking a NEW approach to putting out books. They have told us this. There will be a new PHB, DMG and MM every year. So you can't concievably expect ALL of the information to be in the first set of core books. They want you to buy those later books - so they are saving some more advanced options for those books.
It's up to you to peruse those books and see if they are worth buying for you.
Finally. A 4E supporter concedes that 4E is incomplete, and that this is a deliberate strategy. Thank you.
Also, as mentioned earlier: Asking a series of questions but providing no answers or guidelines to answers is not advice.
EDIT: As P1NBACK clarifies below, this isn't what is saying. So just ignore me.
Finally. A 4E supporter concedes that 4E is incomplete, and that this is a deliberate strategy. Thank you.
Incomplete? I wouldn't go that far. I can play 4th Edition right now and resolve any actions my players want their characters to do. I can play with those 3 core books forever with no qualms.
Advanced options? New classes? More feats? More DM advice? Yes. I'll find those in later books. This is no secret, WotC has described this strategy to us all.
I mean, all this stuff is yet to come and I think if you feel multiple core books makes 4th Edition "incomplete", well then so was 3rd Edition. Because guess what, there was a DMG II and PHB II in 3rd Edition.
I often see debates on the 4e board ended one of two ways.I am struck by how rarely we can agree that WotC might have eliminated an element for which there is a valid demand or need.
- "Come on, you didn't need that anyway. The rule was broken (or unnecessary, or nobody used it, or whatever)." Failing that, we move on to...
- "There are more books coming out. Just wait."
I like 4e (at least today, but that's another story). But I can still see that WotC has failed to provide certain things with 4e that players have reasonably come to expect.
I didn't say it wasn't there. It is. They do give you advice on world building.
I can agree, advanced options aren't there. I'm saying more options will become available as time goes on and more books come out. WotC is taking a NEW approach to putting out books. They have told us this. There will be a new PHB, DMG and MM every year. So you can't concievably expect ALL of the information to be in the first set of core books. They want you to buy those later books - so they are saving some more advanced options for those books.
It's up to you to peruse those books and see if they are worth buying for you.
Finally. A 4E supporter concedes that 4E is incomplete, and that this is a deliberate strategy. Thank you.
Also, as mentioned earlier: Asking a series of questions but providing no answers or guidelines to answers is not advice.
You really know how to change the meaning of words!
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Finally. A 4E supporter concedes that 4E is incomplete, and that this is a deliberate strategy. Thank you.Incomplete? I wouldn't go that far. I can play 4th Edition right now and resolve any actions my players want their characters to do. I can play with those 3 core books forever with no qualms.
Advanced options? New classes? More feats? More DM advice? Yes. I'll find those in later books. This is no secret, WotC has described this strategy to us all.
I mean, all this stuff is yet to come and I think if you feel multiple core books makes 4th Edition "incomplete", well then so was 3rd Edition. Because guess what, there was a DMG II and PHB II in 3rd Edition.
No, what I mean is removing an important element of the game, namely creating your own world, and placing it into another book to buy makes it incomplete. It would be like removing combat and making it a new book.
It is not multiple books, but multiple books containing necessary information. Classes come and classes go. Every edition has changed them, so complaining that this edition does is rather silly. Advice, not rhetorical questions, on how to build your own world doesn't really fall into that category.
Apologies if I misconstrued your original post, but to me leaving this sort of thing out makes it incomplete. Obviously you disagree, which makes my post replying to you incorrect.
No, what I mean is removing an important element of the game, namely creating your own world, and placing it into another book to buy makes it incomplete. It would be like removing combat and making it a new book.
I think the first DMG does an excellent job at doing what it was intended to do, which is introduce new DMs to the concept of DMing and not bogging them down with a host of options that might otherwise overwhelm them. I think most critics will agree, the first 4th Edition DMG is one of the best DMGs ever.
As I said, WotC is taking a new approach at design and releasing material. If this doesn't bode well for you, that's something you can decide on with your dollar. I'd say in most cases, the people coming from 3.5 Edition already have their worlds created and so it'd be kind of pointless to focus on that in the first DMG. It caters to new DMs, who really need to grasp the concept of DMing before deciding to flesh out their new worlds...
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In 3.x traps generally ceased to play much of a role outside of combat and I think that this is mostly true of 4E as well - though one's DM might insist that the crazy room with massive gears, a huge pinball and flippers the size of Dragons all powered by Giant Space Hamster Wheels is not a trap at all but is in fact a skill challange.
Actually there are a couple mods with traps that directly effect combat. There is one in Kobold Hall in the DMG and there was one in the World Wide D&D Day mod. Neither was handled as a skill challenge.
No, what I mean is removing an important element of the game, namely creating your own world, and placing it into another book to buy makes it incomplete. It would be like removing combat and making it a new book.It is not multiple books, but multiple books containing necessary information. Classes come and classes go. Every edition has changed them, so complaining that this edition does is rather silly. Advice, not rhetorical questions, on how to build your own world doesn't really fall into that category.
Apologies if I misconstrued your original post, but to me leaving this sort of thing out makes it incomplete. Obviously you disagree, which makes my post replying to you incorrect.
Now I think your just being nit picky.
There is a ton of fluff in that book in terms of advice for DMs, especially new DMs. Sure there is not much on actually creating a full blown world, though there is stuff for creating adventures for your players, Yes I think this is probably intentional, world creation can fill whole books - it has in some editions of the game. Its certainly easy to take it and go into a great deal of detail on the topic. It makes for a great topic for a splat book.
Its some kind of straw man argument to equate the lack of a detailed analysis on world building to the lack of any rules for combat.
Its no revelation that WotC wants to sell us splat books and they are cherry picking topics with lots of potential for expansion to save for those splat books. Those of us very interested in a detailed look at such a topic will be happy to fork over our hard earned cash if they do a good job of it. In the meantime both myself and the beginner DM have enough in the DMG to play the game. Which is presumably what WotC decided the goals for the DMG were.
Sure the beginner does not have enough to really take a top down approach to building a home brew campaign setting - but I'm not aware of any book that was really adequate for this topic since since 2nd Edition (which had a couple of excellent splats for campaign building). When I converted into 3rd I had to take my large and long lived home brew with me and I certainly did not feel, even as an experienced DM, that I was just fine using nothing but chapter six in the 3.5 DMG. My actual solution for converting my world was to go out and buy the Krynn Campaign Hardback and use that as a template, which did the trick - where the Krynn book talked about races in their world I talked about races in mine etc.
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No, what I mean is removing an important element of the game, namely creating your own world, and placing it into another book to buy makes it incomplete. It would be like removing combat and making it a new book.It is not multiple books, but multiple books containing necessary information. Classes come and classes go. Every edition has changed them, so complaining that this edition does is rather silly. Advice, not rhetorical questions, on how to build your own world doesn't really fall into that category.
Apologies if I misconstrued your original post, but to me leaving this sort of thing out makes it incomplete. Obviously you disagree, which makes my post replying to you incorrect.
Now I think your just being nit picky.
There is a ton of fluff in that book in terms of advice for DMs, especially new DMs. Sure there is not much on actually creating a full blown world, though there is stuff for creating adventures for your players, Yes I think this is probably intentional, world creation can fill whole books - it has in some editions of the game. Its certainly easy to take it and go into a great deal of detail on the topic. It makes for a great topic for a splat book.
Its some kind of straw man argument to equate the lack of a detailed analysis on world building to the lack of any rules for combat.
Its no revelation that WotC wants to sell us splat books and they are cherry picking topics with lots of potential for expansion to save for those splat books. Those of us very interested in a detailed look at such a topic will be happy to fork over our hard earned cash if they do a good job of it. In the meantime both myself and the beginner DM have enough in the DMG to play the game. Which is presumably what WotC decided the goals for the DMG were.
Sure the beginner does not have enough to really take a top down approach to building a home brew campaign setting - but I'm not aware of any book that was really adequate for this topic since since 2nd...
I really wasn't intending to be nitpicky. That was the impression I got. Clearly we disagree on what the DMG is for, or at least the worth of this particular chapter. However, I've obviously annoyed people (and on rereading, I'm not surprised. I swear it sounded more reasonable when I wrote it) and I don't want to continue the Edition Wars, so I'm gone. Sorry for the trouble.
In 3.x traps generally ceased to play much of a role outside of combat and I think that this is mostly true of 4E as well - though one's DM might insist that the crazy room with massive gears, a huge pinball and flippers the size of Dragons all powered by Giant Space Hamster Wheels is not a trap at all but is in fact a skill challange.Actually there are a couple mods with traps that directly effect combat. There is one in Kobold Hall in the DMG and there was one in the World Wide D&D Day mod. Neither was handled as a skill challenge.
What I am saying is that traps, in both 3.5 and 4E, but, not in 1ED and 2E are mostly of use as part and parcel of combat.
A boulder that races around a loop in the middle of a fight is interesting - outside of a fight its mostly not.
4E presents a way of getting some of the feel for the large elaborate traps we saw in 1E and 2E which were dangerous puzzle like encounters usually not part of actual combat.
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I think most critics will agree, the first 4th Edition DMG is one of the best DMGs ever.
"I" will disagree. The 4th ed DMG is a "wishy-washy" tome: it does skim a LOT of topics, and some in much better ways than other iterations of the DMG (types of players, what "fun might be), but in the end, I believe it helps the beginner DM way less than 1st and 3rd edition DMGs were.
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He stated his opinion on other people's opinions on a book that is, basically, the fourth or fifth of it's kind (not including minor changes here or there or setting DM guides) Ergo he cannot be wrong. *sticks out tongue*
This is just semantics. I.e. that's a moronic argument. You want to get your way out of comparisons like this? That's totally fine, but that's half-assed at best. "Maybe, you know... among those... one of the..."
I don't give a f#+!. Want to have an opinion? Show me your opinion. Don't disguise it between wishy washy statements of crap. Have balls, dammit! And then, if your opinion is rightfully challenged, then yield. Don't engage in sad rhetoric exits like this. (rolls eyes)
Because with this new edition of D&D comes a very old precept of gameplay:
Everyone should understand how the game work
That alone shows me you don't know what you are talking about.
Finally. A 4E supporter concedes that 4E is incomplete, and that this is a deliberate strategy. Thank you.Incomplete? I wouldn't go that far. I can play 4th Edition right now and resolve any actions my players want their characters to do.
Wait until a fighter gets to Level 17 and picks Exorcism of Steel as a power. Since you don't know how much of a monster's magic threshold comes from its weapons, how do you adjudicate that power when it takes away a monster's weapon?
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I did come off way too strongly, and for that I apologize.
I just can't stand tongue-in-cheek (or out, thereof?).
Joke or make a point. Refrain from doing so at once in a debate like this, because this comes off, to me at least, as a rhetoric maneuver on a message board rather than a true attempt at lightening the mood.
About the balls, I would definitely have to disagree. Many women do have balls, albeit not in a literal sense.
As for the words I choose to use: sorry, but you're not my mom. Don't tell me how to post/not to post. If you can't get past words to get to the meaning, then I can't do much for you, I'm afraid. The filter takes care of the rest.
In the OD&D and, indeed, most editions before 4th the DM was privy to a massive number of rules, options, and various versions of the same rules. This edition's core books taken that away. They force ALL the players to memorize a certain amount of things (Combat, their powers, etc) and add a small amount of things on top of that.
This is not true of OD&D. There wasn't a set of rules privy to the DM.
I agree if you're talking about AD&D in particular. I don't find it to be an improvement over previous editions of the game, however.