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This is not an attempt to begin a flame war.
Looking through the 4E books I noticed Craft and Profession skills are absent. I thought that surely the DMG would mention those types of skills for NPCs, but nothing more than the core classes are represented. Am I missing something? Does no one in 4E make anything or retire to run an inn? The only way to make GP in 4E apparently is to steal it. But since no one MAKES anything, no one has any money. Help?
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This is not an attempt to begin a flame war.
Looking through the 4E books I noticed Craft and Profession skills are absent. I thought that surely the DMG would mention those types of skills for NPCs, but nothing more than the core classes are represented. Am I missing something? Does no one in 4E make anything or retire to run an inn? The only way to make GP in 4E apparently is to steal it. But since no one MAKES anything, no one has any money. Help?
This was disconcerting to me too. I think 4.0 is focused less on full blown environmental simulation and more on mechanical ease of play. It is more "gamist" in that regard.
However, there is nothing to stop you from building out house rules to support this if you want. I'd be interested in seeing your work.
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So the focus of 4E players is in the role of adventurers. I get that. What about support people such as the scribe and the bowyer and the innkeeper and etc.? Do they no longer exist? As a DM, I like fleshing out my community. But not everyone has class levels. How do you show this? And what about the player that decides to "settle down" and build an inn? Is that it?
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So the focus of 4E players is in the role of adventurers. I get that. What about support people such as the scribe and the bowyer and the innkeeper and etc.? Do they no longer exist? As a DM, I like fleshing out my community. But not everyone has class levels. How do you show this? And what about the player that decides to "settle down" and build an inn? Is that it?
So flesh them out.
This is easier in 4th edition than it was in 3rd, because you don't have to make sure all the numbers add up. If you want a good town blacksmith, simply note - 'good blacksmith' and you're done. You don't have to figure out where to put his other skill points, whether he's an expert or a commoner, and so on.
If you fully statted out all members of your community in 3rd edition... Well, you need to get out more. In any event, no, 4th is not built around that same idea.
You can argue that 4th edition is tearing down the role play, as you can't support these non-combat professions with the rules. On the other hand, you can argue that it is enhancing the role play, because you're not expected to cover everything with rules. It all depends how you want to use it.
But what do guys without girlfriends do with their time man? What DO THEY DO? :O!
But what do guys without girlfriends do with their time man? What DO THEY DO? :O!
The devil finds work for idle hands.
Besides, it all comes down to 'why is my ability to swing a sword more IMPORTANT to my character by three orders of magnitude than my ability to do anything else?' And we go right back into that circle again...
Because D&D is about creating characters that band together to explore dungeons, slay monsters, and find treasure. You have more need of fighting ability to slay monsters (in most cases) than you do farming ability or whatever else. You can use the D&D rules for something other than exploring dungeons, slaying monsters and finding treasure, but that other stuff is outside D&D's basic premise and the game shouldn't be expected to focus on that other stuff in any great detail.
I've run games where the social skills were FAR more important than the combat abilities, and have had entire CAMPAIGNS which didn't have a single attack-roll in them. To me, personally, combat is a relatively minor part of a campaign - and, quite often, I find the more minor it is, the more I enjoy both playing and running.
Where these Dungeon and Dragons campaigns?
Just curious.
In the vast 30 year history of D&D we have had craft and profession skills for just 7.5 of them. Towns had crafters before skills and they will have crafters after the skills mechanic has gone by the wayside.
That is not correct, Crosswiredmind.
The skills (including crafting) appeared in AD&D's 1st edition, in the Oriental Adventures (1985), then in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide (1986).
They were called non-weapon proficiencies, artisan proficiencies, court proficiencies and so on.
The system was slightly different from skills in 3.5 or 4.0, but still.
So technically we had them for 23 years out of 30. Which gives only 7 years without them. Quite the opposite of what you stated.
Where these Dungeon and Dragons campaigns?
Just curious.
Yep. Second edition, actually. After I got a party full of rogues (and rogue kits) I decided to run a thiefy campaign in Waterdeep. They were short campaigns (four weeks, then six weeks), but they were a lot of fun, and no one rolled any attack other than a quick 'backstab'.
So 'backstab's aren't attacks in your world?
Because D&D is about creating characters that band together to explore dungeons, slay monsters, and find treasure.Again, that's how you choose to run your game. The game SYSTEM allows (or allowed, in you prefer) more options than that. If someone decides that they would RATHER play a more social-based game, or , God-forbid, NEVER enter a dungeon, they aren't automatically playing the game 'wrong'.
That's how the game is marketed by Wizards. If someone plays it as you suggest, they may not be playing the game wrong but they are playing it outside its core design parameters.
It is possible to use a hammer to drive screws into wood, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a hammer should be considered a screwdriver.
The future PHB's will have new classes, feats, powers. Has anyone heard if new skills are a possibility?
But now you're saying that WotC doesn't intend D&D as a role-playing game, since the absolute limit of your role is to be a combat miniature in the dungeon (and therefore a skirmish game). So, are you now saying that combat is the ONLY thing D&D should be able to do (and therefore absolutely be a skirmish game?) I hope I'm misinterpreting what you're saying here.
That is so far off from what I am saying that I can't even see how you can pretend that is what I said. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I've run games where the social skills were FAR more important than the combat abilities, and have had entire CAMPAIGNS which didn't have a single attack-roll in them.
Yep. Second edition, actually. After I got a party full of rogues (and rogue kits) I decided to run a thiefy campaign in Waterdeep. They were short campaigns (four weeks, then six weeks), but they were a lot of fun, and no one rolled any attack other than a quick 'backstab'.
So 'backstab's aren't attacks in your world?Yes, it's an attack. It didn't initiate a combat encounter. Not even once. Now I think you're just parsing nits, though...
Maybe I'm just confused by attack rolls and combat encounters or something. First you said you ran entire campaigns with no attack rolls then you described the attack rolls that were made in those campaigns. I got lost.
And I'm saying that a system DOES exist. It's the DM. It's just as consistent as stats. If you don't write things down, yeah you're going to forget them, but that goes for stats as well as DM fiat.
The problem with that is with some players. One person in my group is an economics guy. He likes numbers and he likes balances. He can't stand it when things do not add up. He is also very anti-handwave and fiat. The players and the GM should have the same rules, exactly." is kind of the vibe I get from him. He also feels genuine animosity towards GM screens and hates rolling behind them. He is also not the craziest person in the group. ;)
These are why we needs at least a token set of rules for that kind of stuff. Also let's say someone wants to be close to an npc, a non adventurer type. Say JoJo the barbarian (oops, no barbarians) JoJo the nomadic Fighter wants to woo the barmaid and even marry her. Sometimes the players might feel cheated if she doesn't get a sheet of her own.
That is so far off from what I am saying that I can't even see how you can pretend that is what I said. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I know the rest of us are...
Joke! Joke! :P
They were short campaigns (four weeks, then six weeks)
Four to six weeks for a campaign? I call shinnenigans! Four to six weeks that's what two to three sessions of gaming? At an average of 4-6 hours of gaming a session? Eight to eighteen hours of gaming do not a campaign make. Shinnenigans I say!
At that time, the sessions were two days, roughly 12 hours of gaming from Friday evening to Saturday night (or, more often than not, Sunday morning). So, yeah, quite a lot more hours of play than you would normally expect.On the other hand, I also come to realize why so many gamers dropped out of college...
They dropped out over caffeine poisoning? That's a lot of gaming. There must have been a stack of Mountain Dew cans from floor to ceiling.
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In the vast 30 year history of D&D we have had craft and profession skills for just 7.5 of them. Towns had crafters before skills and they will have crafters after the skills mechanic has gone by the wayside.That is not correct, Crosswiredmind.
The skills (including crafting) appeared in AD&D's 1st edition, in the Oriental Adventures (1985), then in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide (1986).
They were called non-weapon proficiencies, artisan proficiencies, court proficiencies and so on.
The system was slightly different from skills in 3.5 or 4.0, but still.So technically we had them for 23 years out of 30. Which gives only 7 years without them. Quite the opposite of what you stated.
Fair enough. I stand corrected.
The future PHB's will have new classes, feats, powers. Has anyone heard if new skills are a possibility?
They'd need to introduce a full on new mechanic. As it stands all adventurers get better with all skills as they gain levels. That can be justified if you use your skills to do things that adventurers do. However it makes no sense to argue that all adventurers improve as architects or cooks as they gain levels.
The problem with that is with some players. One person in my group is an economics guy. He likes numbers and he likes balances. He can't stand it when things do not add up. He is also very anti-handwave and fiat. The players and the GM should have the same rules, exactly." is kind of the vibe I get from him. He also feels genuine animosity towards GM screens and hates rolling behind them. He is also not the craziest person in the group. ;)
You can easily drop the DMs screen in 4E. You won't miss it I suspect.
Otherwise you may really want to consider sticking with 3.5. The fact that the players and the DM basically follow the same rules is a major hallmark of 3.5. Its one of the areas of 3.x I really respected the most. Its an ideal people have been clamouring for since 1st whenever the idea of a new edition came up. I used to read debates about the topic in the pages of Dragon. 3.5 met that ideal and did so very well. However it comes with significant weak points. Stuff that was just not clear until it was actually done. Mainly it involves a ton of DM prep that the players just don't really see the vast majority of the time. Many hours spent putting together a BBEG that the players will kill in a lot fewer hours.
In 2nd my prep time usually roughly equalled the amount of time we'd play and my adventures were pretty good imitations of what the write ups in Dungeon looked like. I get the same in 3.5 but my prep time now takes about three times as long as it will take my players to actually play through - though the adventures are still pretty good imitations of what we got in Dungeon.
I actually like prep but I felt that their was something wrong when I was spending 18 hours preping for a 6 hour session. Its not so bad when you run a prefab adventure obvously as they have done all the real work for you but its enough of an extreme to make clear that a system that insists that the rules the DM follows are the same ones that the players follow, while great in theory, has weak points in practise.
Plus the problem was when the players tried to determine the level of the BBEG through the level of spells and abilities it had. And here goes Meta-gaming.
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You seem to think that 4e needs to bend to your style of play, when clearly that's not ever going to happen.
I think you have touched on an essential truth - some people are having a hard time admitting that they won't be able to play the current version of D&D thus disrupting their identity as a D&D player. It is a shift in their core identity as gamers.
All of the rationalization simply deflects away from he fact that they do not like the game - reason is being used to explain emotion.
I think you have touched on an essential truth - some people are having a hard time admitting that they won't be able to play the current version of D&D thus disrupting their identity as a D&D player. It is a shift in their core identity as gamers.
All of the rationalization simply deflects away from he fact that they do not like the game - reason is being used to explain emotion.
That's pretty much it.
There are some new concepts brought into the game that i like. And there are some others that i don't like.
As a DM, i don't think D&D4 fits my gaming style.
After more than 25 years of DMing, i am used to some elements from previous editions, which became cornerstones of my gamemastery and campaign world. Many of them evolved into houserules that i hold fondly.
Would it be impossible for me to DM with another set of rules ? Certainly not. But that would be a lot of work, a lot of reconsideration and conversion. Too much headache.
That would be easier to start from scratch on a different campaign world. But i don't want to do that.
Long story short, i don't think i will DM D&D4.
But this is not a judgement of valor, that's just a decision i took while reading the rules.
The fact i won't use it doesn't mean that's a bad system. That's just not for me.
There is no need to get upset or disrespectful.
As a player, that's different.
If someone in my groups starts a D&D4 campaign, i might play.
I say "might" not because of the rules, but according to what he will propose as a campaign.
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You seem to think that 4e needs to bend to your style of play, when clearly that's not ever going to happen.I think you have touched on an essential truth - some people are having a hard time admitting that they won't be able to play the current version of D&D thus disrupting their identity as a D&D player. It is a shift in their core identity as gamers.
All of the rationalization simply deflects away from he fact that they do not like the game - reason is being used to explain emotion.
But it is reasonable to adhere to a specific style of play if you like that style of play.
4.0 is radically different from pervious editions. I run into gamers ALL THE TIME that simply do not like what 4.0 has to offer. For most of them, giving up the intimate character detail and hyper detailed character design that 3.5 provides is just not possible. "How come there's only two types of fighter?"
I have also had an avid LARPER tell me she didn't want to play 3.5 or 4.0, but she'd play 2.0. He reasoning, "Who wants to watch a bunch of fat guys push toy soldiers around a map?"
It's not just an emotional response. It's an aesthetic response in that people are making decisions based on how they derive pleasure from the game. I want "X" from my game. Some people value novelty. "This is the newest and best thing, I want in!" Some people value complexity and perceived realism. It is personal. It is also reasonable in that they are making decisions based on their experience and what they enjoy.
I think many folks say 4.0 is anti-roleplaying because many of the things they use to construct their character are missing or radically changed in 4.0. Alignment and complex builds are how many people understand their character and his or her history. I disagree, as I see roleplaying as a function of the DMs ability to tell a communal story and encourage the players to house their character within that story. System is irrelevant to me. Mechanics are tools to getting to the story.
My answer to all of this is just to help folks build the game they enjoy. I save my moments of gamer tourette's for WoTC, because my professional experience is as a media executive and I find the way they handled the deployment of this edition repugnant and backwards. You've all seen me melt down on THAT issue. I get downright non-verbal about it.
3.5 is going to be around for a long time. 4.0 will be also. The source code of the game is now officially split and I anticipate playing both for quite a while. We should all focus on growing the hobby and not just our respective favorite system.
Anyhow, my $.02
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some really great stuff
Yeah, I can see your point. I guess see the aesthetic reasons as based in emotion as well. I know that the mechanics heavily influence that particular preference so it is not purely emotional.
But if the aesthetics of D&D have changed - and I am not convinced that the change is really that drastic - then players and GMs should find the game that fits their tastes rather than rage against the machine. Emotions enter into it simply because the game called Dungeons & Dragons no longer matches their aesthetic preference and it seems that some feel the need to lash out because of it.
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I thought 2nd edition sucked. I didn't play it. I went from the BECMI boxed set rules to 3rd edition. It's okay if you skip an edition that doesn't fit your style.
I want to discuss and explore 4e, not defend it.
Yep yep.
I skipped 2e and felt no need to talk smack about it with the folks that hung out at the FLGS where I worked. I simply focused on talking about the games I actually played at the time.