You'd think that if they were faking it, they'd be putting out a lot less than 120 pages a month.I've been wondering about this number. Yes, if you print the PDF's it's 120 pages. But given the large type face compared to the print edition of Dragon or Dungeon, how many "real" pages are we actually looking at?
(Or - what is the word count of the online Dragon versus the word count of a print edition of Dragon?)
I've heard this one before. I do not buy it. Sorry. This comes across like D&D is an adversarial game between the DM and players and the only way their can be fairness is for there to be transparency. My players have to trust that I am not there to screw them over, or it is just not worth playing together. If you have played with DMs that have screwed you over in the past, that is a personal issue and has nothing to do with game mechanics.
You make it sound like nobody has ever played D&D in an adversarial way. Or that all DMs are fair and just. Or even that arbitrary DMs are simply "personal" problems.
The DMs themselves may indeed have personal problems because they aren't fair and trustworthy. But decent, detailed, and fair mechanics at the outset give you another tool to promote game fairness as well as set common and rational expectations.
It may well be that you've "heard this one before" because it matters to some people, that it has helped in some situations, that there is some truth to it.
In regards to pretty much all the discussion about how 4E approaches monster design (defining in-combat abilities while leaving exceptional out-of-combat abilities to be defined by the DM and the plot): I have to say I disagree with a lot of the conceptions of this, and find the 4E approach to be the most freeing to use as a DM. That said, I can understand how it would not be the preference for some, and I do agree that it is not as intuitive for new DMs as it should be. There are also many who are very used to 3rd Edition, which had a very strict mindset that everything needed to be defined, and that it wasn't cool for the DM to step beyond what is directly written down. 4E intentionally steps away from this (and I prefer it this way myself), but I definitely see how it would be difficult to mentally switch gears for those used to a very different baseline assumption of how things work.
One thing that has been bothering me about a lot of these debates is the negative implications that seem to be cast on 3e and people who favor its approach. Things like "which had a very strict mindset" make it seem pretty limiting that anyone favoring it is some kind of strict contructionist that would make even Anton Scalia quake in his shoes... which doesn't really describe it, or us. It's not all that strict, though it's not arbitrary either.
If I were to talk about the defining of combat/out of combat and the needs of the plot, I'd look at 3e as being bottom-up construction while 4e is top-down. The characteristics of the creature, as defined both in and out of combat, help to generate the plot and how the creature puts his plans into effect as well has helps define the scope of what they can be. After a few initial decisions, the plot and structure flows upward from the base character/creature's capabilities. In 4e, since those capabilities are largely arbitrary, the niche can come first and be plugged nearly anything designed to order.
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What's absolutely hillarious about this current way off topic discussion is how people think it has anything to do with edition. You may think editions encourage a certain style and they may even be written to encourage a certain style. But ultimately what happens is that the players set the style. I garuntee that there are DMs in 4th edition who alter the monsters stat block, and for every alteration can point you to the ritual they used or template they applied, or ability they made up but then codified as a rule.
For example in the discussion about the crossbow bolt through the eye, if the players wanted to start doing that, I'd show them the homebrewed feat that has to be taken by a prerequisite BAB +11, razor sharp chair leg. that allows them to make a coup de grace against an unarmed opponent with an improvised weapon as long as they are flat-footed (this isn't 4e stuff, just an explanation of the style).
And then in 3e there are people who will just give monsters abilities without codified rules. Like for instance the DM who used the crossbow bolt through the NPCs eye. That had to be justified after the fact. I wouldn't even bother to justify it.
Trying to say this is a reason not to like an edition is silly because in either edition you can play with either style, it may be harder and hence your prefrence for a different edition. but the edition isn't bad because it encourages one style over the other, because you can ignore that and still use your own style with either.
As for the OP, yeah, to me I don't see it making a difference unless they plan to start allowing you to subscribe to either Dungeon or dragon instead of having to subscribe to both.
Ok, just wanted to apologize to everyone for helping draw this thread vastly, vastly off-track.
I really think highly of you for saying this.
None of that, really, will be affected by this change. It will mean Dungeon itself will probably become more useful to those who don't make use of adventures. But all the content will still be there, regardless, and no actual impact will currently be felt. It will be felt when they implement sale of individual issues, and it will be felt in the printed Annual compilations. Currently I believe they had just planned for an Annual Dragon book with the best articles from the magazine. I wouldn't be surprised if, with this change, they now have a Best of Dragon player resource and a Best of Dungeon resource for DMs.
Yeah, I don't believe that this will effect content as much except for maybe there being one less adventure each month and an extra class-based article each month instead.
As for compilations, (Edit: And apparently in a less edited stream of how I think about things) going further on the organization route, I think I would think that it would be preferable to try to combine the related content. Like, Best of Dungeon: Monster Ecology, or Best of Dragon: Winning Races. That way one could buy a product on a topic they are wholly interested in, while I would expect people who buy the more general Best ofs... are likely to have some sort of DDI subscription.
I would think that it would be great to have new content in the book to give it more value to the people that already have DDI subscriptions.
But then they miss out on any content left out of the book and only available on the DDI.
Couldn't that same logic be applied to, what appear to be, the current plans for Best of Dragon? Under similar reasoning people might not subscribe to the magazines because they will get the best of the the magazines in this "best of" book.
You make it sound like nobody has ever played D&D in an adversarial way. Or that all DMs are fair and just. Or even that arbitrary DMs are simply "personal" problems.The DMs themselves may indeed have personal problems because they aren't fair and trustworthy. But decent, detailed, and fair mechanics at the outset give you another tool to promote game fairness as well as set common and rational expectations.
It may well be that you've "heard this one before" because it matters to some people, that it has helped in some situations, that there is some truth to it.
Why do people spend their free time and game with others they do not find trustworthy?
I will never understand that. Are they themselves not trustworthy or do that like to try and reform others? Who knows.
I generally choose to spend my off time with those I find trustworthy and I enjoy being around.
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In regards to a comment by Scott about Battleragers: Actually, Battleragers are just as good about groups of enemies as a single foe. Likely even better. That is why they are considered a bit too powerful - they only have certain weaknesses, and in the wrong encounter, they can wade through everything without much worry.
This highlights my concerns about "everything" core. As the number of classes and "builds" increases the realistic amount of play testing to check for balance verses all the other classes decreases. pfRPG cities as a reason for change needed to the v3.5 classes was that the "base" classes were now useless and unplayed compared to splat-book classes. I was looking forward to 4e "design philosophy" (as invoked regularly by some) was that ALL members of the party would have both (a) something to do, and (b) feel they contributed equally in any combat encounter. The Battlerager from what Scott and Matthew are saying flies in the face of this "design philosophy". I like the "play" of 4e and it does remind me of the 1e/2e days of winging the odd thing - but WotC really need to keep an eye on class power creep or 4e will explode in a hail of "optimum builds". Open season on what is "core" will make this task extremely difficult, and previous editions from the SAME company would indicate that they don't have a track record of doing this internally consistent balance checking.
S.
PS: The rest of your post was excellent btw. Reflected much of what I was thinking.
Scott, what you appear to be saying here is: If the rules don't support it, the DM can hand wave it. That isn't really the same thing.If the DM needs Grazz't to have access to a ritual that allows him to teleport longer distances, he does.
Your problem is not a problem.
I think you, and Windjammer, are both missing something crucial about how 4th Edition works.
Monster stat blocks are intended for combat encounters. That's where the DM needs the most help, because combat is a finely-tuned game that most people are incapable of managing without assistance. Monster stat blocks are provided to show you what that monster is capable of while he is involved in combat.
Monster stat blocks are not a complete look at the monster or NPC in question. They do not necessarily reflect everything that creature has at its disposal, merely what it brings to a combat encounter.
If you, as the DM and for the purposes of your campaign, need NPC X to be capable of doing something, he is capable of doing it. That's part of the reason the excellent ritual mechanic exists. You no longer need to find the exact rule element required to allow your monster to do what you want him to do.
In fact, the rules do support it. Just give Grazz't the ability to pop a linked portal, planar portal or true portal ritual, if you feel you absolutely must have a concrete mechanic for an action that you, as the DM, take out of combat and behind the screen. Bam, long-distance teleporting. But monster stat blocks are not supposed to provide information like that which is heavily dependent upon what the DM wants the NPC to capable of doing in the scope of his own campaign.
Note that this is fundamentally different from things like Wish, which provide ways in which the rule element can be used that then have to be cut down to size by the DM and Windjammer's example of an arbitrary set of social pressures.
We're really quibbling over the word "support" here. 4E doesn't try to simulate everything, because one of the design tenents is that such simulation isn't valuable. I get it. But I also think that the designers of 4E did a pretty poor job making the implications of such a fundamental change in thinking clear. As a result, they got a bunch of disgrunted fans. Nor do I think lumping such a fundamental change under the heading of "DM fiat" is entirely fair. It is a huge shift in the way the world is modeled, and it doesn't appeal to some people (though it does happen to appeal to me). That doesn't mean those people are wrong.
I don't however, consider being able to teleport outside the confines of combat to be fluff (whether they be demon lords or orcish shamans)...
-That One DIgitalelf Fellow-
I understand the 4e approach, and I don't prefer it. I understand that the statblock is now a combat-only ruleset, and that other things don't need to be included.
I prefer them to be included though. I liked reading a statblock and being able to envision what that meant the monster was capable of. That a Dex score meant more than just a modifier to ranged attacks and Ref saves, it showed something about how the creature moved and existed outside of combat.
However, Digitalelf, while you seem to share my preference for the old way, you don't seem to display any understanding of the new way.
For instance, the teleporting. If creatures walk or tuck themselves into a ball and roll to move around, do you feel that needs to be in the statblock? That's outside the confines of combat.
Do you never actually handwave things that there are stats for? Does the runner from the village two hundred miles away attacked by giants and dragons need to roll Fortitude saves to make it to the PCs to give them the message with his dying breath? Is it impossible for him to die despite not having had any hit point damage immediately prior? Do you roll out the attack rolls of the spears that are thrown at him by the giants during his daring escape, or do you just determine that they missed?
And if you do roll those saves, do you just shrug and plan something different when the runner collapses half way to his goal? Too bad, no adventure here because the guy couldn't make it a hundred miles without a natural 1?
4e just cuts away from that and figures the DM is going to handwave that stuff to begin with, no need to include it. If you need your orcs teleporting across a continent, they are going to do so. Whether or not it is because they do it under their own power, or because they have a deal cut with a mad baernoloth, or because they are using portals, or because their high priest is teleporting them doesn't actually matter when you are fighting the orcs. It completely matters to the plot. 4e doesn't suggest orcs teleport on a whim, they just aren't going to specify in the stat block whether or not they can.
In 3e, I might do this by giving the orcs greater teleport at will. Or 1/day. Perhaps Gruumsh blessed them, perhaps their connection with their demon overlord Mannoroth allowed them to do so, or whatever. Does the fact that I wrote it down in the statblock that I am using make any difference to the player? Why is it ok for me to make that change to an orc by changing its statblock but not ok for a 4e DM to make that change to an orc by changing his DM notes for the game? The player doesn't get to see the statblock or the DM notes either way, they have to learn about the issue in character.
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I will say that 4e and it's "teleporting Orcs" has a great advantage over 3e in some respects by not being so "codified". Players in 4e soon learn to expect the unexpected and I have found that "quoting the MM" happens less in response to a creature having an usually ability in my 4e game I run.
The inherent fuzziness of 4e means the players don't seem to revert to the meta-gaming stance of "but Orcs can't do that" - because now we actually have no idea what creatures can or can't do out of combat. I'm DM and it's my choice, if it suits the game and story I can do it without requiring "bottom-up" game mechanics to justify myself. In my 3e I always consider the reason that X can do Y. Scott is completely right, in combat no problem it's nicely presented to you.
In short 3e is like wearing tight underwear - you feel supported and safe from "fall out". 4e is more like wearing boxer shorts, lots of freedom to move (if you get my meaning). I like wearing both and which depends on my mood! :)
Still doesn't mean I agree with the everything is core however.
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Digitalelf, while you seem to share my preference for the old way, you don't seem to display any understanding of the new way.
Oh, I understand the new way. I just don't agree with it...
What I don't understand is the full on, no questions asked, rah-rah-rah acceptance of this new way, most (if not all) of the 4e supporters seem to have. It is THAT much of a foreign concept to me...
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying my way is the best and only correct way to play, I'm just saying I don't get it...
Which is kind of why I keep posting in threads like these...
I mean the game has been around for over 30 years, and it's almost as though the people that seemed to love the game all these years (despite its flaws) are now saying just how much they actually despised the game by WILLINGLY tossing out that 30+ years of tradition...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
I am not exactly sure what 30 years of tradition you are talking about tossing out. Each new editions have had things that people hated about it and said it was throwing up things from previous editions. The degisn philosphy of 4E is exactly what I was already doing for 3.x so it doesn't change much for me.
What I don't understand is the full on, no questions asked, rah-rah-rah acceptance of this new way, most (if not all) of the 4e supporters seem to have. It is THAT much of a foreign concept to me...
Is it possible, and keep in mind that this is from the perspective of someone who considers Pathfinder to be G-D's gift to RPG and 4e to be an amusing but ultimately unsatisfying experience, is it possible that these people HAVE asked questions? That they HAVE not blindly accepted the 4e way of doing things? And that they honestly just happen to prefer things that way?
I mean, RPG edition choice is hardly religion or politics, but seems to spawn just as fierce debates....the idea that the other side (or sides) are misguided or just poorly informed is just as contentious and aggravating as the idea that the other side is evil and hates you. Sometimes, it is just different strokes for different folks.
Incidentally, I agree with Mona about the restructuring being a death knell to print-Dragon but completely irrelevant when you get both, not one, for the money.
And I still wish I had a monthly print magazine about my hobby. Kobold Quarterly doesn't come out regularly enough to satisfy my tastes.
Why do people spend their free time and game with others they do not find trustworthy?
I will never understand that. Are they themselves not trustworthy or do that like to try and reform others? Who knows.
I generally choose to spend my off time with those I find trustworthy and I enjoy being around.
I know a few people who played with a real ass of a DM because it was, literally, the only game in town.
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I am not exactly sure what 30 years of tradition you are talking about tossing out.
Not to sound too terribly snarky, but have you been sleeping in a cave?
I am sure that somewhere, you might have heard someone that does not like 4e say the words (or something to the effect of): "4e has changed things around MORE than enough to be considered a totally different game"...
Each new editions have had things that people hated about it and said it was throwing up things from previous editions.
*SIGH*
Yes every edition has changed "something"...
BUT...
You cannot sit there at your computer and tell me, that the changes from 3rd to 4th were not drastic in scope (and have me believe you at least. Unless of course you haven’t been playing D&D prior to 3e)...
Hell, even the designers said "Don't bother converting you campaigns over to the new edition, just scrap it and start over!"...
The degisn philosphy of 4E is exactly what I was already doing for 3.x so it doesn't change much for me.
Of course it has! Rah, Rah, Rah...
It's not that I don't believe you. It's just that if you already have been doing what 4e does, than I find it hard to believe that you have been playing 3.x as written, and just said, "Make it so" when and where you pleased without any concern for the RAW (remember, with 3.x, the encounter design was bottom up)...
I do apologize for the snarky tone of this post, but trying to have any kind of debate or discussion about 4e with (almost) anyone that actively supports the system, is like talking to a brick wall...
Which usually reads like, "4e is the one true way, and your way is pathetic, so shut up now, and go home!"
*SIGH*
I'll chill out for now...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
That wasn't a statement of ignorant but one of personal confusion. I'm incapable of understanding the thrown 30 years of tradition arguement.
4E is more like 2E in giving control to the DM then 3e ever was which is actually one of the reasons Gygax disliked 3E. Also as already stated there is atleast one incident of this "DM fiat" in a professional module produced by Paizo no less. 3.x didn't do a thing to stop "DM fiat" or house rules. 4E just realized this as a cornerstone of the game and went ahead with it as a feature. You don't get it or like it so I respect that but that isn't how everyone plays the game 4E or 3.x or Pathfinder.
Heck Homebrewed worlds are all about "DM fiat" as the world is how the DM imagines it.
This is why I sigh when I have to carry on a discussion with 3.x supporters because it is like talking to a brickwall with alot of them, oh well. We can banter on the forums while we play in our own little sandboxes.
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We can banter on the forums
Let me apologize to you Arcmagic. It seems you carried the brunt of my rant...
That was certainly not my intent (to which I obviously failed miserably), so again, I am sorry...
And while I'm at it, let me apologize to you as well Mr. Mona, for I have been a major contributor to the derailment of this thread...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
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As for the whole not getting it thing, and saying he didn't play that way in 3.x, I've got to patently disagree. I play 3.x that way. Creatures are often handwaved to have things that aren't in the standard game, and I don't bother to justify it or stat it up. Heck just the other day I let a remove curse spell end the transformation into a varguoille even though by the book that doesn't work. Now my players aren't familiar with that many monsters so they don't even bother to question things, but if they had I wouldn't have bothered to explain why, just said, did your character make his knowledge check? no, then why are you asking?"
Now if players see NPCs do something and want to do it themselves, I can make up pretty quickly mechanics that will allow them to do it. But that doesn't mean the person they're replicating had those feats. I've become more and more free-form in my DMing style over the years and yes I play 3.x and prefer 3.x but I play it the way the 4e DMs are describing it. And remember there are a lot of people who have played since D&D started that are playing 4e now. The 30 years you say they threw out was based on flavor, setting, and mechanics. Not the DM fiat and the Make it so philosophy which I have heard espoused by DMs who have played since first edition games they just change the wording and call it, the DM is always right.
Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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Sometimes, and this may shock you, people can have bad opinions.
So, now you're the authority on what constitutes a good or bad opinion? Please, tell us more about how we should think. And how wrong we are in our thoughts that do not agree with your vision of a "good" opinion.
What an ego you must have!
I opened this forum to read about the new format of Dragon and Dungeon magazine because I was interested in what kind of content would be included. Imagine my surprise when this turned into yet another "Scott is right, everyone who disagrees is wrong" thread...
Sometimes, and this may shock you, people can have bad opinions.So, now you're the authority on what constitutes a good or bad opinion?
Nowhere did I say that. I explained that bad opinions do exist because the poster I responded to appeared to believe that publicly shared opinions ought to be beyond question and are not to be challenged, which is completely untrue. And yes, my opinion of her opinion is that it was a bad opinion, but that doesn't make me an "authority" any more than your post above makes you an "authority" on ego analysis.
Please, take your vitriol elsewhere. Erik has already made it clear that this discussion is to be kept civil, and you are doing nothing but throwing fuel on that fire. If you'd like to stay and participate in discussion of the thread's actual topic, do so. If you'd like to make this a thread about chastising Scott for some perceived moral slight, you'll have to get your kicks somewhere else.
Back tot he original topic; I like the change. I like that Dragon is free for everyone to read while Dungeon is not. Perhaps this might even mean that Dragon will go back to paper some day; if it is made open enough to be a lounge magazine for gamers.
I am sad that this will probably mean less adventures in Dungeon, but to be honest I'd prefer fewer, better adventures over the glut of mediocrity it has had. And filling out Dragon more is probably good, I find 4E dragon better an more useful than 3E dragon.
You know, I'm going to guess that part of the reason Dragon has suddenly become so useful is because of the number of people also making use of the Compendium and Character Builder.
I know that, as a DM, scouring the various Dragon articles (not to mention Dungeon adventures) to find a particular monster I'd read about months ago would be a huge pain. But with the Compendium all of those monsters are searchable.
As a player, I don't have to hunt through dozens of issues trying to figure out which one the feat I'm looking for was introduced in. I just load up the Character Builder and it's presented there for me as an option. Alternatively, I can search for it in the Compendium just like I would anything else.
So yeah, part of it has to do with the "officialness" of the magazine content, but I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that it's no longer a hassle to find things in what is essentially a library of dozens of rule supplements.
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I will say that 4e and it's "teleporting Orcs" has a great advantage over 3e in some respects by not being so "codified". Players in 4e soon learn to expect the unexpected and I have found that "quoting the MM" happens less in response to a creature having an usually ability in my 4e game I run.
The inherent fuzziness of 4e means the players don't seem to revert to the meta-gaming stance of "but Orcs can't do that" - because now we actually have no idea what creatures can or can't do out of combat.
Agreed. I'd go one step further and say that the fact that we now have tons of variant of a single monster in the MM - think of kobolds - is also a healthy reminder to players to expect the unexpected IN combat itself. If you factor in the kobold variants in e-Dragon, there's so many that you could literally have a kobold do anything in combat - especially via equipment selection - and no player would ever go "oooh, that's not doing what the kobold I read about would do" because, chances are, players simply haven't read up about all kobolds.
Can you have this in 3E? Of course you can. In any edition, actually. Use something like James Raggi's Random Creature Generator and you can always hit your players with the unexpected. For instance, the variations on kobolds in 4E look pretty harmless compared to what Mike Mearls did with them earlier (in a DCC module) - they got transformed by Cthuloid elder ones. So that's the idea. You pick a familiar idea and start to alter it. Once you do that as a DM, your players will quickly stop referencing the MM. I'm kind of pleased, though, that this is somewhat built into 4E itself and, of course, that customizing monsters is actually a mechanically a lot simpler than in 3E.
I still don't think that any of this forces the change of design looseness into one corner (the non-combat end of the statblock, that is), but there's too much to like about 4E monster design to only focus on that.
@Matthew K. : thanks for your apology earlier, I'd like to apologize too. Some things rise my ire, and the non/combat divide in 4E is, unfortunately, one of them. :)
The Grazzt thing is more difficult, I admit. You could get round it by suggesting that he choses not to teleport long distances in combat (maybe bloodlust - uber-weak, I know) or can only do it (or not do it) in certain circumstances (like being in a particular place for the climactic encounter that restricts teleporting). None of those particularly appeal to me either. Or you just decide he can do it in combat too, at least as a means of escape - maybe as an encounter power for long range teleport. On the flip side from a game basis, having Grazzt only able to teleport short distances deals with one of the things which does bother me about the old demon ability to teleport about at will - they are very hard to kill as a result if they decide to flee. That's a crummy answer, I know. However, if it made the game more fun for the players, of course, then it is all good. DM judgement and player expectations.
Presumably if he can do it then he does it like a ritual - takes 10 minutes or some such.
Digitalelf, while you seem to share my preference for the old way, you don't seem to display any understanding of the new way.Oh, I understand the new way. I just don't agree with it...
What I don't understand is the full on, no questions asked, rah-rah-rah acceptance of this new way, most (if not all) of the 4e supporters seem to have. It is THAT much of a foreign concept to me...
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying my way is the best and only correct way to play, I'm just saying I don't get it...
Which is kind of why I keep posting in threads like these...
I mean the game has been around for over 30 years, and it's almost as though the people that seemed to love the game all these years (despite its flaws) are now saying just how much they actually despised the game by WILLINGLY tossing out that 30+ years of tradition...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
In this aspect I'd disagree that 30 years of tradition have been tossed. In a lot of ways this kind of a ruling returns to how things were done in 1st and 2nd. Now things are a little more extreme because its become codified. 1st and 2nd basically did not address the issue at all but the monsters and the players certainly played by different rules. That said one gets the feeling that the intention of 1st, so far as was possible was to codify things while the opposite tack had become vogue by 2nd.
3rd was different, in 3rd there was an explicit design goal that now everything was going to be done in one set of rules. If one could raise an army of undead then there were going to be rules for how that was done and those rules applied to both the players and the DM.
4th did essentially the same thing but went in the opposite direction. The rules for the DM and the rules for the players were explicitly and intentionally split up. The Necromancer Lord of the Frozen Swamps had, under his command hordes of undead simply because the DM said that this was so.