I opened this thread so we can comment on the recent DMG2 Excerpts.
Here are my impressions until now:
- Third-Person Teasers: Wow, this is really a paradigm shift, allowing, for the first time in D&D history, players temporarily play another character which don't share a viewpoint with them. I actually have used something similar in my adventures, by with the proper justification that players were under some magical effect that let them see what happened with some NPCs, in the viewpoint of these NPCs.
- Companion characters: From my (perhaps mistaken) understanding, companion characters are more "PC-like" versions of monsters, i.e. with less hit points but more healing surges. Which makes sense, because although a "regular" monster can go toe to toe with a PC, it probably can't handle series of encounters because of their limited number of healing surges.
Your opinions?
They've definitely been trying to focus the idea of roleplaying on the cooperative storytelling element and less on the idea that the DM tells the story while the players are puppets. This idea of having vignettes definitely adds to this idea. I really like it. It shows a lot of "out-of-the-box" thinking.
- Third-Person Teasers: Wow, this is really a paradigm shift, allowing, for the first time in D&D history, players temporarily play another character which don't share a viewpoint with them.
I think that allowing is much too strong of a word to describe this. Although I like that they described it in the book (Because it is a useful tool that I don't really see a lot), there was nothing barring it's use before and I recall descriptions of several games that did this thing before.
- Third-Person Teasers: Wow, this is really a paradigm shift, allowing, for the first time in D&D history, players temporarily play another character which don't share a viewpoint with them.I think that allowing is much too strong of a word to describe this. Although I like that they described it in the book (Because it is a useful tool that I don't really see a lot), there was nothing barring it's use before and I recall descriptions of several games that did this thing before.
Well, correcting myself, the point is not exactly "you were not allowed to do this before" but more like "you could do it before, but perhaps you didn't thought about it, or you haven't done that because you felt it was wrong". But if the rules actually encourage you to do that, it's another story.
Third person teasers: Does anyone remember the 2e adventure "Vecna Lives!"? You start out by playing members of The Circle of Eight who get TKP'd and have to then switch to the lower level henchmen of The Eight, thus heightening the suspense, because they have to now finish the adventure with characters several levels lower. It was alot of fun and I can see doing it again to add excitement to the adventure "how can we hope to succeed when those powerful people failed?"
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- Companion characters: From my (perhaps mistaken) understanding, companion characters are more "PC-like" versions of monsters, i.e. with less hit points but more healing surges. Which makes sense, because although a "regular" monster can go toe to toe with a PC, it probably can't handle series of encounters because of their limited number of healing surges.
This is the re-introduction of Henchmen from the previous editions. Good call though as it went off the radar in 3rd etion but was one of the iconic features of D&D.
Third person teasers: Does anyone remember the 2e adventure "Vecna Lives!"? You start out by playing members of The Circle of Eight who get TKP'd and have to then switch to the lower level henchmen of The Eight, thus heightening the suspense, because they have to now finish the adventure with characters several levels lower. It was alot of fun and I can see doing it again to add excitement to the adventure "how can we hope to succeed when those powerful people failed?"
I hated the way they started that adventure. Actually I was not a big fan of that adventure for a bunch of reasons. It presumes to much in regards to who the players are and what their motives are and I found that it was not easily adaptable to ones home group.
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I opened this thread so we can comment on the recent DMG2 Excerpts.
Here are my impressions until now:
- Third-Person Teasers: Wow, this is really a paradigm shift, allowing, for the first time in D&D history, players temporarily play another character which don't share a viewpoint with them. I actually have used something similar in my adventures, by with the proper justification that players were under some magical effect that let them see what happened with some NPCs, in the viewpoint of these NPCs.
I really loved this, in my head, I wanted to start a new campaign just to try this idea out.
Put the players into the role of a group of theives just as they make there way into some sort of secure prison/vault/warehouse (perhaps the Indiana Jones Warehouse of sinister things the government is scared of)
The thieves are ruthless with clear order "steal x and bring it to me"
Do a tough, but short mini adventure which ends with the thieves delivering the item to their shadowy boss, who then slaughters them (like way over level crushing power,) dramatizing the cruel monstrosity of the villain.
Then segue into the players real characters meeting to investigate a mysterious break in.
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There are limitless possibilities, how many adventures start with "Well the last group we sent..." and start the adventure with the last group in their climactic (and inevitably failed) final fight. Or again be the villains and kill the adventures.
Its a good way to taste an evil campaign, without actually running one.
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The DMG1 for 4e and now it seems like DMG2 (I like the teaser about objectives in monday's excerpt) are the type of advice that should be a primary in any DMG.
I think you could give the DMGs to any edition DM and they would learn a lot about running a game.
I totally agree with that, the DMG has shed almost all of its crunch. They basically sat down the guys who have been writting D&D modules for decades and said "guys I don't want to you to write a module, I want you to write about writing a module."
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Where are the excerpts? I didn't see them on the wizards website (I'm a DDI subscriber).
At the bottom there is a table that links to the rest.
If you subscribe to WotC's RSS they come through there. Since they are free excerpts they don't show up as part of the DDI content, since that is all the pay/exclusive stuff.
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Where are the excerpts? I didn't see them on the wizards website (I'm a DDI subscriber).At the bottom there is a table that links to the rest.
If you subscribe to WotC's RSS they come through there. Since they are free excerpts they don't show up as part of the DDI content, since that is all the pay/exclusive stuff.
For those interested: WotC's D&D Feed
I liked google reader for my feeds, but that is a taste thing
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I recently used the technique of having the PCs take on alternative roles. They were meeting with the group of five nobles who run the kingdome they inhabit. Before the game, I typed up a summary of each noble, identified his rival on the court, a secret that he wanted to keep, and a character he wanted to question.
The PCs met the court individually, with the player who ran the noble giving up his space for the PC to speak. Then the players (as the nobles) tried to get the secrets out of each other (which the PCs wanted to learn) and get the PC to answer certain questions. It was a lot of fun and worked very well. At the end, the nobles decided to elect a new leader, and the PCs were the ones who chose the leader (it could've gone any number of ways, and they almost elected the least likely candidate).
- Companion characters: From my (perhaps mistaken) understanding, companion characters are more "PC-like" versions of monsters, i.e. with less hit points but more healing surges. Which makes sense, because although a "regular" monster can go toe to toe with a PC, it probably can't handle series of encounters because of their limited number of healing surges.This is the re-introduction of Henchmen from the previous editions. Good call though as it went off the radar in 3rd etion but was one of the iconic features of D&D.
They had this sort of thing in 3.5. In fact they might have had it more then was true of 2nd.
In my last 3.5 campaign I had to stop the game around the 2nd level of Maure Castle (so my players are around 13th level) because the game was breaking down due to companions. We had 5 players but there were a grand total of 13 different 'entities' on the players team. They used to crack jokes that they were playing Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Battle. While the play balance was not really thrown off the shear amont of time it was taking to do combat rounds was insane. Its slow enough at high levels but at high levels with 13 people on the adventuring parties team it was just insane.
In anycase I love the way they are handling this. It very gamist and I generally really like that especially in this regards. Yes its true that companions of one sort or another are iconic to fantasy, hence they are popular editions to the game but here a lot of effort has been put into being clear about when such inclusions are appropriate for starters and also on how to modify the monsters so that they just play well at the table. Both in the sense that they now get healing surges but also with a lot of thought to things like immediate actions or other types of actions that are likely to cause the companion to slow the game down.
I'm very excited about looking at these companion rules as I got burned bad the last time I allowed companions of various stripes into my game.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Where are the excerpts? I didn't see them on the wizards website (I'm a DDI subscriber).At the bottom there is a table that links to the rest.
If you subscribe to WotC's RSS they come through there. Since they are free excerpts they don't show up as part of the DDI content, since that is all the pay/exclusive stuff.
Thanks!
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I totally agree with that, the DMG has shed almost all of its crunch. They basically sat down the guys who have been writting D&D modules for decades and said "guys I don't want to you to write a module, I want you to write about writing a module."
And it seems they did a very good job, coming up with innovative ideas.
Which is kind of funny because the 4th edition modules are so underwhelming...|
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They had this sort of thing in 3.5. In fact they might have had it more then was true of 2nd.
I know, but -and that is only personal experience- in 2nd and 3rd edition we almost never used Henchmen.
Sure, those PCs who had the Leadership Feat got a companion or two, but we never used Nodwicks or Mercenaries as we did in D&D Basic and AD&D.