|
The biggest strength of 3.5/PF for me is that PCs, NPCs and monsters are all build from the same set of Lego bricks. Once you know these bricks, you know how to build anything.
In 4E a PC "rough wooldlands tracker" Ranger party member and a NPC "rough woodlands tracker" Ranger opponent are built out of two completely different sets of bricks. That's perhaps the biggest issue that made me steer clear of 4E.
That pretty much sums up nicely one of my main issues with 4e. If I persevered with 4e I may learn the rules that alow for creating monster's stats, but powers are still an art rather than a science.
Fro my 26 session campaign I only created a few NPCs from scratch, most were from the MM and leveled up or down (which is a great mechanic I must admit).
Also you can't use your knowledge of how PCs work to adjudicate how NPCs work shoudl circumstances differ. E.g. what damage does a Goblin Cutter (a minion) do if it loses its shortsword? A shortsword is normally d6 + Str damage for a basic attack but a Goblin Cutter normally does 4 points of damage (strength modifier of +2) so what would that get reduced to? 3? 2? 1?
The rules are in the DMG, although its also pretty clear that the designers often do not stick to them fully and that they may be under-powered anyway if the current crop of monsters coming out are anything to go by. That said, having designed a few monsters, the best way to do it (and the way it seems to be done in most editions anyway) seems to be to compare the powers of monsters of a similar role and level and jury-rig or reskin from there. That way you get a feel for it (and the online tools are obviously very helpful in this context) and can develop your judgement from there.
The rules are in the DMG, although its also pretty clear that the designers often do not stick to them fully and that they may be under-powered anyway if the current crop of monsters coming out are anything to go by. That said, having designed a few monsters, the best way to do it (and the way it seems to be done in most editions anyway) seems to be to compare the powers of monsters of a similar role and level and jury-rig or reskin from there. That way you get a feel for it (and the online tools are obviously very helpful in this context) and can develop your judgement from there.
I do it:
A) Concept. Quick idea of what I am looking for.
B) Pick roles and level - usually use the online tools for this but you could do it with the DMG and the errata. Tools are just faster since its instant numbers.
C) Add powers - these are mainly just the concept translated into game terms. Easiest to start by stealing the powers from monsters that do similar things but, once you get used to it, you just toss in whatever concept you want so long as you can parse it into the way a power is written.
D) Evaluate and adjust. This is just quality control - ask yourself if the monster is actually doing what you want it to do whether it'll fit in with the scene its likely to be part of that sort of thing. Here I might tweak some numbers or realize that the monster really needs another movement power or some such.
Also you can't use your knowledge of how PCs work to adjudicate how NPCs work shoudl circumstances differ. E.g. what damage does a Goblin Cutter (a minion) do if it loses its shortsword? A shortsword is normally d6 + Str damage for a basic attack but a Goblin Cutter normally does 4 points of damage (strength modifier of +2) so what would that get reduced to? 3? 2? 1?
The 1d4 for an improvised weapon seems like a great place to start - I'd give the creature 1/2 rounded up of whatever bonus it normally gets for its basic attack as well and call it good.
Obviously one does get a problem if one has a low level minion that becomes unarmed but that's pretty corner cases stacked (disarming minions is pretty uncommon and here it must be one that is low level). In this extreme I'd just halve the damage.
The biggest strength of 3.5/PF for me is that PCs, NPCs and monsters are all build from the same set of Lego bricks. Once you know these bricks, you know how to build anything.
In 4E a PC "rough wooldlands tracker" Ranger party member and a NPC "rough woodlands tracker" Ranger opponent are built out of two completely different sets of bricks. That's perhaps the biggest issue that made me steer clear of 4E.
Except in 4E when you build an NPC Ranger, you are supposed to give it some Ranger encounter powers.
If you are building a monster, you are supposed to have the freedom to make any kind of monster you want.
But making NPCs is way easy because you have that menu of powers from the PC system to utilize.
|
I have to agree with most of the OP's opinions on 4th.
Our group started with 2nd ed. We loved it, but when the kits started to emerge, our group mastered the art of min/max until the game started to be less fun.
When 3rd Ed. came out, it was a blast again. The new rule set was amazingly easy to adapt to, goodbye Thac0.
Again, the rules faced issues...Timestop, haste, etc... 3.5 was released, we swore up and down that we weren't going to shell out for yet even more books, but we did and were glad we did.
With more and more material released, we once again seemed to find a way to abuse the rule system with dips into new prestige classes, and we yet again, found ourselves way to overpowered.
When 4th ED. was released, we jumped on it expecting changes similar to the jump from 2nd to 3rd ed. We got those changes and rolled with them.
We played mostly modules, as no-one in our group has much time for crafted an original adventure. It seemed fun at first, however it did start to feel like a grind.
Every session felt like "plot blah blah blah, encounter blah blah skill challenge blah blah grey text...."
Now, maybe our group dynamic and GM's suffer from a lack of imagination and that is our problem, however it did come across as lacking in opportunities to role play. The abilities chosen (although I think they had amazingly written flavour-text) seemed to be pretty much the same as other class choices, and didn't feel unique.
We played 4th for about 6 months then moved to star wars and d20 modern until we recently started Pathfinder.
I wouldn't jump on the OP for creating this thread, because he does have some valid criticisms. Besides, if 4th edition was so perfect, their probably wouldn't have been such a high demand for Pathfinder.
just my OPINIONS....
That's the thing Keltoi you were able to say you dislike 4E without the usual "4E feels like Wow", "It's not an rpg its a video game" or other type of comments. You tried it it was not for you and you gave your honest opinions about 4E without attacking the game or Wotc. I can respect a post like this and wish those who dislike 4E would do the same. Instead more often than not you get posts sililar to the OP.
|
|
That's the thing Keltoi you were able to say you dislike 4E without the usual "4E feels like Wow", "It's not an rpg its a video game" or other type of comments. You tried it it was not for you and you gave your honest opinions about 4E without attacking the game or Wotc. I can respect a post like this and wish those who dislike 4E would do the same. Instead more often than not you get posts sililar to the OP.
Or it could be that is how a lot of us feel when comparing the two.
And a good chunk of the discussion of the positives seem to come from GMs who take a narrative approach, since more aspects are DM fiat of values than both sides playing the same game.
When it came out and my group played it, it did feel like WoW. Some changes have come out since some people left that sound like it is moving away from that now...but most of the discussion of design would be around how it was designed, not the corrective patches added since.
I have a good deal of faith that Mearls can fix a lot of the problems, and perhaps with Monte coming back there will be more fixes and adjustments that I will like.
But it won't bring back Forgotten Realms, and it won't make them more OGL friendly, and it won't change the model they are stuck with, where they make money off of the rules being constantly in flux and you needing the new book to do X.
It isn't a bad system. It just isn't a particularly good system. If it didn't have the "Dungeons and Dragons" label we wouldn't be discussing it any more than we would discuss Dark Heresy and the like.
YMMV
|
|
It was a mistake to drop a turd in the OGL punchbowl while they did it, and to throw the baby out with the bathwater on the way.I think this is very true. While I suspect they couldn't foresee it, the GSL debacle reflected very badly on WotC and led almost directly to the creation of PF. That said, I think that Paizo's original suggestion that 4e couldn't be used for their sort of campaigns was disingenuous - so far as I can tell, they set up PF because the uncertainty over the GSL was not acceptable to their business model, not really because of genuine systems issues.
4E depends on you buying 4E books to play. You can't play off an SRD.
3.5 you could play off the SRD. Pathfinder you definately can play of the SRD. You don't need to buy any rule books to play a Pathfinder Adventure Path or Module.
None.
Paizo needs OGL, as Paizo makes its money on the Modules and APs.
If Paizo tried to make content for 4e, they would always be at the mercy of the constantly changing WoTC rule-set, and a company that isn't exactly friendly to 3PPs.
And, of course, 3.5 was still a perfectly viable system with a huge fan base who had invested a lot of time and money.
WoTC decided to create a vacuum that Paizo filled. Smart business I say.
I think one of 4E's launch problems was that the first few adventures released were kind of meh. Nothing that showed how skill challenges can be a powerful narrative tool. They showed off the mechanics of the new game, without showing off how they could be used to make really exciting adventures. That first adventure can be key to many people's view of how the game is supposed to be played.
Part of that is likely that it took some time for the writer's to really learn the system well enough. Not that I have really followed the adventure releases. I'm like Scott, I'd rather convert Paizo's awesome stories than use the ones from Wizards. Or classic modules I already own.
Sissyl's post was valid criticism. Clearly you are frustrated at the criticism, for that I am sorry.
This is a prime example of a poster with valid criticism being dumped on.
"I hate this game because it's just like WoW even though most of those just-like-WoW traits are shared with my favorite game!" is not valid criticism. It's intellectually dishonest trashing of a game that the poster simply hasn't figured out how to enjoy.
"Multi-classing is not as flexible as it was in 3.5," is a valid criticism. "Powers are like things on an action bar!" is just bad.
Maybe I should put my thoughts together on this.
This is why talking about D&D in terms of WoW is stupid:
When you discuss a game (or anything, really), you can either talk about it on its own merits (for instance, "I like healing surges because they allow me to mechanically represent a character's resilience."), or you can talk about it in terms of other games. When you choose the first option, you are offering concrete praise or criticism that is easily understood - another person's understanding of your argument is not contingent upon their understanding of another game. When you choose the second option, you are doing a number of things.
1. You are confusing the point. Let's take the "Powers are like action bars" gripe for example. Now we can't discuss powers without first dealing with how they are not like action bars. We're no longer discussing why powers are good, or why powers are bad, or how they influence the flow of the game. Instead, we're stuck debunking a laughably shallow comparison.
2. You are making the (unstated) claim that WoW is bad for tabletop RPGs. You might believe that WoW is just plain bad, or you might believe that it just needs to stay away from your game of choice, but either way the implication is that what you're talking about is bad. Except you haven't shown this. You're just saying it. Back to the "powers like action bars" example, there's nothing about that criticism that makes it clear that adding an action bar-like element to a tabletop RPG is a bad thing. It might well be a bad thing, but you've decided that you don't need to demonstrate it one way or another. Everyone should already be in agreement with you that anything even remotely (and I mean remotely) like an action bar is bad.
3. Most damningly, you are turning an oh-so-critical eye upon a game you hate and deriding it for its imagined similarities to another game (WoW) while absolutely refusing to consider your game of choice with that same critical eye. For instance, the "powers like action bars" criticism is far more fittingly leveled at Vancian spellcasting than at 4e powers. In fact, it is even more fittingly leveled at Pathfinder orisons and cantrips, which are memorized at the start of each day but can be used freely throughout the day. (And yes, I realize that cantrips and orisons are actually nothing at all like abilities on an action bar; that's sort of the point - this was a pathetically stretched comparison when used on 4e, and it's only slightly better when used on 3.5/Pathfinder.)
This third point is the killer, because it tells us that you're lying to us about why you hate the game. If action bar-like elements were the real reason you hated 4e (or even a real reason), it follows that you would hate 3.5/Pathfinder even more. You don't, therefore you don't hate 4e because of action bar-like elements.
Except we know you still hate 4e. And you're probably sitting there shaking your head because you know that you hate 4e, and you know that you hate 4e powers. But unfortunately you decided you hated them because they were just like WoW instead of because of some actual criticism of powers. So now your argument is bogged down in laughing at your hypocritical comparison, and you're forced to backtrack and re-explain why you hate 4e powers.
Moral of the story: Don't complain that one game sucks because it's just like another game.
I think one of 4E's launch problems was that the first few adventures released were kind of meh. Nothing that showed how skill challenges can be a powerful narrative tool. They showed off the mechanics of the new game, without showing off how they could be used to make really exciting adventures. That first adventure can be key to many people's view of how the game is supposed to be played.
See? This is also a valid criticism. Man, they're all over, today!
The 4 points.
I answered all of your points in a word document but instead of posting them I am going to point out exactly what I mean when I say 4e was designed with the MMO in mind.
I never once said I don't like the game because of it, nor did I say that is what made the game bad.
The conversation I had with Linae Foster, was that ONE goal (and there were many) of the 4e design was to make it accessible to players who MMORPG's. Why? Because it is an obvious market that can be tapped.
Much of the terminology and patterns are easy for that market to understand. This may draw them away from the computer and try to play around the table with friends perhaps, THUS giving WOTC business.
Now I play PLENTY of video games, and the reason I do not play MMO's anymore is simply because of immersion, and my verisimilitude is killed by fighting the same boss everyday. That has nothing to do with why I do not like 4e. I don't beleive that 4e players play the same module over and over everyday.
Those design elements are there however. It does not make the game bad, it makes it accessible to a market. That is all.
I have answered this question in reference to the four points, but I don't feel like rehashing it over and over and over again. If you like I will happily post my rebuttals, but suffice it to say:
I have been told by authority the game was designed with MMO's in mind for accessibility.
SO WHAT! I played 4e, and for NUMEROUS reasons I do not like it. But its resmeblance to MMO design is NOT ONE OF THEM. Simply I really don't care. It puzzles me why this is such an insult.
I removed some sniping.
|
If Paizo tried to make content for 4e, they would always be at the mercy of the constantly changing WoTC rule-set, and a company that isn't exactly friendly to 3PPs.
What's the constantly changing WoTC ruleset? The only rule change that I can think of is stealth. Individual powers have been erattaed for sure, however.
By the way, your favorite company is changing now engaging in those same constantly changing rule set tactics
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lcml
|
|
4E depends on you buying 4E books to play. You can't play off an SRD.
3.5 you could play off the SRD. Pathfinder you definately can play of the SRD. You don't need to buy any rule books to play a Pathfinder Adventure Path or Module.
None.
Paizo needs OGL, as Paizo makes its money on the Modules and APs.
If Paizo tried to make content for 4e, they would always be at the mercy of the constantly changing WoTC rule-set, and a company that isn't exactly friendly to 3PPs.
And, of course, 3.5 was still a perfectly viable system with a huge fan base who had invested a lot of time and money.
WoTC decided to create a vacuum that Paizo filled. Smart business I say.
I'm not disagreeing. The GSL situation was very unsatisfactory - I hardly blame Paizo for making a sensible business decision. I don't assume that not buying rule books is the reason for the SRD, nor are Paizo doing that for altruistic reasons, though - it's part and parcel of their licensing arrangements (the provision of the baseline rules to prevent infringement of IP), same as it was for WOtC, although the information provided is much fuller than the old SRD. I'm sure Paizo would much prefer it if people actually did buy the rulebooks.
Then here you go but I don't want any avengers getting angry at my post.
Ok, tell me which of these statements you disagree with:
1) D&D has always had a focus on specific roles for classes and characters. Every knows you should take along a thief to check for traps, a cleric to heal people, etc. Later games have done their best to ease the burden of "someone has to play the cleric", but the core concepts are still there, and is one that was established in the very earliest days of D&D. Or do you believe this is something that MMOs came up with entirely on their own, and 4E stole from them? (Despite 4E being, perhaps, the edition most friendly towards assembling parties without the 'standard' role representations?)
Where I agree D&D always had roles to fill, and yes the core concept is still there, the Tank, DPS (striker), and controller are relatively newer roles. The roles have changed from what they were, in 1st and 2nd edition. People did not necessarily play wizard for the control aspect. Fighter I never thought of as a tank until 4e made it so.
Yes I believe the roles as they exist NOW, (Defender, striker, leader, controller) are a direct influence of video games primarily the MMO when team strategy was actually required to make a marketed product successful.The rogue was the utilitarian,
The mage was necessary for tricks
The fighter: fought he was not necessarily a tank or a dps,
The ranger in any previous edition, was not a striker like a rogue is now for instance. He was a fighting type, and the TANK/STRIKER role was never distinct in previous editions.
The cleric of course was the healer. I do not think it a bad thing that healing was generally a requirement for a party.
The designers took lots of cues from MMO’s to make the game accessible to newer players that were already familiar with the market. In fact this was a point of my conversation Lynae Foster.
I do not believe that the previous roles of Fighter, Cleric, Magic User, and Rogue are necessarily reflective or the same as the roles in 4e. I certainly never played D&D with the need for a striker or a defender.
I have to disagree that previous editions required all the roles to be filled. It certainly was never a problem in my games if ‘roles were doubled or non existent.
2) A "cooldown mechanic" represents an ability that recharges over a certain period of time. D&D has always had these - being spells, which refresh on a daily time period - and has had a substantial number of class and magic item abilities that work similarly. (Rage, Wild Shape, Turn Undead, Bard Song, etc). Or do you believe that Daily Powers "don't count" and that only Encounter Powers count as "cooldown powers"? And if so, why?
Familiarity. 3rd edition was not designed LIKE wow, because WOW did not yet exist. It may have template familiarities with Card Games, but no IT was not designed to be more accessible to video game players.
I do not consider previous iterations of class abilities or the form powers took then as cool down periods. Yes, LITERALLY it is a cooldown period, but the cooldown periods I am referenceing are IN the encounters similar to MMO play. You can say it is a DAY cooldown, or rest period cooldown, but I consider the cooldown to be in the ENCOUNTER or in the BATTLE. That is when Video game cooldowns are meaningful. If my Mass Effect Biotic has a power with a cooldown of 5 hours of game time, then yes I would say that is similar to 3rd edition. Fact of the matter those cooldown powers are only meaningful in the context of MMO’s in ENCOUNTER. And that is what I am talking about. This is an easy learning step for an MMO player to make.It would be wise to note I never claimed it made the game bad. The design took video game sensibilities to be marketable.
3) 3rd Edition D&D and beyond has focused heavily on offering characters options. Stats and feats and skills and spells has added on powers (and a few more choices amongst class features). In many ways, the talent trees of WoW most resemble feats (and most match the feat trees of 3rd Edition, honestly), since some of your choices will enhance your existing capabilities (Weapon Focus, Point Blank Shot) while others will give you new powers or approaches entirely (Power Attack, Multi-shot). Do you instead believe that the 4E Power System is a closer match, and if so, why?
The feat system, skill system, and talent trees of 3rd edition are not based on MMO’s as 3rd edition predates the MMO’s. Video Games in the 90’s and early 2000’s were influenced more by pen and paper then Pen and Paper were influenced by video games.
SW Saga edition I will give you may have that video game influence. For the record I was expecting 4e to be more like SAGA. It was a vast disappointment it was not.The 4e powers are actually activated like the buttons on the console. Easy learning. Now yes some powers are like feats. they do not have an activation. Much like the feats of 4e have no activation.
4) 4E has monsters with abilities that enhance each other. Do you actually believe this idea of monster synergy is unique to MMOs, WoW, or video games in general?
I never said anything comparing Monsters to video games. But by using the labeling used in MMO’s it is more accessible to people that get their start in MMO’s. Again I don’t know why this idea is particularly offensive. If I decide to run a game for my wife's WOW guild, I can immediately give them an idea of difficulty based on the terminology of that monster (Solo, Solo elite, etc.)
I have no love for 4e, but it has nothing to do with making it more accessible to MMO players. I realize adventure building may be simpler with 4e, but I prefer the rules based model of 3rd edition. I can make much better monsters using the rules as was eluded to by Gorbacz.
Why did I not post this before? I decided I did not want everyone jumping on me for calling 4e a video game.
|
|
I suppose we've had very different experiences playing DnD. I've heard fighters referred to numerous times as "meat shields". I don't think you can deny that wizards were the real power later on, and many parties wanted fighters in the front line to keep things off the wizards so they can rain their damage or other deadly effects.
In essence, I've seen them played as "defenders". I'll also say they *could* whip out some damage when done correctly, however this is also the case in 4e.
Anyways you mention that 3e couldn't' have been influenced by MMOs since they weren't around. MMOs were around at the time. While I'll agree that characters having different abilities seems a bit like WoW in that they are well...different abilities! Prior to 4e fighters were stuck with basic attack, basic attack, and oh yeah basic. Cool, reminds me of Everquest warriors in that way. I suppose I can compare it to that MMO?
The use of titles such as "defender" n such is mostly for new players I suspect, I don't even hear people in my party talk that way anymore. We've also had plenty of luck mixing roles up, my roommate has made both paladins and fighters that were wicked at damage and sacrificed a fair amount of AC and other defenses. A lot of classes also don't stick close to their own defined "roles", such as barbarians playing closer to defenders with certain builds, paladins as healers with builds, warlocks as controllers with builds. I suppose my point is not to be too caught up on the four archtypes, again I believe mostly to help new players.
Although, to be honest, something that reminds me about MMOs with 3.5 / PF is the system mastery. One has to be pretty good at building characters to make a solid character on paper. This simply isn't the case with 4e, as I feel the difference between optimized and non optimized isn't as vast. MMO and raiders always push optimization to their limits, and I've heard horror stories about living campaigns such as LG and LA where if you ain't optimized you're more or less toast.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not disagreeing. The GSL situation was very unsatisfactory - I hardly blame Paizo for making a sensible business decision. I don't assume that not buying rule books is the reason for the SRD, nor are Paizo doing that for altruistic reasons, though - it's part and parcel of their licensing arrangements (the provision of the baseline rules to prevent infringement of IP), same as it was for WOtC, although the information provided is much fuller than the old SRD. I'm sure Paizo would much prefer it if people actually did buy the rulebooks.4E depends on you buying 4E books to play. You can't play off an SRD.
3.5 you could play off the SRD. Pathfinder you definately can play of the SRD. You don't need to buy any rule books to play a Pathfinder Adventure Path or Module.
None.
Paizo needs OGL, as Paizo makes its money on the Modules and APs.
If Paizo tried to make content for 4e, they would always be at the mercy of the constantly changing WoTC rule-set, and a company that isn't exactly friendly to 3PPs.
And, of course, 3.5 was still a perfectly viable system with a huge fan base who had invested a lot of time and money.
WoTC decided to create a vacuum that Paizo filled. Smart business I say.
Several Paizo people have posted several times saying that given the printing costs they don’t make much on the rule books.
This is why they are generally $9.99 PDF downloads, which you will note is less than an Adventure Path volume.
Think about that. You can get a 500+ page Core Rulebook PDF for less than a 94 page random AP.
Paizo is absolutely interested in making money. But the rules system is not the core business for them. Supporting the rule system is how they make the big money. And this is a very smart approach in my opinion, since modules are consumed (you can only really run or play it once) while rules are forever.
If you want to see this mindset in action, go back and look at the Rise of The Runelords re-release thread where Vic was freaking out making sure everyone realized they would never be doing this for other Adventure Paths.
Why?
Because if people waited for the “Bulk” AP rather than buying the subscription, that hits Paizo’s core business. They don’t care where you got the rules, as long as you are playing and buring through modules, APs, society scenarios, etc…
They know it is crack, they give the game rules away more or less for free because they know eventually you’ll need the APs and modules and that is how they make the money.
And if you want to take a negative view, the complexity of the game works in their favor, as creating Adventures is more or less skilled labor that most people don’t mind paying someone else to do. Including me (note the subscriber above my name).
WoTC looked at their business wanted to find ways to make more money. It’s cool, that is what businesses do.
WoTC viewed it’s business as writing rulebooks first, with modules and setting second. So looking at that, OGL didn’t make sense for them, as it was basically giving away the core business. And since the rules were what they do, and rules are reusable, they need to put out new rules and variations of rules in order to get you to buy more books.
If you go back and read the press releases, you will see a primary focus was integration with the subscription system, basically encouraging people to play the game using all of the online tools. If you don’t think this effected system design, I think you are out of your mind. This isn’t to say it was “good” or “bad”, but clearly this was part of the plan.
This would have solved their problem of needing a steady stream of income, as you would need to stay subscribed to use the tools, and you use the tools each time you play, so win.
But they may have overestimated the power of the brand, assuming no one else would be able to market a competing product. And if they hadn’t been so ham-handed, it may have worked.
I only played 4E a few times right after it came out, and our group didn’t like it. One of our GMs did like it and that is why we tried it, but he was a really narrative GM who would always have to resort to Deus Machina when he ran anything. Which kind of fits the system.
Which was a lot of what we didn’t like.
Then we read what they did to the Realms…
After that, the group realized we had plenty of 3.5 books and material, and our primary GM wrote his own quests so we just stayed 3.5.
Then Pathfinder came out, and it was better than 3.5 and…well it is the normal story.
What I contend is that the system was designed to pull people into the subscription service, and to eventually be expanded into an MMO. I’m not saying this was the only goal, I am saying it was a major part of the original plan.
I will also say from what I have read since, the people that did that are out and the people that are in are better. And so the system may now be better.
But why would I invest that much money to get that many books when I can play Pathfinder for free? Not to mention the APs and modules are just plain better.
The question to ask is, if the beginner box does actually work as an entry level product that makes it accessible to new gamers…is WoTC in trouble?
Because you are in you FLGS and you have a wall of rulebooks on one hand, and on the other an entry level pick up and play product with all of the advanced rules more or less free if you like it.
And Paizo is grinning, because they know once you get a taste, you’ll come back for more modules.
All true - my point however is that its a lot easier on the CRPG coders to use numbers picked by the TTRPG designers then it is for them to make up those numbers themselves - especially considering that few coders are TTRPG designers themselves. The argument was that the game had been made for ease of use by coders. MY point is that this element is not easier for the coders at all and in fact WotC had wanted to make life easier for coders they would have chosen to go with 3rd editions route of providing all the numbers. It would save the coders from having to work this whole element themselves.
Particularly important when we recognize that at very fundamental levels 4E is what each of us as DMs make it. If I'm using it as a kind of Xena simulator (and that's not that bad an example for what I do in fact do) and your doing something else with it then the coders need to figure out what their answer is going to be.They can do that but its not as easy as using Pathfinders skill system which comes with all the numbers already generated and has a default look and feel already chosen.
I disagree because the the CRPG designers can't just use the predefined numbers that the TTRPG designers created. I reuse the example of the good lock with a DC 30 check to open. Without understanding the game (or being given an "average DC by level" chart, the designer doesn't really know if that DC 30 is challenging, weak, or overpowering.
In the end, it means nothing for all the numbers to be easily programmed by the coders when the designers still have to go and figure out what DC provides an appropriate challenge.
I'm not sure exactly what the problem is with, "doing something else with it then the coders need to figure out what their answer is going to be," is. That seems like a non-issue because that is a game design decision that should be no more difficult than deciding if the CRPG should be a Western-style Cowboys and Indians affair, an Asian themed game with fantasy elements, or anything else.
I'm not quite certain what you mean by "has a default look and feel already chosen." I'm not sure how defined DCs (or at least between Pathfinder and 4th edition) determine a default look and feel that makes it easier to program.
|
|
Lots of interesting stuff
I was agreeing with you up until the MMO stuff - I still see no genuine evidence that what they want to do is that, other than as an opportunity for licencing. The virtual table-top is emphatically not an MMO, and that seems to be what they are working on right now.
I mean, don't get me wrong - I wouldn't actually mind if there was an MMO. I din't throw up my hands in disgust when DDO came out (gave it a spin, actually, but didn't really feel inspired). But I think a lot of people have got hung up on the changes from 4e and bought into this fantasy that people will play a CRPG (MMO or otherwise) because of its underlying system. They don't - they buy it for the spectacle, for the world exploration, and getting together with people to raid. MMOs don't succeed or fail because of the mechanics of the system, it's much more complicated than that - marketing, branding, fashion, graphics, feel, GUI, community. I reckon way down on the list is the game mechanics - assuming people notice at all. D&D brings brand recognition but that's about it - and DDO is hardly a leviathan of online gaming. As a user of 4e who has also (and still plays, in the form of PF) 3e, you can see how 4e was designed to fix problems people wanted fixed. The fact is, they didn't fix them in a way that was to everyone's taste. That's fine.
I think the most disastrous thing that WotC ever did (for WotC, and for their stewardship of the D&D brand, anyway) was outsource adventure design (by licencing Dungeon to Paizo instead of retaining it in-house). The second most disastrous thing they did was to adopt the Delve format. By the former, they effectively cut themselves off from the ongoing cash flow - after all, no one is going going to want to buy the rulebooks if they have nothing to play - and made themselves dependent on rulebook sales. The Delve format basically devours page space so the content in a typical WotC product is a fraction of what is in a Paizo adventure. The first was by far the worth thing to do, though - an extremely short-sighted act that create Paizo and led to the cannibalisation of their market.
Where I agree D&D always had roles to fill, and yes the core concept is still there, the Tank, DPS (striker), and controller are relatively newer roles.
I can remember talk of tanking for as long as I've been role-playing. Which is over 25 years now. The terminology for things like striker and controller may be new, but the roles have been around forever.
Saturday I ran a one-shot Basic D&D game. Half the party were controllers. Except they were just called elves. They all knew sleep. The cleric was the tank, since he had AC 2 and 4 HP, the best in the party. He wasn't a healer though, because 1st level clerics don't get spells.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What gets me about the claim that "4E is easier to program" is that, as a professional programmer myself, I can say with authority that the (relatively) minor differences in rules-mechanics between editions is trivial from a programming standpoint. It is monumentally harder to do things like coordinate graphical responses in real time over networks. Hell, it is several order of magnitudes harder just to make a 3D knight swing his sword on command.
I know the game industry has all of that down to a science, so everyone thinks it is just magic. But the hard work is animating every power and effect, not applying 1d6+4 damage to a character object. Implementing the mechanics of any RPG ever designed is a trivial easy programming task. If 7 year olds can handle it with pen and paper, my iphone can take care of it too.
...I think that Paizo's original suggestion that 4e couldn't be used for their sort of campaigns was disingenuous...
Agreed...and I'll raise you a "we can't tell the stories we want to tell without the supplementary material found in Ultimate _____________."
What gets me about the claim that "4E is easier to program" is that, as a professional programmer myself, I can say with authority that the (relatively) minor differences in rules-mechanics between editions is trivial from a programming standpoint. It is monumentally harder to do things like coordinate graphical responses in real time over networks. Hell, it is several order of magnitudes harder just to make a 3D knight swing his sword on command.
I know the game industry has all of that down to a science, so everyone thinks it is just magic. But the hard work is animating every power and effect, not applying 1d6+4 damage to a character object. Implementing the mechanics of any RPG ever designed is a trivial easy programming task. If 7 year olds can handle it with pen and paper, my iphone can take care of it too.
As someone who has done several years on a C++ chain gang, I'd have to say that WotC's "everything is open to exception" game design could make class hierarchy maintenance a challenge, as behavior that you were previously told could "definitely" be pushed up to higher levels would constantly be getting changed.
But yeah, the idea that programming complexity is driving RPG design is laughable.
...I think that Paizo's original suggestion that 4e couldn't be used for their sort of campaigns was disingenuous...Agreed...and I'll raise you a "we can't tell the stories we want to tell without the supplementary material found in Ultimate _____________."
Link please.
Edit: I am asking because I do recall something along those lines, but that it would have be stretched far to reach that particular statement. I recall it being more along the lines of them wanting to use the supplementary material because it improves the product rather than them being completely unable to make an Oriental adventure path without a class called "Ninja."
While I'm at it, I'm wondering if anyone has the link to the exact quote Aubrey the Malformed is referencing.
Here is what a quick search pulled up, here is a link to Vic Wertz seeming to say that the never said what Aubrey the Malformed mentioned.
Finally, we did NOT say "we *can't* tell the stories we want to." That's a manipulation of our words. We said that we believe the *best* system to tell our stories is a 3.5 OGL foundation.
But yeah, the idea that programming complexity is driving RPG design is laughable.
Especially because any video games are licensed to another company to handle. I have a friend who worked as a tester for Neverwinter Nights 2. I'm fairly certain he's the only person who'd read the 3.5 manuals that worked on the project. He never met a single developer who had read the rules, let alone played them. The only reason it even partially resembles the D&D rules was because he spent a lot of time sending in bug reports clarifying how feats/powers were supposed to work.
|
|
Or it could be that is how a lot of us feel when comparing the two.And a good chunk of the discussion of the positives seem to come from GMs who take a narrative approach, since more aspects are DM fiat of values than both sides playing the same game.
When it came out and my group played it, it did feel like WoW. Some changes have come out since some people left that sound like it is moving away from that now...but most of the discussion of design would be around how it was designed, not the corrective patches added since.
I have a good deal of faith that Mearls can fix a lot of the problems, and perhaps with Monte coming back there will be more fixes and adjustments that I will like.
But it won't bring back Forgotten Realms, and it won't make them more OGL friendly, and it won't change the model they are stuck with, where they make money off of the rules being constantly in flux and you needing the new book to do X.
It isn't a bad system. It just isn't a particularly good system. If it didn't have the "Dungeons and Dragons" label we wouldn't be discussing it any more than we would discuss Dark Heresy and the like.
YMMV
Hearing the WOW compairson one too many times can be annoying. I admit after playing 4E that its not the perfect system yet I could post a lot more than just the usual broken record so to speak about the game. One could also say that 3.5 and by extension Pathfinder borrowed a lot from earlier pre-MMO video games. As I see in both rules sets many influences from video games yet that never ever gets brought up. One can also dislike an rpg without insulting the rpg and the company that makes it. Except may gamers imo never seem to take the classy road. As for FR Im one of the few that like the changes in 4E and if I want to run pre-Spellplague Faerun I have my 3.5 books.
|
|
Sissyl's post was valid criticism. Clearly you are frustrated at the criticism, for that I am sorry.
This is a prime example of a poster with valid criticism being dumped on."I hate this game because it's just like WoW even though most of those just-like-WoW traits are shared with my favorite game!" is not valid criticism. It's intellectually dishonest trashing of a game that the poster simply hasn't figured out how to enjoy.
"Multi-classing is not as flexible as it was in 3.5," is a valid criticism. "Powers are like things on an action bar!" is just bad.
Maybe I should put my thoughts together on this.
This is why talking about D&D in terms of WoW is stupid:
When you discuss a game (or anything, really), you can either talk about it on its own merits (for instance, "I like healing surges because they allow me to mechanically represent a character's resilience."), or you can talk about it in terms of other games. When you choose the first option, you are offering concrete praise or criticism that is easily understood - another person's understanding of your argument is not contingent upon their understanding of another game. When you choose the second option, you are doing a number of things.
1. You are confusing the point. Let's take the "Powers are like action bars" gripe for example. Now we can't discuss powers without first dealing with how they are not like action bars. We're no longer discussing why powers are good, or why powers are bad, or how they influence the flow of the game. Instead, we're stuck debunking a laughably shallow comparison.
2. You are making the (unstated) claim that WoW is bad for tabletop RPGs. You might believe that WoW is just plain bad, or you might believe that it just needs to stay away from your game of choice, but either way the implication is that what you're talking about is bad. Except you haven't shown this. You're just saying it. Back to the "powers like action bars" example, there's nothing...
+1. Too bad it will fall on deaf ears and be pretty much ignored.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As for FR Im one of the few that like the changes in 4E and if I want to run pre-Spellplague Faerun I have my 3.5 books.
There should be nothing stopping you from running pre spell plague realms in 4e however.
I was not thrilled with 4e from the beginning. But I think if the developers made the Forgotten Realms more palatable to a number of older fans, ALOT of the migration could have been curtailed.
I understand there are people taht like the realms better now. I am not convinced that there is MORE brand loyalty to FR tahn there was before. FR had a BIG following. On top of 4e changing, Realms fans were told: Those things you like about the realms? Most people do not like that so we are changing that on you as well. We are killing the Goddess of Magic because her type of magic will no longer work in the world.
Not only that, the GREATEST mercantile power in the realms is going to change its harbour into a slum. Lots of areas are now underwater, and there is this NEW continent that just formed out of no where (I can deal with the adding, I had trouble with the taking away)
One cool thing they did was make the lowest level of god (I forgot what it was called... E somthign I think). Oh Exemplar. That was cool! But then they killed all the other gods.
I had no problem with the redundant gods. Just study historical mythology, their were MANY redundant gods.
Also people that liked the realms liked the historical analogs. It was cool to have the British isles, Egypt, Sumeria, Spain, Arabia and make them fantasy. BUT THEN: The developers say no body likes to play D&D with the real world environments. We must make them all fantastical like the cover of a YES album. Meanwhile people were posting.. Wait we like that, but it was lost over the people that could take or leave the realms saying how much better that would be.
the jargon on the internet was: See your old realms was STOOPID. Now you don't have to read volumes of lore to run an adventure. When you never had to before. You started with an area, and went with it. The rest was flavor you could take or leave.
Paizo set themselves up perfect. They had the game that prior edition fans think are the true inheritor of the spirit of D&D, and they made Golarion the spirit of the Realms only with low power. With all the same creators, except Ed Greenwood did not conceive it. But he writes for it.
When I hear how the FR is still ringing strong, I go to Candlekeep which used to be an old home of mine. People are still posting, but they are no longer creating there like they WERE. That tells me something was lost.
I seriously cannot imagine a company bumbling marketing any worse. That is no dig to WOTC, they really did mess up the marketing.
The biggest difference between 3.5 and 4E relative to computer games is the type of game they are best suited for, programming wise. I do believe that part of why they made the game so modular was because it would enhance the ability to make it sustainable in an a long term digital environment, like a virtual tabletop or an MMO, at less cost. It isn't the only reason that they made it more modular, but with the VT being planned from the start, it would have been part of it.There's a ton of games already programmed to run using the 3.x system. There are quite a few virtual tables that also work amazingly well using the 3.x system. What on earth makes you think it is easier to programme for an entirely new system, when all the old programming is there already.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to play devil's advocate here.
Programming on top of an existing system can be VERY irritating, especially when you would have to alter the game on a fundamental level. 4e requires you to use powers constantly. In NWN, each player's class would have to be completely rewritten from the ground up for a 4e conversion. With all of the bug-checking and rebalancing required for the transition, it may well be easiest to just make something new from scratch and then import any reusable assets.
If they'd kept the mechanics the same, they only needed to update graphics.
Not necessarily true. Any changes to computer OSs in the time between developments and changes to systems would require light to complete overhauls of code. This is less of a problem recently, but that means diddly when a new version of an operating system comes out.
Change the game engine, so to speak, and you have to change everything. How is that design philosphy "making it easier to programme?"
Say you don't want to deal with all the bugs from the last game that your redesign is only going to exacerbate? This line of reasoning is irrelevant, since a developer can just require you to make something new from scratch anyway due to copyright, royalties, etc.
You talk about this edition being more modular. That makes me smile since most folk who complained about the game when it first came out touted the modular and interchangable nature of 3.x/pathfinder as its strength.
While I don't care how or why they came up with the deisgn system, to be truthful, the way you keep touting your idea as a fact when it clearly falls outside the realm of logical money saving concepts is almost silly.
Here's the thing: There are different levels of interchangeability. Generally 3.5 tends to be more complex in the number of actions you can take in 4e, whereas 4e becomes more complex when accounting to temporary effects, bonus stacking, interrupting actions, and keeping track of the number of healings you can receive in a certain amount of time. Basically, you have a lot more things you can "build" in 3.5 in terms of making differing mechanics interact due to the sheer volume, whereas in 4e you have an established character class that is hard, if not impossible, to make deviate from its established role, hence the guidelines at the beginning of each class packet to ensure you keep it competently made.
They designed a game. It has elements of traditional DnD. It has elements of card games. It converts to a board game nicely. It uses miniatures. All of these are things Hasbro already had and are things they are building on to great success.
Traditional D&D involves more factors than I can name, but suffice to say that people aren't happy about the elements they felt were removed. D&D has had rider games in previous incarnations, but they were almost absent in 3.5, leading to a lot of thinking that their main intent was marketing. I think that this is maybe their best handled aspect of their plans for D&D. Although the gameplay of the board games does aggravate me for their own special reasons.
In addition, more recently Hasbro is not as involved with Wizard's production as it was rumored they had been. So if they screw something up, just keep in mind that that's not/ no longer an excuse.
What haven't they done? Built a computer game or a successful virtual tabletop. I wonder why?
I think I could write several pages of sarcastic, scathing comments on that, but I feel it's best if YOU just think on that knowing it was part of their production plan.
...I think that Paizo's original suggestion that 4e couldn't be used for their sort of campaigns was disingenuous...Agreed...and I'll raise you a "we can't tell the stories we want to tell without the supplementary material found in Ultimate _____________."
They do this? I don't do adventure paths so I don't know.
|
|
...I think that Paizo's original suggestion that 4e couldn't be used for their sort of campaigns was disingenuous...Agreed...and I'll raise you a "we can't tell the stories we want to tell without the supplementary material found in Ultimate _____________."
"...which is available for free on our PRD, or at the fan run PFSRD."
...I think that Paizo's original suggestion that 4e couldn't be used for their sort of campaigns was disingenuous...Agreed...and I'll raise you a "we can't tell the stories we want to tell without the supplementary material found in Ultimate _____________."
Link please.
Here James Jacobs strongly implies that storytelling is constrained by being confined to the core.
Whether you think I've fundamentally misrepresented what was said is up to you. :)
"...which is available for free on our PRD, or at the fan run PFSRD."
As has been mentioned ad infinitum, this is beside the point. I'm not going to rehash the entire conversation here - it is quite easy to find if you look.
Hey Bugley, how about you stop dropping your axe into other conversations, because I'm feeling horny tonight and wouldn't mind a little flamewar about your misguided misconceptions :)
Was... horny really the word you wanted to use there?
|
|
"...which is available for free on our PRD, or at the fan run PFSRD."As has been mentioned ad infinitum, this is beside the point. I'm not going to rehash the entire conversation here - it is quite easy to find if you look.
No, it is actually the entire point.
WoTC makes you buy the books or stay core.
Paizo gives you all the rules for free, because it allows them to write better material for their core product line.
No, it is actually the entire point.
WoTC makes you buy the books or stay core.
Paizo gives you all the rules for free, because it allows them to write better material for their core product line.
Again, cost is not the only concern -- but as I've said, I'm not going to trot them all out here. Because, as our apparently horny friend has pointed out, I'm dragging this thread off topic. I should have confined my comments to the (rather silly) "3.5 lets us tell the kind of stories we want to tell" contention.
If they'd kept the mechanics the same, they only needed to update graphics.Change the game engine, so to speak, and you have to change everything. How is that design philosphy "making it easier to programme?"
I have to laugh at this. Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 were made by completely different development companies. They share exactly zero lines of code.
As I said, creating the graphics/network engine for a game is a monumentally complex task compared to the RPG mechanical interactions. You waste more manhours converting the old code to a new engine than you would simply writing the game rules from scratch.
When it comes down to it, D&D computer games purchase the brand name and the IP. They don't care about the mechanics one bit.
|
|
Hey Bugley, how about you stop dropping your axe into other conversations, because I'm feeling horny tonight and wouldn't mind a little flamewar about your misguided misconceptions :)Was... horny really the word you wanted to use there?
Oh english as a second language and the fun that ensues...unless horny was the word, in which case in which case.
Wow, run into a busy day and the thread explodes; if I missed any responses, I apologize, it's been a long day. It's interesting the comments from actual programmers on the actual impact; I would have expected slightly more gains over the long term. I still think the differences that 4E has might still make the difference between an game developer simply making their own stuff they can control fully and using 4E as their base. If nothing else, it shows that WotC might be a bit more willing to not sweat the details, but still let others benefit from the strength of the established and still strong brand name; that alone is worth a lot. For all that everyone would have like FR for the setting in DDO, I doubt any game developer would have considered for an MMO; too much history and established places and lore they would have to consider.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
|
|
@ Ciretose - Someone mentioned earlier that all the base classes are available as free downloads. I'll check at some stage (since i own the PhB's I haven't bothered yet).
Something else to consider for what you've been saying. For the cost of $10 a month I can have access to every adventure, setting suppliment, rules additions and imagry created in Dungeon and Dragon for 4th edition. I can also have access to rules, though only online. I can have a character building tool and a monster building tool.
That's less than your subscirption (I believe), and gives me all the functionality you're quoting as Pathfinder benefits.
The difference of course is once I stop my subscription, I can't access the character builder, rules compendium or monster builder. But Everything else I've downloaded I own.
I paid for a one month subscription once, at a time when the char builder was still able to be used offline. I downloaded every electronic resource they had produced for 2 years. For $10. This included the one AP they've done (all the way to level 30, not capping out at, say 15 or 16), plus a large number of modules, plus Dragon magazine articles and imagry. For $10.
As far as I'm aware, I can go on DDI for another month and download all the stuff I've missed in the last year and a bit as well. For $10.
I have all the rule books I need. Like you say, most of us just look for modules. Wizards havn't done too badly by their fan base in that department I would say.
Pathfinder write better AP's though, without question. I'm confident enough to tweak anything I read to better suit my players and game style though, so that area of things doesn't bother me so much any more.
You and your group don't like 4th edition, I can understand that. Half my Pathfinder group don't either, for one reason or another. I just don't see many differences between the two systems based on what many folk are saying in this thread. Computer gameable - both can do this. Subscrition model - Both have this. Modularity - both have this.
When folk post these as reasons why they don't like the game, it gets a little frustrating for some I guess. If both systems work the same for those issues, not liking one over the other for those reasons seems ...unusual.
Cheers